Interesting Title Goes Here : Mohamedou Ould Slahi

In the short narrative, Coming to an Awareness of Language, by Malcolm X, we are told the story of how a young Malcolm X developed from a illiterate street hustler to a self educated man in prison who would later go on to lead the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X recalls his stay in the Norfolk Prison Colony School as never feeling “so truly free in life.” OInTThe reader gets a firsthand account of the story from Malcolm X, which gives the audience a better and more realistic connection to situations in the story.

Farah Ahmedi was eager to escape a war torn country so she could live a better life. “The gate to Pakistan was closed, and I could see that the Pakistani border guards were letting on one through…. I felt desperate to get through...if we got stuck here, what were we going to do? Where would we stay?” (Amedi paragraph 1) She was so worried about the fact that if

Guantanamo Bay in Cuba houses some of the most dangerous people. The people being held have ranged in committing various crimes. What makes Guantanamo Bay well known is how the time period a detainee has spent in prison without a trial. While in prison for an extensive period of time, a detainee is bound to receive discipline for not following the guards. There are often a variety of different methods that the guards use to teach discipline to the detainees. All who follow Guantanamo Bay as institution often criticizes the measures taken. What makes Guantanamo Bay an ironic place to start this journey is because Guantanamo Bay is at the center of attention to a very important, controversial law passed in 2006. The controversial law was

Daru informed the Arab about existed choices and did not try to show him that one of them would be more honorable than the other .However, the teacher wished the man to stay away from French officials. “Daru with heavy heart made out the Arab walking slowly on the road to prison” (Camus 11). Words “with heavy heart” highlighted the man wanted Arab to choose the road to nomads. The sentence could show that Daru was more on Algerian than the French side in the conflict in spite of his pursuance of neutrality. Teacher’s attitude was highlighted by the Arab’s behavior. Daru treated apprehended man as a guest, not a prisoner, but the man could deny his hospitality or even kill the teacher as a roadblock on the way to freedom. However, the Arab did not hurt Daru, accepted his food and beverages. This behavior can be treated as “a sign of political solidarity, the food symbolizing the exchange of life between them” (Bernardo). Arab’s decision to go to the police headquarters in Tinguit, and the fact he did not try to hurt Daru, showed the man was not really a bad person; and the murder he committed could be a result of emotions or misunderstanding. These suggestions make readers to support Daru’s decision to give the Arab an opportunity to choose his fate by himself, and not make a man a subject of “a travesty of a trial” (Bernardo). While the teacher did not want to have an impact on people’s fate, his

Despite the now verified illegal actions of the main character, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, after the book’s publication, Zeitoun still serves its original purpose of illustrating discrimination towards Muslims in order to educate Americans of the prevalence of Islamophobia in a post 9/11 society. Zeitoun, as a Syrian-American, and his wife Kathy, a converted Muslim, have both endured the negative consequences of Islamophobia. However, days after Hurricane Katrina, Zeitoun’s heroic actions such as navigating the flood waters in order to rescue others, were disregarded when he and his friends were arrested on the fictitious charge of looting and the assumption of a connection to radical Islamic groups due to the common stereotype of all Muslims being radicals. This

In the novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini purposely utilizes setting to play a pivotal role in the portrayal of an important focus when narrating a post 9/11 Afghan and American novel. The author’s deliberate incorporation of Afghan and American settings over a 3-decade time frame successfully illustrates the differences and similarities between Eastern culture and Western culture, as well as highlighting the harm each culture cultivates. The emphasis placed upon the discrimination of Hazaras by the Pashtuns not only informs the readers of the socio-economic relations in Afghanistan but also addresses a parallelism of harm towards Afghanis from Americans. Hosseini breaks down post 9/11 stereotypes by showing that a person's socio-economic class or ethnic group does not determine their ability to form friendships, feel guilt and seek redemption. Khaled Hosseini rehumanizes a culture which has been demonized by the generalizations of many individual Americans and many Hollywood films. He does this by developing universal themes which demonstrate that Afghans and Americans

Although Walker and Hersh have similar arguments, when relating to the ethics of military prisons, Walker’s style of writing differs from Hersh’s. In her article, Walker writes in the style of a biography because she portrays the experiences of Hassan. For example, she chronologically included all the events of his days at Guantanamo Bay. From the times he was “interrogated with relation to terrorism” leading up to “Hassan and his lawyers say the U.S government’s claims about his Al-Queda connections are false”, Walker had managed to incorporate all the key moments of Hassan’s sentence (41). Simple phrases such as that help persuade the audience. This is important because this way the audience builds a stronger relationship with Hassan which

Aside from the themes, the history of Afghanistan is depicted in a first person narration to give the readers a sense of empathy. It is understandable why there is controversy behind Khaled Hosseini novel of his accounts on the oppression of the people of Afghanistan because of how blatantly truthful it is,

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, sometimes spelled Salahi, has been held at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2002. Despite the fact that he has never been charged with any crime, the United States has kept him detained here for more than thirteen years. Slahi began writing Guantanamo Diary in 2005. The manuscript, which consisted of 466 handwritten pages, remained classified for six years. When the work was finally declassified, it contained over 2,600 redactions. In the book, Slahi describes his detainment in the United States controlled detention camp to an American audience. Towards the end of the book, Slahi reflects on his captivity, writing “I often compared myself with a slave. Slaves were taken forcibly from Africa, and so was I. Slaves were sold a couple of times on their way to their final destination, and so was I. Slaves suddenly were assigned to somebody they didn’t choose, and so was I” (314). The type of slavery Slahi is referring to here is American chattel slavery, in which individuals are treated as property to be bought and sold. According to Slahi, the reason for his detention is because America “is strong enough to be unjust. And it’s not the first time you have kidnapped Africans and enslaved them” (212). His interrogators response to this claim, the “African tribes sold their people” to the United States, is ironic due to the fact that Slahi was given to the United States by his

In this essay I will be concluding what I have learned through-out the course from the text. I will be discussing how “Islamophobia” played a big part in each lesson, though it wasn’t highly stated in the first few readings, I believe it was a constant theme. Lastly, I will be addressing a “persona” I felt that was throughout the in-class discussions, and readings about “US” (Americans) vs “THEM” (Muslims).

Of those 1,147 Arabs and Arab Americans who have been detained, exactly zero have been charged with any formal offense in connection to the events of September 11. This, however, has not slowed the pace of the detentions. What it has done is give moral, political, and for the time being, legal sanction to stop, search, and detain anyone who appears to be Arab.

The story “Araby” as told by James Joyce is about a young boy that is fascinated with the girl across the street. But deeper down the story is about a very lonely boy lusting for her love and affection. Throughout the story, we see how the frustration of first love, isolation and high expectations breaks the main character emotionally and physically. James Joyce uses the first-person viewpoint to tell this story which helps influence the plot, characterization, themes, and understanding of the main character.

Education has also helped out the people hiding in Darayya, in the form of reading. Soldiers on the front lines for fighting read and trade books from the secret library (Thomson, 5). Not only do the books in the secret library give knowledge to the families and soldiers or open futures for many people, it gives hope. Omar, a man on the front lines in Darayya says, “Books motivate us to keep in going. We read how in the past everyone turns their backs on a particular nation, yet they still made it. So we can be like that too. They help us plan for life once Assad is gone. We can only do that through the books we are reading. We want to be a free nation. And hopefully, by reading, we can achieve this”. (Thomson, 7). From the sound of their goals, they will eventually reach freedom.

Bayoumi affirms that troubles from the uninformed and prejudiced are not the only ones that Arab Americans deal with. In each of the seven stories, Bayoumi and the reader learn of the common internal conflicts met by Arab Americans. In some instances, Arab youth with immigrant parents have difficulty when attempting to Americanize themselves. They strive to look and act the way their peers do, but it often causes a clash between them and their parents’ values. Other instances include Arab Americans who have enlisted in the U.S. military, only to find themselves deployed to fight in their own homelands. As one Arab soldier puts it, “I don’t support the war, but I support the men and women in the

The way of life in Afghanistan is very different from life in America. The conflicts, transformations, and aspects of human condition from the excerpts of The Kite Runner as well as the articles and poems discussed in class provide a deeper understanding of what life is really like in the Middle East.