The Jihadi Review Of Books
What’s topping the Guantanamo Bestseller List. Times of London on the three hottest reads among the Jihadi literati:
2. Don Quixote
Discuss amongst yourselves. No cruel teen wizard alternate reality jokes, please. No cruel tilting-at-windmill irony jokes, please. No cruel inspirational fantasy escape literature jokes, please.
Here’s some cruelly ironic alternate reality escape fantasizing for you. Juan Cole:
Do they think Guantanamo is a little like Hogwarts Academy and that their torturers were Lord Voldemort?
Do they know that Miguel Cervantes fought at the second Battle of Lepanto in 1571 in which the Holy League defeated the Ottoman empire at sea, and that later on his ship was captured by the Algerians and he spent 5 years imprisoned and enslaved in Algiers before being ransomed– thus reversing an element in their own biographies?
They are said to be fascinated that the new president of the United States has African and Muslim roots.
That’s interesting. A lot of people have been fascinated by the latter. Memo to Cole: The Gitmo detainees, while engaged in bitter generational religious warfare, have neither been enslaved nor ransomed. Regarding ironic observation No. 1, does Cole see the Guantanamistas are a little like fresh-faced do-gooder wizards combating evil?
Here’s an irony for you. Don Quijote is what I was reading in Kuwait in February and March of 2003, prior to the invasion of Iraq. Very instructive. No cruel tilting-at-windmills Iraq invasion jokes, please.
With a nod to Ricks.
Topics: Guantanamo, books
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:07 am on Wednesday, September 9, 2009
2 Responses to “The Jihadi Review Of Books”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
September 9th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
can we make cruel jokes about the alleged author of “dreams from my father”?
how about the ghost writer?
September 10th, 2009 at 9:20 am
[...] of that what you [...]