Authors: Ruth Francisco
#
I loved studying in winter, Peter and I snuggling together in my twin bed, juggling our books, trying to get comfortable, trying to read.
My feet were always cold.
Peter let me warm them between his calves.
Often the tedious transfer of written word to thought gave in to sex, but many of the ideas for our papers came from our long post-coital discussions.
His favorite subject was political science, his favorite topic radical
jihadism
.
“After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Mustafa
Kemal
Ataturk
, a military officer, led the Turkish War of Independence.
He took power in 1923, abolished the caliphate, and established the Republic of Turkey, a secular, democratic government.
The
jihadists
want to reestablish the caliphate, a religious
superstate
, and to resume
fatah
, the conversion of all countries to Islam.
It’s like if the Vatican decided to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire.”
“If the caliphate was abolished in 1923, and jihad can only be declared by a caliph, how can any Muslim rationalize jihad?”
“That’s the thing.
You have all of these fundamentalists groups independently taking over the ‘mission of jihad.’
You’ve got the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—they’re like an underground movement—spreading jihad by exploiting racial and class conflicts in other countries.
They opened chapters within the émigré communities in the West and proselytize in prisons.
They work on people with nothing to lose.
They are the masterminds of terrorism.
Then you’ve got Sunni radical groups like
Fatah
al-
Intifada
in northern Lebanon around the Palestinian refugee camps.
And you’ve got the Shiite
jihadists
in Iran, who started terrorist networks in the Middle East like
Hezbolla
in Lebanon, and
Hamas
in Palestine.
There are dozens of other groups, all of them making up their own rules about jihad.
But they all want the same thing—to rebuild the caliphate, rebuild its armies, establish a Muslim superpower in the Middle East, and resume the
fatah
.”
“Why don’t they get together if they all have the same goal?”
“They have!”
Peter jerked up on his elbow sending books and papers skidding onto the floor.
“That’s what nobody realizes.
Back in 1992 there was this super-conference in Khartoum, Sudan.
All of the radical Islamic groups were there: the NIF of Sudan, the FIS of Algeria,
Gamaat
Islamiya
of Egypt, the Jordanian Islamists,
Hamas
and Islamic Jihad of Palestine, Lebanon’s
Salafists
, the South Asian
jihadists
, and the Taliban.
A lot of these guys hate each other, but they got together to lay out an international strategy to defeat America and the West.”
“A worldwide conspiracy,” I blurted unwisely.
In truth I found political discussions boring, and preferred to gossip about teachers and students, or talk about my film class—anything but terrorism.
“Fuck your sarcasm.
It’s true!
The whole world has blinders on!
It’s too scary for them!”
Peter’s eyes
burned,
his chest and arms rigid with fury.
Sometimes he got aroused during our arguments, but I saw this was different.
“Why are you mad at me?” I asked feebly.
Clambering over my books, he got out of bed, dressed, and left.
Out the window I watched him stomp back to his dorm through the snow.
A half year later, as I imagined him on his cot in
Guantánamo
, I understood why he was so angry.
He wanted me to get it without having to explain, to feel his fear and powerlessness and frustration without trivializing it with simple answers.
It infuriated him I didn’t know.
It infuriated him I didn’t really care.
The FBI was crazy.
There was no way Peter was a
jihadist
.
#
On June 21, 2012 the International Olympic Committee convened in Rome.
After much heated speculation in the press, the committee decided the
Summer
2012 Olympics scheduled for July 27-August 12 in London should be cancelled.
England could not guarantee the safety of the athletes or the crowds.
Belgium was on the brink of civil war, and France, Germany, and the Northern European countries were still battling Muslim insurgencies.
Several Islamic countries had already withdrawn their athletes.
Random acts of terror struck every country in Europe every day.
Since its modern incarnation in 1896, the Summer Olympics had been cancelled only three times—in 1916 because of World War I, and in 1940 and 1944 because of World War II.
That alone should have told us something.
#
Regardless of the civil wars breaking out across Europe, it was still an election year in America.
President Elliot
Gladwell
was scheduled to deliver a campaign speech at University Synagogue on Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood.
Mother wanted to go and I agreed to go with her.
Apparently
Gladwell
was going to confront his staunchest critics.
Before a Jewish audience, he couldn’t refuse to send troops to protect Israel.
But if he did that, he would be reversing his previous campaign pledge to withdraw “every single U.S. soldier from the Middle
East
,” a dangerous move in an election year.
In the previous campaign, Elliot
Gladwell
had vigorously courted the Muslim vote.
Apart from his Cultural Accommodation policy,
Gladwell
campaigned for Muslim members of Congress, for Illinois Democratic Governor Joe
Farhan
, and for our own mayor in Los Angeles, Malcolm Jefferson,
an
African-American Muslim.
Gladwell
supported the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee which lobbied congress for pro-Muslim legislation.
According to the latest polls,
Gladwell
had ninety-five percent of the Muslim vote.
If he sent troops to Europe or the Middle East, he would lose their support; if he didn’t he would lose the Jewish vote.
Both were Democratic constituencies.
I don’t think I had ever seen so many people packed in a room and be so quiet.
It took fifteen minutes to get through security.
The room was hot, the mood pensive.
Instead of milling around, everyone took their seats and immediately began to fan their faces with political fliers.
After an enthusiastic introduction by LA Mayor Malcolm Jefferson, President
Gladwell
lumbered onto stage, the vigorous bounce of his previous campaign replaced with a stiff preoccupied gait.
The audience clapped politely—no catcalls, no whistles.
We waited anxiously.
Following his introductory remarks, thanking the synagogue, and assuring the audience the United States would never abandon its commitment to Israel,
Gladwell
began to intone a speech that thrilled us, his voice raspy with fatigue, his body tense, gripping the edges of the podium as if in pain.
“No one wants to go to war, particularly without a clear enemy or decisive army to fight.
Our war is not against Islam, but a war against a handful of fundamental extremists who would turn civilization back to the
Middle
Ages.
“I was elected president because the American people clearly saw that the war in Iraq was a failure.
We spent more than a trillion dollars which should have been spent fighting terrorism and boosting the American economy.
I promised to withdraw from Iraq.
And we did.
“By withdrawing troops from Iraq, we deflated
jihadist
rhetoric, and used our resources to help our allies in Europe combat terrorism as well as here at home.
We mended fences with
Iran,
and, through diplomacy between the
Shia
, Sunni, and Kurds, quelled a civil war in Iraq and oversaw the partition of the country into a tri-part federation.
We worked with Saudi Arabia to quell Sunni and Shiite rivalries in Lebanon, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries.
We have had three years of peace.
At the same time, with my comprehensive Energy Bill, we have made enormous strides in decreasing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
“But the beast of jihad is a multi-headed beast which has awakened again and threatens Europe.
We now must embark on a new crusade, not a Christian crusade, not an American crusade, but a crusade for humanity.
We cannot sit back and watch Europe be incinerated by Islamic extremism.
We must not wait, as we did in World War II, for war to reach our shores.
How many died unnecessarily because of our inaction?
In truth, we have already had our Pearl Harbor, when two jets struck our World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.
Now is the time for action.
“Tomorrow I will ask Congress to formulate a plan.
I will not lead this country into war lightly, but the time has come to take a stand for civilization.
“I quote from the great English statesman Sir Winston Churchill speaking before the House of Commons on May 13, 1940.
‘We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.
We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
You ask, what is our aim?
I can answer in one word: Victory.
Victory at all costs—victory in spite of all terror—victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.’”
The audience was moved by the words of the great cigar-chomping statesman.
We saw him before our eyes and heard the intonation of his voice.
Yet as I wiped tears from my eyes, I wondered about what Elliot
Gladwell
had not said.
He did not say he was going to ask the joint houses to declare war, but “to formulate a plan.”
He did not say he was going to send aid to Europe.
He had, in fact, not said much at all.
#
Every day when my father came home from work, he looked at me and shook his head.
No news from Baron Fairchild.
Peter’s lawyers were filing motions in the courts; hearings were set and then postponed.
Fairchild visited Peter and reported he was healthy, but solemn.
I could hardly bear the guilt.
Why couldn’t I think of some way to help?
The stifling passivity was making me nuts.
I was on pins and needles all the time.
But what could I do?
I couldn’t even write to him.
Apparently my letters sent to
Guantánamo
were withheld from him, undelivered.
If I didn’t do something soon, I was going to pop.
I made a habit of walking down to Montana Avenue every day to pick up the
New York Times
and the
International Herald Tribune
.
Every day more bombings, another city overtaken by Islamists—things were happening so quickly the print media was only good for analysis and perspective.
I spent hours at the computer, and watched BBC for the latest news.
I was becoming obsessed.
Somehow I felt by keeping up with what was happening in Europe I was helping Peter.
It was the only thing I could think to do.
It was my vigil.
In the Netherlands, now called the Islamic Republic of Holland, a purging began that rivaled the Spanish Inquisition.
All “coffee houses” and houses of prostitution were closed.
Their employees had to accept conversion or jail.
Alcohol and drugs were banned.
Libraries were emptied of many of their books, which were burned in great bonfires on barges in the canals.
Television stations were shut down and then reprogrammed with feed from Al
Jazeera
television.
Radio stations no longer broadcasted music, but readings from the
Quran
.
Homosexuality was outlawed.
Women were required to wear headscarves and modest clothing in public—no pants.
The Emir of the Islamic Republic of Holland,
Fawaz
Jneid
, was allowing
Ahl
al
kitab
or “people of the Book,” meaning Christians and Jews, to stay in Holland, but forbade them from government office and from serving in the armed forces.
Non Muslims had to abide by Islamic law, and pay a penalty tax, the
jizya
.