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Title: Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid ISBN: 0-14-200260-7 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: January, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 (16 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Reach exceeds grasp of facts
Comment: The reviewers on this website who claim Rashid is the only journalist who knows Central Asia are clueless about journalism in Central Asia. There are many journalists who know Central Asia far better than Rashid - check out Eurasianet.org, for example.
Rashid's book about Afghanistan, Taliban, is excellent because he has spent many years living in the region and he knows some local languages and has seriously studied Afghanistan's history. Unfortunately, he relies on unreliable secondary sources for much of his knowledge of Central Asia and his book is filled with major and minor errors. He has an unsophisticated grasp of the Soviet era history of Central Asia and he makes wild speculations and overgeneralizations about the contemporary situation based on inadequate, hastily gathered information. Jihad is just Rashid capitalizing on his cachet and the publishers capitalizing on the public's hunger for quick and accessible information about this under-studied region.
Rating: 4
Summary: Insightful, experienced journalist explores troubled region
Comment: Journalist Ahmed Rashid has the knack to identify those regions and religious movements that can destabilize the world. In his seminal book on the Taliban, Rashid wrote the definitive account of the bizarre fundamentalists who ruled and oppressed Afghanistan. In Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, the author offers fresh insight into the Islamist tumult in the Central Asian republics of the former USSR.
Although not as strong as his previous book, Jihad nonetheless is the powerful story of the rise of militant Islam in an impoverished, politically troubled region. The author focuses on Islamist terrorists based in the Fergana Valley, a center of Muslim unrest since the Bolshevik Revolution. Rashid explores, compares and contrasts five Central Asian nations impacted by the valley: Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
These countries all differ but most continue to suffer the legacy of totalitarianism. After the Soviet Union imploded, Islam came out of the shadows in the Central Asian republics. The successor governments proved as eager as the Kremlin had been to repress religion, and this in turn led to the rise of Islamist terrorism. Rashid places this in a historical and cultural context for each nation. A correspondent long based in the region, Rashid is a reporter with impeccable sources and keen analytical abilities (he sometimes feels compelled to impart most of what he knows and has learned, and that can prove tedious).
The book is at its best when the author contrasts Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan once sought to wipe out all Islamists. After a violent civil war, the country came to embrace democracy. As a result, Tajikistan is relatively stable today, and religious activists find outlets for expression through the electoral process. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, frowns on religion and has a national policy to suppress Islamists. Partially as a result, that government remains under constant attack from Muslim extremists, and in turn employs all means at the state's disposal to destroy its enemies. This civil war, centered in the Fergana Valley, spills across borders and threatens the region.
After Rashid details the violence in Uzbekistan, he introduces the reader to the secretive Juma Namagani, who often seems driven by narcissism more than religious concerns. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the terror group Namagani heads, is presented here as a threat that rivals al-Qaeda in its fanaticism and violence.
Rashid concludes the actual problem isn't the insurgents, though. It's the repressive states that create them. Fortunately governments can change. The author documents why this holds some promise that Central Asia may not become the next Afghanistan.
Rating: 5
Summary: The only journalist who know the region
Comment: Having spent my whole life up until very recently living and working in Central Asia for the US goverment working with aid agencies, I long ago gave up on finding a book I could share with friends that could explain the Byzantine politics of this region. Here we have countries rich in resources filled with hard working, good people and ruled by dictators that America has unwisely allied with. These dictators are fueling the hatred that will be turned against the US by our enemies.
In fact years ago Rashid warned the west about the Taliban in several articles and had to stay out of that country for years because of the danger to his life.
While the author and I have very different political philosophies, I cannot disparage his journalism. It is thorough and insightful. If you want to understand this region, don't read a book by some Western journalist who spends two weeks here and two months in a public library doing research. Read a book by a man who grew up here and has covered this region for years.
The only people who won't like this book are the despots in the Central Asian nations who are eager to rob that region of it's riches while the eyes of the world are on Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's time to head Rashid's warnings before we end up with a whole region filled with Afghanistans and Iraqs...
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Title: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid ISBN: 0300089023 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror by Rohan Gunaratna ISBN: 0425191141 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations by Olivier Roy ISBN: 0814775551 Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by Bernard Lewis ISBN: 0679642811 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan by Mary Anne Weaver ISBN: 0374228949 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 20 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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