I haven’t read most of the pieces awarded here, and I’m sure they’re all excellent. That being said, I want to call your attention to the winner for "Feature Writing", and recommend you to read it. Taub’s produced a heartbreaking, empathetic, and incredible piece, that tilted my perspective on the US government's handling of 9/11, and how the government and big (dis-)organizations work in general.
Given his source material, it would have been easy (and justified) to construct the narrative into a tirade against the CIA. Instead, Taub takes a rather empathetic and detached frame of reference, and the result is a monument to the human toll of ruthlessly-executed ignorance. None of the people (victims or perpetrators) seem to fully understand their absurd roles: their actions driven by jumpy supervisors and acquaintances, who in turn are driven by a mix of fear, ideology and separation from "ground".
And once the veil of ignorance is lifted, there are reputations and legacies to protect, bureaucratic boxes that "cannot" be unchecked. There's no undoing what's set in motion, because "undo" implies reflection and the admission of wrongdoing, which is something that we really struggle with as a society.
It's a tragedy you see play out everywhere, and this is a particularly poignant and tragic case, beautifully presented. If it isn't a case study already, it ought to be one.
The story about a Guantanamo interrogator converting to Islam is hardly something I, as an atheist, would find motivating in any way. It is not the only story of such kind of conversion, but sadly, none of such proves anything positive about that (or any other) religion, or people involved.
I say sadly since those who believe otherwise are directly primed by the beliefs common only in very religious societies, like the U.S., and not in the rest of the world.
Given his source material, it would have been easy (and justified) to construct the narrative into a tirade against the CIA. Instead, Taub takes a rather empathetic and detached frame of reference, and the result is a monument to the human toll of ruthlessly-executed ignorance. None of the people (victims or perpetrators) seem to fully understand their absurd roles: their actions driven by jumpy supervisors and acquaintances, who in turn are driven by a mix of fear, ideology and separation from "ground".
And once the veil of ignorance is lifted, there are reputations and legacies to protect, bureaucratic boxes that "cannot" be unchecked. There's no undoing what's set in motion, because "undo" implies reflection and the admission of wrongdoing, which is something that we really struggle with as a society.
It's a tragedy you see play out everywhere, and this is a particularly poignant and tragic case, beautifully presented. If it isn't a case study already, it ought to be one.
(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/22/guantanamos-da...)