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A review by mubeenirfan
I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad by Souad Mekhennet
4.0
We have all read a lot about how a generation of Arabs was radicalized through Soviet war fueled by money and propaganda from liberal progressive western states so that they fight on their side of the war. We have also read about how the same countries then left these mujaheddin (now terrorists) to fend for themselves who later turned on their masters. This book however talks about the new generation of terrorists, young people who are second generation European Muslims. These people do not identify themselves as Europeans because the society they have grown up in is not accepting of their diversity and has not embraced them. This young generation has since become the fodder for ISIS which is being led by Arabs but these youngsters are their foot soldiers.
The writer herself is a second generation German Muslim with Turkish & Moroccan parents and interestingly Shia and Sunni. She has talked about how she strongly wanted to be a part of the German society but felt times and again the differentiation based on her background. However, she did not went the dark way but instead started writing about the radicalization of feeble minds sparked by things she herself went through while growing up. She is now a National security correspondent for Washington Post and this book is part memoir and part background on how she broke & investigated key stories.
At times I felt that the writer has a bias against Shia. This is in part because of her reporting on Bahrain and Iraq and I am sure this Iran and Saudi Arabia game is dirty everywhere it is played but as a reader I felt she is skewing a bit when describing these conflicts. This could only be my read though. Otherwise a very good book to read on how Europe is the new hotbed of terrorism.
The writer herself is a second generation German Muslim with Turkish & Moroccan parents and interestingly Shia and Sunni. She has talked about how she strongly wanted to be a part of the German society but felt times and again the differentiation based on her background. However, she did not went the dark way but instead started writing about the radicalization of feeble minds sparked by things she herself went through while growing up. She is now a National security correspondent for Washington Post and this book is part memoir and part background on how she broke & investigated key stories.
At times I felt that the writer has a bias against Shia. This is in part because of her reporting on Bahrain and Iraq and I am sure this Iran and Saudi Arabia game is dirty everywhere it is played but as a reader I felt she is skewing a bit when describing these conflicts. This could only be my read though. Otherwise a very good book to read on how Europe is the new hotbed of terrorism.