Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A guide to understanding conflicts, 30 Jun 2005
Rees provides an excellent book for all of us who feel repulsed by the one-sidedness of the US view of the world and - at the same time - can't be bothered reading easy-packed Michael Moore propaganda. Rees tells us - from his first hand experience - that the world's conflicts happen for a reason and that all parts in a conflict have the genuine feeling of being part of a fair cause. Bombs don't blow because "wicked" people "hate democracy" or because of other stupid excuses given to us by the Bush administration as an attempted explanation for 9/11. Conflicts happen for a reason, and Rees gives us many examples of these. He isn't afraid of offending the post-9/11 sensitivities that have served as an excuse for the current ongoing manslaughter. Bush said we had to be with him or with the terrorists. I'm certainly not with him and don't know what he means by the latter: after all the US funded and trained the Contras in the war in Nicaragua, amongst other examples of "terrorists", by Bush's own definition. I rather be with Rees and his intelligent and well documented approach to the subject. If Paulo Cohello is the easy-packed, simplistic, airport-bookstore version of Herman Hesse, then Michael Moore is the equivalent version of Rees. Rees provides a better documented and more questioned point of view to strengthen the ever-growing anti-Bush side of the world. Must be read.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
not just for guardian readers, 17 Sep 2005
The book covers a wide range of conflicts and does a good job in demistifying them. He has met these people and he gives an honest opinion of them and their plight. In some cases he is sypathetic, whilst other times less so. Reading the reviews reminds me that some people will never be able to put themselves in anothers shoes. I always think its a shame that they were not born in a refugee camp under foreign occupation. Their views would change in a nano second. I did get a little tired of the "what does terrorism mean" applied to every case, but in the end that is a minor critisism. To the author I say well done, he has a lot of bottle and he has written a good book.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dining Far Out, 12 May 2005
At first sight, this book seems to draw on a venerable tradition of British travelogues: an otherwise reasonable gentleman travels to most absurd places and along the ways deals with a panoply of individuals and groups with strange and almost inexplicable behavioral patterns. The author is so persistent and unflappable in his quests through areas and situations that everybody else desperately wants to avoid that he himself becomes a part of the gallery of eccentrics he so vividly depicts. I must admit that I love this eminently readable "Mad dogs and Englishmen" type of accounts.
But the book, though staying true to the genre, manages to transcend it, much like Rebecca West's "Black Lamb, Gray Falcon" did. In "Dining with Terrorists", observations about local mores (that include actual dietary preferences and table manners of terrorists) have a way of elegantly morphing into action/adventure episodes which in turn lead to intellectual discourses the depth of which is not always a staple of the genre. The author's steadiness and an uncanny ability to make the most of his "visitation rights" make this an even more compelling read.
A good example of this unique style is a feast with Algerian terrorists who during the ordinary course of business manage to dispatch some 300 souls per week (or at least half of that, if you buy the argument that probably half of the victims in the conflict are a result of Government retaliation). As they praise their couscous citing imported semolina as a key ingredient, the author inquires, by way of dinner conversation, why did they then kill an entire crew of an Italian boat importing the fine ingredient. Loud protestations of these fundamentalists skilled in the art of throat - slitting set a stage for a Ludlum - like thriller of an investigation into the gruesome murder which results in strong indications that the Algerian government might be the one behind the attack. The goal was to gain dramatic support of world leaders (the support dutifully followed). This in turn leads to yet deeper questions at the core of the book: why is it labeled as terrorism when our enemies kill civilians randomly and a legitimate struggle when civilians are victims of our allies? In the chapter on Afghanistan, we learn that the Northern Alliance announced to its troops that they are fighting Taliban because the latter strayed from strict interpretations of Islam! (The author admits that he didn't manage to understand what made Taliban insufficiently fundamentalist.)
Of course, this comes perilously close to moral relativism, but the book tackles that issue by firing it back to those who disagree with its point of view: isn't it the apogee of moral relativism to turn a blind eye on unacceptable actions just because they happen to suit your political goals at the time? In that sense, the main thesis of the book is closer to moral absolutism.
One might not always subscribe to this in essence idealistic and puritan approach, but vast majority of readers - even, I suspect, in the highest political and intelligence positions - can learn from the book a great deal about root causes of terrorism and how to start thinking about confronting it. This is not a plan to implement a strategy. The book is rather aimed at understanding core issues that can be incorporated in one's thinking about how to deal with a population that believes that their acts are justified. Better yet, all of this is delivered through a narrative packed with action that includes, for example, a literal cliffhanger at Khyber Pass during the winter. Just as a reminder - Khyber Pass is a mountain passage to Afghanistan, one of those places where only mad dogs and Englishmen go.
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