A review of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror by Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani in 2 pages that you can read here:
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is so thorough that readers may feel a sense of desperation atthe gross injustices of the world until some relief finally comes through his conclusion.
Mamdani believes that citizens of democratic societies can affect change and uses
Vietnam as his archetypical example: “A key lesson of the Vietnam War is that the
antiwar and anti-imperialist movement inside the United States restrained American
military power from being fully unleashed on the people of Vietnam”. Mamdani’s faith in
the ability of committed people to affect change is inspiring. He urges the importance of
independent thought, dissent, mobilization and understanding: “no Chinese wall divides
‘our’ terrorism from ‘their’ terrorism,” he writes towards the end and further pleads, “in a
situation where both adversaries in the war on terror claim to be fighting terror with
weapons of terror, nothing less than a global movement for peace will save humanity. If
we are to go by the lesson of the last global struggle for peace—that to end the war in
Vietnam—this struggle, too will have to be waged as a mass movement inside each
country, particularly the democratic countries, and especially in the United States and
Israel” (258).
Mamdani believes that citizens of democratic societies can affect change and uses
Vietnam as his archetypical example: “A key lesson of the Vietnam War is that the
antiwar and anti-imperialist movement inside the United States restrained American
military power from being fully unleashed on the people of Vietnam”. Mamdani’s faith in
the ability of committed people to affect change is inspiring. He urges the importance of
independent thought, dissent, mobilization and understanding: “no Chinese wall divides
‘our’ terrorism from ‘their’ terrorism,” he writes towards the end and further pleads, “in a
situation where both adversaries in the war on terror claim to be fighting terror with
weapons of terror, nothing less than a global movement for peace will save humanity. If
we are to go by the lesson of the last global struggle for peace—that to end the war in
Vietnam—this struggle, too will have to be waged as a mass movement inside each
country, particularly the democratic countries, and especially in the United States and
Israel” (258).
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