No justice but your own: If you don't find it, you die inside

I can connect with a part of what Amanda Lindhout is now facing, since RCMP told her that one of her terrorist kidnappers had come to Canada from Somalia, where he could be arrested, charged and tried.

It's been almost seven years since Lindhout had been freed from a 15-month hostage-taking in Somalia. Her captivity was marked by depravity and torture, physical, sexual and psychological abuse.

It's been almost seven years of hard work to move forward for her and her family. Seven years of reaching for “normal,” seven years of not letting the feelings of helpless rage and hate for her captors consume and ruin them.

That's the part that I relate to, if not for her, then for her family.

We lived through four years of that — the period of time between a vicious and violent attack on a family member and the news that the attackers had been caught.

You get your family member back, changed beyond return, and you begin what people call “moving forward.” You reach for “normal” and achieve it in your own way.

You cannot do that and keep your own personal integrity, unless you can put the senselessness, pain and anger behind you. Time helps in that regard. But then later, it's not over, because after all this time, you must confront the people who did these hateful things.

Ali Omar Ader was identified as part of the terrorist group that kidnapped Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan while they were working as journalists just outside Mogadishu, Somalia. Ader is said to have acted as the group's negotiator, demanding ransom, among other things.

How he came to arrive in Canada would make for a very interesting story — if it were to become public. What level of arrogance or stupidity would it take for a foreign terrorist to risk risk leaving his hiding place for a country where laws are actually followed and upheld?

Whoever convinced Ader that it would be safe for him to do so must be one heck of a salesman.

Maybe he was told that five years minimum in a Canadian prison is a better deal than an equitable length of time in his home country. (Assuming, of course, that the courts find that he did indeed confine, forcibly seize or detain Lindhout, and threaten death or bodily harm as per the Canadian Criminal Code.)

But here he is, arrested, charged and soon to face trial. At which time Lindhout and her family will be expected to give evidence and testimony.

And be expected to deal with it all, again.

If Lindhout's recent public statement rings true, she's in a place were she can survive this.

“In the end, Ali Omar Ader's fate has nothing to do with mine,” was the final sentence of her written release. That's what moving forward means.

Whatever happens next is only between Ader and our justice system.

Years ago, when we were dealing with the trial around the events in our family, I rankled somewhat that we were so much left out of it. There was no chance to confront, to get something back. Well, there's nothing to get back.

It's over, the past is gone. You deal with your own life; you can't deal with the life of the criminal who harmed you. The consequences in our lives are all personal — and non-transferable.

Nobody can bring you justice, not the police, not the courts, not the prisons. Justice is something you find for yourself.

“Every day, I make the choice to move forward and to remember that true power is derived from kindness,” reads her second-last sentence. That is evidence that Lindhout knows she will never be the same as she was before, but that she will be OK from here on.

The kindness that Canada can do for Lindhout and her family is just to take it from here. Let the police, the laws and the courts deal with Ader. He will have to confront his own demons, in due time.

People asked if we found closure at the end of this process. There is no closure; there's just life. You live with integrity, or you don't.

That, I believe, is the justice you hold to, whether the world itself is just or not (hint: it isn't).

From here, it looks like Lindhout understands this. I hope she can handle the pressures from within and without, that might lead her to let go of the strength that got her this far.