HEARTLESS MAKER

I,  Fayed Noor al Swedan, the son of Haji Shardid Noor Bogol, resident of the village of Afmadow , being of sound mind declare this here as my last and final will and testament…

He was dressed in a nylon shirt and grey trousers; His face was scrawny with the sunken eyes set too close together giving him a perennially haggard and hungry look; an expressionless page not easy to recall.  He was also beyond reason.  He looked up his young face concentrating on the task at hand. Yes, he was young – sixteen going to seventeen – And he was ready to immolate himself.

Somalia’s extremist group Al Shabab has a recruitment pipeline which starts at a mosque in Hagadera refugee camp in Kenya and extends right into Somalia through the heavy patrolled border areas. Four months earlier the young and impressionable Fuad had used the same pipeline from Kenya and crossed into Somalia to join the Al Shabab terror group. And in Joining Al Shabaab; Fuad found himself.  It was nothing as magical as discovering some secret part that had lain dormant but rather his energies had finally found their outlet and a serene feeling of belonging had engulfed him.

They were a band of them all youthful; many had joined to escape the rampant poverty in the Kenyan refugee camps. Some, Fuad observed, had joined totally for the spread of the Islamic faith motivated perhaps by the magnetic power of the cyberspace where atrocities reported by other Islamic youth in the other volatile parts of the world were lusted to be imitated by the youthful adherents.

Some were motivated by perhaps by the unexplained self-destructive and unconscious instinct within some human psyche to embrace death.

But Fuad was beyond all this he had joined the cause due to the convincing allure of the charismatic and smooth talking foreign recruiter. The foreign recruiter had been smuggled into the Refugee mosque where he had talked long into the night in a patient but motivating tuneful voice on the beauty of the faith. He never once   attempted to raise his voice, never altered the pitch of his voice, he merely talked just above a whisper and his words had sunk softly and deep to the refugee youth.

Fuad Al Swedan had been hooked totally.

The following day he found himself joining the recruitment pipeline and eventual training deep inside Somalia. The trainers were five Arabs with bushy beards, permanently frowning and in perennial states of anger with clear madness oozing out of their shifty eyes.

Though the military training was hard -the Taliban -as they were called-proved to be keen, enthusiastic and agile. Too many questions  from a Taliban  or a student not considered devoted enough to the  cause  was taken through  long interrogation sessions by the Arab instructors and not infrequently by a long accompanied walk to the nearby shrubs  after which  the instructors would walk  back alone after a loud single loud rifle shot. This maintained the iron grip and discipline leaving no room for any emerging youthful indiscretions.

And it was the shifty Arabs and their kinky habits that broke Fuad. He had been sent on an errand to the Arab trainers accommodation and had found them seated and   uncharacteristically, Fuad had been offered a cup of black much sweetened tea which after a gulp took his consciousness away.

He had woken up much later battered, abused and soiled. The libidinous Arabs had used him and made him into a manouk – a derogatory Arabic noun for a man who plays the female part in male to male couplings.

Fuad al Swedan Wept.

The sense of abuse and lost innocence affected Fuad in many ways altering his character from being a jovial youth into one perennially depressed with constant panic attacks.  His sense of self completely disappeared and he seriously considered  suicide. This tendency was timely arrested at the edge by the Ustadh.

The Ustadh (Arabic for “Teacher” ) had appeared late in the training camp as an instructor. Ustadh had been  born in Southern Somalia  but raised in Europe  where he had relocated   fathering six sons with a convert. He had now returned to his home country convinced that what Somalia needed was the spread of Islam through conquest and subjugation. Unlike the Arab trainers he had an open smile and convincing answers to any knotty theological questions.

It was  Ustadh who Fuad in a confused and depressive stupor confided to after the unmentionable incident . It was Ustadh who had understood his predicament; it was Ustadh who did not attempt to apportion any blame. It was also Ustadh who suggested and directed his suicidal thoughts to more meaningful homi-suicide cause. It was the same Ustadh who had drafted and videotaped the last will and testament for Him. .And it was Ustadh that Fuad finally realized was the most dangerous to humanity.

And with time, Fuad had sought  many answers on the faith from Ustadh; Fuad recalled some of the questions:

“ …The holy book says that if I become a shahid, I will be rewarded with 72 wives… will all 72 of them be my wives? Would I be able to divorce one or all of them? Can I punish them if they misbehave?  Could I get rid of them and get some new ones? Would I be able to choose my virgins from a lineup or will they be assigned to me? And what about my sister-Zahra- she is also keen to be a shahid-will she be given 72 pure men for her reward? are not 72 men –and pure at that -too much for young Zahra?

The ustadh had smiled indolently at his  young charge and had answered:

“ Don’t let such idle thoughts disturb you. Son, all these questions are irrelevant. Why do you think it is called paradise? It is just that, paradise. It means that you get your heart’s desire”

Fuad was still unsettled and continued with his questioning.

“ Well, Hemedi our compatriot-  became a shahid . How is Hemedi, going to partake from the 72 virgins if his manhood was buried with the rest of his body? Would they issue him a new instrument in paradise? If he is not issued a new instrument would that not be true hell, not paradise?”

The Ustadh for once seemed irritated:

” Son, I can see that the accursed Satan has completely taken over your mind and placed one that is  fixated on sex. You need spiritual rehabilitation; I hope you will fully understand this once you become a Shahid.”

But Fuad was insistent.

“Isn’t it a wicked conviction that the path to attaining one’s end lies in slaughtering the innocent? Couldn’t I Fuad,  achieve more as an Ustadh like you…would I not influence more people positively? And why? Oh! Ustadh should I be the one that God had selected for this mission and why not say, any of your six sons?”

Ustadh fixed him a lengthy stare before finally icily answering;

            “You have your mission,” he said. “And my sons have theirs.”

That was about a month earlier, he was now outside the haram place in Kenya’s capital city, a place for the Kuffra to relax and drink haramu and ogle and vomit and sin …and die. It was a desolate place only becoming active in the weekend nights when the sinful streamed in, looking for action, for liquor, for drugs and even Kelbs– yes Dogs-to satiate themselves. Fuad felt tired and saturated by it all.

The dancing continued in the Haram place. Fuad took a deep breath It was time to seek eternal bliss. Ustadh would not be happy if he continued dithering.

With a stifled sob, Fuad Noor al Swedan sauntered over into the Haram place taking his self and 14 others with him to his heartless maker.