The Osama Bin Laden I know Auhtor Peter L. Bergen

The American journalist Peter L. Bergen brings to us a portrait built from his own interviews with about fifty people that have known Osama bin Laden personally at various stages of his life. The author is a terrorism analyst from CNN, and has written several books on terrorism.
Bergen conducted the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, after Bin Laden had declared a jihad (holy war) against the United States of America. The questions were submitted in advance and it was not allowed to ask follow up questions. This interview lasted over an hour and all the details of the interview can be seen in this book.
The book is written in a chronological way and its contents are almost didactic. The author fills up the book with many support materials as a list of names and description of each person that was interviewed by him, map of the region, time line of Osama bin Laden, documents from al Queda and from bin Laden as appendix.
The author means to describe the life of Osama bin Laden in order to understand how he became the commander of the number-one terrorist organization in the world. One deep religious man with an endless resources found himself a duty to help his people against the Soviet Union's invasion on Afghanistan in nineteen-eighties. In this war, all the muslins were called to fight against Soviet Union on Afghani soil or by giving donations to the jihad movement. It was, for Osama bin Laden, a holy war, between the good and evil, and about the future of the Muslin nations. This war lasted for almost ten years and ended with the withdraw of the USSR army from Afghanistan. The jihad movement was known in the all Muslin countries and after the success defending Afghanistan they started be seen with respect and some people might see then as leaders in Muslin matters as well, including the Palestine problem.
The book shows through interviews all the transformations of actions, ideals and politics from the authorities in the Muslin World, how the jihad became a terrorist group fighting for the Muslin cause and taking actions in the Palestine and Israel matters. The author explains how Osama had escaped from Tora-Bora, when the American troops came after him, and how he managed to draw thousands of followers. Bergen put all together interviews and documents about the involved people in the terrorist attacks of al Quaeda through the years and what they think, how they plot and what its vision is.

The Bookseller of Kabul - Author: Asne Seierstad

The Bookseller of Kabul
Author: Asne Seierstad

The award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad was in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in November of 2001. One of the first people she met in Afghani soil was a bookseller called Sultan Khan who for years had defied the authorities to supply books in the city of kabul. After some meetings, she decided to ask him for permission to write about his life and his family in order to describe its habits, culture, religion and how all the changes that the Country had been suffered are felling from their perspective.
This experience came out in a amazing book, half biography of Sultan's family and half History book of Afghanistan. Exploring the every day frustration of the women in a Muslim society and stories from the time of the Taliban regime, the author managed to portrait this country that came in evidence for our sight in a terrible way.
One of the interesting part of the book is the description of the sixteen decrees that were broad cast on Radio when the Taliban rolled in. Key excerpts follow.
1 - Prohibition against female exposure
2 - Prohibition against music
3 -Prohibition against shaving
4 - Mandatory prayer
5 - Prohibition against the rearing of pingeons and bird-fighting
6 - Eradication of narcotics and the users thereof
7 - Prohibition against kite-flying
8 - Prohibition against reproduction of pictures
9 - Prohibition against gambling
10 -Prohibition against British and American hairstyles
11 - Prohibition against interest on loans, exchange charges and charges on transactions
12 - Prohibition against the washing of clothes by river embankments
13 – Prohibition against music and dancing at weddings.
14 - Prohibition against playing drums
15 - Prohibition against tailors sewing women's clothes or taking measurements of women
16 - Prohibition against witchcraft.
For us, occidental people, it is not that easy to think that the Taliban was not in fact the result of the Muslin culture, or the result of the Afghani citizens, but reading this book it could be possible think that the Taliban was, like any other form of a dictatorial govern, a expression of a minority. In this case a poor, illiterate, sexists and religious extremists. For that vision I shall return later when I will talk about others books written about the Afghanistan. I believe that in order to understand what is Afghanistan and its culture and citizens it is necessary to look backward in the history of the muslin culture and try to understand the path that it has drawn.
Just to illustrate the kind of people that had worked for Taliban, in the book there is a part that describes one day when some Taliban's soldiers came to the Sultan's book store. They were interested only in [excerpts from the book] 'pictures. Heretical texts, even those on the shelves right in front of their eyes, were overlooked. The soldiers were illiterate and could not distinguish orthodox Taliban doctrine from heresy. But they could distinguish pictures from letters and animate creatures from inanimate things'. After a while they decided to burn its books and arrest Sultan. Sultan had got to go to The Department for the Promotion of Virtue And Extermination of Sin, better known as the Ministry of Morality, and in answer for the crimes he was charged he said [excerpts from the book] 'You can burn my books, you can embitter my life, you can even kill me, but you cannot wipe out Afghanistan's history'. Sultan, as described by Asne Seierstad, thinks that the Taliban could be an attempt against the Afghani people.
The muslin culture is very highlighted in the book, of course. The author, as a women, found very hard some aspects of this culture, like wear the burka and how the women's life is controlled by the men of their family and under the rules of a sexist religion. In the second half of the book it is the main subject, when the author tell us the story about the Sultan family's women. She explains that with Taliban's government, the women were even more controlled and submissive than ever but despite the fall of this regime it is still a struggle for the women be integrated in the society.
I enjoyed very much the Bookseller of Kabul. This book had helped me to figure out what is the felling of the people involved with middle-east affairs. It works like a window to make us observe a little of this very interesting region that became, more than ever, a subject very important of our society. I think that this kind of book is very interesting because it fills the gap between the historic and politic books and the every-day news. It helps to understand what it is all about.

What is it all about?

Two years ago I've started a journey that changed my life and the perspective view of my existence. I have discovered a brand new world and built a new conception for 'what can I do' in my life. Everything started three years ago when my father was in hospital for heart problems and I used to visit him every day for a little talk. For almost one month I re-thought my life and decided take actions for change the way I was living. Needless to say I was very disappointed with my life. It is said that we do have choices and the answer of the most questions would be the love. But I found myself without too many choices and realized that I could not understand love because my mind was set-up in fear not in hope. I didn't see any way that a set-up-in-fear mind could found a path to love and than I noticed that I had started wrong. After a while thinking about the well known questions 'who am I', 'From where do I come from' and 'What is the meaning of life' I discovered that I knew nothing and that I wasn't brought up to know about how the world or the life works, I was brought up to survive and that is all. I think that most of my generation in my country was brought up in the same way I was. The things just happen and we never ever ask 'why' for things that come across us, we just understand that we do have to change some things in order to interact with the environment. But the problem in 'to do not think in philosophical way' is that we will never be able to change anything. In that way we are going to born and to die just for the struggle – how nihilist it is. Well, I am not able to give any argument about what is the value of the existence in a general way. I can just talk for myself. I am not intending to talk what is right or wrong, it is not the point I am looking for. I am just saying that for me, there is no reason for live a life just worrying about the death, just worrying about how to survive, because, we all know, the death is certain. In that point I had a 'click' I wasn't raised to understand, I decided that I would live my life dedicated to understand, to know, I would become a learner. But I did know that I wasn't ready to start to know because my mind was with a lot of fear yet and it hasn't been set for learn. And I started in this way, accepting that I knew nothing in accepting that I would looking for learning. I would set-up my mind to be a student, a full-time student and I would try understand as much as it possible, in a philosophical way and even in a day-by-day activities. Following my thoughts I plot a plan to open myself in a path of learning. I would work near 80 hours a week (and attending college as well) to save money to travel and create a time to find myself. Now more than two years after I came out from my country I still do not know anything, I have not got any answer for the questions for 'who am I', 'From where do I come from' and 'What is the meaning of life' (the last one I tried to get from the ideas of Monty Python's movie but it was worthless) neither I have got answers for any existential question. But in this time abroad I do have grown, I do have changed and I do have enjoyed, and some of the things I have seen I would like to share. Here is my blog, where you will find a bit of everything. I will write about the books, movies, places and happenings that I have seen or known. I will share my views and what I have learned. I hope that, for those who like to spend a little of time reading what I put down in words, it is as enjoyable as it gets. Of course I would like to know opinions from readers. It would be delightful and it would be very important to improvise the ideas and visions that I have here and, off course, I am opened to get corrections about the subjects and grammar mistakes as well (I have just started to learn English thirteen months ago). To finish I would like to write down a cheap self-help philosophy I know that worked to me when I was on my way to break down my fears and get start my adventure: 'It is much worth live and die for one thing you believe than live and die for one thing that you do not believe or neither want to.' - I won't credit this phrase just because I do not remember from where it comes from.