Thomas Sutherland, the Magnanimous Hostage

In 1984, I used to visit Tom Sutherland and his wife, Jean, after running on the track at the American University of Beirut. They had dared to join the faculty at a time when Lebanon was a rough place to live. The civil war was in its ninth year; the Israeli invasion was in its second year. Hezbollah, the emerging Shiite militia, was taking control of West Beirut, including the scenic seafront area around the university. Fighting disrupted daily life—you often didn’t know which war was playing out around you—and made sleep difficult. Electricity was erratic; shops often had food shortages. That was the year the American University president was assassinated and a professor taken hostage. The Sutherlands and I would sit on their terrace, sipping cool drinks in the Beirut heat, and ponder the latest chaos around us.

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