Fictive Traumatic Experience - Essay Example

Creative Writing 23rd April, A Fictional Essay This paper is a fictional essay that narrates a fictive traumatic experience. The fictive story narrated in the paper is about a tragedy that befell my close childhood friend, Salim Ahmed, who joined Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organisation in Somalia and Kenya. As a terrorist, Ahmed was involved in the September 21st Westgate shopping mall terrorist attack in Kenya, and he was apprehended by the Kenyan authorities and prosecuted. The following is the narration of the fictive story. When I was in primary school, I had a friend by the name Salim Ahmed. Ahmed was a Kenyan-American Muslim. Ahmed was a very calm, friendly, outgoing, and scholarly young person, and he had such a calm character that one would think that he could not hurt even a fly. Although Ahmed was a Muslim, and therefore a minority in the school, he however got along very well with the Christian student in school, who were the majority. After completing grade eight, Ahmed left to Kenya with his parents, and he went to a Muslim High School in Mombasa- Kenya. But since he left USA, we were constantly been communication with on various means of communication, especially on the social media. It was while in the Muslim High School in Mombasa- Kenya, that Ahmed was radicalised and made to develop terrorist attitude. I first became suspicious of Ahmed when he started posting anti- Christian updates on his Facebook page. As an intimate friend of him, I never hesitated to ask him why he posted the seemingly anti-Christian messages on this Facebook page. I openly told him that I was surprised and displeased by his sudden change of attitude about Christianity. But whenever I raised my concerns about his anti-Christian postings on his Facebook, Ahmed assured me that he had no negative attitude against Christians, and that I misinterpreted his Facebook postings. Ahmed defended his Facebook postings by stating that his main intention in the seemingly anti-Christian messages wasn’t to demean Christianity in any way, but that he intended to make his friends on Facebook to think critically about their religions, and to become Muslims if possible. Ahmed also defended his move by saying that his intention was merely to spread and to defend Islam, as his preferred religion. Upon inquiring from Ahmed why he had abruptly developed zeal for spreading Islam immediately after leaving US, Ahmed told me that he wasn’t serious about his religion while in America and that it was in Kenya that he had been made to realize and to appreciate his religion. Despite the seemingly anti-Christian attitude that Ahmed had developed, however, our friendship did not dwindle in any way, if anything, our friendship became stronger and stronger, and we continued communicating on phone regularly. As a concerned friend, I always asked my friend Ahmed whenever he posted anti-Christian information on his Facebook page, to think critically of what he meant by the messages, and not to blindly follow what his religious teachers were instilling on him. Whenever I asked him to think critically of his anti-Christian Facebook postings, Ahmed promised me to take into consideration my concerns, but he also told me that, as much as he would like to think critically about his religious believes, there are some basic tenets of Muslim faith that are revealed by Allah, and that should not be doubted and subjected to critical reflection. I tried in vain to convince my friend Ahmed that even such divinely tenets of his religion should be subjected to critical reflection. Following the invasion of Somalia by the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) in collaboration with the AMISON (African Union Mission) forces in October 2011 in a bid to flush out the Al-Shabaab militants from Somalia, Ahmed openly criticised this move on his Facebook page, terming the move as an affront to the sovereignty of the people of the republic of Somalia. Ahmed held the view that he Kenyan and the AMISON forces were not actually fighting terrorism, but that they were fighting the Muslims in Somalia. Following this move, Ahmed joined a radical group of Muslim Youth in Mombasa Kenya. The radical youth group was actually sympathetic to the Al-Shabaab terrorist activities in East Africa. Although, Ahmed did not post on his Facebook page that he had joined the radical youth group, Ahmed, however, told me on phone that he had joined the group and that the group would do everything possible to revenge against the move taken by the Kenya Defence forces and the AMISON forces. Upon inquiring on how the radical youth group would revenge against the KDF and the AMISON forces, Ahmed told me that the radical youth group had ideologies that would guide them in accomplishing their revenge mission. Shortly after that communication with Ahmed in which he assured me that the radical youth group that he had joined would revenge against the KDF and the AMISON forces, Ahmed suddenly broke all communications with me. I was really surprised by this move and I thought that Ahmed had been involved in an accident or that he had suddenly fallen sick, and was, therefore, unable to communicate with me. I tried to contact him for two weeks without success. I decided to go to the organisation where his father was working in America, so as to ask for his father’s Kenyan address. Luckily, the manager of the Company had the phone contact of Ahmed’s father. Upon getting the phone number of Ahmed’s father, I immediately called him and asked the whereabouts of his son Ahmed. Ahmed’s father told me that as a family they also did not know the whereabouts of Ahmed, and that they had reported the matter to the police. Ahmed’s father promised to contact me immediately he knows the whereabouts of his son. On 21st September, 2013, the republic of Kenya witnessed one of the worst ever terrorist attacks at the West Gate shopping mall. The West Gate shopping mall at the Capital city of Kenya, Nairobi, was attacked by the Al-Shabaab terrorists, and the attack left 72 civilians dead. The terrorist attack also left more than 200 civilians injured and others maimed. A combined Kenyan military and police rescue mission took almost a week to get total control of the shopping mall from the Al-Shabaab terrorists. On 28th September 2013, Ahmed’s father called me and told me that Ahmed had been apprehended by the Kenyan police as one of the main suspects of the terrorists who had attacked the West Gate shopping mall. I pitied my friend Ahmed greatly on learning that he was a major suspect in the West Gate terrorist attack. I promised Ahmed’s father to pray for his son’s acquittal and I also promised him to be calling him daily so as to know how things were faring. Deep inside, though, I knew that Ahmed had actually been involved in the terrorist attack in one way or another. The trial of Ahmed was set on 9th January, 2014, and I actually decided to travel to Kenya to witness the trial of my friend. I contacted Ahmed’s father and informed him that I would be travelling to Kenya so as to attend the trial. Ahmed’s father was happy about it and told me that he would pick me at the airport. I left US for Kenya on the 4th January 2014, and I arrived in Nairobi on the following day in the evening. Ahmed’s father picked me at the Jomo Kenyatta airport and we travelled to Mombasa, where Ahmed’s family lived. On 8th January 2014, we left Mombasa for Nairobi so that we could attend the trial of Ahmed the following Day. We spent the night in Nairobi and by 8:00 am the following day, we were at the Kilimani law court where the trial was to take place. The trials started at 8:30 am and luckily, Ahmed was the second suspect to undergo the trial. Upon seeing the handcuffed and forlorn looking Ahmed accompanied by two police officers, I could not restrain my tears. I involuntarily started crying and upon seeing me, Ahmed also started crying. I could not stand to see my friend take the dock and I, therefore, had to go out for some time and come back when the trial had already started. After five minutes outside the court, I regained courage and went back into the courtroom where Ahmed was being questioned. Although Ahmed looked tired and sickly, he answered all the questions addressed to him calmly. Ahmed, however, denied all the charges levelled against him. For lack of concrete evidence, however, Ahmed was released on bail, and we went home with him. Eventually, the case against Ahmed was dismissed on 25 March, 2014, for lack of evidence. As we went home with Ahmed, Ahmed regretted for his rather foolish decision to join the radical youth organisation. Ahmed lamented that his action was as a result of thoughtlessness and ignorance, and he swore never to engage in such inhuman and foolish act. Ahmed seemed to be genuine in his regrets and he seemed to have a lot of remorse for his actions. Read More