Top 40 Mohamedou Ould Slahi Quotes

I often compared myself with a slave. Slaves were taken forcibly from Africa, and so was I. Slaves were sold a couple of times on their way to their final destination, and so was I. Slaves suddenly were assigned to somebody they didn’t choose, and so was I.

I don’t have a problem with black people – half my country is black people!

When the guards noticed my chessboard, they all wanted to play me. And when they started to play me, they always won. The strongest among the guards taught me how to control the center. After that, the guards had no chance to defeat me.

My goal was solely to fight against the aggressors, mainly the communists, who forbid my brethren to practice their religion.

Actually, I’m a very optimistic person.

English accepts more curses than any other language, and I soon learned to curse with the commoners.

Humiliation, sexual harassment, fear and starvation was the order of the day until around 10 P. M. Interrogators made sure that I had no clue about the time, but nobody is perfect; their watches always revealed it.

But when you embrace your weakness, that’s when you become strong.

When people look at one thing from one perspective, they certainly fail to get the whole picture, and that is the main reason for the majority of misunderstandings that sometimes lead to bloody confrontations.

I’m not a convicted felon.

I have come to learn that goodness is transnational, transcultural, and trans-ethnic.

I’m not looking to get even with anyone in my life.

And when 9/11 came, that was open season to violate human rights. And that’s how I was kidnapped.

There is nothing an interrogator could say to me that would be new; I’ve heard every variation.

I felt bad for everybody I hurt with my false testimonies.

Many nights I wake up not able to breathe. I think I’m in Guantanamo Bay. I’m crying and shouting and making it very hard for the people that are with me in the room to sleep.

I feel grateful and indebted to the people who have stood by me.

Everyone who tortured me and kidnapped me, who imprisoned me, I have forgiven everyone. And I wish them, from the bottom of my heart, the best of lives.

No matter how bad you make the torture scenes, the reality was much worse. Because you cannot put on screen 70 days and nights with no sleep. And this is the easiest part of the torture.

The U.S. bet its last penny on violence as the magic solution for every problem, and so the country is losing friends every day and doesn’t seem to give a damn about it.

I have never felt as violated in myself as I had since the DoD team started to torture me to get me admit to things I haven’t done.

I hated the compound, I hated the dark, dirty room, I hated the filthy bathroom, and I hated everything about it, especially the constant state of terror and fear.

I had nothing in my cell. Most of the time I recited the Quran. The rest of the time I was speaking to myself and thinking about my life and the worst-case scenarios that could happen to me.

My 70 days of torture began in Camp India. The camps in Gitmo are named by letters. A is for Alpha, B for Beta, C for Charlie and so on. I is for India. It is a torture block.

Bad people always want to blend into a crowd.

I’m afraid to apply for a visa to the U.S.A. because it’s against terrorism in a very undemocratic way.

Many people take daylight for granted, but if you are forbidden to see it, you will appreciate it.

I got used to interrogators asking me the same things. Before the interrogator even moves his lips I knew his questions, and as soon as he or she started to talk I turned my ‘tape’ on.

Detainees were not allowed to talk to each other, but we enjoyed looking at each other. The punishment for talking was hanging the detainee by his hands with the feet barely touching the ground.

I would like to believe the majority of Americans want to see justice done, and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people.

People from cold regions might not understand the extent of the pain when ice cubes get stuck on your body.

I trusted the American justice system too much, and shared that trust with people from European countries. We all have an idea about how the democratic system works.

I’m threatened because of the amount of information I’ve provided to the United States.

But the problem is that you cannot just admit to something you haven’t done; you need to deliver the details, which you can’t when you haven’t done anything. It’s not just, Yes, I did!’ No, it doesn’t work that way: you have to make up a complete story that makes sense to the dumbest dummies.

In a matter of weeks I developed gray hair on the lower half of the sides of my head. In my culture, people refer to this phenomenon as the extreme result of depression.

When I came to Afghanistan, I couldn’t choose the training camp; al Qaeda and the Arabs ran the camps. I said, ‘Hey, I want to help.’ They said I could not until I had training. I said, ‘OK, I’ll take the training.’

It is the taste of helplessness when you see your beloved fading away like a dream and you cannot help him.

One of the hardest things to do is to tell an untruthful story and maintain it, and that is exactly where I was stuck.

Gitmo is everywhere in the world. We need to raise awareness of illegal prisons in Middle East, Asia, and Africa. This needs to be brought to the attention of the U.N. This needs to stop.

There is no war between Muslims and Americans. There is no war between Americans and the poor people in the world. There is only a war between people on the top who have their own agenda.