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Religious Book Store > Religious books beginning with G
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Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror |
Author: Mahmood Mamdani
Published: 2005-06-21 |
List price: $15.95
Our price: $10.85
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Customer comments on this selection.
 The Most Important Book on 9/11
This book is a watershed in post 9/11 analysis. I am surprised that it was even published given how radically it departs from the propaganda machine of the Washington elite and the corporate media. While many experts on terrorism, Islam, and US foreign policy have discussed the US role in creating the Mujahideen and Osama Bin Laden, no one as dared to make the bold break from conventional wisdom that 9/11 is really about US foreign policy interests vis a vis the Cold War. In reading some of the other critical reviews, no one has really pointed out the weakness of this book, besides merely attaching labels like "blame America first" or "Marxists" or Terrorist Sympathizer", etc.
One of the most important contributions from Professor Mamdani is his notion of "Culture Talk" in which he takes on the intellectuals of the right who advocated the Iraq invasion and other unnecessary brutal wars against Muslim world, namely Lewis and Huntington. Mamdani, harkens back to an Edward Said critique of Lewis and Huntington. He strips away and exposes the inherent, bigoted, and racist perspective of Lewis and Huntington who under the guise of an intellectual exercise, argue that Islamic culture is so different from the West and therefore requires some action on the part of the United States and Europe to modify or alter existing Muslim societies.
He then sets out the roots causes which ultimately led to the rise of terrorism most notably al-Qaida and Usama Bin Laden, which in his view cannot be extricated from the importance of US foreign policy in the Cold War. I think this is the strength of the book. While many apologists of a phony nationalist tendency post 9/11 America will dismiss this section as a "blame America first" policy, they will not be able to offer a contrary analysis or point to any material misrepresentations of the US role in Africa and the Muslim world during the Cold War. Instead, as extreme red state warriors, they merely retort with nationalistic screeds, defamation and demagogy.
The last section was surprisingly bold and offered a different view of the cultural reason as to American support for Israel. Interestingly, Mamdani did not merely resort to the view of many critics of Israel that the Israeli lobby is to blame for the ability of Israel to literally get away with murder of Palestinians and Arabs without any repercussions. I found the notion of returning settlers as more acceptable to American sensibilities quite interesting, though I am not convinced entirely by his argument. Today, the rise of the Christian right as squelched any chance of American politicians and the corporate media offering some semblance of a balanced or even fair analysis of Israel.
Finally, I offer two critiques of the book. I thought that Professor Mamdani could have provided more historical data and information about African history. For example, his discussion of Liberia and Sierre Leone with respect to the settler issue was completely new to me and required further background. Second, i did not like the end notes approach. I kept flipping back and forth from the text to the notes to see his sources. From a marketing perspective, it may be more appropriate to exclude footnotes. But from a reading perspective it was cumbersome. In totality, this book is an important and necessary contribution to understand the world in which we live in.
 Only biased if you're used to the US media
As a British reader, it's fascinating to read all the reviews of this book which describe it as "biased". Having lived in the US for several months now, it is a constant source of astonishment to me how biased (pro-Israeli government) the US media is in covering the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I'm not just talking about the European media: Haaretz (a respectable left-wing newspaper in Israel) has the following to say about operation 'Cast Lead': "Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/attack-on-gaza-as-usual-u_b_153757.html). You would never read anything like this in the mainstream US media.
So I find Mamdani's analysis to be pretty even handed and insightful. He has done the research to back up his thoroughgoing historical analysis of the conflict. I urge people to read this account to see how much of the rest of the world views the Israel-Palestine conflict and the rest of the US' 'interventions' in other nations over the past fifty years. Unlike many US citizens, the rest of the world has neither forgiven nor forgotten the US' actions, and as a Brit I know only too well that the actions of an imperial nation have consequences that last decades and affect untold millions.
Mamdani's thesis is simply this: only by understanding the historic context of current events and acting accordingly can we create a world of peace and mutual respect.
A very tentative four stars
I went back and forth on how many stars to give this book, and I finally decided on four, perhaps against my better judgement. The first chapter of the book was amazing and that chapter, for me, alone made the book worth the time. In this one chapter he was able to formalize a lot of ideas that had been swirling around in my head from the other books I have been reading. It was a great chapter dealing with US concepts of what Muslims are and how those concepts influence our actions but are really based on a flawed and one-sided perspective. A "good" Muslim is considered someone who supports US actions even though those very same actions could be detrimental for the "good" Muslim, while the "bad" Muslim is the one who defies the US. The problem with the concept of the "bad" Muslim is that it lumps all Muslims who disagree with US policy into one group, but the fact is that some of these people are not terrorists hell bent on destroying us but instead are people who have legitimate grievances with US policy. The first chapter was excellent.
After the first chapter, though, the author flies off topic and never returns. Instead of following the first chapter's theme and the tile's theme the author spends the rest of the book critiquing US foreign policy of the last forty years. While a lot of the author's critique is legitimate and well detailed, it has nothing to do with the title of the book. The author doesn't even focus any of the remaining book on Muslims or Islam but instead focuses on US policy and only writes of Muslims in an ancillary way. Muslims and Islam is put on the periphery. This would be fine if the title of the book was "US Foreign Policy" but it isn't.
The reason why I still give the book a good rating is that the information is good. This book is the first I have read that focuses on the CIA and US interventionist policies and carries that focus to its contemporary conclusion in this way. It's linear which gives the reader a clear picture of where we were and how we got here.
At the same time the author treats US policy as if it operates in a vacuum and is not affected by other factors domestic and foreign. Of course it is difficult to take that broad of a picture and condense it into three hundred pages, but I still see this as a flaw.
All in all I do recommend this book. A lot of the material will be rehash for those well versed in the history of US foreign policy, but the way the author connects the dots I found to be worth the effort. Also the copy I read the notes were not numbered or identified in any way in the text, so the note section was completely worthless for me. I am assuming this was a mistake in my copy and not something that every other copy had as well.
Essential knowledge on Islamism
Whoever wants to talk about Islam, its political and religeous implication on modern world should read this book
The reader learns much about the origins of terrorism, which often has been orchestrated and initiated by
US-Politics and by powerfull US-organizations. I have bought this at amazon.com in it's original english-language version as well at amazon.de in a very satisfying german translation. The german paperback-edition is even much "worthier". This important book should be translated in other languages, also in arabic and hebrew.
 A sound bite to counter a sound bite?
This is a tough book to review--while it does have some valid points to make, it descends all too often into polemics. And even polemics aside, the book has problems at times. Some problems that caught my attention were:
1) While Mamdani criticizes several writers for characterizing Muslims into the "good" and "bad" camps, he can equally be accused of not recognizing the differences in foreign policies between the Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations.
2) Mamdani takes stance that religion, politics and culture must be viewed separately and are not linked. While I would not disagree that politics can be separated from religion and culture, I have a hard time understanding his stance on separating religion and culture--the way many of us learned anthropology, religion is considered part and parcel culture. (But then again, Mamdani avoids defining culture and what constitutes it.)
3) The historical context of America's proxy wars is told in a very one sided fashion. Missing is the activities of the Soviets, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, in a variety of Third World countries. Furthermore, in terms of the rise of political Islam, terrorism and the modern concept of jihad, his account differs from Kempel's Jihad.
4) The section on the rise of al-Qaeda and the Taliban has a heavy reliance on newspaper articles from the Los Angeles Times and Rashid's book on the Taliban. Missing from his story is Burke's book on al-Qaeda (or his articles from the Guardian), and use of other American, and British or French newspaper sources.
5) The presence of endnotes gives the book a scholarly air, but the reader needs to realize there is a lot missing on a variety of topics. Not only are works like Burke's and Kempel's missing, Mamdani has the tendency to make statements, assuming that they are facts as such and not opinions, need to be referenced and footnoted. One example is on page 92 dealing with how long the South African government could have supported Renamo without US support.
6) Mamdani contradicts himself at times. Probably the best example of this is his critique of co-existence/tolerance on page 173, and his call for it in the closing pages of the book.
While this book does make for compelling reading on America's proxy wars and America's selective use of terrorist groups against its opponents, it is far from a scholarly account. Mamdani's book ends up reading like a set of cobbled together sound bites that are trying to counter a sound bite. A much more nuanced and better referenced book on the topic is Richard Bonney's _Jihad: From Qur'an to bin Laden_.
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