Ryan McNeil
It’s difficult to articulate my thoughts on THE OATH. I know it moved me…I know it’s an important doc…it’s just a little difficult to express why.
For starters, the doc is about two men: Salim Hamdan and Nasser al-Bahri (aka Abu Jandal). Both men were involved in al Qaeda, the latter was even the personal bodyguard of Osama bin Laden from 1997 to 2000. After 9/11 both men are on the FBI’s radar. al-Bahri, already in prison as of 9/11, is questioned, released, and finds work as a cab driver in Yemen. Hamdan, by far the less involved of the two, is tossed into Guantanamo indefinitely.
The crux of the movie is listening to al-Bahri talk. We watch him try to raise his young son, we listen to him talk with would-be jihadis, and even get his take on al-Qaeda’s current tactics. Through it all, is the undercurrent of his oath. He took a loyalty oath to bin Laden and al Qaeda, swearing to fight for the cause and never question its leadership. So how much of what he’s saying conveys his true feelings, and how much of what he’s saying is out of duty to this oath he once took. For that matter, is he even still bound by the oath?
This doc is rather heavy, and paints a portrait of a man conflicted. A man who was tearful upon learning that men he knew flew airplanes into buildings killing thousands of innocent people…yet a man who can’t come out and say that he’s on the wrong side. He feels for Hamdan, his brother-in-law detained without charge rather illegally. Sadly, for a man who was much lower down the al-Qaeda food chain, we get the sense from his letters that Hamdan believes in the organizations cause much deeper than al-Bahri. Maybe moreso now than when he was first arrested.
It’s difficult to watch al-Bahri’s inner struggle through THE OATH, but compelling for certain. This doc is already getting a lot of attention, and I’m certain that we haven’t heard the last of it yet.
wow