Jihad – The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia - Hardcover

Rashid, Ahmed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300093454 ISBN 13: 9780300093452

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The terrorist attacks of September 11th have turned the world's attention to areas of the globe about which we know very little. Ahmed Rashid, who explored Afghanistan's Taliban regime in a previous work, here turns his skills as an investigative journalist to the five Central Asian republics adjacent to Afghanistan. Central Asia is coming to play a vital strategic role in the war on terrorism, but the region also poses new threats to global security. The five Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - were part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. Under Soviet rule, Islam was brutally suppressed, and that intolerance has continued under the post-Soviet regimes. Religious repression, political corruption, and the region's extreme poverty (unemployment rates exceed 80 percent in some areas) have created a fertile climate for militant Islamic fundamentalism. Often funded and trained by such organizations as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and the Taliban, guerrilla movements like the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) have recruited a staggering number of members across the region and threaten to topple the governments of all five nations. Based on research and numerous interviews, this text explains the roots of militant rage in Central Asia, describes the goals and activities of these militant organisations, and suggests ways in which this threat could be neutralised by diplomatic and economic intervention. Rich in both cultural heritage and natural resources - including massive oil reservoirs - Central Asia remains desperately poor and frighteningly volatile. In tracing the history of Central Asia and explaining the current political climate, Rashid demonstrates that it is a region we ignore at our peril.

About this title

Product Description:

Biological diversity is considered one of today's most urgent environmental concerns, yet the term was first coined only twenty-five years ago. Why did the concept of biological diversity so quickly capture public attention and emerge as a banner issue for the environmental movement? In this book, Timothy J. Farnham explores for the first time the historical roots of biological diversity, tracing the evolution of the term as well as the history of the conservation traditions that contributed to its rapid acceptance and popularity.
Biological diversity is understood today as consisting of three components--species diversity, genetic diversity, and ecosystem diversity. Farnham finds that these three tiers coincided with three earlier, disparate conservation traditions that converged when the cause of preserving biological diversity was articulated. He tells the stories of these different historical foundations, recounts how the term came into the environmental lexicon, and shows how the evolution of the idea of biological diversity reflects an evolution of American attitudes toward the natural world.

Review:

Every dog may have its day, but after over 20 years reporting from countries people barely knew, and cared about even less, correspondent Ahmed Rashid must have thought his had passed him by. Jihad, however, is the deeply impressive and instructive follow-up to his international bestseller Taliban, and in time could well prove equally influential, as in turning his sights to the desolate steppes of Central Asia, Rashid describes a region that harbours the potential to explode just as disastrously as its southern neighbour. Boundaried by rivers, mountains and desert, with a tolerant and liberal Islamic tradition, Rashid traces the region's history over the past two millennia, which included conquest by Alexander, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, and most recently tsarist and Soviet Russia. It was Stalin who divided up the former Turkestan into the five new countries--Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Takjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan--indifferent to geographic or ethnic lines. After perestroika and the break-up of the Soviet Union, however, as with post-colonial Africa, the countries' new leaders merely exploited the structures of authoritarian oppression, leading to pan-Islamic underground movements such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, led by Juma Namangani, and the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami.

Obviously, the events of September 11 have changed the gameplan significantly, and Rashid assesses their impact on the five countries, and the looming presence of Russia, China and the USA, all jostling for military and economic advantage behind a strategic alliance intent on defending the "territorial integrity" of administrations that were actually most to blame for the rise of militant Islam. A pivotal time, with further extremist guerrilla militancy inevitable, the oil on which Central Asia uncomfortably sits remains the future hope, potentially providing pipes of peace for troubled lands, enabling regional cooperation and economic restructuring. A work of clear and persuasive vision, rather than rehashing old pieces Ahmed Rashid's superbly balanced analysis brings in from the Cold War a deeply unfashionable yet critical region that more than ever remains central to world peace. --David Vincent

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0300093454
• ISBN 13: 9780300093452
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290