**spoiler alert** Actiunea se petrece in Algeria undeva dupa al doilea razboi mondial.
Protagonistul este un tanar francez care este instrainat total d**spoiler alert** Actiunea se petrece in Algeria undeva dupa al doilea razboi mondial.
Protagonistul este un tanar francez care este instrainat total de societate , am putea spune un sociopat.
Nu isi plange mama aflat la priveghiul ei , nu simte nici o remuscare atunci cand omoara un arab , fapt ce il va trimite la inchisoare , loc unde din nou nimic.
Perspectiva este deosebit de interesanta , omul nostru intelege ce ar simti altii in situatia lui , dar el e sterp , se plictiseste atunci cand este interogat cu privire la conditia sa de prieteni, cunoscuti , preoti si mai tarziu in timpul procesului pentru omor de catre procuror si judecator.
Oamenii nu pot intelege/concepe ca exista astfel de semeni , oameni complet functionali care se pot integra total in societate dar care nu simt nimic.
Am putea spune ca protagonistul este idealul filozofiei stoice, filozofie ce pune accent pe detasare de cele lumesti , fie ele bune sau rele, pe acceptare/impacare cu tot ce vine in directia noastra...cu totii stim cat de greu ne este sa realizam acest lucru...personajul din acest roman face acest lucru natural.
Mi-a placut foarte mult locatia si perioada. Am ramas surprins ca intr-un loc precum Algeria existau atatea servicii sociale si institutii care functionau cum trebuie (inclusiv hingheri)....more
**spoiler alert** This book served me as a gateway to Africa in so many ways.
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esential**spoiler alert** This book served me as a gateway to Africa in so many ways.
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esentially the field commanders (that is how they are called , the leaders of terror cells in different regiona throughout this book) and terror organisations as some plague some diseases , some virus that gets hold of the local population and makes them suffer.
We should see jihadists more like entrepreneurs, more like political agents. Whenever there is discontent within a country, whenever some minority, some ethnicity or tribe has a feud with another, a grieviance , something that they can't solve alone (they are either too weak , too few, lack finances or etc) , they tap into a helping hand...a hand which is usually a terror organisation that wants to open shop in that country.
The locals use the jihadists groups as much as jihadis use them. Many times the state is alot worse than terror groups , such being the case in the Sahel, the stretch of land south of Sahara encompassing Mauritania, Mali, South Algeria, Niger , Burkina Faso, Chad , North Nigeria and Sudan.
The book is about how jihadi field commanders operate at a meso level , how they navigate through complex a complex web of relationships with locals , state authorities, foreign gonverments, tribes and of course each other, how they employ diverse tactics of collusion , schism , accomodation etc and how they fared in each of these Sahelian countries , where they found support in local discontented youth , villagers , politicians , where they were evicted , where they just as entrepreneurs took a bigger bite than they could chew and ended up annihilitated ( ex: in 2013 their jihad went from North Mali to Mid Mali , city of Mopti , which triggered a French military intervention - Operation Serval, which wiped them out).
This book taught me so much about what a big role geography plays into the development of a country, also how important ethnical lines are around Africa (arabs , berbers, touareg , Fulani etc) , minorities, how gonverment deals with terrorism, and how true the old adage "violence breeds violence" is.
Some facts i got - how pourous the borders really are in the Sahel , the gonverments focusing on the central power leaving peripheries at the mercy of local militias and drug traffikers , thus serving as a great recruiting ground of young discontented people into terror organizations. - terrorist organizations emerged in Algeria in the 90s when algerians that fought in Afghanistan against the russians came back and started grouping against the "infidel state that is a pawn of France" Thus came GIA , a terror organization that wrecked havoc agaisnt the state , an organization very diverse with very different terror groups , diversity which in the end proved to be their undoing once the unifying figures got killed fighting the Algerian state. The problem in GIA was that there was alot of infighting , no compromise and everybody.was calling the other infidel. The groups that emerged afterwards understood that they can function and tolerate each other without sparking religious incriminations. By the time these groups emerged the Algerian state recovered and started systematically dismantling them, thus Al Queada had to move shop from Algeria to.North Mali and then Burkina Faso and Niger - Mauritania is probably the country that reached a middle ground with jihadis employing a stick and carrot approach , letting preachers speak freely against USA , Israel but closely monitoring them - Mali is the real shitshow here , a place where Touareg , Arabs , Blacks , Fulani have to deal with draught, declining resources, state brutality and French foreign interventions. How so many times one of these ethnicities welcomed foreign jihadi aid to leverage against another actor. - Niger is so poor but yet so important serving as a gateway and transport hub for jihadis into the Sahel and beyond. - Burkina Faso serves as an example of how a minority (Fulani) can radicalize itself very quickly due to discrimination and be taken up by a convincing jihadi leader
**spoiler alert** The book covers the controversial life of irish patriot Roger Casement a man that gained the highest prestige and esteem while servi**spoiler alert** The book covers the controversial life of irish patriot Roger Casement a man that gained the highest prestige and esteem while serving as a diplomat and investigator for the British crown in regards to abuses and atrocities done by Belgians in Congo and then Peruvians in Peru on local populations all in the name of "progress and civilisation" (rubber production), the same man which would then become one of the strongest fighters for Irish freedom and turn its back to England , and would eventually travel during WW1 to germany trying to recruit irish Prisoners of War to form an army which would fight along Germany and thus be helped to gain independence. The irish prisoners would not agree to fight alongside those that bombed them in the trenches and thus Roger suffers a great delusion. A revolt in Ireland would start nonetheless which would end in bloodshed but would galvanize the irish spirit in the years to come. Not gaining the germany support he would get caught in Ireland trying to stop the revolt , then suffer a huge campaign in which he would get discredited, prosecuted and sent to death for high treason. Due to being a homosexual and noting in his diary many of his escapades as well as fantasy encounters his memory, name and deeds would be censored by Irish authroities (catholic country) until decades later when his name would be cleared and declared both a national hero of Ireland but also a hero against slavery and freedom.
This dude starts as a british explorer sent to Leopoldine Congo to study how the colony is doing. He discovers that behind the false colonial bravado that the belgian regime is bringing civilisation and wealth to the black indigens it is actually leading a murderous operation in which the locals are worked to death to extract very high quotas of rubber , their wives are raped and confined to make them work more , brutality , marking of men with iron and every kind of atrocity is done without remorse and everywhere and at each level there is a tacit agreement and understanding between thr parties. He travels within congo for many years noting everything he sees and then writes a report to the British Foreign Office.
His report goes viral and soon England finds itself having to cut ties with Belgium even if it risks making the latter get closer to rival Germany. Roger gains world recognition and is then sent to Amazonia (modern Peru) to investigate the activities of large british-peruvian rubber company operating deep within the jungle.
After throrough investigation he finds Congo repeating itself there....the company performing all atrocities in locals and effectively wiping out entire tribe populations.
It is at this time that Roger starts to tinker with his Irish origins and after finishing his job in Peru of exposing the company and making it go bankrupt, he starts travelling to Germany (by now ww1 started). He tries to recruit irish prisoners of war and make them go to Ireland and fight against the british. He is spat, shamed and called names by his countrymen. They would not collaborate with the germans. He does not manage to get too many recruits and he knows that the imminent revolt in Ireland will end in bloodshed without german support.
Before the revolt he tries to get to Ireland and stop the revolt. He is found and taken prisoner hy the british and sent to jail and condemned for high treason. The revolt ends in bloodshed with most irish fighters dead or captured and sentenced to death. He is sentenced to death and spends his last days rummaging through memories and trying to make sense of his choices, his cause, his spirit, his religion. He is hanged. Decades later his name will remerge as one of the most important irish patriots.
I gave this book 3 stars because after the first 50 pages till page 150 quite cumbersome, the narrative is quite confusing moving between the last moments spent in his cell and his beginings in Congo. After this point the novel becomes really good and graphic and you can see its well researched in regards to both Congo and Peru....more
**spoiler alert** This is the go to book for understanding the slave trade.
It describes literally every issue regarding the slave trade with the cente**spoiler alert** This is the go to book for understanding the slave trade.
It describes literally every issue regarding the slave trade with the center position being the slave ship. The book describes how slave ships were being built in UK and USA , how they were fitted and retrofitted to stow , carry , comtain , feed , discipline , kill both slaves and sailors. We meet the actors : the slaves , the sailors , the captains ,and the ones that made everything possible , the merchants. It describes the africans , their socieites , relations and even testimonies on how they got kidnapped and forced to walk even 1000 miles from inside the continent to the sea. Getting on a slave ship for a black was "The point of no return" as none (besides some notable exceptions) would ever get back to their homeland.
How a voyage would go :
Basically you have one merchant that pays up to 300k usd (today money) builds a ship , finds a captain. The captain goes to the docks and fools some sailors or gets them out of jail in return for manning the ship.
The ship then is loaded with food , wine, rum, weapons and trade manufacuturing items to be traded for slaves in Africa.
The ship sails from UK to one of the 7 regions of Africa at the Atlantic (Senegambia, Windeard and Gold coast - Ghana today , Bight of Benin , Bight of Biafra - East Nigeria , Congo , Angola) . This is known as the Outward Passage
It stays on the coast for several months to gather slaves. (Waiting for black merchants/milititas to bring "war prisoners" as they would call them when in reality the people broughht were mostly kidnapped from their villages).
Slaves are mostly villagers that are kidnapped by other tribes and sold to european ships for rum and weapons.
When the ship is full it heads to Caraibbean or US colonies in the hardest part of the voyage known as the Middle Passage.
Upon reaching "the New World" slaves are sold and unloaded. The ship goes back to the UK in what was known as the Homeward Passage. The captain and the mates collects his pay and also stake, the remaining sailors drink their money in the next 3 weeks.
You basically get a triangular global trade. UK merchants and US ones fund the voyages. The ships bring the workforce from Africa to the plantations of cotton and sugar in US and Carraibbean. Many times the money from these pkantations goes into building new ships and nee voyages and you get a self-reinforcing circle.
During the voyage somewhere around 11% of the "cargo" perishes. A ship carries 1 slave per ton usually, and a medium sized ship has 200-300 tons.
Its needless to talk about the horrific lives of the negroes kidnapped in Africa.
What amazed me was how wretched the life of the common sailor was , many times worse than that of the slaves.
Sailors would be beaten to death and malnourshied and many times left to die on the Middle Passage just for the captaim to get their money.
This book is an enciclopedia of the slave trade in its heyday during the 18 century i would've given it 5 stars if the author didn't put so many stories and a little politically corectness here and there.
The fact is , the white man was not the only one that should be put to blame for this trsgedy. Blacks would enslave blacks and kidnap them for weapons , rum and manufacturing items, also arabs....its a collective fault....more
**spoiler alert** This is one of the best action-adventure-war packed material i have ever read , and the crazy part is that its all there , its real **spoiler alert** This is one of the best action-adventure-war packed material i have ever read , and the crazy part is that its all there , its real , every bit happened as it was , coming from the reports of the participants (mostly SAS Rhodesian forces).
For the gamer readers, this is some real life Farcry (pc game saga). Highly trained exceptionally motivated operatives facing opponents orders of magnitude greater , deep behind enemy lines , a report full of sabotaging , assaults, antitracking , hunting.
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was founded by South African colonists in 1890 and flourished immensely in the span of not even 50 years.The country similar to South Africa prospered under white rule having build modern infrastructure , modern services and its people(including the blacks) living a decent and peaceful life.
Despite the fact that its soldiers proved themselves time and time again in special operations for Great Britain during WW1 , WW2 , Korea , the brits were some asshole backstsbbers.
Starting with the 60's The Brits wanted to get rid off their aura of colonialists and paddled forth to give all their former colonies independence. In the case of Rhodesia this obsession with cleaning out white rule proved one of their biggest mistakes for the time to come. They backed Robert Mugabe leader of revolutionary armies which in fact were terrorist organizations killing unarmed white farmers throughout the country (ZANU, ZANLU, ZIPRA).
British diplomats as well as high profile leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, just didn't care Mugabe's men were murdering innocent farmers and entire families , butchering small kids... All they saw was "white rule must go".
Therefore Rhodesians declared independence and started a long bush war which would last almost 14 years (1965-1979) against huge overwhelming odds against thousands and thousands of terrorists coming from most neuighbouring countries like Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana.
The west put embargoes on Rhodesians while the terorrists were heavy receivers of Soviet help in the help of weapons , training , food .
Depsite all this , Rhodesian SAS operators won every single fight using remarkable bushcraft , tracking , persistence , zeal , courage and ingeniunity. These men would carry tens of kgs of equipment in everything worse Africa can offer (heat, humidity, giant predators, snakes) and behind enemy lines operations , marching tens of kms daily sometimes without/or with scarce water and food , always heavilly outnumbered and outgunned , with militias on their rear trying to find and eliminate them.
Probably one of the most impressive battles was 150 SAS troops invading a 10000 strong terrorist camp and efeectively obliterating it.
Rhodesians won every battle and lost the war due to political incompetence of their superior political stuff which bended the knee to the brits...which endorsed Mugabe. Now the country having all whites deported or left is in shambles , basic services are nowhere in sight, another failed state.
A sad story in the end but a wonderful book ! I learned a quite alot about life in the Zambezi basin, history and geopolitics of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia , a bit of Tanzania and quite alot about the portugesse rule as well as its downfall of Mozambique....more
**spoiler alert** Great book on understanding the demographics, politics and geopolitics of the Horn of Africa , the migrant routes as well as the Red**spoiler alert** Great book on understanding the demographics, politics and geopolitics of the Horn of Africa , the migrant routes as well as the Red Sea.
Eritrea with its strategic location with ports at the Red Sea, was first under the Ottomans, then used by the Italians as springboard for attacking Ethiopia as well as under British.
Eritrea has muslims in the western lowlands bordering Sudan and Christians in the mountains at the east which is also a tension generating factor.
There has always been issues with the border demarcation between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Tigray population is living in both countries. While the Tigray living in Ethiopia historically wanted more autonomy from Addis Abeba, the ones in Eritrea wanted independence. The two actors worked together until they faced off into a bloody war.
Starting with the 70's Eritrea went through a 30 year long war against Ethiopia for independence.
The central figure that emerged was Isaias Afwerki , the soon to become dictator who is still in control to this day , known to many as leading the most repressive regime in the world, a regime so repressive that it exacts a 2% tax from its diaspora all over the world, in order to keep contact with their families or be provided consulate services !
Eritrea is a country locked in a no-war ,no -peace situation where youth are conscripted to the army for indefinite periods , some serving for 20 years. Women are raped and treated as slaves. Every month thousands of Eritreans flee the country , knowing all too well that the border guards have "shoot to kill" orders.
I didn't know that approximately 25% of migrants every year flooding Europe are from Eritrea ! From 157000 illegal migrants arriving in Europe in 2015 , 39000 were Eritreans.
The book does a great job detailing how Eritreans run to Sudan , then cross to Libya , then try to take dingies and get to Greece or Italy. Or they go to Sudan and from there try to get to Sinai and into Israel.
The regime in Eritrea is a destabilizing factor in the horn of Africa , running a covert economy , financing terror groups like Al Shabaab in Somalia in order to destabilize Ethiopia , mingling in interior affairs of Sudan , and even assisting the Emirates and Saudi Arabia against the Houthis.
Despite numerous attempts by USA , Europe and China to lead the country to a better future Isaias keeps a tight leash to this day on his subjects.
Mixed feelings regarding this book. I felt it was a tad too long for my taste.
On one hand i got really nice information regarding the pirate society Mixed feelings regarding this book. I felt it was a tad too long for my taste.
On one hand i got really nice information regarding the pirate society of Somalia that plagued the Indian Ocean up until 2014 , the warlods of Mogadishu , the life stories of captives of so different nationalities such as Filipinos, Chinese , Thai , Seychelles and Indonesia , living in the bushes of Galmudug , the coast of Somalia , under the desert sun , in old italian colonial houses. I also learned so much about human trafficking , which evolved during the great migration during the Syrian Civil War. I also loved the way the author described his state of mind , feelings , the rapport he had with his family during this ordeal , his thoughts and methods of coping with something like this.
On the other hand i got pretty bored on multiple ocassions due to the repeating routine the captors insisted upon the captives.
All in all an ok book but you need patience during some chapters....more
**spoiler alert** Brilliant and definetly unique ! This is the first time in my life i read a book of this kind , where the main character is actually**spoiler alert** Brilliant and definetly unique ! This is the first time in my life i read a book of this kind , where the main character is actually an entire regiment of soldiers , The US Ranger Task Force along with elements of Delta Force (D-boys as they are known) , while the narrative moves from one member to another ,100 souls , as they battle their way throughout Mogadishu against thousands of Somali militias ,literally, with the whole city trying to destroy them. I felt like i was playing a First Person Shooting game , jumping from character to character in a 3d battlefied as RPG's , grenades , people were getting blasted , wounded , killed , helicopters crashed , convoy's ambushed and crowds of bystandera shredded.
Probably the thing of most value and the most dramatic is that the narrator is totally objective , all the dialogues , the scenes , the events presented as they unfold during a 24 hour fight are taken from soldiers recollections and more inportantly radio tapes and video tapes attached to the choppers. The author during a multi year tenure has assembled all available recorded material, fact checked it and delivered it in such a deliberate clear and clean manner !
A totally original view on war, gore , death, weaponry , strategy , private lives of soldiers , their hobbies , families and even more importantly their relationship with each other and the regiment but without all that romantic tv bullshit , literal effects or beautfying attempts.Its the story exactly as it happened !
Mark Bowden does not interfere in this story , he tells it as it was captured !
Definetly a book that deserves reading ! I warn you though , once started , pages will fly !...more
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