Guantanamo Bay: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom

M. Junaid Alam

About 60 people gathered in the Community Church of Boston on June 10 for a reading of the British-produced play, "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," and discussed ways to galvanize the larger public against the unjust treatment of detainees at US prison camps established during the war on terror.

The play, which presents US foreign policy in a critical light, is based on written and spoken materials gathered from government officials, Guantanamo detainees, their families, and military legal counsel. The plight of several detainees was depicted without hyperbole or melodrama, relying instead on the personal intimacy of their letters to their families and discussion of the lives and careers they were ripped out of by the American regime. The play was performed by members of the local community, only a few of whom are professional actors.

During discussion after the play's reading, Josh Rubinstein, an official with Amnesty International, said, "We've had this unusual experience in the last two weeks of being at loggerheads with the administration over the use of the word 'gulag'." He added, "It is not a perfect analogy, but it is proving to be a provocative one. It seems we've tied a tin can to their tails, and they don't like it."

An elderly woman expressed happiness with the play, but disappointment with the larger political climate, opining, "I just get a total feeling of frustration, that small groups are getting together and doing something, but it doesn't seem to be spreading." Rubinstein offered that the release of photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison did elicit some action by individual government officials, and that the angry reaction of the administration to Amnesty's characterization of Guantanamo as a "gulag" shows that the issue is alive and well.

Rubinstein also contented that between 50,000 and 70,000 people were being held in US prison camps across the globe and urged people to urge their elected officials to oppose torture.

Nancy Murray, a representative of the ACLU in Massachusetts, informed others that "shortly, there's going to be another public jolt of photographs" of abuse committed at Abu Ghraib that might "put the country into a time of readiness to hear messages" about US foreign policy.

An older man in the crowd, asking the audience to recall comments once made by General William Westmoreland about the supposedly low value Vietnamese placed on their own lives, said that the play showed him "there's a code of silence about racism in this country.that 9-11 just shuts the mouth of everyone about everything."

Several other people thanked the actors for performing the play and also urged people to take concrete steps against the Bush administration and the war on terror.

"I notice that a lot of times people go to hear some leftist academic, and then come home with the feeling that they've accomplished something," a young man said, sparking a round of slightly embarrassed laughter. "Let's make this [play] an impetus, and use this as away to advance things."

M. Junaid Alam, 22, is co-editor of Left Hook and a Journalism student at Northeastern University in Boston.