Book Review: The Shell dissects political prisons in Syria - Reviews

Al-Ahram Weekly

17-02-2025

The Shell is the debut novel of Syrian author and former political prisoner Mustafa Khalifa. It is arguably one of the most famous works of prison literature to emerge from the Middle East since the turn of the century.
The story revolves around an unnamed young man who assumed he was safe enough to criticize Syria's regime while in Paris. His assumption cost him 13 years of pre-trial detention.
The memoir-style novel was not produced as usual with paper or ink, as those materials are inaccessible in prison. Instead, the narrator emphasizes from the outset that his fellow political prisoners instructed him to compose in his mind or to turn his mind into a recording device.
Although no time frame is given, the strong anti-Islamist sentiment and publishing date suggest the story relates to the explosive 1980s conflict between the Syrian state and Islamist groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.
The novel opens with a farewell at Paris' Orly Airport between the Syrian Christian protagonist and his girlfriend, Suzanne. She urges him not to leave for Syria, but he is attached to his homeland. As a director, he has several cinematic projects planned in Syria that he cannot pursue in France, where he would be treated as a refugee.
He remains unaware that a Syrian informant in Paris had informed a security agency of his criticism of the regime and its ruler.
Upon his arrival at Damascus Airport, Syrian security forces detain him immediately.
He experiences a classic "welcome party" at the first security station, location unknown. State security officers twist his body, cram it into a tyre, and rain lashes on his bare feet in sync with enquiries about his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He repeats that he's Christian, even declaring he is an atheist, but to no avail. Afterwards, he is thrown into a 25-square-metre cell housing 86 inmates, where they are forbidden to lift their heads, speak, or even pray. They can barely afford to whisper. He encountered inmates of varying ages, some as young as twelve or thirteen. They slept in shifts, with each prisoner's head positioned at the feet of another.
Still in disbelief and convinced that his imprisonment is a mistake, the protagonist keeps insisting that he is a Christian, an atheist. However, his attempt to exonerate himself backfires. His captors remain unconvinced, and his fellow prisoners shun him for being an unbeliever, an infidel.
A new phase commenced when the narrator was transferred to Desert Prison (i.e., Tadmur Prison), where he languished for twelve years. Tadmur was known as the most brutal of all of Syria's prisons and was notorious throughout the region. On 27 June 1980, former president Hafez Al-Assad's brother, Rifaat, ordered the execution of 1,000 inmates as retaliation for an attempted assassination of Hafez by an Islamist organization. This incident was widely known as the Tadmur prison massacre.
Upon arriving at Tadmur, the protagonist found that the prison guards were the scum of the army, prosecuted for offences like rape, theft, and desertion from military service. They served their sentences in this political prison, where torturing inmates was one of their primary duties.
The protagonist took pride in retaining his wristwatch, which went unnoticed by his jailers during the rigorous inspections that all prisoners faced.
During the Tadmur prison 'welcome party," three inmates were killed, and another ten subsequently met the same fate. Additionally, two were left permanently paralyzed, and one was blinded, all from a total of ninety-one prisoners in the protagonist's group.
There, he also met a group called the Feda'yeen. While the term usually refers to freedom fighters, it took on a different meaning within prisons. The Feda'yeen was a group of well-built inmates who carried food to the ward and volunteered to be whipped (five hundred lashes) instead of fellow inmates in the hope of being martyred under torture and entering paradise.
Although the narrator did not profess to be either a Christian or an atheist in the Desert Prison, this information spread, and he was ostracized. His fellow inmates were about to assault him when a revered sheikh intervened and took him under his wing. The protagonist felt trapped in a double-walled shell: the first wall was the hatred the inmates bore against him, and the second was his fear of them.
Every Monday and Thursday, helicopters land, and military court members conduct summary trials and executions in which inmates are either hanged or shot.
Any other form of address to the prison guards except 'my master' is one they consider an insult. He learnt that, during torture, he must keep his mind away from the number of lashes in order not to be weakened—physically and psychologically—and retain memories dear to him. The narrator mentions that a brilliant geology professor, imprisoned upon his return from the US, was so maddened by the torture he'd huddle into a blanket all year round.
After six months as a pariah, the narrator felt his tongue grow heavy with disuse and decided to speak loudly. Once the guard violently closed the door, a piece of the cement wall fell in front of his bed, forming a hole. Often, he'd use it to peek into the prison yard, wrapped within a blanket in imitation of the maddened professor, so as not to draw attention to himself.
The protagonist donated his valuable wristwatch for its needles to be used in an urgent appendicitis surgery for an inmate with whom he shared a cell. Consequently, the other inmates started to hold him in high regard.
Slowly, the protagonist even acquired a friend. Knowing that a fellow inmate, Nessim, was a French university graduate like himself, he initiated a conversation with him, which evolved into a close bond. Nessim, a medical doctor, was very clever with his hands. He used to make chess sets with available materials. However, that friendship quickly ended. During a fit of agitation, Nessim attacked the guards, who retaliated by regularly sedating him. Nessim became little more than a shell, eyes vacant and life extinguished.
The military prison complex in Syria was so corrupt that inmates were surprised to be allowed visitation rights with their relatives suddenly. However, their initial surprise faded when they discovered that the prison warden's mother would demand gifts—a kilogram of gold—for her son to permit a visit. On leaving the prison, the warden's mother had accumulated 665 kilograms of gold.
One day, the narrator heard the guards repeatedly calling his name, which shocked him. He had not heard it in over twelve years.
He was transferred from Tadmur to several security agency headquarters, where his treatment was more bearable. Afterwards, he discovered that his communist uncle had become a minister and was working to release him. His release, however, was contingent upon writing a letter thanking the president for forgiving him. While he adamantly refused, his brother signed the letter in his stead.
Throughout the novel, the narrator intersperses his daily prison life with daydreams and reminisces about his old memories in Paris, particularly those involving women.
Following his release, he spends his days sleeping, drinking, watching films, and refusing to work or marry. Entirely unable to adapt to life outside prison, he built himself a second cell, a shell that he had no desire to peep out of.
While Mustafa Khalifa is the novel's central character, he focused the narrative on another Christian political prisoner. This decision was made to steer the story away from being autobiographical and to tell it from the viewpoint of someone who is an outcast. As a result, the novel gains a powerful dramatic dimension.
The novel is heart-wrenching and captivating in equal measure. It is hard to believe this was Khalifa's first work, having only authored another novel called The Dance of Graves.
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