One must certainly rejoice at the release, after six years of trying captivity, of French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt. No sterile controversy of a political nature should tarnish the joy of this woman’s reunion with her family and the world of freedom. No matter the conditions under which this liberation took place. Even less so whether, as Swiss radio claims, a significant ransom of twenty million dollars was paid to her captors to “turn” them or facilitate this operation. It is also useless to discuss the direct active role played or not by Nicolas Sarkozy in this outcome. Ingrid Betancourt is back among her loved ones, and that is what is essential.
Two reflections, however, to accompany the end of this tragic adventure. The first concerns the media attitude surrounding the event. The overwhelming coverage, reports, interviews, and gathered reactions cannot be fully explained by the nature of Ingrid Betancourt’s story, but rather by its context. The media’s overreaction speaks volumes about the sense of powerlessness that characterizes contemporary world news when it comes to human beings. The liberation of the ex-hostage of the FARC is the rare good news in this regard in recent months. This announcement targets, moreover, a person and finally aligns with ethics, rectitude, and justice. It is easily understood that, in this domain of happiness where the norm becomes so much the exception, its isolated and unexpected occurrence legitimizes the focus of a triumph. This media frenzy, both national and international, concentrates and reveals all the frustrations fed by the misfortunes befalling individuals worldwide. From faltering economies to environments in poor condition, from the uncertain fate of future generations to the immediate survival conditions of current populations, in a world where, to paraphrase Jean Guitton, the time of bad news accelerates, the flash on Ingrid Betancourt’s release constituted a benevolent halt, a salvaging stop capable of arresting the race toward despair.
Second idea: since Ingrid Betancourt’s irruption into our daily lives provoked a beneficial jolt and a good reason to hope, all the more reason not to stop on such a good path. French or foreign, there are so many other Ingrid Betancourts in the world and, with all due respect to her who was received with great pomp by Nicolas Sarkozy, not just in Colombia! The French President of the European Union in office must therefore show the same determination for the Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held since 2006 by Hamas supporters, whose leader, Khaled Meshaal, usually resides in Damascus. And to take advantage of the visit to Paris -willingly or not- by President Bashar al-Assad to secure his release: it would be worth an official stand on the Champs-Elysées. As a “man of conviction,” the head of state could also take advantage of the G8 Summit currently being held in Sapporo, Japan, to ask the new Russian president to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He would thus imitate the courageous gesture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel: she had put his case on the menu of her first talks with Dmitry Medvedev while her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, discussed it with Yuri Schmidt, his Moscow lawyer. Neither French nor German, the former head of Yukos, unjustly imprisoned in Siberia, also becomes a symbol of these human rights in full decay. Not to mention the Chinese cyber-dissidents arrested, the Lebanese prisoners who disappeared in Syria… and so many others still.
The emphasis on respecting human rights could not, of course, constitute a strategy to compensate for economic catastrophes. But political leaders could nevertheless take pride, and all the French with them, in having acted as far as their means allow: among all the ills that befall humanity, not resolving to abandon the only one that remained at the bottom of Pandora’s jar: hope.
