The Daily: ‘My Grandchild Is Not a Terrorist’

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October 25, 2019

By Livia Albeck-Ripka

Kamalle Dabboussy visited his daughter, Mariam Dabboussy, and his grandchildren at the Al-Hol camp in Syria earlier this year.Courtesy of Kamalle Dabboussy

This week, Melbourne-based reporter Livia Albeck-Ripka worked with producer Lynsea Garrison to make a two-part series about the relatives of ISIS fighters. You heard the story of Kamalle Dabboussy, whose daughter and grandchildren are detained in Syria. But there are many others. We asked Livia to tell us about her experience meeting these family members:

When I first met Kamalle Dabboussy earlier this year, he insisted that nearly everything he told me remain off the record.

For months, Kamalle had been quietly trying to convince the Australian government to bring home his daughter and three grandchildren from the Al-Hol camp in Syria, where the families of ISIS fighters are detained. He was leading a contingent of more than a dozen Australian relatives, all holding a similar dark secret. Few of them wanted to talk.

We met at a Lebanese restaurant on the waterfront of an inner-western suburb of Melbourne, where, in a haze of hookah smoke, Kamalle strategized with the relatives of other detained women and a lawyer who had been assisting them. It was a few weeks later when, frustrated by the government's inaction and desperate to get their loved ones home, they finally decided to go public.

First, Kamalle's story aired on national media. Following President Trump's announcement to pull troops from northeastern Syria, he held news conferences and did radio interviews, and allowed The Times to trail him to Parliament House in Canberra, Australia's capital.

Eventually, the other families began to open up, too.

Among them were John Crocket and Samer Safar, the grandfather and father of Janai Safar, a 26-year-old detained with her 3-year-old son in the Al-Hol camp. According to previous reporting by the Australian media, Janai chose to join the Islamic State, but she has since contested this.

When I met her family at a Sizzler restaurant outside Sydney last week, Samer said his daughter and grandson were in grave danger, and should come home. "My grandchild is not a terrorist," he said.

John, an 86-year-old Korean War veteran, said that even if his granddaughter had willingly joined, she deserved due process and to be tried in Australia. "I've done my bit for my country, so let the government do something for me, to bring my granddaughter back," John said. "That's all I want."

Samer Safar, left, and John Crocket, with a photo of Janai Safar as a child.Livia Albeck-Ripka/The New York Times

As of today, while governments around the world debate the question of what they owe to citizens who joined a regime repudiating Western values, the Australian women and children remain in the camp.

Many of you have asked us to continue following what happens, and we will. I'll stay in touch with Kamalle and the other families, and when there's news, we'll bring you the story.

Talk to Livia Albeck-Ripka on Twitter: @livia_ar.

The thing about Bernie

Senator Bernie Sanders during a rally in Queens, N.Y., on Saturday.Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

In today's episode, you heard our producer Jessica Cheung's conversations with supporters of Bernie Sanders at his rally in New York. We asked Jessica what struck her most about these interactions:

"To some, the differences between Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders's candidacies may appear relatively small. Both are liberal populists, campaigning on the overhaul of an economic system they believe is not working for lower- and middle-income families. But when I went to the Sanders rally on Saturday, I was surprised by how, to his base, the gulf between these two candidates is vast — more than I realized. Sanders's supporters insisted to me that these candidates are not similar, many of them contrasting the consistency of Sanders's record with that of Warren, who was a Republican until 1996. They cited his protests during the civil rights movement; they cited her past work with corporations in legal cases. And some suggested that because of Warren's past, she couldn't be trusted (a claim Warren, of course, rejects). In their telling, only Bernie Sanders could truly transform our economic system.

"But when I asked one voter, Andy Schwartz, about Sanders's ideological purity, he resisted the term. 'I don't know if it's even pure. We don't like that word. Because pure then becomes purity test — we don't actually believe that purity tests are being applied to various Democratic candidates by people on the left. It's about your ideas, your programs, your political record and your vision for this country. This isn't a purity test,' he told me. 'We're in a competitive primary election.'"

What we're listening to

Who: Neena Pathak, producer of "Still Processing"

What: "MOONFACE," an audio fiction podcast

I want to like audio fiction. But with a lot of contemporary audio fiction, I don't feel anything. And I get hung up on one thought: This isn't real.

As someone who loves consuming fiction, this is a frustrating thought. Tommy Orange's novel "There There" made me cry. The movie "Us" terrified me, and the show "Succession" almost made me anxiety-puke. None of these stories are real (unless "Succession" is maybe too real?), but they made me feel so much.

That's why I've been excited about "MOONFACE," an audio fiction series by James Kim — because it made me feel. It's the story of a Korean-American guy named Paul who is trying to be honest, about his sexuality and his ambitions, with himself and his dear ones.

The sound design is cinematic. You will notice this in the first five minutes of the first episode, which, spoiler alert, features a sex scene. But the loud, steady club beat juxtaposed with the gentle hesitation in Paul's voice makes you viscerally experience something unexpected: his vulnerability. Pulling off this scene in a way that evokes empathy rather than cringing is no small feat.

Another place where the series excels is in the dialogue between Paul and his immigrant mom. Their difficult conversations, traded between his broken Korean and her broken English, highlight a truth that many children of immigrants know too well — that while we'll never fully understand or be understood, it can still be worth it to try.

I believe in fiction. I believe in letting a story take me on a journey that helps me reflect on some aspect of my life or the world, even if for just a moment. "MOONFACE" does this in six carefully crafted episodes that confront both the fear and the freedom of becoming.

On 'The Daily' this week

Monday: In Part 1 of our series, we meet Kamalle Dabboussy, a father trying to get his daughter, who was married to an ISIS fighter, from a detention camp in Syria back home to Australia.

Tuesday: In Part 2, as President Trump's withdrawal of American troops from Syria throws the future of the detained women and children into uncertainty, Kamalle reaches his daughter on the phone.

Wednesday: Was there a quid pro quo? In a testimony that Democrats called the "most damning" yet, the top American diplomat in Ukraine says there was. Nick Fandos explains.

Thursday: As reports emerge of a shadow government in the Trump administration, David Shulkin, former secretary of Veterans Affairs, says he himself was a victim of it.

Friday: Alex Burns unpacks what happened at a Bernie Sanders rally and why the candidate's supporters are so devoted to him.