9 - Accomplicity: Britain, Torture and Terror

Summary

Another guard from [Washington] DC asked me once where I was from. When I told her I was from England, she thought for a moment then asked, ‘Y'all got lions, elephants, and shit there?’

‘Only in zoos.’

Moazzam Begg

I forgot to ask you first what sort of acquittal you want. There are three possibilities, that is, definite acquittal, ostensible acquittal, and indefinite postponement.

Franz Kafka

Grasp

this, there is no law, you are not open to

prosecution, look all you'd like, it will squirm for you, there, in this rising light, protected

from consequence, making you a

ghost, without a cry, without a cry the

evening turning to night, words it seemed were everything and then

the legal team will declare them exempt,

exemptions for the lakewater drying, for the murder of the seas, for the slaves in their

waters, not of our species, exemption named

go forth, mix blood, fill your register, take of flesh, set fire, posit equator, conceal

origin, say you are all forgiven, say these are only

counter-resistant

coercive interrogation techniques, as in give me your

name, give it, I will take it, I will re-classify

it, I will withhold you from you, just like that, for a little while, it won't hurt

much

Jorie Graham

They came for Moazzam Begg in Islamabad, Pakistan, on 31 January 2002. Begg was from Birmingham, where he had an Islamic bookshop. His family were from Pakistan. He was peaceable, thoughtful, and unfulfilled. He had gone regularly to Bosnia with a ‘Convoy of Mercy’; he had visited Afghanistan; he had made a futile attempt to get to Chechnya. Like Tony Blair, he wanted to do good, but he did not know how. His conventional loyalties were confused. When it came to cricket, he supported Pakistan in England, and England in Pakistan. He was for the underdog. To the warders and whippers of the war on terror, his intentions and his connections were axiomatically suspect. He was taken from his home at the dead of night and shipped to Kandahar. Moazzam Begg became Detainee 558. Bare life had begun.

Detainee 558 was given a full tour of the American penal colony. After Kandahar came Bagram; after Bagram, Guantánamo. He was tortured and abused wherever he went. He was held, often in chains, sometimes in solitary confinement.