Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World

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Simon and Schuster, Jul 19, 2011 - Political Science - 320 pages
A decade after the 9/11 attacks, this groundbreaking book takes readers deep into rebellions against both autocrats and extremists that are redefining politics, culture, and security threats across the Islamic world. The awakening involves hundreds of millions of people. And the political transformations— and tectonic changes—are only beginning.

Robin Wright, an acclaimed foreign correspondent and television commentator, has covered the region for four decades. She witnessed the full cycle, from extremism’s angry birth and globalization to the rise of new movements transforming the last bloc of countries to hold out against democracy. Now, in Rock the Casbah, she chronicles the new order being shaped by youthinspired revolts toppling leaders, clerics repudiating al Qaeda, playwrights and poets crafting messages of a counter-jihad, comedians ridiculing militancy, hip-hop rapping against guns and bombs, and women mobilizing for their own rights.

This new counter-jihad has many goals. For some, it’s about reforming the faith. For others, it’s about reforming political systems. For most, it’s about achieving basic rights. The common denominator is the rejection of venomous ideologies and suicide bombs, plane hijackings, hostage-takings, and mass violence to achieve those ends.

Wright captures a stunning moment in history, one of the region’s four key junctures—along with Iran’s revolution, Israel’s creation, and the Ottoman Empire’s collapse—in a century. The notion of a clash of civilizations is increasingly being replaced by a commonality of civilizations in the twenty-first century. But she candidly details both the possibilities and pitfalls ahead. The new counter-jihad is imaginative and defiant, but Muslim societies are also politically inexperienced and economically challenged.
 

Contents

Prologue The Sandstorm
1
HipHop Islam
115
The New Chic
138
The Living Poets Society
160
Satellite Sheikhs and YouTube Imams
176
The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour
189
The Beginning of the Beginning
229
The Diplomatic Pas de Deux
244
Acknowledgments
257
Bibliography
285
Index
293
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Robin Wright has reported from 140 countries for The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time, The Atlantic, The Sunday Times, and others. She has been a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Yale, Duke, and Stanford. She is the author of seven books on international affairs.

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