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A review by bookly_reads
Don't forget us here : lost and found at Guantánamo by Mansoor Adayfi
5.0
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.