Benchellali, Mourad, interview 1 - short clip - TurningMyGuantrienceintoSomethingPositive
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| (marker scribbling) | 0:00 | |
| (Mourad speaking in foreign language) | 0:03 | |
| Translator | While I was in prison, | 0:05 |
| I had the opportunity to talk | 0:06 | |
| with young detainees who were there with me, | 0:08 | |
| and who would say, "Great, you're a fighter. | 0:10 | |
| You're a great mujahid. | 0:13 | |
| You went and for jihad, that's great, | 0:15 | |
| and I'm going to do the same when I get out of prison." | 0:17 | |
| That's when I realized that there was a problem, | 0:19 | |
| and that I needed to bear witness, | 0:22 | |
| because I knew that young people could identify | 0:23 | |
| with my story. | 0:26 | |
| I felt that as I was going to tell my story, | 0:27 | |
| I needed to do it in a responsible manner, | 0:30 | |
| and to give a good example. | 0:32 | |
| (Mourad speaking in foreign language) | 0:34 | |
| What I do is that I tell my story with a goal of dissuading | 0:38 | |
| young people from going to Syria, that's all. | 0:40 | |
| But at the same time, I try not to lecture them. | 0:43 | |
| I mean, my role isn't to tell them | 0:46 | |
| "Here we have good Muslims, | 0:48 | |
| over there they have bad Muslims," | 0:50 | |
| or "There is no such thing as jihad." | 0:52 | |
| That's not my role. | 0:54 | |
| I simply tell them my story, | 0:55 | |
| telling them, "This is what I found out. | 0:58 | |
| This is what I saw in Afghanistan." | 1:00 | |
| I tell them about being tortured. | 1:03 | |
| I tell them about bombings. | 1:05 | |
| I tell them how groups enlist you, et cetera, | 1:07 | |
| by telling them, "Some people used to tell me | 1:10 | |
| that suicide attacks were a part of our religion." | 1:12 | |
| So I tell them all of this, and I say, | 1:15 | |
| "Be careful, here are the dangers | 1:17 | |
| you may run into over there, as I did. | 1:19 | |
| I don't want what happened to me to happen to you, | 1:21 | |
| but you have to decide for yourself." | 1:24 | |
| (Mourad speaking in foreign language) | 1:27 | |
| I feel that I'm being useful. | 1:28 | |
| It's important to feel useful | 1:29 | |
| in the course of one's life. | 1:31 | |
| And above all, I always wanted to turn my experience | 1:33 | |
| in Guantanamo into something positive. | 1:36 | |
| I think that one must be intelligent, | 1:39 | |
| one must try, even if it was difficult, | 1:41 | |
| to turn all this into something positive, | 1:44 | |
| and that's what I've been trying to do. | 1:47 | |
| And today, especially, I have a young son, | 1:49 | |
| I want to give him a good example. | 1:52 | |
| I want him to be proud of his father. | 1:53 | |
| I don't want him to feel ashamed, | 1:56 | |
| and that is very important. | 1:58 | |
| It's also for him that I've been doing all of this. | 2:00 | |
| (Mourad speaking in foreign language) | 2:02 |
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