“So is that all of it?” my voice conveying my anger as I started to stare at him.
“No. I did my research and they don’t have these words in their languages.”
“Is that right! Well, Jennifer speaks Korean and Chinese. I am sure she’s outraged by your…”
Rezeg sighed, “Can you listen until the end, please?” he continued, “It is because they don’t function in a way that requires a sentimental sense and conscience; reflective words don’t exist in their languages.”
I derided, “Well it’s no shocker that Sami is amused by such rationale. Apparently, he seems to agree with you and find your justification compelling. I for one, find it preposterous!”
Harris mumbled, “You always have to disagree but we have our own opinions. You speak as if you don’t have a clue what those people put us through…”
Shaking my head in disappointment, I expostulated, “What I hear is a bunch of drama queens and self-centred generalisers venting their social misfortunes. Please give me couple of minutes to explain myself. I have been the confidant of everybody in this room. Except for the new bigot. You’ve all bewailed to me your social hardships in this country. I am not saying that you haven’t been ill-treated by some idiots. However, the sum of your troubles can occur anywhere, at least the issues you have brought up tonight. In Iran, Syria, Italy, and Turkey!
“Sami, the girl is not into you. You are offering your services and she is reciprocating to those demands. By the way you’re forcing these words out of my mouth. I don’t want to criticise you, as later you’ll have yourself believing that you cannot be wrong and it has to be me. At this moment, I don’t given a flying rat’s ass. Instead of accepting that she’s not into you, you retaliate by belittling every single citizen of the Republic of China, Taiwan, Singapore, the Malaysian Chinese, and everybody of Chinese descent. That’s fucked up man! Harris, I have never been to Iran and, honestly, I don’t have any intention of going there. I have to say, I know shit about your country’s office politics and how competitive things can get between colleagues. The fact of the matter is backstabbing the bottom feeders is the bread and butter of office politics. Furthermore, you have to consider that you might not be as interesting as you think and thus, befriending others could prove difficult. These kinds of horse shit are global; I still don’t know about your country, but they happen to all of us, even in our countries.” Turning toward Carl, “Stop anticipating me to discipline you; you haven’t said anything yet. You, new guy, look at me and stop ogling the ceiling! I just checked on my phone, China and India, alone, account for around thirty-seven percent of the world’s population. I cannot make the assumption that everybody on the Asian continent is Asian. Just an FYI that makes approximately sixty percent of the world population. Your theory strips Asians from any sentimental sense and conscience.”
Staring at Harris, he conceded, “I meant only Malaysians…”
Berating him, I broke in, “Don’t you fucking interrupt me. You said Asians repeatedly, so shut your face and listen. Foremost, I am not trying to cajole you here, so listen! Your main thesis is that the lack of certain expressions or words in a given language is indicative of its native speakers’ absence of any awareness of such concepts. Now I doubt that anybody in this room is able to speak all Asian languages.” Laughingly I continued, “Jennifer here speaks Korean and Chinese; let’s disambiguate that in regards to sentimental sense and conscience! Love, can you tell us whether those concepts exist in each language…”
Jennifer chipped in, “They do exist, in both languages.”
I gave her a grin and thanked her. “Back to you, you half-assed theorist! For the purpose of this argument, I will assume that the scope of your theory is Malaysia. Given that the Chinese comprise around twenty-two percent of the population of this country and the fact that the Turkish guy's complaints were limited to people from this ethnic background, your theory holds no ground whatsoever. But that’s for the sake of argument; you said Asians. I will go further, in fact I challenge your whole notion. The fact that etymology of some word in language X derives from foreign language Y is not indicative of their usage in language X. In fact, they are used and their meaning sensed. Take the word ‘etiquette’ for instance. None of us are French but we still comprehend its meaning. Evidently, it’s more important for some of us than others.
“Conscience, man! Asians’ shortcomings! How dare you?! Hearing your hypothesis doesn’t only insult my intelligence, but it’s utterly offensive. The unfortunate fact is that your bigotry,” I frowned at Sami and Harris, “was music to their ears. You all pretend to be friends of Jennifer and thus you all owe her apologies.”
I raised Jennifer’s little hand and kissed it. Then, “I am sorry for putting you into this situation, let’s go.” I purred into her ear, trailing kisses across her face. Harris shouted, “Please stay; we didn’t mean to offend you.” Sami, Carl, Mustafa, and his special friend followed us. Sami did not say a word. That night, we sat in our living room. Harris and Hannah came by later. They both apologised to Jennifer and me.
**********
At three in the morning, I left my table and went to bed. Staring at the ceiling fan, I started contemplating, Martin Luther King Jr. said “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right… On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right?” The position I often take is silence, not outward cowardice, politic, or popularity. Conscience is a tricky concept and I have to admit that speaking out against injustice is popular. To me, it’s an information-based moral compass that directs my action toward guilt reduction and righting what I perceive to be wrong. Thus, conscience is a tricky concept! Over the too-many encounters I have had and the offences I have taken, an interest in the subjects of racism and prejudices has emerged. My interest has led me to the sub-cortical regions that activate the impulses of prejudice. See, the fact of the matter is there are a lot of ways to confront the blind faith in stereotypes. Even reverse it. However, for my conscience, that comes at a cost. That is to say, freeing the self-proclaimed slave masters and the genetically and socially supremacist beings from the dark cages of ignorance. A loud devious voice in my head, shouts that ain’t right son, that ain’t right! I have to admit that my conscience speaks in a Southern accent.
Still, is silence a sign of cowardice and indifference? For long, I have struggled with this question. You are a coward when you flee from your battles. There are those battles where I have fought fiercely. I have belittled vast battalions of supremacy. Admittedly, I made them confess the menaces they are! But I have to acknowledge, it has been an endless war. Endless like an intractable conflict that has forced me into a prolonged state of self-alienation. After all, I am no King Jr. But, again I’ve caused change across the circles wherein I rotate. Sure, some pretend and keep appearances, but over time, many of them have changed. Even better, some of them now look down on those suffering self-proclaimed supremacists.
To date, I’ve never hesitated to display my utmost disapproval of race-based entitlement among my peers. Deliberately, I lay down my diagnosis, “Oh, you’re racist!” With my offensive, they retaliate viciously. Tallying against their defensive claims, I start my course of treatment. Among those suffering this illness are the retaliating generalisers. For in my experience, this escalating state is quite common. Racism can be a contagious disease. Well, not always! It depends on one's immunity to derogatory stereotypes. It starts as a defence mechanism; which in turn and later time, transforms the victim into a perpetrator. Upon the diagnosis of this symptom, I will declare, “Oh you’re racist now!” As the denial of the illness is voiced aloud, I become all ears. The sardonic smile never fails to amplify an aggressive tone of dissing the new victims. From that point on, a
subtle dose of antidote is given at my expense. Now of course I’ve lost a lot of patients. But who cares! In my town there is an old saying that goes “Tell me who you befriend, I tell you who you are.” The implication is clear and thus, my conscience says, Son they ain’t right for you. If only I were on a civilizing initiative, I would’ve been an atheist apologist against the faith in genetic and social supremacy. But I am no preacher. So as the voice of their priests chanting, “In Racism we Trust” and their applause gets louder, I find myself in a limbo of conscience, out of my depth, just an exhausted heretic, in a purgatory, yet denying submission.
Chapter 5
The Whore
Lying down on the bed, spooning Jennifer, I started trailing kisses from the nape of her neck to her dimples of Venus and back to her neck, yet again. Our fingers were intertwined, forming a moving fist that gently went back and forth from her thigh to the arches of her backside. The irresistible temptation of her long, curved back, rekindled in me the recently sated desires, taking me to places beyond my physiological limits. My automatic, yet well-calculated touches and the absence of rhythmic breathing had the power to awaken in her a growing feeling of need and hunger.
“You’re killing me,” she breathed, freeing her hand from mine and, with it pushing the back of my head towards hers. “Darling, please sleep by my side tonight,” she pleaded.
“I am really sorry, sweetie. I’ve got some work to do. You know the time difference. I’ll get back to bed, once I am done.”
“I will wait for you.”
“No, sweetie, please don’t. It’ll take a while. Besides, we have to wake up early.”
“Take a shower first,” she distracted.
After finishing my shower, I wrapped a towel around my waist and leaned on the bed. I kissed her few times before whispering, “I’ll go to the living room. I might have to speak loudly. I don’t want to disturb your sleep.” Jennifer kissed me a few times, as I carried her to the bathroom. I lowered my arms so her feet landed balanced on the wet, tiled floor. Standing in front of me, she grabbed my hands and stood on the tip of her toes to give me her goodnight kisses.
After dressing myself, I carried my laptop to the living room, seated myself, and lit a cigarette. I downloaded a file from an email. There was no subject, no text, just a video file. After it had downloaded, I fixed my earphones so the sound came only to me. The video appeared to have been captured through a hidden camera, though the quality was fine. Marzooq and a ginger-haired young woman were the only two in the room. The room seemed to be so small. It had a single bed and a closed window just above it. The video started moments before the redhead seated herself on the bed and persuaded Marzooq to sit closer to her. She spoke in a Damascene accent. She was probably seventeen or eighteen. She looked too young. Marzooq was sixteen, the oldest former Jihadi in the group.
The redhead didn’t have much in the way of skills. She put an arm on his shoulder and rubbed his thigh with her free hand. I couldn’t hear what she whispered in his ear, not that it was important or that I cared for it. He looked away. I was afraid he wouldn't do it. She undressed herself. He didn’t make any moves, though he didn’t leave the room. I thought either he or she would flee. However, he didn’t seem to mind. It’s a good sign, I kept telling myself. Without any sign from him or indication from her, she knelt, and unzipped his fly. “Ohh hoo,” I clapped my hands, “Finally,” I laughed. He was erect before she gave him what she thought was oral sex. I guess she got bored and wanted to get it over with. I stopped watching the moment his animal took over, placing himself on top of her.
I lit another cigarette and hunched over, sighing with my elbows anchored on my thighs and my hands rubbing my face. “That’s fucked up, real fucked up shit,” I sighed. With the cigarette between my index and middle fingers, I found myself opening a file in a folder titled academic. I scanned it quickly.
The notion that individuals’ exposure to and memory of politically motivated and sectarian violence manifests in powerful emotional episodes that elicit a gamut of negative attitudes and behaviours, that such states justify hostility and violence, prompts a critical question: What can be done to overcome such barriers to peace? Extrapolating on political, psychological, and marketing research, an eclectic answer to this urgent question is described. This new answer hinges on the idea that marketing concepts and applications might be useful in reducing emotions that hinder peace and post-conflict reconciliation. Moreover, the current endeavour pursues addressing two complementary objectives. On the concrete level, it builds on recent trends in social cognition, political psychology, and marketing, aimed at describing conscious and unconscious information processing in shaping an individual’s assignment of emotion-based brand equity of out-group. In a broader sense, theoretically it demonstrates the process by which the exposure to marketing applications manifests in the elicitation of implicit and explicit emotion-based brands of out-group, and thereby enhances political attitudes that facilitate efforts toward peace and post-conflict reconciliation.
Ten months ago, I started that little project. I admit that, since then, I have strayed from following up on it. In reality, I ended up in an endeavour to de-radicalise former child jihadis. If you want to reach out to the poor, middle class, former rebels, real activists, victimising, self-centred, self-proclaimed activists, real activists, real victims, victims for benefits; boy, even former and wannabe jihadists, Şanlıurfa is the place. It’s easy to tell a real activist from the Facebookers. The Facebook victimisers believe themselves to be the only true activists without whom nothing can be achieved. Yet they’ve done nothing except tell lies that don’t add up outside of their twisted heads. They have the ability to drill a vagina in your skull just to rape it afterwards. I was fortunate enough to have made the acquaintance of two real activists, not your go-with-the-flow kind of people.
Akram and Hothefa stood against the regime not only in demonstrations; they also carried arms. When things went extreme Islamic bananas, they organised demonstrations against the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhatu Al-Nusr; then against the ways of ISIL. They held their ground and ideals until they had no choice but to save their necks. The old law of an eye for an eye didn’t make them blind to the fact that another man’s terrorist wasn’t their freedom fighter. They knew the dangers of ethnic separatists, the bottom-feeding Muslim Brotherhood who’d been thus far hiding behind the assigned leadership of the Syrian National Council, even after being forced to rebrand as the National Coalition. They were not part of the mainstream that hadn’t wanted a foreign intervention but then cried for it; Akram and Hothefa had wanted it all along, before Sunni terrorism started to sweep the country. The guys weren’t deceived by the Ponzi Scheme of Moderate Islamist Opposition that everybody kept hearing about, yet when names were named, they were no better than the regime or the radical Islamists. They didn’t cry for some buildings or ancient sculptures more than the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the twenty-first century. They knew the actual definition of terrorism and thus, the regime, Iran, ISIL, and all those who used the tactic of civilian intimidation for political purposes were branded as such. Foremost, they weren’t some half-assed-Middle Eastern-conspiracy-theory-submitters; for them information was there and analysis was extrapolated on it. I respected them and picked their brains on many occasions. They were a reliable source of information.
It was their support that I sought when I started my academic project. I wanted to train them on how to conduct the required experiments, recruit participants, and register data. We talked about it for a while. Hothefa brought to my attention the names of sixteen former child jihadies. The children were from my city. They had been, as Akram put it, brainwashed by ISIL. I asked the guys to persuade the children’s parents of the immense need for some sort of psychological intervention. A Rehabilitation Program is what we called it. For everybody, even the kids themselves, it was an English course and I was the tutor. You’d think of the power of persuasion necessary to convinc
e parents of such a need would be enormous. However, it was quite easy. In fact, most parents facilitated the thing and even paid for outdoor trips. Twelve out of the sixteen enrolled in the ‘English lessons.’ Three were not convinced and instead forced their kids into child labour. There was this one parent who cursed the guys for trying to make his child an infidel. The parents sat in that same small room where Marzooq would lose his virginity. I explained to them the steps involved in the treatment, its behavioural and cognitive components. I could sense some cynicism at the beginning, but they were desperate and willing to do whatever it took to rehabilitate the shit out their children. Even when I said that there might be side effects, they gave me their blessing. I told them that their kids might never enter a place of worship again and that they should give them all the freedom needed in order for the program to succeed. I demanded avoiding all topics of Islamic nature; still, they gave me the go-ahead.
**********
Some of the children had been smuggled out of Ar-Raqqa right after graduating from ISIL indoctrination and training camps. Some of them fought for ISIL. Hothefa shared with me the account of a veiled kid who recounted the course of ISIL recruitment, their theological courses, their morning exercises, their army training. He talked in length about the money they paid: Two hundred dollars, he claimed. In comparison, that was the monthly pay of a degree holder. He showed the smartphone given by ISIL. He claimed that they distributed Galaxies and iPhones to all the kids. On his phone the kid played a number of ISIL’s non-melodic songs and audio messages of their caliph or spokesman.
An Ishmael of Syria Page 6