Some books toward understanding the ‘Global War on Terror’ and Canada’s role in it
This year I became increasingly frustrated by my being a tax-paying and voting citizen whose army was involved in a war that I felt I knew too little about. So this summer began, for me, with reading a number of books to try to remedy that a bit, and each of them proved full of incredibly interesting information for those in a similar boat.
I by no means claim that this is anywhere near a list that will give you all the information we all ought to have. It’s just where I started:
Omar Nasiri’s Inside the Jihad
This was a fascinating look at the rise of Al-qaeda from a rather reluctant spy who worked for the French intelligence services, attended training camps, and was associated with key members of Al-qaeda. What made the book most interesting to me was the extent to which the author remained notably unsympathetic to either side of what he saw as the divide between Islam and the West–he was neither in support of the methods being used by terrorists nor did he believe that their opinions of the West, nor their desire to fight against the West were necessarily wrong. This, to me, made for a fascinating perspective. Also, while it’s fairly long, it read like a good novel and I had it read in about two days.
Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner
This was a beautiful, and gut-wrenching and tragic book that I highly recommend. It followed the life of an Afghani whose father was able to move he and his son to America but who later had to return to Afghanistan to save a young boy. The book was structured quite well considering the complexity of the political issues of the country, which were woven into the story as highly relevant while remaining backdrops to the gripping tales of individuals living through such shockingly difficult times.
Michelle Shephard’s Guanatanamo’s Child
This was an incredibly shocking and important book, especially for Canadians. The author, Michelle Shephard, is an award-winning journalist with The Toronto Star who has won Canada’’s top two newspaper awards: the National Newspaper Award for investigations and the Governor General’’s Michener Award for public service journalism.
I truly need to find the time to dedicate an entire post to Omar’s story, although there is a great deal available in the news. Here you can find a CBC ‘in depth’ article on Khadr, and here is a very recent article which I highly recommend, discussing the legalities behind bringing him home. Also here you can find Matt Good’s musings on the matter along with his requesting that you email the Prime Minister to demand that Canada demand Khadr’s return. Please do so.
Michael Ignatieff’s The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror
This book was fairly short, dense, but important insofar as it reflects on commentary within Canadian politics on how to deal with terrorism. The basic thrust of the argument is that while we do have a right to use force and violence to protect the societies in which we live and the principles on which they are founded, to do so in ways which violate those principles is not only morally questionable but is dangerous to the societies we puport to protect. Thus, Ignatieff argues for a great deal of awareness of the extent to which we are violating those principles and a constant and careful assessment of whether our actions can be justified in so doing.
Benazir Bhutto’s Reconciliation: Democracy, Islam and the West
I consider this book to be very important. It was a simultaneously difficult and fascinating read. It was difficult for strange reasons. 1. it was a message from the grave–and a message from a woman who knew very well how soon her death might be approaching, and 2. I feel, particularly toward the end, that editing was not carried out as well as it ought to have been (facts were needlessly repeated and arguments were less solidly constructed), perhaps, tragically, as a result of the author’s death. That said it was a book which challenged conventional wisdom on democracy, Islam and ‘the West’ in ways which were very important, or so it seemed to me.
Each book cover links to its page on indigo.ca
Happy reading.
Add comment July 24th, 2008