Jordanian film shows hometown of al-Qaida leader in a different light
AMMAN, Jordan - Zarqa, a low-income industrial city near the Jordanian capital Amman, is best known as the birthplace of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led a campaign of suicide bombings in Iraq that killed hundreds of civilians before he died in a U.S. airstrike in 2006.
But Zarqa native and filmmaker Mahmoud Massad has sought to portray a very different and more nuanced image of his hometown in his new documentary "Recycle," which won the 2008 Sundance Film Festival's World Documentary Cinematography award.
This beautifully shot film examines ex-mujaheddin fighter Abu Ammar, who is trying, but failing, to build a normal life. It is a disturbing and bleak portrait of a man struggling to support eight children and two wives on meagre earnings he gets from scrounging for recyclable cardboard.
But the film's title also alludes to the masses of unemployed young men in much of the Arab world who become recyclable fodder for militants.
Director Massad turns Zarqa's rundown slums into an intriguing web of visuals of the city's underclass, trying to show it is not just a breeding ground for violent extremists.
"I got irritated with the media for depicting Zarqa, Arabs and Jordanians as if we're all from one side," said Massad, who was born in the city. "I wanted to show that even from al-Zarqawi's neighbourhood, the place of the second terrorist after Osama bin Laden, a lot of people aren't painted with the same brush."
The film, shot over three years in Zarqa, attempts to provide insights into the conditions that breed extremism.
An amateur Islamic scholar, Abu Ammar engages his friends and neighbours in the discussion. It's his belief that many Muslim young men are recruited for jihad more out of the grinding poverty and economic pressures they face, rather than out of religious conviction.
Much of the film shows the main character interacting with neighbours and friends who describe their lives. They talk about the frustration of poverty and how some who find doors to opportunity closed resort to extremism while others try to flee abroad.
"The young men are fleeing and going to Iraq and Afghanistan," he lectures his friends as they sit around smoking in a drab living room. "They're escaping to these places because of life's pressures. Honestly, this is the main reason," he says.
The entire documentary is very nuanced, arousing debate about who is a moderate.
Physically speaking, Abu Ammar looks like a stereotypical militant. He wears a long beard, a long shirt and trousers that stop above the tops of his ankles - the signature style of Islamic militants who fought in the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s.
But Massad's point is that appearances aren't everything. While, Abu Ammar does espouse a strict interpretation of Islam and even served as a bodyguard for militant leaders in Afghanistan, such as Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, who reportedly invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan - that's where the similarities with al-Qaida militants stop.
Abu Ammar's home is next door to al-Zarqawi's family house and he blames al-Zarqawi for distorting the image of the town and its people.
Frames jump between him philosophizing as his drives his blue pick-up truck in search of cardboard to recycle to ardent political discussions with his friends back in his crumbling home.
One scene shows him and his friends in a sparsely furnished living room engaged in a lively debate about the war in Iraq. Abu Ammar calls the conflict "the most complex war since the birth of Islam" because of the numbers of internal religious factions and foreign forces involved in the fighting. He rules out jihad as a necessity.
"But the question is, are you obligated or not?" he says. The answer is, you are not."
Disillusioned with the chaos Afghanistan was left in during the 1980s, Abu Ammar tries to clear his confusion by writing a book on holy war and reconciling his faith with the contemporary realities of politics.
In another discussion on 9/11, Abu Ammar does not decry the horrific numbers of innocents killed as a Western viewer might hope. But there is firm sense he is at odds with al-Qaida's ideology and actions.
"There is no relationship between me and those groups at all," he told The Associated Press at the premiere in Amman. "The reality of Islam, the Qur'an, and the religious texts are moderate," in their approach to life, he added.
The film includes several re-enactments of real events from Abu Ammar's life including his arrest by Jordanian security forces in a sweep following the country's Jordan's worst terror attack, a triple suicide bombing at Amman hotels that killed 63 people in 2005. The attack was ordered by al-Zarqawi and the Jordanians rounded up suspected Islamists in his hometown Zarqa.
Abu Ammar spent four months in a Jordanian prison, where he was questioned then released without charge.
Massad, who said he has lived in Holland for the past 12 years, spent eight months persuading Abu Ammar to participate in the film. He was worried it would misrepresent Islam.
In early scenes, Abu Ammar expresses his disapproval of Muslims who travel to live in non-Muslim nations. But in the closing shot, a clean-shaven Abu Ammar heads to the airport in search of a real job and its financial rewards abroad.
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