Collateral Damage of Extremism

‘Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.’ ~ Eric Hoffer

Lately, I have been reading a lot of non-fiction, which is probably as much a consequence of the market research I am conducting for my memoir as it is a function of my age. I find myself increasingly interested in real life experiences of people who have weathered the storms of life and emerged victorious. These stories provide a triumphal camaraderie with the collective human spirit, and if the narrator is especially talented, their stories allow the reader to vicariously experience the writer’s emotions without the burden of personal suffering.

As a raconteur and survivor, I am especially attuned to the spirit of tenacity in the face of adversity, bravery when confronted with great danger, and certainty that as survivors we are privileged to have been spared total annihilation for reasons that hopefully transcend ourselves.  These character traits, which I and other survivors possess, imbues me with a compassionate ability to examine situations and people from alternate perspectives that enable me to draw non sequitur conclusions for why they do the things they do.

My writings and life experiences straddle the dangerous chasms of religion, race and politics.  I have at one time or another been a vociferous proponent of the radical right and left on each of these issues; however, it is only with self-analysis and the passage of time that I deduced most, if not all of my postulations originated outside of myself.  I was, to put it bluntly, an empty vessel that had been filled to the brim with presumptive, inimical beliefs wrapped in eloquent rhetoric.

I was a child, who thought as a child, and as a child, was beholden and utterly dependent upon the adults around me for sustenance, protection and instruction on how to navigate this journey called life.  Therefore, I accepted all that I was told because I lacked the cognitive ability and depth of experience to evaluate the ideologies they espoused to arrive at my own conclusions.

At times, I thought it was my nature to be definite, strident and radical, thereby adopting the polemics of my elders, but later I realized that my nature is more fluid, and like water, I am able to move around, over, and through situations that have allowed me to continue to grow and mature.  Consequently, I was exposed to the virulence of militancy and became inoculated against group think which is a necessary prerequisite for all blind followers.  When I recall spouting the rhetoric that had been force fed to me, it was as if I were a fatted calf readied for slaughter.  But for education and opportunity, I may have succumbed to one of the greatest plagues in the world today; fanaticism.

As the daughter of a militant extremist, I understand the unique pressures of people who are caught in the cycle of fanaticism and hate.  So many times, people on the outside are quick to judge and condemn everyone associated with the radical without carefully considering the associated individual’s role in the drama.  Extremism and fanaticism is 100% fatal and infects everyone within its proximity; however, it is particularly pernicious for the children, spouses and family members.  It is these people who die slowly from presumed culpability, ostracization, and shame in the intervening years following the catalyst ‘s disappearance either by fleeing or perishing in a blaze of glory.

Contrary to popular perception the descent into radicalism occurs over time and is usually the result of a string of small but seminal events.  Whereas homicide bombers are recruited because of their lack of basic necessities such as respect, food, clothing, and housing, etc. and are therefore easily manipulated; they are nothing more than weapons yielded by the extremist visionary who deploys them against the object of his or her fixation.  These suicides are nothing more than automatons who have been programmed with a set of instructions for which they lack the ability to decipher much less rebel against.  For the purposes of this post, the focus is not on the pawns but the kings and titular heads of fanatical, radical extremists movements.  These men, and sometimes women, are intelligent, highly educated, and most often come from good families.

There are scores of books and movies that attempt to explain the origins of some of the most heinous individuals of our time.  All fall short because they are either written after the fact, or from the outside looking in.  It is not my intention to excuse or ameliorate bad behavior, but I find it much more interesting to explore the impact of radicalism from the perspective of toe family, and in particular, through the eyes of the children, because they do not choose their parents nor the situations into which they are born or thrust.  Though children of demagogues may be tarred with the same brush, we are by definition, separate entities and human beings in our own right, who just happen to be the offspring of a radical extremist.

Julie Gavra’s film, “Blame It on Fidel,” adopted from the novel by Italian writer Domitilla Calamai, poignantly depicts the conflict felt by a child who tries to reconcile the bourgeoisie world into which she was born with the new reality her parents’ commitment to bohemian radical activism. The movie is adapted from a novel by the Italian writer Domitilla Calamai and set in France in the 1970′s.  The film recreates the excitement of a time when many in the bourgeoisie forsook comfortable lives to dive headlong into radical activism.

The de la Mesas’ political shift is not impetuous. For years Fernando has lived uneasily with the knowledge of his family’s close relationship with the Franco regime. His decision is prompted by an anguished visit from his sister Marga after Marga’s husband, a Communist and the black sheep of the family, is arrested for anti-Franco activities. Leaving Anna with her maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, Fernando and Marie travel to Chile and return charged with radical fervor. In the case of the de la Mesas, that commitment entails adopting a much sparer lifestyle, closer to that of their political cohort.” ~ Stephen Holden

By contrast to my life and that of Omar bin Laden, Anna de la Mesas, the 9-year old protagonist struggled with the shift in her external landscape that was a result of her parents ideological shifts, however, this resulting change was benign by comparison to the changes experienced by most family members of radicals.  In Anna’s case, her parents proclivity toward communist ideals did not result in total isolation and separation from the society into which she had been born.  Her parents rebellion was fashioned within the confines of French society, whereas my father and others chose to abdicate all allegiance to their former existence and expatriate from their countries of origin. This severing of ties, enforced isolation, extreme security protocols are employed to ensure that they cannot be tracked and sanctioned.

In the book “Growing Up bin Laden,” Osama’s wife Najwa bin Laden and his son Omar bin Laden tell the story of what it is was like to live with a man who is considered one of the most reprehensible figures of our time. Najwa bin Laden married Osama bin Laden who is her cousin at the age of 15.  She is his first wife and the mother to eleven children, seven of Osama’s sons and four of his daughters. Like my mother, the early years of their marriage were pleasing even with the challenges faced by the newly married couple with young children.

My mother supported my father as he pursued his doctorate, and it during this period that my father began his descent into radicalism.  It was the height of the civil rights movement in this country and my father believed that America epitomized evil because it was built upon soil soaked with the blood of Indians and enslaved Africans. For him, America embodied capitalist expansionism, systemic racism and barbarous colonialism, each of which was an extension of one of the most corrupt societies in the history of man, the Roman Empire.

Through a series of events, some violent, my father decided to move the family to Africa where he could live without the constant surveillance to which he was increasingly subjected.  The similarities between our story and Najwa bin Laden’s were remarkable.  The book details how Osama transported his wives and children through the rough terrain of Sudan, where he was preparing them for attacks from western powers.  According to the book, Osama commanded them to dig holes and to sleep in these holes with nothing more than sand and twigs for cover.  Once we left America, my father often made us forgo simple conveniences such as toothbrushes, hot water, glasses, Western medicine, and mosquito netting, and as a consequence of not having the latter, I contracted cerebral malaria and nearly died.

The story of how Osama bin Laden forced his family to relocate to Sudan reminded me of our cross continent journey from Nigeria to Tanzania in which we were marooned in quicksand in the wilderness outside of Khartoum for four days because my father, against the protest of my mother, refused to travel with the NGO convoys that often traversed war torn Africa.

He believed that these organizations were fronts for Western powers, particularly America, as it provided their operatives with a legitimate means to be in country to spy, to introduce infectious diseases through inoculation programs, and to foment conflict under the guise of providing humanitarian aid.  As is usually the case, there is always a modicum of truth in even the most outrageous assertions, and though most of these individuals were what they purported to be, there were many who were not.

Osama bin Laden’s frenzy of militant activities has scarred both the world and his family.  Najwa’s life, and the lives of her innocent children, became a maze of escaping from one country to another, Osama’s fourth-born son, Omar, describes his early years as wanting nothing but his father’s love, but Omar’s quest for his father’s attention won him nothing but his father’s cruelties.

I could relate on a visceral level to Omar’s pain and longing to fill the emotional hole carved by his father’s inability to love him.  I struggled for years to secure my father’s love and approval, which I thought he withheld from me because I was not male.  It wasn’t until the birth of my son nearly thirty years later that I totally comprehended the malignancy of the militancy and fanaticism that had consumed so much of my father’s life.

When my sister went to Kenya to work, she took the time to go down to Zimbabwe to visit my father.  Upon hearing that he was a grandfather and that I had a son, he remained unable to accept the progeny of a child he never embraced, and the fact that my husband, my son’s father, was “white” German, evoked the typical response of a misanthrope who had long feasted upon a steady diet of bigotry and anti-Americanism

Thus, none of the intimates of radical militant extremist emerge unscathed, especially not the wives nor children.  There are so many factors that trigger fanaticism it is simplistic to think that it can be distilled to a single antecedent event.  Even I find myself asking my mother what happened to make my father the way that he is, and she, the woman who bore his children and shared his bed for nearly twenty years could not answer.  She has her scars, I have mine, Najwa and Omar have theirs, as do all the intimates of rebels with and without cause, for we are the unseen collateral damage destined to live in the shadows of the heinous actions of would be gods.