nvocey's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
richardrbecker's review against another edition
adventurous
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
If Brothers of the Gun by Marwan Hisham captures anything, it's the futility of trying to understand the Middle East. It's a place where revolutions are hijacked by secular extremists and/or terrorists, and those caught in the crosshairs are forced to choose sides — all of them wrong.
Take up arms and become terrorists. Defend their homes and become terrorist sympathizers. Leave the country and become rootless cowards.
In some ways, it's virtually the same story once told by T. E. Lawrence. His objective was always to make them stand on their own feet, but he could never influence them in peace as he could in war. Hisham says much the same thing. Once Syria followed the popular protests sweeping the Arba world, there was no turning back.
Somehow Hisham personally managed to strike a balance between these three options despite the danger of doing so. The would-be college student stayed home (aside from traveling to Turkey and Iraq) and covered the unrest for European media outlets. Most of his friends made other choices. Most of them were buried and left behind. A few die a different way, becoming unrecognizable from their once youthful dispositions.
Hisham covers it all. From the early protests to the ISIS takeover, and right up to a crumbling end as simultaneous confrontations with three rival coalitions became too much to overcome. Kurdish forces and their American allies, pro-Assad Syrian forces supported by Iran and Russia, and a Turkish-backed coalition of rebel groups. Except, there is no end to the conflict in Syria.
As Hisham notes: too many Syrians pick up the gun in the name of Islam, even if it means giving up their humanity. And in giving it up, there is nothing left to get back. The lesson makes it much more than someone's account of history. It's a warning for all of us.
Take up arms and become terrorists. Defend their homes and become terrorist sympathizers. Leave the country and become rootless cowards.
In some ways, it's virtually the same story once told by T. E. Lawrence. His objective was always to make them stand on their own feet, but he could never influence them in peace as he could in war. Hisham says much the same thing. Once Syria followed the popular protests sweeping the Arba world, there was no turning back.
Somehow Hisham personally managed to strike a balance between these three options despite the danger of doing so. The would-be college student stayed home (aside from traveling to Turkey and Iraq) and covered the unrest for European media outlets. Most of his friends made other choices. Most of them were buried and left behind. A few die a different way, becoming unrecognizable from their once youthful dispositions.
Hisham covers it all. From the early protests to the ISIS takeover, and right up to a crumbling end as simultaneous confrontations with three rival coalitions became too much to overcome. Kurdish forces and their American allies, pro-Assad Syrian forces supported by Iran and Russia, and a Turkish-backed coalition of rebel groups. Except, there is no end to the conflict in Syria.
As Hisham notes: too many Syrians pick up the gun in the name of Islam, even if it means giving up their humanity. And in giving it up, there is nothing left to get back. The lesson makes it much more than someone's account of history. It's a warning for all of us.
olivetales's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
5.0
This is an incredible book and an outstanding memoir. The author relates his experiences with crushing detail, exactitude, and also a great deal of compassion and nuance. I never felt that he was casting judgements against people caught up in terrible circumstances, and he articulated the ways that peoples confined options placed them in impossible situations. The illustrations are also beautiful. Giving this a 5 ranking also because it feels to be an important book-- a rare account of a conflict that has been written about from imperialized perspectives far too often.
silodear's review against another edition
I need to give this book another try as an actual book. The reader/narrator of this audiobook was so distracting to me. It was like he was reading in the style of a bohemian poet. Even when I sped him up, I just couldn't do it. Made it to chapter 11.
bobbo49's review against another edition
4.0
An intensely personal, powerful rendering of the Syrian civil war and its terrible impact on a young man from Raqqa, both daily and over the course of his life. Together with the graphic illustrations by Molly Crabapple, Hisham's portrait of the toll of the religious and political catastrophe that has resulted in the emigration of his family - and millions of others - is a timely vision of the Syrian reality that everyone in the world should know, as we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.
dethros's review against another edition
5.0
A powerful memoir of a person who lived under the rule of Bashar al Assad, ISIS and Liberation forces.
emeelee's review against another edition
4.0
It's been a while now since I read this, and I never got around to reviewing. All I can really remember is that Marwan Hisham's personal, intimate viewpoint of the Syrian War felt so vital, I'm so glad that I read it. I did wish that the memoir had been more linear, but otherwise I had few complaints. 3.5 stars.
People were too cautious, and I don’t blame them for that. They were selfish too. One guy asked me why he should care, as long as his business was bringing in money. I despised him until my own doubts began. If I were living a satisfying life—if I were on the road to fulfilling my dreams—would I have participated [in the protests] so quickly? I might have blamed those reckless protesters. “Zealous undisciplined youths,” I might have said. (74)
No metaphor captures that sound a plane makes when it dives, the moment before releasing its load. It is its own—a pure creator of horror. (81)
Always, the West comes here, posturing about the protection of minorities, freedom, democracy, fair play. Always, they carve up our countries, steal our resources, bomb our cities—and then wonder why the sweet words they muttered while doing so don’t sound the same in our ears. (95)
We knew that somehow, if the rebels were not able to put down these jihadis, then, when their danger expanded beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria, the world would lash out with wrath. But, alas, the world had no interest in putting an end to ISIS as long as people like us were the only victims. […]We also knew that we would eventually be misjudged—presumed to be not ISIS’s victims but, perversely, its base of support. (146)
Was ISIS really different from the empires of the past? Was it absurd to believe they might build—or might have built—an empire and not merely a tortured parody of a state? Weren’t all civilizations built—are still built—on bloodshed? Was this not a global cycle of violence, glorification of violence, oppression, and defeat at the hands of equally violent, oppressive liberators? Regardless of the answers, the ISIS strategy obviously depended on—contrary to modern norms—the proud exhibition, rather than concealment, of its brutality. (196)
The U.S.-led coalition—which included European countries whose citizens were flying from European airports to play out their jihad fantasies in Syria—was bombing Raqqa, while those jihadi organizations were still active in European cities, sending more and more jihadis to us. […]How were European laws unable to indict homemade jihadi organizations and members, while their governments were so certain that my people in Raqqa collectively deserved doom? Our charge was terrorism, but the only undeniable truth was that governments brought charges against their own jihadis only when they arrived in Syria[.] (285)
elliotthefrog's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.75