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James Loney (peace activist)

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For the American baseball player, see James Loney (baseball player).

James Loney (born 1964) is a Canadian peace activist who has worked for several years with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and Palestine. From 2005 November 26, he was held captive in Iraq with three others and threatened with execution until he was freed in a clandestine operation by multinational troops on 2006 March 23. It was reported in The Globe and Mail that Mr Loney's family withheld the fact of his homosexuality out of fear for his safety while he was held hostage. He was greeted by his husband, Dan Hunt, on his arrival back in Canada on March 26.

He made a brief media appearance on March 30: "I'll take things slowly until I can get through a day without shaking legs and a pounding heart," he said.

Loney was born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. During his late teens he worked as a counsellor at Columbus Boys' Camp near Orillia, Ontario, on Lake Simcoe. This is a summer camp for underprivileged boys, funded by the Knights of Columbus and staffed by senior high school students from various schools run by the Basilian Fathers.

Loney lives in Amos House, which is part of the Toronto Catholic Worker; a community formed in 1991 which now consists of six households on one block, including two Houses of Hospitality (including Zaccheus House, the primary hospitality house which Jim and his partner Dan helped to found) and several support houses for the Houses of Hospitality.

Controversy[edit]

In June 2006 Loney entered headlines again for joining in the protest against the controversial use of security certificates to detain foreign residents in Canada for years without charges or trial [1].

According to a 2006 November 11 report in the Guelph Mercury of a speech he'd given to unversity students on November 9, Loney refused to wear a poppy on Remembrance Day. Loney claimed that it "says we have to be ready for the next time - vigilance." A Royal Canadian Legion spokesperson is quoted in the same report saying, "It's his choice not to wear a poppy .... The poppy is the symbol of remembrance, to remember people who gave their lives .... When you look at terrorism, pacifism doesn't work. He found out firsthand."

James Loney and the other surviving activists have been criticized for their lack of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives to rescue them. The Commander of British forces at the time, General Sir Michael Jackson, said he was "saddened that there didn't seem to have been a note of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives to save those lives".[2] British newspapers have suggested that the lack of gratitude is uncharacteristic for Christians.

They and other peace campaigners have been criticized for ignoring advice not to go to Baghdad, and then having to be rescued by military personnel who are diverted from other work in Iraq.[3]

They have also refused to testify against their captors, saying they hope they are not punished and suggesting that they would like the captors to become useful members of Iraqi society. When asked if this was naive, the group compared themselves to Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus. [4]

Loney wrote an article for the Toronto Star in which he referred to his rescue as going "from one tomb to another".[5]

Upon his release he was criticized by major news organizations in Canada:

From the National Post: In an editorial, it criticized Mr. Loney's Christian Peacemakers Team for being "either callous or woefully naive in their willingness to risk the lives of aid workers."

From columnist Margaret Wente in the Globe: "Just as Lenin and Stalin had their useful idiots — Westerners who strenuously defended Russia and denounced the West — so did Saddam, and so does Hamas."

From columnist Rex Murphy (a CBC colleague and friend): "It would have been an even more gratifying moment if it had been coloured by a more ready acknowledgement of the rescuers, and an equal willingness ... to name the real villains of this sad episode."

Canadian singer-songwriter, Jon Brooks, wrote two songs on Jim Loney on his cd 'Ours And The Shepherds'in response to the controversy. 'Jim Loney's Prayer Part I' and 'Jim Loney's Prayer Part II' were purposely chosen as bookends to the track list on a cd about Canadian war stories. They are intended to be prayers attuned to the difficult idea that if one part of the world hurts, we all hurt in a world that is seldom driven to moral action. The Christian Peacemakers were there to suffer with the Iraqis.

See also[edit]

External links[edit]


This article is based on a GNU FDL LGBT Wikia article: Loney (peace activist) James Loney (peace activist) LGBT
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