Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East by Gilles Kepel, Pascale Ghazaleh (Translator)

Product Details

Synopsis

Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats—from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers in London and Madrid to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq—have polarized populations on both sides of this divide.

Yet, as the noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush’s War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East—enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. Osama bin Laden’s call for martyrs to rise up against the apostate and hasten the dawn of a universal Islamic state papers over a fractured, fragmented Islamic world that is waging war against itself.

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

Publishers Weekly

Kepel (Al Qaeda in Its Own Words) offers an erudite critique of "the narratives of both Bush and Bin Laden which considered force or violence to be a prerequisite for change in the Middle East." The book surveys the propagation of the "war on terror" that eventually led to "the fiasco in Iraq," but unlike many critiques of the Iraq War, this study focuses on the internecine fighting between various national and sectarian Muslim groups, providing rich historical and cultural context for the internal regional politics that often have derailed U.S. policy. His analysis shifts to Europe, where he examines how different national policies of integration and "multiculturalism" in France and England have resulted in dramatically different experiences of terrorism. Kepel offers alternatives to the American "war on terror" that he believes will help "to transcend terror and martyrdom and to ensure the decisive marginalization of jihadist radicalism." His prescriptions are as insightful and thoughtful as his critiques, making this a valuable read for those interested in the Middle East and current affairs generally. (Nov.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

More Reviews and Recommendations

Biography

Gilles Kepel is Professor and Chair of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.