Not in Ferguson (not that we know of, anyway). Not on the conspicuously Southern plantation where slavery is a piece of history, neatened up and kept behind glass. No, sir. We are confining genuine, up-to-date slavery, for the moment at least, to our little kingdom on the island of Cuba.
"Guantanamo Diary," just out -- written by inmate Mohamedou Ould Slahi and edited by Larry Siems (and redacted, of course, by our noble and glorious government) -- gives us a glimpse of slavery, adorned with "twenty-five hundred black-bar redactions," according to Scott Korb, an editor of a slave narrative, writing in the latest New Yorker.
Fun! An update on slavery! The endless entertainment of squeezing the humanity out of a fellow human! Day after day! Total power! Sexy!
“Guantánamo Diary” is an odyssey, as Siems points out; Guantánamo does resemble Dostoyevsky’s Siberian prison camp. The book indeed illustrates, Beckett-like, the absurdity of Slahi’s captors, and, Kafka-like, the opacity of his captivity. Explaining the Kafka comparison, Danner* writes that “the signs of Slahi’s guilt are everywhere,” yet he’s never formally charged with a crime. There is even a haunting echo of the famous last words—“Like a dog!”—that Joseph K. speaks as the knife is turned. Slahi writes of an interrogator who would say during their sessions, “Looks like a dog, walks like a dog, smells like a dog, barks like a dog, must be a dog.” Slahi’s response: “It sounded awful, I know I am not a dog, and yet I must be one.” ...Korb, NewYorker
You think "sexy" is going too far? Well, maybe not. Slahi describes the intrusion of sexual talk and threats into his treatment in a way that resonates with many slave narratives dating back to early parts of our history. In fact, Slahi's narrative fits right into that tradition of memoirs describing the slavery of two hundred years ago. The tradition of victimization seems to be endless in our country. We are reminded of it when we're faced weekly, daily, with the latest outburst of victimization on the part of the police.
The tradition goes right up to the Oval Office. That's where "Gitmo" got its repurposing and support at the opening of the current milennium. Oh say, can we see?
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*That's Mark Danner,NYT, who ended his review of Slahi's book with this:
How to distinguish smoke from fire when your hallowed premise is that your prisoner is a “smart-beyond-belief terrorist” and anything he says to the contrary is dismissed as lies? Rules of evidence, demands of due process: These are designed to separate justice — founded on real acts that can be proved — from suspicion and paranoia. When they are discarded, we plunge into Cheney’s world, where all is sacrificed to security, and suspicion and fear take the place of evidence of guilt. Our country tortured Slahi and thus made it impossible, as the prosecutor determined, to try him; fear and suspicion leave us unable still to follow the judge’s order and free him. It is easier on us to let him suffer indefinite detention. When the suffering of the untried and unconvicted becomes nothing more than collateral damage, America has crossed a gulf. The steps that took us there were largely secret, but thanks to this and other accounts we know about them now: We know where we came from, and we know where we are. We do not yet know how to get back.
