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Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West | 
 enlarge | Author: Benazir Bhutto
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 89369
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061567582
Dewey Decimal Number: 297.272
EAN: 9780061567582
ASIN: 0061567582
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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Product Description
Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, after eight years of exile, hopeful that she could be a catalyst for change. Upon a tumultuous reception, she survived a suicide-bomb attack that killed nearly two hundred of her countrymen. But she continued to forge ahead, with more courage and conviction than ever, since she knew that time was running out—for the future of her nation, and for her life. In Reconciliation, Bhutto recounts in gripping detail her final months in Pakistan and offers a bold new agenda for how to stem the tide of Islamic radicalism and to rediscover the values of tolerance and justice that lie at the heart of her religion. With extremist Islam on the rise throughout the world, the peaceful, pluralistic message of Islam has been exploited and manipulated by fanatics. Bhutto persuasively argues that America and Britain are fueling this turn toward radicalization by supporting groups that serve only short-term interests. She believed that by enabling dictators, the West was actually contributing to the frustration and extremism that lead to terrorism. With her experience governing Pakistan and living and studying in the West, Benazir Bhutto was versed in the complexities of the conflict from both sides. She was a renaissance woman who offered a way out. In this riveting and deeply insightful book, Bhutto explores the complicated history between the Middle East and the West. She traces the roots of international terrorism across the world, including American support for Pakistani general Zia-ul-Haq, who destroyed political parties, eliminated an independent judiciary, marginalized NGOs, suspended the protection of human rights, and aligned Pakistani intelligence agencies with the most radical elements of the Afghan mujahideen. She speaks out not just to the West, but to the Muslims across the globe who are at a crossroads between the past and the future, between education and ignorance, between peace and terrorism, and between dictatorship and democracy. Democracy and Islam are not incompatible, and the clash between Islam and the West is not inevitable. Bhutto presents an image of modern Islam that defies the negative caricatures often seen in the West. After reading this book, it will become even clearer what the world has lost by her assassination.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 A Brilliant Woman - A Legacy Lost February 13, 2008
Asad (California, United States)
27 out of 33 found this review helpful
Benazir's assassination is one of the biggest tragedies our world has seen in recent years. She was a brave woman, and yes, a polarizing and controversial woman in Pakistan, but also, in my opinion - a true believer in democracy and political freedom. As Prime Minister of Pakistan, she never really was able to bring her vision to reality, due to oposing forces that never let her complete both her terms, but her return to her native land in 2007 brought a promise of hope and prosperity to the Pakistani people. She was a brave and inspiring woman, and her untimely death is one of the most unfortunate events in recent times.
Through "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy & The West", her legacy lives on, providing a coherent and articulate picture of her world-view, specifically as it relates to religion, geo-politics and specifically, Pakistan's future. Benazir and her co-author, Mark Siegel, provide a though-provoking and interesting view of where the world is headed, and through her words, we learn the extent of her vision which is now lost to us. A great read for those interested in the region and world politics and conflict, and also for those, who want to get an insight into the mind of one of the world's bravest women.
A MUST READ February 12, 2008
Book Lover (New York, New York)
19 out of 25 found this review helpful
This is an incredible book with an extremely important message. The world lost an amazing leader and a fascinating woman when Benazir Bhutto was assasinated, but her last words will resonate for generations to come. A MUST READ.
Beautiful powerful voice, mind, soul, and face March 8, 2008
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
15 out of 26 found this review helpful
The book opens with the author's detailing of the many ways in which the government refused to protect her, to include the banning of armored vests, cell phone jammers, etc. While I consider her foolish to have not used modern technology to reach more people safely, she died a martyr's death and this book ably represents her legacy.
This is an elegant, articulate, easy to read, carefully documented overview of the history, geography, culture, and disturbances that have defined the billion Muslims of today.
The author completely avoids any confrontation with Saudi Arabia, the regime that I hold responsible, along with Egypt, then followed by all those as discussed in the following three books:
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
I share with the author the diplomatically stated view that Western colonialism, followed by Western support of dictators against democracy, set the world back fifty years. In reinforcement of this point, but focused on the unnecessary Cold War, see The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project).
It is in this context that the author finds it reasonable for many Muslims to welcome, not the attacks on the US, but the new-found US recognition of vulnerability. Of course this Administration is oblivious, and we have wasted blood, treasure, and spirit, but the fact of the matter is clear the titles of these two books:
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Overall the book is replete with quotations from the Quran, fully three quarters of the end-notes. This is one of the most thoughtful, methodical accounts I have ever seen of the history, geography, and misdirection of the entire Muslim world, more often than not at the hands of the West or secular dictators it installed and supported.
An essential part of the book is the refutation of the Saudi Arabian rejection of tolerance and the terrorist confusion of jihad as struggle with jihad as unjust war killing civilians.
The last half of the book is a catalog of countries I am going to list because I was surprised by the range--these are countries where a combination of colonialism run amok, and indigenous secular and clerics vying for power.
Afghanistan
Algeria
Argentina
Bangladesh
Comoros
Congo
Egypt
Greece
Guatemala
Iraq
Lebanon
Libya
Morocco
Pakistan
Persian Gulf
Tunisia
Having provided a magnificent tour of the horizon, she then devotes a very deep chapter to Pakistan's history. She concludes the chapter concerned about Taliban incursions deep into Pakistan, but cited Iqbal, "Tyranny cannot long endure."
Next the book gently slams Sam Huntington's "clash of civilization" into the ground, breaks every rib with a different contrasting scholar, and most admiringly, with pointers to Pippa Norris, Ronald Inglehard, Stephen Walt, and Richard Rubenstein.
Finally, the author concludes with what must now be regarded as her death-bed wishes for the future of Pakistan, of Islam, and of modernization. She considers modernization to be exclusive of extremism, and I for one, reflecting on the specific figures from Medard Gabel, E. O. Wilson, and Lester Brown, am happy to assert that for one third of what we spend on war, we could create heaven on earth. Combine that with the trillion a year that corporations and dictators loot through corruption, and the $500 billion of more than foundations squander willy nilly for lack of a strategic spending plan, and you get into real money.
She prays for more community responsibility and charity, for education and women's rights. And transparency of military budgets, for better election monitoring, for a Reconciliation Corps (see the superb book by USN Captain Doug Johnston, Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik
Her final two wishes are for the Gulf States to jump-start the Muslim renaissance, and for a Palestinian state (to which I would add, and the restoration of Lebanon as the Tibet or Paris of the Middle East).
There are so many other books I would like to tie to this one. Here are the two I have left within Amazon limits:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Two years ago, after reading Prahalad's book, I realized my dstiny was to be intelligence officer to the five billion poor. Today an Indian Brigadier pointed out to me that three of the five are split between China and India. That will guide my next year or two.
See all my other reviews and lists for a free graduate survey of reality and what is to be done to move away from the war and scarcity frame of reference to a prosperous world at peace frame of reference (at one third the cost in blood, treasure, and spirit).
[Additional extraneous observations dropped into comment.]
good so far February 14, 2008
Melissa (Ohio)
8 out of 20 found this review helpful
Have only finished the first two chapters so far. Easy enough to read. There could be more chapter breaks. Exciting. Thoughts seem a little scattered, probably due to the passion it has obviously been written with. Lots of history helps to understand Muslim perspective. Religious. Can't say that I think Ms Bhutto has a firm understanding about Christianity or Judaism, but that's acceptable.
It has helped me to sort through my feelings about the Islamic religion that have developed through media exposure and little study or communication with followers of the faith. Always good to get information about a religion from a member of the faith. Also good to get information about the government from someone on the inside.
The book has done for me what it sets out to do, and that is RECONCILE me to see the religion of Islam as another religion of the world, and no longer one that seems to spawn bad things.
I think anyone trying to make a decision about who to vote for in the US Presidential election and the Pakistani elections should take what this book says into consideration.
 dishonest book from the latest head of the family that destroyed Pakistan March 31, 2008
Mark bennett (portland, OR)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Reconciliation is a worthless book written to please the author's supporters in the west. The truth is that Bhutto and her entire family have never stood for "democracy". Rather, for multiple generations they have stood for a corrupt version of populism that over the decades has brought Pakistan to the brink of destruction.
Her father was the architect of two disasterous wars with India and brought about the civil war that ended in the dismemberment of Pakistan. Benazir, building on her father's legacy pursued a covert wars with India over Kashmir and greenlighted the creation of the Taliban. Over three generations, the Bhuttos have undermined any possiblity of democracy in Pakistan by turning one of the main political parties into their personal family posession.
But what does the book say? The book talks of the evils of dictatorship and western influence. The claims about dictatorship might be taken as remotely serious but for the sad fact that the Bhutto fortune and political legacy were originally built on their service to a military dicatator. There is also understandably no understanding or admission that the corrupt version of "democracy" associated with her family has promoted extreme Islam.
Most of her analysis of Pakistani history is self-serving and false. Her goal at all times is to protect the corrupt legacy of failure associated with her own relatives. She puts them up as the democratic alternative to Islamic extremists. She does this of course without revealing the anti-democratic origins of her political party or her father's role in driving Bengaledesh out of Pakistan through violence. She is also dishonest about the origins of the Taliban and "islamic extremism". She would rather blame (as her father did) the military rather than tell the truth about the corrupt commerical interests who were behind support for the Taliban. The intelligence services were the means but the end was willed by Pakistani trucking and other business interests.
Her views on Islam are incredibly bad. In her world, its the Ulema thats the problem. She favors an individualist interpretation of Islam no doubt so that the Ulema can be eliminated as a source of criticism for her party machine. The argument will go over very well with her western sponsors though because its what they want to hear.
She also parrots back to the western audience of the book their views on Islam. None of what she says is credible and none of it would be said at home in Pakistan. But her sponsors in Washington and London will eat up every word.
Bhutto's untimely death proved yet again what the real game here is. With her death, the party passed as a family posession to the next generation. Even though that next generation was a 19 year old child. That is the contradiction in the book among the Bhuttos. Democracies are not created by political parties whose leadership is passed generation after generation from parent to child. That is rather something like a monarchy. Pakistan will only begin to progress when the family politics that the Bhuttos represent disappears.
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