What Was Thought To Be Only A Nightmare

 Author's Note: I wrote about the book Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera and decided to compare it to what really happened in Guantanamo Bay.

The book Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera is about a young boy (Khalid) whose only worry was getting into college and scoring well on his GTCE. Things went bad when he has to go to Pakistan to see his aunts. He wasn’t too happy about it because he heard about how Americans are paying big money for terrorists. When he was accused of being a terrorist, they interrogate him until he says he’s a terrorist. He was later sent to Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay for two years before he is released.

Located at the southeastern side of Cuba, Guantanamo Bay is the site of a U.S. Naval base that covers approximately 45 square miles. This base was established in 1898 when the United States took control of Cuba from Spain following the Spanish-American War. Since early 2002, a portion of the base has housed a small group of detainment camps for militant al Qaeda and Taliban combatants captured by the American military during its post 9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These camps are named Camp Delta, Camp Echo, and Camp Iguana. A fourth facility, Camp X-Ray, ceased operations in April 2002. At one time, the Guantanamo detention center housed as many as 780 prisoners, most of whom hailed from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The prisoners all thought that George Bush was evil, and they all seemed to forget that it was mostly al Qaeda's fault. Some of the blame should go on him for not giving anyone a trial and torturing them without knowing if they’re guilty or not. But don’t get the impression that it isn’t al Qaeda’s fault for the bombings.

Along with the similarities, there were differences too. One big reason was that Khalid never actually existed in history. Another was that when Tariq, Khalid’s cousin, was nice and friendly with the guards and he gets stuff like a new toothbrush, and in real life the guards aren’t allowed to associate with the prisoners. The final difference is that Khalid was only fifteen when they put him and that only adults are put in there (rarely do they put in a teenager and they only do that if they believe you are much older).

In conclusion, I believe that this book is more similar to real life than not. Some differences of this story to real life make this book hard to believe, but Guantanamo Bay was really as bad as they said. In the end of the book Khalid starts to try and shut down Guantanamo Bay. I would also like to end with a few words from his letter he wrote while in Guantanamo: “I’d say the only way to prevent violence is to stop being violent, stop thinking nasty thoughts about other people. Stop hurting other people. Stop lying and cheating. How come the world doesn’t get that?”