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4.76 AVERAGE
4.76 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Mansoor Adayfi was 18 with dreams and plans for a promising future when he left his home in Yemen for a trip to Afghanistan. He hasn't returned since. Kidnapped and sold to the United States, he spent the next nearly fifteen years in the notorious Guantanamo Bay, held there without charges.
In his book, he chronicles his time there, giving us a window into the horrors that took place in this place that seems like a hell on earth. Without getting extremely graphic, he still manages to convey the humiliation and the dehumanisation and the torture he and his fellow detainees were put through at the hands of their captors. And the sad thing is that, like Mansoor, many of these men were innocent of the crimes they had supposedly committed. Farmers, teachers, some just young boys...subjected to unspeakable torture because, as Mansoor says, "It was a place where they'd rather believe lies than truth so long as it supported what they already believed".
It is very heartbreaking to read, especially when you think of how their lives have been stolen away from them. With all the cruelty that is inflicted upon them, the men still manage to laugh and joke and find comfort in each other and their faith in God. That Mansoor and others like him managed to be resilient and hold on to their integrity in the face of what they had to undergo is truly a wonder.
The book is so well written that reading it will make you feel like you are right there among the men. But you can close the book and walk away while many of them are still wrongfully detained.
Even after his release, life does not return to normal for Mansoor Adayfi. Forced to resettle Serbia, he hasn't ended up with the future and the family he dreamed of. And after reading this book, my heart truly bleeds for him and the countless others whose lives and futures were unfairly taken away from them.
In his book, he chronicles his time there, giving us a window into the horrors that took place in this place that seems like a hell on earth. Without getting extremely graphic, he still manages to convey the humiliation and the dehumanisation and the torture he and his fellow detainees were put through at the hands of their captors. And the sad thing is that, like Mansoor, many of these men were innocent of the crimes they had supposedly committed. Farmers, teachers, some just young boys...subjected to unspeakable torture because, as Mansoor says, "It was a place where they'd rather believe lies than truth so long as it supported what they already believed".
It is very heartbreaking to read, especially when you think of how their lives have been stolen away from them. With all the cruelty that is inflicted upon them, the men still manage to laugh and joke and find comfort in each other and their faith in God. That Mansoor and others like him managed to be resilient and hold on to their integrity in the face of what they had to undergo is truly a wonder.
The book is so well written that reading it will make you feel like you are right there among the men. But you can close the book and walk away while many of them are still wrongfully detained.
Even after his release, life does not return to normal for Mansoor Adayfi. Forced to resettle Serbia, he hasn't ended up with the future and the family he dreamed of. And after reading this book, my heart truly bleeds for him and the countless others whose lives and futures were unfairly taken away from them.
I'm an American, so I can say it: Fuck America. Fuck my country for allowing me to grow up with accounts of torture on the news, and for airing the voices of nationalistic men who tried to justify it. I cannot believe that I live in a world where, when I was a child, I was asked whether I thought torture was okay. I grew up with this. I grew up with conversations about this. Teachers asked me to write papers on this. I was asked many many times to think that this was okay. I'll repeat: When I was six and seven and eight years old, I was told about the tortures that took place in Guantanamo Bay, immediately followed by a justification for why they had to happen. That's my personal relationship to this prison.
You can know Guantanamo Bay is bad, but actually reading a memoir by someone who was there for 14 years is very different. It solidifies your mind, your morals. I really do feel it is the duty of American citizens to read this.
Adayfi explains how he was taken, a young sheep farmer with dreams of university, and sold to the American CIA for $1,500. Later, he would be told it was his own fault for "being in Afghanistan." For existing in a country.
He was tortured endlessly, even after the Americans finally seemed to understand that he was not a middle-aged Egyptian general, but a nineteen year-old boy from Yemen. The thing that struck me most about the cruelty, besides how absolutely idiotic it makes my country look, is that the guards who tortured him spoke exactly like the jocks I went to high school with. I never understood how much plain racism and commonplace hyper-masculinity factored into the terror of Guantanamo Bay. It is a literal manifestation of American culture. Although he doesn't say this himself, when Adayfi described how the guards destroyed the artwork of flowers and trees that the men had made, I could imagine easily how threatened the soldiers were by the idea of men making art.
I loved the stories he told of brotherhood: How they sang to each other on Saturday nights (until the Americans drowned out their voices with machines), how they "wrote" poems using the stickers from their apples, how they organized resistance against human rights abuses. Particularly, I loved the story of when Obama was elected. The prisoners had heard that a black man was running for president and that he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay. After the election results were announced, the prisoners saw an African American guard walking down the hall, smiling ear-to-ear. They knew from his joy that Obama had won. Their plan had been to get a code yellow called if Obama won: When guards would storm into a cell and beat a man, the violence was so noisy that the entire prison could hear. A code yellow on election day would signal that Obama had been elected. After seeing the smiling guard, one of the prisoners put a towel in front of the window of his cell, which was against the rules, as guards had to look in to ensure that no one committed suicide. When he did this, a code yellow was called, and he laughed as guards stormed his cell and beat him.
The entire prison started to celebrate as the news of Obama's victory spread, with many of the men yelling that it wasn't "the White House anymore," it was the "Black House!" The administrators were fearful, believing somehow that prisoners had acquired access to television. They were unable to understand how the entire prison knew that Obama had been elected. For weeks they interrogated prisoners in order to undercover the sophisticated terrorist communications they thought were happening on the inside somehow, in these barren cages in Cuba.
While Obama broke his promise and failed to close Guantanamo Bay, it does seem that his victory directly led to what the author called the "golden era" of Guantanamo. During this time Adayfi was given English classes, which is what allowed him to write this book. He earned a GED, was permitted to socialize with other prisoners, and was allowed to see the sky for the first time in years. Reminder: He was never charged with a crime.
I am so grateful that Adayfi has shared his story. It is absolutely invaluable to me as an American citizen. I am able to argue more articulately than ever why torture is wrong, and how our history of torture has enabled other countries in the world to commit their own human rights violations. I also understand how incredibly important public opinion is to those who run these facilities, which means that one of the most important things that I can do is listen and continually speak out.
I was born an American. This means that I actually have more power in these matters than the vast majority of people on Earth. It doesn't feel that way, of course, but recognizing that privilege is important. Reading about these things is unpleasant and horrible, but absolutely necessary in order to take steps towards a just world. I will never raise a child in a house where Fox News explains to them why enhanced interrogation techniques are sometimes okay. I will vote for the president who lets innocent men see the sky. I will tell my representatives I want freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners to be relocated safely and given reparations for the injustices done to them. I will tell them to close Guantanamo.
You can know Guantanamo Bay is bad, but actually reading a memoir by someone who was there for 14 years is very different. It solidifies your mind, your morals. I really do feel it is the duty of American citizens to read this.
Adayfi explains how he was taken, a young sheep farmer with dreams of university, and sold to the American CIA for $1,500. Later, he would be told it was his own fault for "being in Afghanistan." For existing in a country.
He was tortured endlessly, even after the Americans finally seemed to understand that he was not a middle-aged Egyptian general, but a nineteen year-old boy from Yemen. The thing that struck me most about the cruelty, besides how absolutely idiotic it makes my country look, is that the guards who tortured him spoke exactly like the jocks I went to high school with. I never understood how much plain racism and commonplace hyper-masculinity factored into the terror of Guantanamo Bay. It is a literal manifestation of American culture. Although he doesn't say this himself, when Adayfi described how the guards destroyed the artwork of flowers and trees that the men had made, I could imagine easily how threatened the soldiers were by the idea of men making art.
I loved the stories he told of brotherhood: How they sang to each other on Saturday nights (until the Americans drowned out their voices with machines), how they "wrote" poems using the stickers from their apples, how they organized resistance against human rights abuses. Particularly, I loved the story of when Obama was elected. The prisoners had heard that a black man was running for president and that he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay. After the election results were announced, the prisoners saw an African American guard walking down the hall, smiling ear-to-ear. They knew from his joy that Obama had won. Their plan had been to get a code yellow called if Obama won: When guards would storm into a cell and beat a man, the violence was so noisy that the entire prison could hear. A code yellow on election day would signal that Obama had been elected. After seeing the smiling guard, one of the prisoners put a towel in front of the window of his cell, which was against the rules, as guards had to look in to ensure that no one committed suicide. When he did this, a code yellow was called, and he laughed as guards stormed his cell and beat him.
The entire prison started to celebrate as the news of Obama's victory spread, with many of the men yelling that it wasn't "the White House anymore," it was the "Black House!" The administrators were fearful, believing somehow that prisoners had acquired access to television. They were unable to understand how the entire prison knew that Obama had been elected. For weeks they interrogated prisoners in order to undercover the sophisticated terrorist communications they thought were happening on the inside somehow, in these barren cages in Cuba.
While Obama broke his promise and failed to close Guantanamo Bay, it does seem that his victory directly led to what the author called the "golden era" of Guantanamo. During this time Adayfi was given English classes, which is what allowed him to write this book. He earned a GED, was permitted to socialize with other prisoners, and was allowed to see the sky for the first time in years. Reminder: He was never charged with a crime.
I am so grateful that Adayfi has shared his story. It is absolutely invaluable to me as an American citizen. I am able to argue more articulately than ever why torture is wrong, and how our history of torture has enabled other countries in the world to commit their own human rights violations. I also understand how incredibly important public opinion is to those who run these facilities, which means that one of the most important things that I can do is listen and continually speak out.
I was born an American. This means that I actually have more power in these matters than the vast majority of people on Earth. It doesn't feel that way, of course, but recognizing that privilege is important. Reading about these things is unpleasant and horrible, but absolutely necessary in order to take steps towards a just world. I will never raise a child in a house where Fox News explains to them why enhanced interrogation techniques are sometimes okay. I will vote for the president who lets innocent men see the sky. I will tell my representatives I want freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners to be relocated safely and given reparations for the injustices done to them. I will tell them to close Guantanamo.
WOW. how can we get as many Americans (and people, but particular people from Western world) to read this possible???
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
Moving and horrifying. He does as he says he intends and tells the story of the bits of light and humanity that detainees found or created in the midst of the worst of human behavior - specialist-devised physical and psychological torture of innocent people for over a decade.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Islamophobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
im caught between being enraged and heartbroken at what the us government did to these innocent men and being in awe at the strength of the human spirit. this is a story about both the immense kindnesses and cruelties of which humans are capable. a must-read for everyone, as guantanamo remains open to this day with detainees still awaiting freedom. may Allah protect and guide them all.