Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East (20 page)

When the interview finished, the general asked his young fighters to escort me out of the compound. Away from the general and free to expand on the largely empty rhetoric they had felt compelled to give in his presence, they revealed that most of them do not feel any direct political connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict. They become active in it because that is what they are supposed to do; it is what they are indoctrinated to believe. Ultimately, however, their grievances revolve around topics far simpler than the Arab-Israeli conflict. They are unhappy with their lives, and they blame their economic and social hardship on Israel and America because the Palestinian leadership tells them that these are the sources of their grievances.

Immediately after the meeting, the young militants insisted on showing me a weapons arsenal. Weapons caches were not at the top of my sightseeing list, but I figured it was better that they show me the weapons than use them on me. They walked me into a cement room; when I walked in, what I saw resembled the background of the Iraqi hostage videos the world has become so uncomfortably accustomed to seeing on the news. The walls were a faint white, and the paint was peeling off. There was an old and filthy bed with a torn mattress that did not have sheets. Four large guns hung from the wall above the bed. Each of them was distinct from the others; one had a scope, others had large barrels. In one corner of the room, there was an old wooden cabinet. One of the youth reached into the cabinet and pulled out a vest and insisted that I wear it. Again, I rationalized that if I had to choose between terrorists using weapons on me and terrorists dressing me in weapons, I would certainly pick the latter. The next thing I knew, they had filled each of the pockets of the vest with handguns, axes, and grenades. They then removed several of the guns from the wall, placing one over my shoulder and having me hold the other two in my hands. As I became a human trophy case for their weaponry, I could not help but wonder how this would appear to someone back in the United States. Of course, this fear was slightly trumped by the fact that all of these weapons were loaded and there was a live grenade in my pocket. It was an odd moment. I was frightened, but realized that in a way, these were not so much gun-toting masked militants. Instead, they were broken souls with lethal toys that they had been forced to play with since a very young age.

It was as if me dressing in their weapons led them to believe that I had entered their world. I seized the moment and asked them bluntly why they had joined the movement.

Of the three boys I was with, the one standing closest to me answered. He had wavy hair and stubble on his face. His eyebrows were unusually large and he wore a light blue shirt. There was actually nothing about him that made him look like either a militant or a terrorist. His answer to my question did not reflect the call to nationalism that the general had explained or that they had described in his presence. Instead, he exclaimed, “What choice do we have? They try to create special programs for us to experience life outside of the camps, but we still face so many problems. We have no entertainment. We can study and some of us even study outside of the camp, but for what? We can’t work, we can’t find jobs; we get nothing for our hard work. We feel depressed because we cannot have the opportunity for success even if we try.” This was very different from the bumper-sticker banter that they had spouted off around the general.

Another one of the boys spoke and looked at me with a sullen face and said, “Don’t you think that we, too, would like to drive the nice cars in Beirut and be able to go out at night? But we can’t because our lives are these camps. Inside here we are somebody, but out there we are refugees. We don’t have rights.”

The conditions in the camps are difficult and the lifestyle is humiliating. In seeking remedies for this humiliation they look to their elders, who tell them that the bad economy, the lack of opportunity, the inability to be part of the outside world, their lack of dignity, and the political oppression are all a direct result of aggressive Israeli and American policies. As the adult generations fight for a return to their homeland, it seems that many of the youth are fighting simply for a better life. And they look to the West as a model for that better life.

Even as we stood in a room filled with guns, knives, grenades, and other implements for killing, none of the boys expressed a love for violence. They instead revealed how difficult it is to grow up in an environment that precipitates humiliation and a loss of dignity. Despite their gaudy displays of weaponry and the ominous threat of physical violence that bubbled just beneath the surface, I could see that these youth were weak, and broken inside. They were not brave soldiers but fragile young souls with lethal toys. Lebanon is one of the most westernized countries in the Middle East, yet Palestinians feel like second-class citizens and are made to feel as if they are a burden on the society. The same boy who spoke of wanting to enjoy the nightlife of Beirut confessed, “We want to contribute to society, but we cannot do anything from the camp. At least if we fight, we feel as though we belong to something that is trying to bring about change.”

I wondered if they were aware of how people in the West view them and as I had done with the Hezbollah youth, I asked, “How do you feel when people describe you as terrorists?” They did not seem upset by the question and actually seemed to think that it was fair to ask.

There was one boy who had not spoken until this moment. He had short black hair and broad shoulders. He had the face of a child, but like the other boys, the stubble on his face showed that he was much older. He explained, “We get used to the West, they cover one eye and see by the other. What they see is the violence, but they do not see the context. They don’t see that we want to study and get jobs. They don’t see that we use computers, and we enjoy movies. I don’t think I have ever seen on CNN or BBC images of Palestinians playing the same sports as young people in the United States. Do you agree?”

He was right. The images we see on television frequently depict the small percentage of Palestinians who take up arms and fight. However, the struggle of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have peacefully tried to adapt to dire conditions inside the camp are rarely seen and their voices almost never heard. The media embraces the image of a Hamas soldier wrapped in a head scarf, brandishing an AK-47. The audience craves reinforcement of its image that Palestinian youth hold rocket propelled grenades instead of books. These images do exist and they are real, but they are the extreme minority. I nodded and said, “I think there is some truth to that.” Upon returning to the United States three months later, I wasn’t surprised to see numerous titles on the shelves of bookstores addressing this very issue of the media’s misleading portrayal of the Islamic world.

“There is
a lot
of truth to that. You know we watch satellite television; we get that here in the camp. We fight because we have to, but people don’t understand that. I think the United States government does not want to show these images of Muslims. They only want people to see images of fighting. If they want to call us terrorists, it does not matter to us anymore; we are used to it. If terrorism is going to school, playing football, and wanting to bring about change, then fine, we are terrorists. But I don’t think that this is what they see when they call us terrorists.”

With so few opportunities, Palestinian youth have all the free time in the world. However, times have changed significantly since their parents experienced the same dilemma of an overabundance of time. While the allure of the mosque and the extremist Islamist madrassahs remains, Palestinian kids today are also tempted by new alternatives. The Internet cafés, satellite televisions, and mobile phones have become their information mosques. While terrorists use these information highways to spread their messages, the inclination to use technology primarily for social and recreational purposes actually marginalizes the hostile messages. The youth have autonomy in what they choose to look at over these communications networks, and with every day of use comes increased exposure to new perspectives and ideas. The Google Age has allowed them to run wild with their curiosities as they delve into the realms of modern digital, audio, and visual communications networks.

The same day I met General Maqdah, I was also received by Fathi Abou El Ardaat, the leader of the Ain al-Hilwah youth union. He was not dressed formally, but instead wore black pants with a white-and-black button-down shirt that was ornate with a checkered pattern. His gray beard was thinly trimmed and his forehead was unusually high. In the corner of his office, he had erected the Palestinian flag. In the top corner of his office, I noticed photos of PLO president Mahmoud Abbas and the late Yasir Arafat that hung in adjacent positions. This was a different kind of meeting from the one I’d had with the general. There was no concealing the location, frisking, or Rambo-like display of terrorist weaponry.

Fathi was a particularly impassioned speaker who didn’t waste any time. After introductions and his detailed summary of the Palestinian Youth Union’s mission, he jumped to the topic of Palestinian suffering. In an almost scientific manner he informed me that there are four stages of suffering for the Palestinian student. I assumed he would focus on suffering at the hands of America and Israel.

Accompanying his words with careful gesticulations reminiscent of an orchestra conductor, he explained that the first problem is that the Palestinian has a difficult time continuing his studies and he is jammed in a class with too many students and no supplies. Making matters worse, he explained, it is difficult for most Palestinian students to pay school fees and receive the necessary attention in the classroom.

Fathi described the second stage of Palestinian suffering as the period after completing high school or university. He explained that there are no jobs for the educated, and without the job prospects a young man cannot begin to imagine finding a wife and building a family. He reminded me that the Lebanese government has regulations that deprive Palestinians the opportunity of working as doctors or engineers. He explained that while this is beginning to change, the Palestinian workers still do not get the benefits of health insurance, pension, and vacations. They are not protected.

As Fathi continued his explanation, he seemed to have forgotten about the other two stages of Palestinian suffering that he had mentioned to me. He had initially focused on what he perceived to be the priorities. Once I reminded him, he then went into the usual and expected tirade about the United States and Israel.

I found it very interesting that this is not what he had emphasized in our conversation. In fact, I’d had to remind him to mention the United States and Israel. The fact is, Palestinian youth are two generations removed from the days when they lived in their homeland. Most Palestinian young people do not expect to return home; instead, they are more pragmatic, interested in improving their everyday lives. They blame America and Israel by default, but they do it largely to maintain their sense of identity.

Fathi seemed to represent an example of someone in the older generation who had actually been impacted by the youth. Every day he surrounded himself with hundreds of young Palestinians and undoubtedly the transformation in that generation’s mind-set had affected him. Perhaps he had a different perspective on violence than the general.

J
ust as I was on my way out
of the camp, my slow stride was disrupted by a fight that broke out just in front of me. While I didn’t know why the two boys were fighting, I saw that one was armed with an AK-47, while the other had only clenched fists. Recognizing the potential for escalation, some of their peers quickly stepped in to break up the fight. The dire conditions lend themselves to heightened tensions, and because so many youth belong to rival groups, it is not surprising that schoolyard quarrels often end with gunshots.

I continued strolling down the narrow alleyways that I had been chased through when I initially entered the camp. As I weaved through these alleys, I encountered a seemingly endless number of children who had gathered in large numbers to see me out. One of the girls proudly displayed a vine of grapes that she had acquired and asked me if I wanted one. One of the young boys gave me a high-five as he leaned against the cement wall. As I looked at their faces, I couldn’t help but wonder: Will the cycle of humiliation never end? Will these children become yet another generation of Palestinian youth who find in a rocket-propelled grenade the antidote for their fractured souls?

SYRIA, 2005

N
either Iran nor Lebanon was without its challenges for me. Still, in both places I witnessed vibrant youth cultures that gave me hope. In Iran, where the government tries vehemently to suppress its population, young people find ways to express themselves and enjoy their adolescence. In Lebanon, the opportunities were minimal, but young people there brought about the first self-made transition to democracy in the Middle East. Even in Palestinian refugee camps, I found militants who showed me that despite indoctrination and military training, they were simply interested in making a place for themselves in society that gave them greater meaning than being unemployed in the slums of the refugee camps.

But Syria seemed different. Syria has long been one of the most nationalistic societies in the Middle East; indeed it is the birthplace of Arab nationalism. Only in Iran and Egypt is this nationalistic quality so deeply and historically entrenched. The concept of Greater Syria was one of the earliest expressions of this type of nationalism, which took off after the First World War. The concept called for Syria to exercise sovereignty over present-day Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and even parts of Turkey. Driven in large part by this nationalist spirit, Syria competed with its ally and rival Egypt throughout the early part of the cold war for influence and leadership in the region. During this period, the Syrian people reveled in this nationalist spirit and were not the closed society that they are today.

In March of 1963, the shift toward totalitarian autocracy began. Just one month after a Ba’ath revolution in Iraq, revolutionaries in Syria proclaimed a new government under its Ba’ath ideology. The Ba’ath Party had been founded eighteen years earlier by Michel Aflaq and Zaki al-Arsuzi. Aflaq was a Christian from Damascus who had built a simple life for himself as a schoolteacher, and al-Arsuzi was a Sunni with the same background. Both had been radicalized by Arab nationalist sentiments during the Second World War and each had formed his own group. It was the merging of these two groups that led to the official establishment of the Ba’ath Party. The movement was largely secular and was intended to be a revival of Arab nationalism with a strong emphasis on socialist ideologies.

In this sense, Ba’athism was a deviation from and even a contradiction of the Islamist leanings of more extremist movements, most notably those of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and the Shi’a Islamist movements in southern Iraq. The Ba’ath movement centered itself around the concepts of pan-Arabism, and socialism, but also emphasized expulsion of foreigners from the Arab world.

When Syria unexpectedly suffered a crushing defeat in the Six Day War in 1967, the true reach of the autocratic leadership was put to the test. In November 1970, with the government weakened and the leadership vulnerable, Minister of Defense Hafez al-Assad undertook a bloodless coup in Syria that became known as the Corrective Revolution. After Hafez al-Assad seized power, it was not long before the system in Syria degenerated into a police state and eventually a totalitarian dictatorship.

H
afez al-Assad reigned
from 1970 until his death in 2000. His rule was brutal and his totalitarian grip was firm. A simple man from an impoverished background, Hafez al-Assad rose to power through military opportunism. While president of Syria, he transformed the country into a cult of personality centered around himself. Opposition was forbidden, dissent was outlawed, and insubordination was punishable by death. There was no freedom of speech, assembly, or opportunity. While failing to achieve a degree of autocracy that was on quite the same level as in neighboring Iraq, Hafez al-Assad’s regime ran a close second to Saddam Hussein’s. Al-Assad viewed himself as the sole ruler and symbol not only of Syrian power, but also of the Arab world. He assumed the leadership role in the Arab world against Israel and exploited the Arab-Israeli conflict to project his commitment to Arab nationalism.

Domestically, Hafez al-Assad used fear tactics to keep his country united and the vision of Greater Syria alive. As a member of the Allawite sect of Islam, he ruled from a demographic that constitutes no more than 13 percent of the Syrian population. The Allawites are most similar to the Shi’ite sect of Islam, with whom they broke official ties in the ninth century. Forming a separate sect of Islam and basing themselves in Allepo, Allawites emerged as a parallel but not rival sect to the Shi’a. Al-Assad was constantly preoccupied with opposition from the Sunni, who comprise 74 percent of Syria’s population. As a result, he tightened his grip on control, doing everything in his power to suppress the population, silence potential voices, and socialize the next generation of Sunni youth into a culture of fear.

As part of this culture of fear, Syrian youth have been taught to believe that democracy is dangerous and precipitates conflict. During the Lebanese civil war, the regime linked the violence in Lebanon with the concept of democracy. It is this linkage that has created yet another difference in the thinking between Syrian and Lebanese youth. While the Lebanese youth associated democracy with American and Israeli foreign policy, young Syrians associated it with Lebanon and violence.

Whether they were part of the minority or part of the Sunni majority, Syrian parents instilled in their children the notion that if they looked throughout the Middle East, they would see that Syria was an anomaly. In the 1980s, Lebanon and Israel were at war, Iran and Iraq were at war, and the Syrian regime exploited these neighboring conflicts to remind the people that it held the key to their security. To some extent the parents became the agents of the regime, training their children to believe that it was best to keep their distance from politics.

In the early 1990s, the ailing Hafez al-Assad, who had a history of heart problems, announced his son Basil al-Assad to be his rightful successor. Preparation had been undertaken for Basil’s ascension to power and the country had been decorated in posters proclaiming his capacity to rule. The planned succession was interrupted, however, when Basil al-Assad died unexpectedly in a car accident. Challenged with grieving over his son and maintaining an al-Assad dynasty, Hafez turned to his youngest son, Bashar, who at the time was working as an ophthalmologist in London.

The weakest member of the family and the least experienced in politics, Bashar al-Assad was groomed for the presidency beginning in 1994. After being rapidly promoted through the military hierarchy, Bashar ascended to the presidency upon his father’s death in 2000. Bashar attempted to adopt the style of his father, but had neither the capacity nor the experience to replicate his firm grip on society. Instead, Bashar’s hastened rise to power and inherent weakness offered a glimmer of hope in Syria. It created an opening for youth empowerment in Syria that saw a new era of expression and social indulgence that simply had not existed under Bashar’s father.

While proceeding slowly, the youth in Syria are experiencing an awakening. For most of their lives they have lived in fear and have been socialized to go through the motions of life without ever questioning the status quo. They still live in some fear, but things are changing. Amid a highly nonsecular society that seems unfamiliar with democracy, the youth of Syria are beginning to embrace the progressive characteristics that are innate to youth around the world. While they are straggling behind youth in Lebanon and Iran, they are moving in the same direction. Under Bashar al-Assad, they have movement and avenues for expression that they didn’t have even five years ago.

B
ut still Syria was different
. My introduction to the Syrian world largely came from two girls, and as we walked in the streets in the western city of Homs the stares came from all directions.

My ability to be subtle and keep a lower profile was not in my hands. I was with two Syrian cousins that I had befriended at a beach party several weeks earlier in Jiye, a small city just south of Beirut. I knew the girls were relatively liberal because I had met them at one of the wildest and craziest parties I went to in Lebanon; in fact, it was the same beach party that I had attended my second night in Lebanon. The girls had been hanging out by the bar, relying on nearby men to buy them drinks.

I was uncomfortable with the staring, but the cousins—Haifa and Maya—seemed to take some joy in being stared at. In Lebanon, women loved being stared at, too, but it was usually to show off their latest designer clothing. In Lebanon, women who wear the hejab are a minority and those who wear the full chador are an even smaller minority. For Haifa and Maya, dressing as Westerners ready for the nightclub was not about vanity. It was something of far greater substance. Like the girls in Iran, it was all about passive resistance.

And they really stuck out in Homs, an oil town known for the Sunni conservatism of many of its residents. The average women in Homs are covered from head to toe in the full black nikhab and face covering, regardless of the excruciating heat.

The journey from Beirut to Homs was not long. I got a cab in Beirut, and three hours and ten dollars later I had made the journey across the northern border of Lebanon. The border was its own traffic jam, lined for several kilometers with eight-wheeled trucks waiting for their chance to cross. After caving to international pressure and withdrawing from Lebanon, the Syrian regime had tightened its borders to economically punish Lebanon. As I crossed into Syria, I could see the face of the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, towering over the border post as if he was keeping an eye on neighboring Lebanon. From the moment I stepped into Syria, I could feel the aura of a police state. The smell of fear was in the air. It was in the faces of the people and the diligence of the border guards.

Now I was in Homs, and Haifa and Maya were turning heads left and right. Given that Homs is a predominantly Sunni city, this wasn’t surprising. In Syria, the Sunni may be the majority of the country, but they are subjected to the less conservative minority Shi’a that control the country. Haifa and Maya wore something different. Haifa wore a tight pink T-shirt that was nearly sleeveless. The shirt was short and reached just down to the belt of her Western-style blue jeans. Maya wore something similar, except her shirt was maroon instead of pink. Both of them wore a tremendous amount of makeup, giving their cheeks a rosy red coloring and accentuating their eyes. I was with two beautiful girls in a townful of burkhas.

These were strong girls. As we walked through the Old City and the Homs Souq, I watched them endure look after disapproving look. I watched elderly women yelling things at them in Arabic. Haifa and Maya represent a generation of Syrian girls who push the limit. They are glued to their satellite television, the Internet, and their mobile phone. Unlike their mothers, these girls have the access to know what they are missing out on. Society has changed and technology has opened their eyes in ways that their parents cannot begin to understand. They know what they have been deprived of. They watch Western movies, they hear stories, and some of it they witness firsthand in the underground nightlife. Knowing what is out there only sparks their curiosity. The girls insisted on showing me the few sites in the city—the mosque and the souq. It didn’t take the girls long to open up to me, in large part, I suspect, because as a nonmember of their community I was safe. Maya told me about problems she was having at home and when I pressed, she explained that her father beat her. It was impossible to know how to respond; all I could tell her was that whether the laws of Syrian protect her or not, such abuse is wrong and she deserves better. These domestic violence stories always made me cringe and it was far too frequently that I heard about them.

Like their counterparts in Iran, Haifa and Maya deviate from the strict norms that the government and the older generations try to enforce in an act of expression. When Haifa and Maya walk among men and women who scowl at them for their perceived deviant behavior, it is a way for them to say without any words that the times are changing and they don’t accept the status quo.

My new female friends were not anomalies. I visited almost every province in Syria and I always saw these same resilient girls. They stood out and they didn’t have to speak; their message was loud and clear. Haifa and Maya are representatives of a generation of Syrian girls who reject the old way of life. They are deeply religious and believe in their Sunni identity, but they see religion as something largely private. While they may not see or believe in a separation of religion and politics, they would like to separate religion from their social and recreational activity. Most females in Syria do not take this to the extreme that Haifa and Maya did, but the vast majority behave differently when they are out of their parents’ sight. The best chances for them to do this were in the Syrian nightclubs, where they could throw their hejabs in the corner as if it were a coatroom and dance the night away, forgetting at least temporarily about the society they come from.

I
n addition to what they see
in the media and through the Internet, Syrian youth have been tremendously impacted by what they see in neighboring Lebanon.

Because Syria and Lebanon are comprised of the same ethnic and religious groups, however, it is easy to assume that the two are similar. In terms of population, Syria is nearly five times the size of Lebanon. In a country of nearly nineteen million people, Syria is more than 90 percent Muslim, of which 74 percent are Sunni. Yet Syria is actually run by the 16 percent of the population that is Allawi and Shi’a.