Delusion, Disillusion, Death

"Alan didn't like the prison food they gave us. He joked that people can eat whatever they like in a British prison. He was very relaxed. He didn't understand who his captors were and he was convinced he would be released soon."
"This is an infidel, [ISIS] told us when they brought him in. He was not afraid; he thought it was just a regular security check [their 'liberation' by Syrian rebels]."
"Before Alan arrived, we only saw our guard once a day when he came to give us sandwiches and a drink or water. When he entered, we realized the prison was suddenly heavily guarded."
"When he arrived with us, [ISIS] treated him so well. We could not imagine they would slaughter him."
Seif ad-Idlibi, Syrian opposition activist

Well, obviously nor did Alan Henning. He was of the innocent mindset that goodness and decency, empathy and caring for others would be returned in kind. Naive to a fault. But it's a common enough naivete shared by people who like to think of themselves as humanitarian, who feel a special conscientiousness bond with the weak and the oppressed, wanting to believe that they, coming from an environment of freedom and plenty, have a moral obligation to serve the needy.

They believe, as well, that their self-sacrifice will be noted and appreciated. Not just appreciated by those whom they help, but those whom the compassionate humanitarians recognize as co-religionists and ethnic, sometimes even tribal compatriots of those in need. That they, though westerners, will be seen as 'different', trustworthy, admirable in their passion to be of help to those in dire straits. This is the delusional part of their self-awareness.

Alan Henning would never believe his life could be in imminent danger. That he was valued not as a humanitarian but for his potential either to be bargained for through ransom demands, or to be used for the purpose and the opportunity to threaten and shock his country by demonstrating the Islamic State jihadis' zeal for brutish slaughter. One of his fellow detainees recalls how Mr. Henning was so jocular when he was detained, confident he would soon be a free man again.

Because he had important work to do, and that work and its importance would be recognized and respected by even the battle-hardened jihadis who were, after all, Muslims, and it was Muslims his sacrifice of time, energy, passion and determination was serving. His fellow captors described how the hapless British taxi driver was interrogated in nighttime sessions by a masked British jihadist in the presence of a high-ranking ISIS official.

Mr. Henning must have felt reassured when he heard the unmistakable British voice of his interlocutor. Might he have made the connection between the horrific released videos of that same British-accented jihadi preparing to laboriously saw off the head of two American journalists? Not for him, such a fate, however, because he travelled to Syria with a Muslim aid convoy of which he was an integral member.

After being interrogated on three separate nighttime occasions by the masked British jihadist and the senior ISIS leader, it was time for Mr. Henning who had a tattoo reading "For Syria", to make his own ultimate sacrifice, although for him it wasn't intentional, and he had no voice in the matter. Events carried him along to his death, the very same one that Jihadi John had imposed on two Americans luckless enough to be captured as Mr. Henning had been.

Mr. Henning was on a humanitarian mission to war-torn Syria. His compassion for the Syrian people, for the innocent children who suffered was boundless. He never imagined, it would seem, that his life would be imperilled.  "It's all worthwhile when you see what is needed actually get to where it needs to go", he said, with the satisfied air of one certain that he's doing the right thing.