Just Finished Reading: Fractured Lands – How the Arab World came Apart by Scott Anderson. (FP: 2016)

The Arab world, across North Africa and deep into the Middle East, exploded into open revolt in 2011 seemingly coming out of nowhere and toppling authoritarian leader’s one after the other. It was no coincidence that amongst the first to fall where firm friends of the western powers so recently involved in the invasion of Iraq. The spark that ignited the still on-going conflagration was a real one when a simple trader set himself on fire in a desperate and final protest to his hopeless situation. When the protestors took to the streets in their thousands there was little the authorities could do. Intimidation no longer worked. The people had lost their fear and a tyrant fell. But if it could happen in Tunisia it could happen elsewhere too. Egypt was next but this time the government was more ready than its neighbour and riot police were on hand to intervene. But yet again the people had lost that very thing that oppressive governments and police states rely on to maintain control – fear, and it had, just like in Tunisia, gone. So if the leader of the great Egypt could be unseated what about the other great dictator of North Africa? Could Gadhafi go too? Yes, but with much hardship and many deaths. Was any country immune? Some thought so and said so publically. Ironically, with the gift of hindsight, Syria thought that it was above such things. Soon enough the Syrian authorities were disabused of the idea but had a response ready – just in case. The answer was firepower and the willingness to use it against their own population. Unsurprisingly violence produced violence in its turn and the spiral of destruction and death has been climbing ever since as the country descends into a grinding Civil War.

Told through the eyes of six people on the ground – an Egyptian dissident, a Libyan air force cadet, a Kurdish physician, a Syrian University student, an Iraqi woman’s rights activist, and an Iraqi ISIS member – this slim volume gripped like a vice as whole countries descended into chaos and violence and those caught in the middle of it attempted to cope, survive and fight back to protect what was theirs or bring forth the life they had always wanted. Taking you into the heart of things through the eyes and experiences of people easily identified with this really brought home the reality of the Arab uprising and what it all meant to the people right at the centre of things. After reading this not only do I appreciate the kinds of things these people have gone through – as much as that’s possible at third hand – but it really helps the reader to understand (or at least start to appreciate) the forces at work in the Middle East and why the people living there (or fleeing from their) are doing what they’re doing. Being only 210 pages long there isn’t the in-depth analysis that you’d get from other books [watch this space] but you do get a brilliant emotional connection to people not very different to the people we know in our daily life. Quite brilliant and highly recommended – although sensitive souls might find it rather stressful at times. (R)