Dear Andy,
Thank you for your mail. By all means post whatever bits of the correspondence you find useful. It occurs to me that the other stumbling block besides the necessary paperwork is that the families probably do not have the financial means to leave China. I am sure, however, that if an agency were to take up this project and were also to set up a fund for contributions, that this problem could be solved. I think that there are people all over the world who, like myself, would welcome the chance to do something however small to redress the government atrocities committed in Guantánamo.

I personally think it is worth investing the effort for individual lives as well as for large causes. Guantánamo is not only the story of the prisoners but what this entire system has done to our way of thinking and to our psyches, where dispossession and throwaway lives, not to mention throwaway rights and laws, are becoming ever more acceptable.

What I think is so radical about Mr. Quassim’s letter is how differently he thinks about things. First of all he is very much aware of what his own life is worth. He defines himself as a hero or at least as someone whose continual quest is to be a hero — for his family. His definition of a hero is something remarkable: a hero is someone who sets off on a very dangerous and uncertain journey. He doesn’t have the answers or know how things will come out. He has a picture of a future and he takes this journey to make his picture a reality. And he does this for the people he loves. He doesn’t know if he will ever be able to realize this picture and in fact it looks quite bleak. His Istanbul becomes Guantánamo. His twins become iguanas. But he always knows who he is. He sees himself as similar to President Obama and is even willing to give President Obama a little bit of advice on how to do his job — and it is advice worth listening to: give simple people the things they need in order to increase their humanity so they are not dragged down into the mud. (If Obama were giving shoes to the barefoot instead of billions to the banks I do think his presidency would be on a better footing.) And Mr Quassim is willing to act as an ambassador for his fellow Uighurs.

I think all this says something very powerful, namely that America is losing the war on more than one front. Guantánamo was built to completely destroy people’s psyches and sense of identity. The torture regimes were set up with that objective. And here is someone who always knew who he was — and Guantánamo was unable to destroy that. In this sense I think Mr Quassim is truly a hero: his ability to be who he is, after all that he has suffered, is a sign of real inner strength. Mr Quassim’s facit seems to be that individual life and individual dreams of the future are worth something.

I am very happy that you have made it your task to record all of these lives and stories as they unfold because in that way we have been able to see the individuals for who they are. They have a history, they have a personality, they have different emotional reactions to what has happened to them. They have in a sense been released from being an abstract concept — “the prisoners of Guantánamo” — and they have become real enough that they are no longer simply a putty that can be molded into any identity that is convenient: “enemy combatants”. In fact, your articles have allowed them to be seen as people to care about. It is much harder to care about a nebulous number.

Not everyone managed to pass through Guantánamo with sanity intact. That many of these men managed to hold on to their identity in the face of so much violence, humiliation, and demonization is astounding. Mr. Quassim never saw himself through the eyes of Guantánamo, which is an amazing victory over an annihilating machine. If we manage to help him and his comrades realize their picture of the future in some small way, we will not only be doing something good
for them but something good for us.

best,
Susan

Hi Susan,
Your idea is intriguing — and would possibly work — but I can’t help feeling that it would need to be part of a high-level diplomatic arrangement, and that, sadly, nobody cares enough about these men to do anything about it. May I post this correspondence on my site in addition to your earlier comments? Perhaps somebody else will pick up on your idea …
Best,
Andy
Oh, and thanks for the words of support. Always appreciated.

Dear Andy Worthington,
I am a great admirer of your articles although I find them deeply depressing and they make me feel very helpless. In response to the letter from Mr Quassim, I suggested trying to ask the Chinese government to release the families of those in Albania or at least the family of Mr Quassim. I know this sounds like insanity and a very personal and unpolitical response, one moment of meaningless individual empathy. But my thinking wasn’t just based on naivety and ignorance of the broader issues. I was thinking in the following terms. One can actually do very little to help people who have gotten into the clutches of a superpower’s inexorable machinery. Particularly if one has absolutely no standing in the power structure whatsoever which is my situation.

However, occasionally the most brutal power structures can be surprisingly generous, if at that particular moment it suits their purposes. Sometimes remarkable things can happen if one reaches the right person, if doesn’t cost the power structure anything and if being momentarily generous can be used to advantage, or happens to fit the mood. Sometimes it is simply a fluke. I remember seeing a film called Mother’s Courage about the wife of George Tabor, who escaped a massacre of Hungarian Jews during the World War II by simply asking to leave. The officer in charge let her go and one other that she requested be released — and that was it. It didn’t change anything concerning the outcome of the war, except for her and the one other person who escaped with her. It didn’t actually significantly lessen the war crimes that the officer in charge perpetrated. It was simply an exceptional moment.

The question is, what would it really cost the Chinese authorities if they chose to be momentarily generous — particularly when the powers that be in the US are not choosing to be particularly generous. It wouldn’t change their general stance on human rights or their general treatment of the Uighurs. But sometimes contributing to a heart-warming and politically meaningless headline has its advantages. Perhaps if one put it to them carefully, they could agree they had nothing lose by being generous. It might be worth a try. And if it worked, it might at least mean something for the four men stuck in Albania.
best,
Susan

Thanks Andy! As always, I really appreciate your efforts to educate the public about the Uyghurs’ plight. I know Abu Bekri [Abu Bakker] quite well and his letter is very moving.

Here is the URL to my interview with George Clarke, who represents two Uighurs and two Yemenis:
http://thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001284.html
Three of his four clients have been “cleared for release” and the last was once determined “not an enemy combatant” (or as I like to say, “not FRED”) but got a do-over CSRT… just to make sure. And yet, just because there is no reason to hold them… doesn’t mean we won’t hold them… possibly forever. [I rather like George's "My Cousin Vinnie" analogy re the Executive Order to "Close GTMO"...]

Note: The Talking Dog’s “FRED” joke comes from his response to the announcement, a few weeks ago, that the Obama administration was dropping the term “enemy combatant,” but had not come up with a replacement term. I decided that, instead of being “enemy combatants” in the “War on Terror,” they were “Nobodies Formerly Known As Enemy Combatants” in what the Obama administration was referring to as the “Current, Novel Type of Armed Conflict.” TD called them “Foreign (or better, “Forcibly”) Renditioned Enemy-like Detainees,” or “FRED.”

It’s all here: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/03/16/guantanamo-the-nobodies-formerly-known-as-enemy-combatants/