“Whenever I realized that a guard was mean I pretended that I understood no English. I remember one cowboy coming to me with an ugly frown on his face: 'You speak English?' he asked. 'No English,' I replied. 'We don’t like you to speak English. We want you to die slowly,' he said. 'No English,' I kept replying. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction that his message arrived. People with hatred always have something to get off their chests, but I wasn’t ready to be that drain.”
Slahi demonstrates both reserve and intelligence in his navigation of interactions with the guards. He would identify their temperaments and prepare accordingly. Although he identifies the source of the abuse as hatred, Slahi does not excuse the behavior. He views the guards as people and consequently holds them to high standards of personal interaction, unwilling to become a punching bag given his circumstances.
“We human beings take everything into consideration except for death; hardly anybody has death on his calendar.”
This argument appears to be Slahi's center. He does consider death, almost on a daily basis. In this contemplation he finds reassurance, that his situation is both temporary and unjust. He finds a certain degree of resolution, almost superiority, in the assurance that he knows the ending to his own story, something which the men in authority over him seem to avoid admitting at all costs.
“Violence naturally produces violence; the only loan you can make with a guarantee of payback is violence. It might take some time, but you will always get your loan back.”
As a man committed to non-violence, Slahi refuses to antagonize his captors. He understands that violence produces more violence, so he's eager to avoid any unnecessary attention. He does not allow himself to return the aggression of his guards, even though most of his fellow prisoners do.
“Many young men and women join the U.S. forces under the misleading propaganda of the U.S. government, which makes people believe that the Armed Forces are nothing but a big Battle of Honor: if you join the Army, you are a living martyr; you’re defending not only your family, your country, and American democracy but also freedom and oppressed people all around the world. Great, there is nothing wrong with that; it may even be the dream of every young man or woman. But the reality of the U.S. forces is a little tiny bit different. To go directly to the bottom line: the rest of the world thinks of Americans as a bunch of revengeful barbarians.”
As a highly educated person, Slahi understands that most of his guards are living a delusion. They believed a lie which their government told them. To this extent, Slahi attempts to extend mercy and to forgive, but he also knows the United States' reputation abroad for being a bully. He distinguishes the government, as a whole, from the individuals with whom he interacts.
