PukhtunWomen

Mahvish R Khan
My Guantanamo Diary
The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me
New York: Public Affairs 2008
302pp price $25.95
978 1 58648 498 9

Mahvish Khan's book “My Guantanamo Diary” is a quick and light read. She has penned her experiences meeting the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and how translating for the lawyers representing them gave her an insight very few civilians have had.

Starting out with her initial interest in the plight of these men she takes us with her as she over comes her own prejudices and wariness in meeting these men that were termed “worse of the worst” by Donald Rumsfeld. It is an eye opener for the reader too as we stop to consider that all the men that are there may actually not be guilty.

Men who were once only numbers come to life as human beings with personalities and families who are still waiting for them. We get to meet them as Khan begins providing supervised legal counsel and travels to Afghanistan to find exonerating evidence to free them.

We meet Dr Mousovi the pediatrician who luckily has been reunited with his family.
Taj Muhammed the goat herd with a playboy fetish.
Haji Nusrat the paraplegic who despite all would still like to visit the US.
The poet brothers Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost and Badr Zaman who though released are still not free in their own home.
The Sudanese al Jazeera reporter Sami AlHaj and his hunger strike that he started on January 2007.
Mohammed Zahir who pockets a hair as if it were a life link to the outside world.
Through his bone chilling diary entries we get to stand in Benyam Mohammed al Habashi's shoes.
We get to see a side of Abdul Salam Zaeef the Taliban ambassador that we could not have imagined as he gives an interview and shares the picture of his daughters that he kept in his cell.
The brave front put up by the 23 year old Salah al Aslami and the pain his parents still suffer because of the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.

We come to respect Peter Ryan and the other habeas lawyers who dedicate their time and efforts for men that could have been as easily guilty as not. Their faith in the sanctity of the American constitution and their fight to preserve it is truly commendable.

One can only imagine what the Afghan men thought of Khan as they tried to make sense of how to treat her. They may have been scarred by their experiences with other interpreters yet they take a leap of faith to trust her. Khan also tries to accommodate their questions and curiosity about herself as best as she can.

It is a touching book that forces us to deal with a sticky situation that most of us are aware of yet refuse to acknowledge. Khan makes us see a side to these men that we conveniently forget when we just think of them as worst of the worst and automatically assume that just because they are at Guantanamo they are guilty. This book is definitely worth reading and keeping on your shelf.