Souad Mekhennet is a German-born journalist, the daughter of Turkish “guest workers” (gastarbeiter), who is now an investigative journalist for the Washington Post, covering “militant Islamist networks.”
She was recently interviewed by Sabine Kieselbach of Deutsche Welle about her job’s dangers and why it is important to speak to jihadists.
SK: Ms. Mekhennet, the film “All the President’s Men” about the Watergate scandal in the 1970s inspired your career choice. Now here you are, working at the paper where the two investigative journalists who broke Watergate worked. How does that feel?
Souad Mekhennet: It feels almost surreal. I watched this film about the Watergate affair as a teenager. I found it unbelievable to see that two Washington Post journalists could, through their research, cause the downfall of a U.S. president. I thought that was incredible. These men, who did not come from influential or wealthy families, were able to wield such influence through their jobs and make such a difference. But, of course, it was a very long road for the daughter of guest workers in Germany to make it all the way to the Washington Post.
SK: In your reports, you examine the abysses of political situations, but also the abysses of the human soul.
Souad Mekhennet: Before I go into any interviews, I tell people from the beginning that I am a journalist. Everyone knows I work for the Washington Post, I don’t hide that. We don’t do undercover stories. I say, ‘I’m going to come and listen to your side of the story. I will also ask you critical questions, but I will reflect your answers to these questions fairly in my article.’ This has worked very well so far, knock on wood.
I have encountered evil frequently throughout my life. When I was a teenager, I was chased by skinheads through the streets of Frankfurt with threats of being killed or gassed.
I believe that there are many people on many different levels in this world who deal in what we call evil. I once met a firefighter’s wife whose husband had been killed during the September 11 attacks. She told us journalists, ”I believe that the media and the politicians also share the blame for what happened on September 11, because no-one out there told us why these people hate us so much!”
The quote from the firefighter’s wife — “I believe that the media and the politicians also share the blame for what happened on September 11, because no-one out there told us why these people hate us so much!” — is strangely not discussed by Souad Mekhennet. I suspect that she would be deeply unhappy with those who maintain, with considerable supporting evidence from the Qur’an and Hadith, and from the recorded remarks of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda leaders, that “these people hate us” because we are non-Muslims, the “most vile of creatures,” against whom Muslims are commanded to wage Jihad and to “strike terror” in their hearts. See, e.g., Qur’an 2:191-193, 4:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, 98:6. Souad Mekhennet does not want Islam being seen as the explanation for Muslim terrorism. This is clear from her last response in the interview: “It would be very problematic if we were to see it [IS] as relating to Islam and say that these people hate the West because they are Muslims. Thatʹs exactly what they want. They want a religious conflict to arise. We should not do them the favor.”
If it is not the texts and tenets of Islam, an idea she refuses to entertain, what explains 9/11 and over 33,000 Muslim terrorist attacks since then? That’s what she’s still trying to figure out from her meetings with Jihadis. Her refusal to consider the obvious is fascinating.
Souad Mekhennet: She [the fireman’s wife] was right: we only report on the attacks once they are over, but we do not deal with the people or their ideologies before they become mass murderers. I made it my task to explore this and subsequently began my journey into the so-called world of jihad.
And so far she’s still trying to figure out what oh what could it be. What are those “ideologies” she fails to identify? Could one of them be Islam?
I sometimes found myself sitting down with people who have told me that if I were from America or from this or that country, then they would immediately kidnap and kill me. In such a situation, you don’t know whether you will leave the interview alive. We have to learn how to live with this. But I believe it is important that we take on this assignment.
What did Souad make of that threat to kidnap and kill people from “America or from this or that country”? Did she recognize it as a threat against people from Infidel lands, that is a threat against Infidels which could only mean a religious war? Or did she decide not to think too deeply about what such a statement meant?
SK: You say that you want to mediate, to build bridges. Your book is now being translated into Arabic. How does “the other side” react to your work?
Mekhennet: Before I go into any interviews, I tell people from the beginning that I am a journalist. Everyone knows I work for the Washington Post, I don’t hide that. We don’t do undercover stories. I say, “I’m going to come and listen to your side of the story. I will also ask you critical questions, but I will reflect your answers to these questions fairly in my article.” This has worked very well so far, knock on wood.
SK: Have you ever reached your limits when it comes to your work?
Mekhennet: There was a situation where I saw the son of a fighter in Lebanon playing a game with his friends called “kill the unbelievers.” He was a little boy, just five years old. That hit me hard. And sometimes there are situations where you really think that you won’t make it out. I was in prison in Egypt. I was threatened with all sorts of things, tied up, blindfolded and led into a room where a woman was screaming. I thought I was going to be raped. As a woman and a journalist, you reach certain limits; you have to find a method to overcome the fear and continue.
Souad recognized that the game called “kill the unbelievers” that she found so disturbing was merely children mimicking the Muslim adults making war on Unbelievers. Yet she wants us to believe, in her final response, that we must not call this Muslim war on Unbelievers a “religious conflict.”