Retracing a Young Man’s Path to Extremism

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/opinion/syria-isis.html

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He was 21 years old. And then he left to join the insurgency.

By Esther Niemeier

Ms. Niemeier is a filmmaker.

What drives a young man to leave the safety of his country and move to the Middle East? I never thought I’d have to consider this question in a personal way. But then in 2013 my young friend abruptly disappeared from his home in Germany.

Six weeks later, he emailed his mother from Syria. He had joined a group of Salafist extremists there. He tried to reassure her: “I didn’t leave to get away from you, remember that,” he said. We later learned that he had died.

The boy was like a little brother to me. Our families lived in the same small town, and I met him when he was just 8. My family and I spent a lot of time with him until I went away to college. He disappeared right after he turned 21.

His mother still lives in my old town today. I see her angry, sad and full of self-doubt. She futilely searched for answers.

Then one day, she got a letter from a lawyer. The lawyer’s client had fought with my friend in the same group in Syria, and then was arrested on terrorism charges on a trip home to Germany. Now he was in prison and wanted to meet my friend’s mother. He wrote to her: “One thing you have to believe: We went with good intentions.” We went to visit him in prison.

In this film, through original interviews with my friend’s mother, archival footage, including cell phone videos, emails, and photographs, and recreated interviews with the prisoner, I try to retrace what happened to my friend, whose young life ended in the early stages of the Syrian civil war. I knew I would have to tell this deeply personal story in a different way.

Ultimately, many questions remain unanswered. But perhaps this film paints a clearer picture of what might drive someone to leave his home and family behind to answer the call of fundamentalism.

Esther Niemeier is a Berlin-based filmmaker.

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