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Claywell asks audiences to make up their minds about his American Jihadist |
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| 10/12/2010 |
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What does it take to turn an African-American man into a self-proclaimed fighter of Islamic oppression in some of recent history’s bloodiest war zones? A childhood diet of extreme violence, racism and poverty? “Divine” intervention? A questionable but unwavering sense of moral duty and self-sacrifice in the face of injustice?
Over seven years in the making, Mark Claywell’s provocative documentary American Jihadist lets viewers decide for themselves as it chronicles one man’s “rise” from the mean, racist streets of Washington, D.C. to the battlefields of Afghanistan and Lebanon in the 1980s and, a decade later, Bosnia. The man in question is Isa Abdullah Ali, born Clevin Holt in 1958, who grew up in a violent household and gang-infested neighborhood, and who converted to Islam before the age of 20.
A former Special Forces soldier turned paramilitary combatant, Ali says he on the verge of a sniper-style killing spree that turned into a suicide attempt – until an angel told him to use his anger and military prowess for a higher calling.
“My goal was originally to let Isa tell his only as the only narrator,” explains Claywell, “but after some time we got the feeling that he was an unreliable narrator. We could trust him only so much. So we felt the need to balance out the story by speaking to others, to help put his life in some greater context. Because his story parallels that of the rise of militant Islam.”
Thus, the film covers pertinent moments of modern US history and the social and international politics that have led the country, like Ali, to stew in unresolved racial, religious and economic conflicts for decades. It also calls attention to America’s dubious wars against Islamic nations and the factionalized fighting among Muslims themselves.
Adds Claywell: “I think Americans are very surprised that they can create a person like this, that our own society has its shortcomings. My main goal was to show that poverty and desperation can happen in any country…and if you have nothing to lose or live for, life becomes very unimportant. You can just as easily see in America things that are happening in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Palestine, especially among African Americans.”
Besides allowing Ali and his family to speak candidly for themselves, Claywell also gives equal time to, among others, scholars of the psychology of gang violence; Bosnian soldiers who served with Isa during the siege of Sarajevo; the journalist who uncovered Ali’s story; former Middle Eastern freedom fighters; and government officials and terrorism experts who say that the anger expressed by Ali and others like him must be listened to and examined.
The latter group includes former CIA head Robert Baer, who moreover muses that Ali may have ties with the State Department for traveling so freely back and forth between Bosnia (even heavily armed during the height of the embargo), where Ali has lived for several years with his Bosnian wife and children, to the US, despite being on at the top of America’s list of potential terrorist threats.
Claywell is currently working on a narrative feature on Ali, which would offer further, alleged behind-the-scenes machinations and events that did not make it into the documentary. |
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