The kid told a story of a child recruit who had ratted on his mother. She disobeyed the ISIL ban on smoking. The poor woman was lashed twenty-six times. Another former jihadi account was that those who were too young and from Ar-Raqqa worked as informants on the residents. Kids no more than ten years old making sure that residents were following the ways of ISIL! He claimed to know a child who took revenge on a shopkeeper who had slapped him. Apparently, the fifty-something-year-old didn’t take it well when the kid hit his daughter for not displaying ISIL’s code of repression. Eventually, the man was blindfolded and seated on a white plastic chair before his executioners threw him from a building in Karnak square in Ar-Raqqa. He was stoned to death after his fall.
**********
I sighed with the smoke going out my mouth and nose. Marzooq was one of the children undertaking the rehabilitation program. He was the oldest kid. Through the English Skype sessions, I gave them all the support that I thought they needed; I befriended them on and offline. I contributed some cash to pay for the cost of dancing and drawing lessons, weekly pizza lunches in the city, transportation, movie tickets, et cetera. I did teach some English though. For in these classes, I found ways to cultivate in them a sense of admiration to the American ways, sympathy toward the victims, and most of all identifying with empathetic and intelligent figures. The kids were too mature for cartoons to be an option; besides, they didn’t like them. Movies provided a wealth of characters that could induce changes in the kids. I sent those dubbed movies, or ones with Arabic subtitles, always selecting movies with sympathetic and empathetic individuals. The children’s homework was to tell me about those figures; why they did what they did, their motivations, their impact. I took these people and glorified them, eliciting an admiration towards them.
War movies, like the Lone Survivor, The Pianist, The Hurt Locker, and Beyond Borders came later. The characters under the scope were those who displayed heroic humanitarianism, the musician and victim of Nazi brutality, the marines. Upon my request, before screening any movie, Akram screened movies of all sorts of political and sectarian motivated violence, be it state-sponsored terrorism and Shiite-based terrorist groups or Sunni-based terrorism. No villain was spared, even the Kurd separatists. All the screened videos started with the attack, execution, and humiliation, followed by the aftermath, and ended with the humanitarian scars. The lion’s share was on brutality and its victims; the story of victims and terrorised eyewitnesses. The children had experienced first-hand real fucked-up shit. But there were no psychopaths. Some of them wept. We had prolonged conversations about the victims, their suffering. The brutality of all villains, the tragedies. I made a point to convey the political motivation of parties causing civilians misery, be it with the regime or against it. I made it a point to strip them from any good for the people of Syria. I outlined their agenda and deceptive tactics. I showed the real hypocrisy between what they claimed to be and what they actually did, creating an incongruence of belief in the children. Then, it was war movie time!
Be Smart was the part in which emotional regulation and critical thinking training took place. I hid behind the title to nurture within them all sorts of implicit and explicit emotional regulation. Empathy towards the victims was the aim. Increasing their hatred of the villains was central. Increasing the humiliation and shame of being identified with ISIL was also at the heart of the intervention. Improving their critical thinking and problem-solving abilities was the key to achieving such objectives.
Outdoor activities, dance, and drawing lessons helped introduce the kids to regular children. Sharing things in common and mingling with the Turks elicited a notable desire to adapt and the urge for some sense of belonging. Going out for lunch or that trip to the sea assisted them in relating to regular kids and gave them some perspective of what their lives could be. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without the help of Akram and Hothefa.
Our rehabilitation program seemed to work. Some of the kids went back to school. Some of them stuck to the art classes. I was asked by a fourteen-year-old kid to get him the photos of some Korean, female singers. Korean drama and K-Pop are quite popular among Syrian kids. In the last months of the course, whenever I brought up the subject of ISIL, a strong river of juvenile insults poured out the kids’ mouths. Marzooq or the jihadi name he went by, Abo Hamza Ar-Raqaouy, was the exception. Masood, his father, called me. He applauded our success with the other kids and hoped we could manage to elicit a lasting change in his child. His father reminded me of how his eldest son had escaped to Syria a couple months before he started the course. His friend, a commander in the Free Syrian Army, held him in a town in the vicinity of Aleppo for few days before getting him back to Turkey. Marzooq threatened, “I am going back to fight for the Islamic State, no matter what. You’re all infidels, my mother and sisters. You’ve lost your ways.” His father cried begging for help. I assured him that I’d do my best. He gave me permission to do whatever it would take.
**********
I sent Akram a message to video call me through Skype. Marzooq was not there yet. We smoked and talked about the news making headlines; mostly about the Ferguson shooting. It was a while before Marzooq arrived. I demanded a private conversation with him. Akram left the room singing one of those Raqqan folk songs. Marzooq and I laughed. He seemed calm. “How are you these days?” I asked
“I am fine, what about you teacher?”
“I’ve been better.”
“God bless you teacher.”
“No, there is no god. You can thank me and tell me of your good wishes but please don’t insult me with this god shit.”
“I pray to Allah to put you in the right path. I pray you can see the light.”
“Save me the bullshit…”
“Is there something wrong? Did I do anything wrong?”
“I don’t know, you tell me!” I let it hang for a while.
“I think I should go,” he broke in.
I requested, “Please stay; don’t go. I need to talk to you.”
“What about, teacher Adam?”
“Is there anything bothering you at home?”
“No, things are fine, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Do you need anything, some allowance maybe?”
“I don’t understand…”
“If there is anything I can do, do let me know.”
“Did my father talk to you?”
“Actually, yes; he did talk to me. Your father is concerned. You’re breaking his heart!”
“What did I do?”
“You want to go back to ISIL…”
“The Islamic State, you mean.”
“Islamic State, my ass. Rapist-slave masters-bloodthirsty thieves and idiots.”
“Teacher don’t insult my religion.”
“If your religion is ISIL, I’ll fuck it and after I am done, I’ll shit over it.”
“I am going out…”
“Give me just a second, two more minutes.”
“Okay, but you don’t say shit.”
“Okay. Shit I won’t say. Can I ask you something and please humour me; maybe I will be convinced. Why are you going back? Why ISIL? Why not others?”
“Because Jihad is my duty. It’s called the Islamic State not ISIL. The FSA is a group of liberal infidels! The Islamic State is the only true Islamic caliphate. Defending the state is my duty.”
“Liberal infidels, FSA; I really wish so. So your father said that in few days you are going back to Ar-Raqqa. Are you?”
“Yes. The Islamic State not Ar-Raqqa. There is no force under the sky that can prevent me from doing so.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“If it’s the last thing I do; nothing but death can prevent me.”
“There is a video on the desktop. Please open it.”
He clicked on the video and I could hear its sound. He closed it immediately. I remember telling the guys to say that it would take them no less than an hour before they got b
ack before leaving Marzooq with the redhead. The kid’s expression showed humiliation and anger.
He sat speechless for a while. I expected him to shout, what are you going to do? The camera went off. I thought he had ended the call. I tried to call again but I couldn’t get through. I tried to reach Akram and got a little worried after the sixth time he hadn’t picked up. When he finally answered, everybody was swearing. Hothefa’s voice sounded as though he was struggling to control the kid. Akram and Hothefa recounted the way Marzooq had reacted. He’d been about to smash the computer before Hothefa punched him, launching the kid onto the bed. Akram dragged Marzooq to his parents’ house. The guys told me that Marzooq’s father locked him up in a room for a few days. My guess was that the father had been too scared of his son making a run for it.
When I saw Marzooq the next time around, his face was a mess. Akram had slapped him and threatened to call the Turkish police, should he leave the room. But it would take more than a slap to put a black eye on his face; Akram claimed that it was the kid’s father.
From the moment Marzooq caught a glimpse of me, he used every demeaning expression in his arsenal. Swearing at me, he called me a bastard, twink, and kept going on and on. I actually giggled when he described me as sucker of crusaders’ cocks. Hothefa was double the volume of the kid. I heard him shouting before he made his way past Akram to kick the kid on the hip. Hothefa gripped the kid’s face and forced him to sit.
The first words I heard were, “Fuck you, I don’t give a fuck.”
“I see! You don’t give a fuck but if you dare to leave Turkey, I’ll send the video to all activists’ Facebook pages. I’ll upload it on ISIL’s supporter pages. You don’t need to be smart to know what ISIL will do to you. They will stone you to death; lash you if you’re lucky. I cannot stand by idly while watching you fuck your life, let alone branding your parents and sibling as a terrorist’s family.”
“Dare you bring up the subject again, I’ll put the video on the internet. Stop taking the lessons, I’ll put it on the internet. Meddle with your sisters’ way of dressing, I’ll put it on the internet. Raise your voice, talking to your father, I’ll put it on the internet.”
Marzooq left without saying a word. Nine days later, the kid and his father were waiting for me. I was a bit late. After greeting the father and the guys, I requested to have a one-to-one conversation with the kid.
“Please let’s talk…”
I could sense his fear before softly he asked, “What do you want?”
“Should I repeat what I told you last time?”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that is it. We all want what’s good for you, I hope you understand that.”
“I won’t go back. I don’t want to talk about that again. I will start working tomorrow. I won’t bother anyone.”
“No, you’ll go to school. That’s what your father wants.”
“I will.”
“You can go now, but don’t forget that we all want what’s best for you.”
“Thank you, teacher Adam.” Shackled by his shame, Marzooq wanted to get it over with. At that moment, I realised that the kid would go to extreme lengths to put the whole thing in the past.
**********
Instructions were given to the parents to ensure a lasting effect on the kids. Our rehabilitation program took almost a year; three times a week. Except for Marzooq, for whom the course stretched for more than two years. After my last conversation with the kid, Akram noted, “When your science failed, it was the whore who saved the day. Is that what you call political marketing?” I laughed and argued, “I wouldn't use the word ‘whore’.”
Chapter 6
God’s Narration
Before Jennifer was in the picture, there was Anna. She abused the filthy habit more than I; she was the only person I knew who smoked more than me. She was a great cook though. Out of almost nothing, she’d prepare wonders. We had nothing in common whatsoever, except for one person. Carl was an old friend of hers. A self-righteous punk singer, whose shortcomings brought Anna and me closer to each other. She had a fucked-up past. At only thirteen years of age, her mother passed. The big fucking C had murdered a few people I admired; my grandfather, my friend’s father, the nicest, and the most cultured neighbour of mine back home. Her mother survived its agonising pain for years before the merciless fucking disease put her to sleep. Little Anna then had to endure her drunken father’s abuse while raising her younger sister.
She spent a year in Australia before she made it to the Island. You could tell that the woman was broken, at many levels. Even by Middle Eastern standards, the tales of her ex-Australian douche of a boyfriend made the vast number of misogynistic men I have come across look more like progressive feminists. Before our affair started, she and Carl would come to my place at the weekends. Anna would cook a meal for Carl and me, while I cooked for her. No honey, milk, or eggs, let alone meat; it didn’t leave me too many recipes to choose from. On occasion she’d teach me how to make Italian.
We didn’t go out on a single date. The first time Carl ditched us for some dinner, we ended up in my bedroom. I had something of an obsession with that flat stomach of hers. Man, that sex was so aggressive, even by my standards. Not that I was complaining! She was kinkier than me, far beyond your most kinky fetishes. I loved it! Before her, I thought the human body was only capable of so many things. There was no arrogance, no guilt or full submission; it was a fight of some sort. Bruised, breathless, showered in sweat in that arctic room of mine was the aftermath of two savages’ affair.
I still remember when I laid out my lifelong philosophy. I guess my anxiety at the time had to do with me waiting on the results of the university’s fellowship programme. She comforted, “Adam, be positive, I hope you’re lucky enough to get it.” I challenged, “Anna, good luck is only an illusion. I work three times as hard, yet there is a chance that things might go south. In fact, things have the habit of going that direction. For in bad luck, I am a believer.”
She responded, “You’re probably right. I should rephrase. Adam, you might not get it, but you need to be resolved to cope with that. What I’m saying is that luck isn’t about getting what you want. It is about surviving a bad situation and making the best out of it.” I was not sure whether she had read, heard, or come up with that by herself. But I have to admit, it sounded compelling to me. I realised, there might not be things like good or bad luck. I might’ve been lucky all along, figuring things out in the worst of situations and passing through different stages of grief in a short span of time.
Anna was a lot of things, though I doubt she ever understood the impact she had on me. She was not intelligent in the scientific sense. But her life experiences compensated for all of that. She had reinforced in me a desire not to relapse when overwhelmed by the aftermath of severe misfortunes. Acceptance and looking forward, no matter how shitty the impact of falling short in the face of hardship, were the keys to her happiness.
For long I’d wrestled with that notion. Though, I have to say that living by her code somehow made me less miserable. In her words, “I live day by day. Things could go extremely wrong.” At times I’d hit a wall. In the morning, I was a new person with the right to be happy, like a newborn. Happiness is a state of mind and I’d choose to be positively moved by the little things. Happiness could be a smile from a stranger, a funny joke, a nice meal. Happiness for me was the absence of misery. Ever more, I actually tried to live by her philosophy. However, half a day in I’d relapse. After too many trials, I reckoned, I lacked the tenacity needed for finding that elusive emotion. Ever since I’d known her, she’d been a puzzle, an oxymoron of some sort. As broken as she was, Anna was by far the person most capable of happiness I knew.
Maybe I still endeavoured to change people around me, even after Anna taught me how to fully accept others. Although part of me had always known that she was right. I wasn’t oblivious to how I could sometimes be a tool. After her, I revised my understan
ding of my own sapiosexuality. Science and literature might be at the centre of an individual’s intelligence, yet sometimes all it takes to be intelligent at the logical and inter- and intrapersonal levels is first-hand experience.
I recalled a time when I asked her, however subtle, to behave in way I thought was more mature. Her natural response was to rush out of my place. I knew at the time that I had no right to ask such a change of her. Barefoot, wearing short pants and an old tank top, I followed her to the bus stop. The bus driver took pity on me, allowing me to ride without paying the fare. Obviously, he thought I was a smelly unstable homeless beggar. He forced me to sit away from Anna, scared of what I might do. I am sure I saw her try to hide a smirk. She didn’t have to hide it, I had that one coming.
I knew her station but got down a stop before. I was scared of the bus driver’s reaction. I thought he might chase me away from her or not allow me to get off at that stop. She might’ve thought that I’d given up and decided to retreat. It would’ve taken me hours to walk back to my place. Towards her place I scurried. From afar, I could detect her figure. Furious but concerned she slapped me. “Don’t do that again asshole,” she yelled at me. She took my hand firmly and led me to her apartment. I’d failed to come out with a proper apology and tried to gather my thoughts. Meanwhile, she gave me the silent treatment all the way to her room. In there I shred myself to pieces. It was the only way I knew to pay my sincere apologies. I realised the mistake I had made. It was one thing to compromise; it was another to change your whole character.
Despite the little she had, she always gave to those she thought deserving of help. As a cook she had access to the restaurant’s leftovers. It was a kind of ritual for her to give them to the homeless men in the touristy parts of Georgetown. Thursday was her one day off. On Wednesday nights, she used to buy Tesco’s discounted meat and vegetables. We agreed to cook for the homeless of Georgetown weekly at our expense. On a couple of occasions, we hadn’t had much luck finding those in need in that area. We figured out that the poor had a habit of setting up by places of worship. We would fill the tank of Carl’s girlfriend’s car so he could drive us around town. She was one of a kind. Somehow, she never failed to bring out the best in the people around her. Before our thing became mechanical, it brought me some joy.
An Ishmael of Syria Page 7