I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad

As I'd seen over and again, people who see themselves as victims sometimes don't notice when they become oppressors.

If I've learned anything, it's this: a mother's screams over the body of her murdered child sound the same, no matter if she is black, brown, or white; Muslim, Jewish, or Christian; Shia or Sunni. We will all be buried in the same ground.

I also began writing letters to the editor in response to news coverage or issues of the day; one of them, about Islam and women, was even published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. After it ran, somebody from the neighborhood called my mother. “Tell your daughter to stay out of politics,” she said. But I was adamant that as a young woman and the daughter of guest workers I had a voice, too.

Leaving Germany and settling somewhere else would have been the easiest option,” he told the host. “We—and I am talking about whoever has a sense of humanity, no matter if Jewish, Muslim, or Christian—cannot let these right-wing groups win by allowing them to shut us up or by packing our bags.

This man’s name was Reda Seyam, and his videos from Bosnia were some of the earliest examples of jihadist propaganda that has since ballooned into today’s use of violence as a recruiting tool. Many jihadists of my generation would later describe Bosnia and especially the massacre at Srebrenica as their “wake-up call.

Hitler and his party had won power through elections and coalition politics. Why did people think that a voting system was protection against totalitarianism? The