Rock the Casbah
Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World
-
- $19.99
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
A decade after the 9/11 attacks, this groundbreaking book takes readers deep into rebellions against both autocrats and extremists that are redefining politics, culture, and security threats across the Islamic world. The awakening involves hundreds of millions of people. And the political transformations— and tectonic changes—are only beginning.
Robin Wright, an acclaimed foreign correspondent and television commentator, has covered the region for four decades. She witnessed the full cycle, from extremism’s angry birth and globalization to the rise of new movements transforming the last bloc of countries to hold out against democracy. Now, in Rock the Casbah, she chronicles the new order being shaped by youthinspired revolts toppling leaders, clerics repudiating al Qaeda, playwrights and poets crafting messages of a counter-jihad, comedians ridiculing militancy, hip-hop rapping against guns and bombs, and women mobilizing for their own rights.
This new counter-jihad has many goals. For some, it’s about reforming the faith. For others, it’s about reforming political systems. For most, it’s about achieving basic rights. The common denominator is the rejection of venomous ideologies and suicide bombs, plane hijackings, hostage-takings, and mass violence to achieve those ends.
Wright captures a stunning moment in history, one of the region’s four key junctures—along with Iran’s revolution, Israel’s creation, and the Ottoman Empire’s collapse—in a century. The notion of a clash of civilizations is increasingly being replaced by a commonality of civilizations in the twenty-first century. But she candidly details both the possibilities and pitfalls ahead. The new counter-jihad is imaginative and defiant, but Muslim societies are also politically inexperienced and economically challenged.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
To tell the story of the new world order forming in many Islamic nations, Wright begins in Tunisia, where the self-immolation of fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi inspired his angry fellow citizens to oust President Ben Ali in what is now referred to as "The Jasmine Revolution." Just a few weeks later, bloggers and activists in Egypt used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests against the government of Hosni Mubarak. Similar protests broke out in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Wright posits that the Muslim world is currently experiencing a sentiment of counter-jihad, "a struggle within the faith itself to rescue Islam's central values from a small but virulent minority." In Part Two of the book, Wright examines the cultural significance of anti-extremism, from the lyrics of the Tunisian hip-hop artist El General, to the feminist interpretations of the Koran by Amina Wadud. Maz Jabroni and other comedians on the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour are "waging their own often quirky campaigns against extremism," and creating alliances across cultural and religious lines. Part Three sums up what is at stake for these nations in turmoil and questions the Obama administration's wavering policies in addressing these international uprisings. Wright is an expert on the subject and this book is an accessible and riveting account for readers looking to learn more about the post-9/11 Islamic world.
