November book: Engaging the Muslim World

Please feel free to order the book from Amazon on the enclosed link.

From: Pat Priest ppriest@charter.net
Date: November 7, 2010 2:13:46 PM EST
To: Oconee County Democrats ;oconee@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oconee] November book: Engaging the Muslim World


Hello!

After these awful election returns, we just need to keep building 
community and learning more about the world around us so we're not 
easily manipulated like you-know-who.

Join us to talk about books and ideas! The last selection of the year 
for the book group sponsored by the Oconee Democrats is "Engaging the Muslim World." See the press release below for details.

Keep fighting the good fight against intolerance and ignorance!

Pat Priest
Member, Oconee Democrats

--------------------------------------------------

Community book group discussion
Sponsored by the Oconee Democrats

Book: "Engaging the Muslim World" by Juan Cole

When: December 1st at 6 PM
Where: Five Points Deli on Epps Bridge Parkway
For more information:
Contact patricia.priest@yahoo.com

The community book group sponsored by the Oconee Democrats will discuss
"Engaging the Muslim World" for its November book. The group normally
meets the last Wednesday of every month but has changed the date to
December 1st because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The book, written by Middle East expert Juan Cole, addresses the harmful
anxiety that underpins the relationship between Middle East and West.
Cole points out the risks and missed opportunities linked to the
rising antipathy toward Muslims. For example, he notes that eleven of
the nineteen nations with the largest reserves of petroleum have
Muslim-majority populations.

Cole explains the book's title: "By 'engagement,' I do not mean
surrender or accommodation. I mean critique as well as dialogue,
pressure as well as basic human respect, sticks such as sanctions and
carrots such as better diplomatic and economic relations. I mean the
demotion of military response from favored tool to last resort. I do
not underestimate the challenge of radical Muslim Fundamentalism but
simply note that guerrilla wars have almost never been won by simple
force of arms."

Cole teaches history at the University of Michigan, where he is a
specialist in contemporary Muslim movements in the Middle East and South
Asia. He speaks Arabic, Persian, and Urdu fluently. He has a regular
column at salon.com about Middle East Affairs and appears regularly on
PBS's Lehrer News Hour. Cole also writes about events in the Middle
East and translates media from the region on his influential blog called
Informed Comment.

In "Engaging the Muslim World," Cole provides information about U.S.
involvement in the region that dates back further than most Americans
realize (for example, the Truman Administration's overthrow in 1949 of
the elected government in Syria and Eisenhower's deployment in 1958 of
14,000 Marines to Lebanon as a show of force).

While Americans and others around the world are rightfully appalled by
the horrific violence of September 11th and of grotesque acts of
terrorism by al-Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups, he mentions
actions by the U.S. government and the United Nations that have caused
hatred to fester in the Middle East (such as the estimated half-million
children who died in Iraq because of the sanctions in the 1990s).
These differently focused but interlocking histories are important to
understand, he argues, as we find our way forward through the global
challenges of terrorism, climate change, and so much more.

In addition to trenchant discussions of the situation in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Cole writes about Wahhabism in Saudi
Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He takes up the subject of
Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building to show
that American society, too, has terrorists who are not supported by the
mainstream public that decries violence against innocents.

The thought-provoking "Engaging the Muslim World" is available at 25%
discount at Books Galore in Watkinsville.

The group will discuss the book at 6 PM on December 1st at Five Points
Deli on Epps Bridge Parkway (near the new Trader Joe's). Participants
of any political background and from any county are welcome. For more
information, contact Pat Priest (patricia.priest@yahoo.com).
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