Of terror and courage: Brave Faye in Guantanamo

Perhaps us Arabs are unaware of the cultural differences in terms of terror. Perhaps courage as well is culture specific. Dignity, however, is certainly so.

One should pause in order to look closely to the British Marines episode. A story that quickly became an epic of [failed] heroism and honor amid a virtual war between the “West” and Iran.

The captured/liberated soldiers have been given the right to sell their story (as opposed perhaps to selling the story of the event itself). Faye Turney already did. She is now “Brave Faye Turney” in the pages of the Sun. Brave Faye’s story is surprisingly titled “My Terror”, as if this recurrent word – terror – and its derivatives – terrorism, terrorist – can be put aside when no human pieces are spread on a sidewalk in some city.

What terror did Brave Faye face during her 15 days of heroism? What extreme terror has she witnessed to be gratified with a headline on every internet news site? Certainly, one should presume, and perhaps even assume, that her terrifying experience has no equal neither in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Algeria, Egypt, Guantanamo, Abou Ghraib, nor in any of the morbid names media has rendered so infamous.

Brave Faye, a soldier but more importantly (or so it seems) a woman and better yet a mother (“with a career”), was brave enough to be captured by an Iranian patrol somewhere in Iraq or in Iran. Her first act of bravery (and here the notion of bravery has to be perhaps put into its cultural context, and subjected to debates in linguistic and perhaps in philology to define the concept behind the word) was to have been able to distinguish amid the tension of the moment when the Iranian boat was approaching hers, one of the Iranian soldiers “foaming at the mouth” for “he was so angry”. Brave Faye has many super-powers, and telescopic sight is not the best of them.

The Brave soldiers courageously complied with their capturers, without doing anything cowardly like resisting arrest. One should keep in mind that these are soldiers not civilians, not young innocent people in their hometown going to party in the local nightclub – these are men and women whose jobs consist partly of killing other soldiers. In Iraq the job is mostly killing civilians, or to be more politically [in]-correct, insurgents. These insurgents vary in age and gender from unborn children to 90 years old elderly. Soldiers, as nice as they can get, carry deadly firearms, not only as a souvenir from army training camps but as weapons to kill. An innocent civilian, in contrast, carries no firearm and has no uniform and has a job that certainly does not include killing other people in its description. This is a structural difference that Faye is perhaps unaware of, as are most readers of the Sun.

Brave Faye was subjected to the terror of her mind (inflicted subliminally by the wicked Iranians) when she convinced herself that the fact of being a woman amid barbaric men means she will be raped. So she was brave enough to hide her gender. These beasts-of-men are certainly – at least Brave Faye believed so – rapists in uniform (the 1^st brigade of Iranian rapists was perhaps written in English somewhere very far, that only Brave Faye could see). This episode of terror Brave Faye was subjected to should alone provide her with a medal of honor, for prejudice, racism and stupid reflections during non-combat situations. She was not raped. However as she recalls, the Iranian soldiers, when they discovered she was a woman were so shocked for seeing such a strange creature that the only thing they could do was point at her and say in a repetitive manner “woman, woman…”. Of course neither the Sun nor Brave Faye explained whether they were speaking in English (so that Brave Faye can understand), or in Farsi (and with Brave Faye’s knowledge of Farsi we were able to know what their words meant).

The first episode of Brave Faye’s epic of courage ends with a highly cinematic moment (the folks in Hollywood will be happy to know that much of the screenplay has been courageously done by Faye herself). “Shortly before we got to land, they began to blindfold us. One of the last things I remember seeing before my eyes were covered was our White Ensign flapping in the wind. That reminded me that I must stay strong and remain defiant.”

The story of terror does not end at this point; more horrific episodes are recorded in the dark pages of human history when Faye’s life is concerned. She also recounted that she was forced to take of her uniform – and to get naked. She was also questioned, and the questioners threatened her with a trial (the horrific investigators were not smiling and giving her foot massage as human rights so clearly dictate) for spying. The questioning of Faye was not pleasant enough, perhaps brutal words were used perhaps even a bad English accent was terrifying her (physical torture can be visible through medical tests – in case of any evidence I strongly doubt that the British authorities would have concealed it from the public).

The Iranian television Al-Alam broadcasted a reply to the soldiers’ allegations, showing them dressed in casual clothes, eating burgers, and playing table tennis, chess, and watching a football game between Liverpool and Arsenal (the game took place on the 31^st of March, 4 days before the release of the soldiers). These “lodging” circumstances can be considered better than those of many millions of “liberated” Iraqis, occupied Palestinians, and not-yet-liberated Iranians.

And then one thinks of the terror. What does it mean? I wonder if prisoners from Guantanamo will have the chance to get a headline like ‘my terror’, and if so will the readership understand that they were the ones subjected to terror and not the opposite (my terror as the terror I inflicted on my torturer – by screaming), or if the prisoners of Abou Ghreib will be able to recount how they thought they will be raped, or how they were, how they were forced to take of their clothes and then subjected to appalling procedures of democracy.

Us Arabs know nothing about terror, we understand it incorrectly, we think terror comes with oppression, war, domination and lately democracy, that terror is an act of visible violence inflicted in the purpose of being visible and frightening. But we fail to understand that terror is an attribute that can only be used to identify an act – apparently any act – done by a dominated in defiance of a dominant (lately it is attributed to those who have beards or are considered – pertinently or not – Muslims).

Brave Faye’s interview with the Sun can be found here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007160262,00.html

A detailed report of the Abou Ghareib prison scandal can be found here:

http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/