The Age of Reinvention

by Karine Tuil

His mother is not worried yet—her son is studying, praying. The fear will come later when she notices the physical changes in him, hears him give a radical speech that chills her, and she realizes he has been indoctrinated. A few months after his first meeting with Hamid, Djamal has a thick beard and wears a white qamis that the older man gave him. He likes to be seen in this garb out on the street or on public transport: it asserts his identity with pride; it makes him feel strong, tough, powerful. At home, he makes his mother cover her head. One evening, when he invites Hamid to their apartment, he even asks her to veil her face. Nawel’s first reaction is to refuse, but she ends up yielding under pressure. Hamid advises his disciple to read certain books and shows him certain documentary films in order, he says, to “strengthen your political conscience.” That adjective—“political”—is new for Djamal. He has never been interested in politics or society; his only thought has been his own survival, the pursuit of money. “You have never realized that, because of the way you look, people think you are a real French person, but France is a racist country. They deliberately serve pork in school cafeterias so our children will go hungry, because they want to provoke us . . . I am certain to be stopped almost every time I drive my car, and if I take the Métro, I am always one of the people whose papers they check. As an Arab, you have no chance of finding a good job—and as for a nice place to live, forget it. The French invited our parents here by promising them a Utopia, and instead they herded them like beasts into dormitory towns and exploited them, mistreated them. And now they want to get rid of them and they expect us, their children, to say thank you? The Jews are always weeping over their dead, but who cries for our victims? Shall I tell you what they think? Not all lives are of equal value! They want us to believe that we don’t matter. Look what happened in Chechnya—they massacred the Muslims! It was ethnic cleansing! Look what is happening in Palestine! And here, have you seen how they treat us? We must rise up. Allahu akbar! Well, we are going to make France—the most Islamophobic country in the world—sit up and take notice of us!” Hamid pauses for a moment. Djamal says nothing; he merely watches his teacher as if hypnotized. “You know,” Hamid goes on, “there is only one way to help our oppressed brothers around the world: we must fight alongside them! We must have the courage to take up arms!” Djamal is moved by this speech and he unhesitatingly agrees when Hamid suggests he take part in a hike he has organized in the Forest of Fontainebleau. They are not really going to discover the joys of nature, of course: Djamal knows that it is actually a network for recruiting French jihadists, who will then be trained prior to being sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Men preparing for jihad, just outside the gates of Paris. These men choose to leave for Chechnya or Afghanistan, in order to become terrorists; they leave democracies for dictatorships, the lives of free men for dangerous existences controlled by the Taliban in the mountains of Kashmir.

  So it’s a sort of country ramble with paramilitary overtones. About sixty volunteers in their early twenties turn up to the meeting place, all wearing walking boots and carrying backpacks. Hamid is there, smiling constantly. He counts them as they line up to board a bus. When everyone is inside, he gives a welcome speech. He is friendly, walking down the aisle and greeting each participant. He spends a few moments talking to Djamal—he admires his commitment—then returns to his place and, in a deep voice, reminds them of the aim of the operation. His face grows hard. He has something to show them. A small TV screen shows images of war; images, Hamid says, “of our Muslim brothers being murdered all over the world—being ruthlessly killed like dogs.” There are pictures of bodies that have been dismembered, decapitated, burned, and exploded, images of disfigured faces. After this, they are filled with hatred. After this, they can aim a gun and fire without trembling, without hesitating. It is less certain that they will be able to kill, but that will come—when they are isolated far from home, in Chechnya or Afghanistan. Only then will they be able to prove that they are real soldiers. An hour and a half later, they reach their destination. The forest is thick, and they walk for hours without eating or drinking. It’s a physical test, a moral test; they’re being broken. To keep up their morale, they chant war songs about the struggle and the deliverance to come, the death of the Western enemy that dominates and humiliates them, smashes and colonizes them. Their yelling is drowned out by furious noises coming from a boom box: the rumble of helicopters, the sound of gunshots, Kalashnikov fire, bomb explosions . . . this sound track provides an atmosphere, a taste of what they have to look forward to. It is brutal. It is violent. The weakest among them trip or slip, fall or pretend to fall, whine and curse; they are picked up and pushed onward. Some collapse. It is better that they give up now. If they’re not capable of doing a five-hour hike through a Parisian forest, how would they possibly survive several weeks in the mountains of Afghanistan? Let those weak ones stay in France. Let them help their mothers, look after their sisters, smoke their dope. But the others—those who are strong enough to take the exertion, the tension, the pressure, those who keep going even when they’re on their last legs, those who fall down and get back up again, who suffer without complaint, watch the most cruel images without looking away or crying—those strong ones will go away, take up arms, and fight. François-Djamal is one of those. Already, he knows where he’s going, what he wants. He tells his mother that he’s doing sport, that he’s in training. She watches his body change, become more muscular, his face become harder and thinner. Djamal takes part in several “hikes” in Haute-Savoie; in those mountainous areas, the physical test is even tougher: you have to climb up the rock face with your bare hands. Each time, he stands out for his tenacity, his sangfroid, his courage and determination. His friends remember him. They call him Djamal the Blond. He doesn’t want to tell them that he is the fruit of an adulterous affair between a Muslim woman and a Christian man, an employee and her boss, a Frenchwoman of Tunisian origin and a pure white Frenchman; they would reject him, he feels sure. And what he wants is to belong to the group. So he tells them his father is a Frenchman who converted to Islam after having a revelation, that his father died and left him a small sum of money. They like the idea of converts here. He does not feel he is betraying anything or anyone. He also says that he uses his mother’s surname—an Arab-sounding name—because that is what he is, what he wants to be: an Arab. They repeat to him: “Christianity is the religion of slave owners.” These hikes radicalize him. His mother, he thinks, practices a slack, halfhearted version of Islam, an Islam without conviction, a spineless Islam, while he dreams of a strong, hard, pure Islam. Not a religion that can be diluted by Frenchness. His mother is terrified by this desire for purity, this moral intransigence, this warlike rigor, but she says nothing and bows down to the new rules issued by her son: you will wear a veil at home and outside . . . you will not speak to men . . . you will not contradict me. And that’s how it is, how it should be: the docile woman, executing his orders, and him, the omnipotent monarch who rules/controls/forbids.

  Finally, the time comes for him to leave . . . Djamal marries a young Muslim woman from the neighborhood. Her name is Nora and she works on the markets. He meets her by chance, during a dinner organized by one of her aunts. He notices her as soon as he enters the room: a dark-skinned girl with long, curly hair hidden beneath a bandanna. Nora is not an overt, flashy beauty, but that is precisely why Djamal is attracted to her. She is from a traditionalist background, but she falls in love with him at first sight—the clash of his blond hair and white skin in that room—and persuades herself that he will not force anything on her. They marry in a very private ceremony at the mayor’s office in Sevran. Djamal chooses Hamid as his witness. The couple move to an efficiency. The apartment is owned by a slumlord, a former cop who buys places at rock-bottom prices and rents them out by the room at exorbitant prices. Sometimes there are up to fifteen people in a three-room apartment, one family in each room. It’s a precarious existence, but for the first time in his life, Djamal is happy. Islam
has brought him peace, and he loves his wife. But something is missing. One evening, he asks Hamid why he has not been sent to Afghanistan to fight: “I can’t stay here doing nothing! Have you seen how they treat our people? Have you heard the lies they tell us? They act like we’re rats, Hamid! I want to serve Allah with all my strength.” For the first time, Hamid feels uneasy. Djamal has proven himself loyal and determined on the hikes; he has passed every test he’s been set. And yet Hamid has not been able to move past his initial distrust. What if Djamal is an informer, a double agent? In spite of their friendship, he does not feel ready to send him to the East, to give him his list of contacts. So he has the idea of giving Djamal one final test: only two months after his wedding, he suggests to Djamal that he be sent to Yemen to undertake religious and linguistic training. Djamal likes this idea. His dream is exactly that: to move to a Muslim country, a country where he can finally live the life he has chosen without feeling judged or oppressed. He tells his wife that he is going there to prove his faith. Nora says nothing; she lets him go. Deep down, she knows she will never follow him there, and she hopes and believes he will give up on his plans when he returns. And when she reads his first letter, she realizes she was right: life there is difficult. Even the flight there is an ordeal, the seats on the plane all broken, and squeezed so close together that he can’t even open his legs more than an inch apart. He is in pain but says nothing. During the flight, he prays, reads passages from the Koran, and eventually falls asleep. After the plane lands, he vomits on the asphalt. The heat is suffocating, and his clothing sticks to his skin like a bandage on a burn wound. He is thirsty, he is hungry, and by the time he reclaims his luggage, he doesn’t believe he’ll be able to last more than a few days in this country. But he is wrong: not only is he able to stand it, but he likes it there. Once he has moved his things into the apartment he will share with a Yemeni couple, once he has splashed water on his face and shared a dish of meatballs with the couple, using his fingers, he feels better. That day, he enrolls in a Yemeni university to study the Koran and improve his Arabic. This, at least, is what he will tell people later. The real reason is probably murkier: it is said that the dean of that university is in charge of recruiting volunteers for Osama bin Laden. He picks out the most active, most zealous foreign students, then approaches them, talks to them, trains them. He does this very carefully, choosing only the toughest and most reliable among them. The more fragile types—the docile, submissive ones—he leaves to their books. Djamal is not easy to categorize in this way: while he is undoubtedly a follower of a very strict brand of Islam, he is not as yet truly politicized. He enjoys those days of study, meditation, and prayer, he enjoys eating meals as part of a community—he appreciates the feeling of brotherhood in such moments. In the evenings, he eats hot soup or couscous which he shares with the other men, all of them eating from the same large earthenware plate while the women, sitting on the floor, grind almonds in a cooking pot to extract their oil. After dinner, Djamal likes to sit by a big campfire and spend the rest of the evening listening to the cantilena chanted by the insomniacs. Then, late at night, he returns to his little room and writes his wife letters in which he explains that he is learning, and that he will serve Allah until the day he dies: I left to discover how to win my ticket to paradise, and I have found what I was looking for.

  One morning, he is arrested on his way out of the university. Soldiers pin him to a wall and handcuff him. They lock him in a tiny cell and interrogate him all night long: Does he have links with the university dean? With Osama bin Laden? Why did he come to Yemen? Where does he live? What does he do during the day? What are his intentions? His political opinions? Djamal is frightened. As this is happening, his mind is a blur of incomprehension. He prays and studies, he tells them. It’s true he has met a few preachers, but he never called them back; he stayed away from them. This is his version. The armed men who question him have their own: Terrorist acts have been perpetrated in this country by an Islamist army. What does he know about that? Nothing, he swears. One of the soldiers stares at him with hatred: “I repeat: the Yemeni government is hunting down troublemakers and we have reason to believe that you are one of them.” Djamal repeats that he has nothing to do with all this, that he is here to learn and improve his Arabic, that all his intentions are peaceful, but he doesn’t have time to finish his sentence because the man rams a fist into his left eye and he is bleeding, screaming, he can’t see. “Remember anything now? Is it coming back to you? I’ll ask you again: Why did you come to Yemen? You’re an Islamist, aren’t you?” No, no. Djamal trembles and pisses himself: he feels the warm liquid run down his legs and feels ashamed. He is too hot and he can barely understand the language. He starts crying and they call him a woman, lock him up in a tiny, dark cell with three other bearded men, all dull-eyed and shaggy-haired. The air is thick with the stench of urine, sweat, and shit, the odor permeating the men’s hair, clothes, skin. He wants to throw up, wants to smash his head against the wall until it explodes. He curls up into a corner, knees folded against his chest, and starts to pray for his future deliverance, although he no longer believes. On the wall, there are words written in Arabic that he doesn’t understand. He sobs himself to sleep.

  * * *

  He is woken in the middle of the night by a warden who prods him with a stick as if he were a venomous snake, yelling: “Get up! Slowly!” Djamal is led to a room lit only by a dim bulb, a sort of damp basement room without windows. The interrogation begins again: Who are you? Why did you come here? What are your links with the dean of the university? Etc. Djamal demands a lawyer and his questioner laughs: “Where the hell do you think you are? This isn’t France!” He is beaten and threatened, but does not give in. Finally, after asking repeatedly, he is put in touch with the French Consulate. This is his get-out-of-jail-free card. Never has he felt such desire before to assert the fact that he is French. To the man from the consulate he tirelessly repeats what he has already told his jailers: “I came here to study Islam and learn Arabic, and that’s all.”

  He does not ask his mother or Hamid for help: he wants to get out of this situation himself. And he succeeds, because after three weeks he is released. The man he’s been staying with is waiting for him outside the prison gates. Together they walk back to the apartment and eat dinner, lit by candle flames that flicker in the breaths from raised voices and bursts of laughter: they are celebrating Djamal’s return. At the evening’s end, two men dressed in black enter the apartment through the back door. They greet Djamal warmly and hand him a return flight ticket to France. Who are these men? When did he ask for their help? The reply is vague. When he gets home, he tells his wife that he still had some money left, but she doesn’t believe him—and for the first time she suspects that he has been aided financially by the men he calls “my brothers.”

  * * *

  Upon his return, Nora no longer recognizes him. He has become radicalized, mistrustful, paranoiac, suspicious, obsessive. And, most of all, he has become anti-Semitic. He sees Jews everywhere and squanders the money that Samir continues to send him on the publication and distribution of anti-Semitic tracts. He and his wife have terrible rows. Djamal gets back in touch with Hamid, who no longer doubts him. In the housing estate, he goes regularly to a small mosque located in a former gymnasium and becomes friendly with other “brothers.” He does not talk about his experience in Yemen: for him, it represents a failure. One morning, one of the worshippers at the mosque advises him to train as a halal butcher. “Halal is the future,” he says, backing up his case with figures that show the size of the market and the importance of this activity for the rebirth of a pure Islam: if Muslims have the choice, they will eat halal meat—You’d even be able to open your own butcher’s shop one day, Insha’Allah. With Samir’s money, that will actually be possible, Djamal thinks; he enrolls in a training program, enjoys it, and receives his diploma. Two months later, he gets a job in a slaughterhouse. He has to caress the animals to calm them do
wn, then lead them to a rotating trap where they are killed while facing Mecca. The bovine’s head is held still, the neck lengthened. Djamal triggers the rotation of the trap along a horizontal axis—a sort of aerial rail—so that the beast is suspended upside down with its hooves in the air. The bovine starts bellowing now, so Djamal has to act quickly: he places the knife under the glottis and cuts its throat. He does this without fear, without emotion, and in one rapid motion, so that the animal doesn’t suffer. Blood spurts out, splashing into the trough, but Djamal continues undaunted: this is a sacred act and he is proud to have been chosen to perform it. When the animal has stopped breathing, he skins it, eviscerates it, splits open the carcass, then trims and weighs the meat before refrigerating it. After that, he only has to perform his ablutions, and everything is ready. Not only does Djamal like his work, but he takes it very seriously. He is the one who slits the sheep’s throat for Eid; he does it cleanly, in the abattoir. He takes the orders, organizes the deliveries. He hates finding sheep’s heads, their disemboweled carcasses, their stinking entrails, tossed into his building’s garbage chute, as often happens. In fact, it disgusts him, and soon he is also taking charge of the slaughter of his neighbors’ animals. One evening, coming home from prayer, he sees, out in the wasteland near his apartment block, a sheep hanging from a rope tied between two trees. Facing the sheep are two children, age ten or eleven, armed with a huge knife. The first one skewers the animal, while the second prepares to cut it up. Djamal runs up to them and starts yelling at them so angrily that they are dumbfounded, too frightened to say a word. Their hands are covered in blood and the sheep’s head is hanging. But the animal is still alive, making pitiful moaning noises. Djamal grabs the knife from the boy’s hands, raises it above his head, and, with a single stroke, puts the beast out of its misery. Only then does he look the children in the eyes and threaten them: if he ever finds them doing this again, they’ll be the ones to feel the sharpness of his knife’s blade. The words come out without him thinking, and afterward he feels slightly ashamed of what he’s said, but he loves animals. In Yemen, where dogs and cats roam freely in search of leftovers, he had found a skinny, starving kitten in a garbage can and fallen in love with it. He took it home, looked after it until it was no longer skinny or starving, and then set it free again—nobody wanted it.