Middle Eastern tyrants

Chapter 102 The Liberation of Garnam
On October 11, 1388, with the fall of the last rebel invader, Canam finally achieved complete liberation.

Lu Lin arrived at the front line in an armored vehicle for inspection and happened to come across a group of civilians who were trying a "traitor".

A man was stripped naked and tied to a cement pillar, his body covered in bruises. Residents around him cursed and threw rotten eggs and vegetable leaves at him.

At this moment, a guerrilla soldier saw Lu Lin approaching and saluted: "General!"

Lu Lin instructed Fahad to stop the car and asked with some curiosity, "What crime did this person commit?"

"He's a traitor!" a nearby resident exclaimed with disgust. "This guy abuses his power, taking advantage of being one of the first to defect to Zion, and has been oppressing other people ever since, committing all sorts of evil deeds!"

As Lu Lin listened to the guerrillas announcing the man's crimes one by one, he thought to himself that this was his own fault.

He looked at the woman kneeling to one side and asked, "And what about her? What crime did she commit?"

“She’s the daughter of the bricklayer Talib, and that guy kidnapped her to be his wife,” another person said.

In the Muslim mindset, a wife is considered the property of her husband, or rather, his appendage. Even if she has a tragic past, she and her husband share a common fate, where one's fortunes are intertwined with the other's.

Seeing the woman about to be hoisted onto the concrete pole, Lu Lin frowned: "Wait a minute."

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried great weight.

Without a word, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

Lu Lin asked the woman, "Were you taken from him?"

The woman nodded.

Lu Lin: "Then do you hate him?"

Tears streamed down the woman's face: "I hate it."

Lu Lin turned around again and looked at the people who were about to judge the woman. He asked loudly, "When she was raped by that bastard, who among you stepped forward to stop the violence? Step forward!"

The crowd looked at each other, but no one stepped forward.

Lu Lin looked at the group of people in front of him. They might be judging the injustices they had suffered, but at the same time, they were using justice to cover up new violence.

Religious blind faith led them to abandon critical thinking; no one cared about the woman's plight, only wanting to use her suffering to vent their pent-up anger.

They are using anger to mask their cowardice and using tradition to justify the oppression of the weak.

So Lu Lin shouted, "The people you should really be judging are the Zion devils who persecuted you, those treacherous traitors, not a weak person like you who has been persecuted!"

Fahd whispered from the side, "It's no use talking to them like that. They'll just continue to persecute this woman after you leave."

Lu Lin thought for a moment and asked the woman, "Who witnessed your wedding?"

“It’s Imam Hukuin of Sheriff Street,” someone shouted. “But he’s also a traitor! He defected to Zion and was handed over to the Inquisition for trial this morning!”

"Insect!"

Lu Lin cursed, "This kind of heretic who has betrayed his country and joined the enemy is not fit to hold a religious position. I hereby declare this marriage null and void!"

He turned to Ulima, who was accompanying him, and asked, "Am I doing this according to the rules?"

“Of course.” Ulima nodded. “If it’s not in accordance with the rules, we’ll add it later.”

Lu Lin nodded in satisfaction and said to the woman, "From now on, he is no longer your husband, and you are no longer his wife. Do you both understand?!"

The crowd nodded in agreement.

Then, Lu Lin untied the woman's ropes and handed her a knife: "I've removed all your shackles. Now it's your turn to prove yourself."

This is the final step, and also the most crucial one.

The woman gripped the knife handle tightly with both hands, her eyes glazed over, but she quickly regained her senses and walked step by step toward the man who had persecuted her.

The man bound to the stone pillar was both shocked and furious, shouting, "You bitch, you can't!"

Then his mouth was gagged with a rag, and he could only make futile "mmm" sounds. The woman walked up to the man, raised the dagger in her hand high, and then shouted as she stabbed him.

"Pfft-"

The knife got stuck in the man's collarbone, and blood immediately spurted out.

The man screamed in terror, but it was all in vain; he could only watch helplessly as the woman killed him.

But this blow seemed to have robbed the woman of all her courage. She pulled out the knife, took two steps back, and then sat on the ground and burst into tears.

Lu Lin stepped forward, took the knife from the woman's hand, and then announced to everyone: "She has proven with courage that she was not an accomplice, and I declare her innocent."

He then looked at the traitor whose shoulder was bleeding: "As for you—"

Lu Lin drew his pistol and fired three shots in quick succession: two to the heart and one to the head.

This ended the life of the traitor.

He then glanced at the woman on the ground and instructed his personal guards, "Take her home."

The trial ended there, and the crowd slowly dispersed. Ulima, who was in charge of taking notes, smiled and said, "I didn't expect that you, Major General, are someone who likes to uphold justice."

“I’m just helping them correct their mistakes,” Lu Lin said. “True justice should not be the victor’s revenge on the loser, but the redemption of the innocent.”

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Bandar was counting the captured weapons and equipment in the square when he saw several well-dressed people walking towards him.

“We are government personnel from Ghanam,” the leader introduced himself. “I am Skud, a party official. Thank you for your assistance—”

Bandar looked down and the first thing he saw was a pair of spotless, polished leather shoes.

So he asked, "Did you just come from the other side of the river, or have you been here all along?"

The other party replied, "Of course we have always stood with the people!"

Then Ahmed, who was standing next to him, asked, "Have you heard of it?"

Ahmed shook his head: "The government of Ghanam suddenly disappeared before the Zionists even entered the city. They probably fled to Baghdad long ago."

The other guerrillas also shook their heads, looking on with amusement.

Skud's expression changed: "How could you make false accusations!"

“Nobody’s heard of you, which means you’re imposters,” Bandar said without mincing words, pulling out his gun. “I suspect you’re spies sent from Zion! They were specifically sent to sabotage us and prevent us from contacting the real government!”

“We can prove our identities!” Another government official produced a document: “These are government documents.”

The evidence was handed over, but Bandar only glanced at it twice before casually tossing it aside: "I'm from DualWise, I don't understand this!"

When the soft approach failed, Skud decided to take a hard line, threatening, "You want to annex the city of Ghanam. This is an act of aggression just like Zion. I'm going to report this to higher authorities, and you can expect to be boycotted by other Arab countries and the United Nations!"

"You'd better find a way to prove your innocence first, Spy."

Bandar sneered, then summoned the church's military personnel and ordered, "Take them away and find out exactly what their purpose is in infiltrating Ghanam!"

"Yes!"

Ignoring Scud's tirade, the white-robed soldiers immediately took the group of "government personnel" away.

Bandar then turned to Ahmed and said, "We follow the rules, and you can also act as witnesses."

Ahmed shook his head: "No need. They're all lowlifes. The people of Ghanam have long been disappointed in them."

He then added:
"From now on, this city will belong only to those she never gave up on, and to those who never gave up on her."

(End of this chapter)