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My Life with the Taliban (Columbia/Hurst) |  | Author: Abdul Salam Zaeef
Creators: Alex Strick van Linschoten, Felix Kuehn
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 39908
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 360
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0231701489
Dewey Decimal Number: 958.1047
EAN: 9780231701488
ASIN: 0231701489
Publication Date: March 1, 2010
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Product Description
This is the autobiography of Abdul Salam Zaeef, a senior former member of the Taliban. His memoirs, translated from Pashto, are more than just a personal account of his extraordinary life. "My Life with the Taliban" offers a counter-narrative to the standard accounts of Afghanistan since 1979. Zaeef describes growing up in rural poverty in Kandahar province. Both of his parents died at an early age, and the Russian invasion of 1979 forced him to flee to Pakistan. He started fighting the jihad in 1983, during which time he was associated with many major figures in the anti-Soviet resistance, including the current Taliban head Mullah Mohammad Omar. After the war Zaeef returned to a quiet life in a small village in Kandahar, but chaos soon overwhelmed Afghanistan as factional fighting erupted after the Russians pulled out. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the discussions that led to the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. Zaeef then details his Taliban career as civil servant and minister minister who negotiated with foreign oil companies as well as with Afghanistan's own resistance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Zaeef was ambassador to Pakistan at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and his account discusses the strange 'phoney war' period before the US-led intervention toppled the Taliban. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Pakistan, notwithstanding his diplomatic status, and spent four and a half years in prison (including several years in Guantanamo) before being released without having been tried or charged with any offence. "My Life with the Taliban" offers a personal and privileged insight into the rural Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock. It helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 Shattering Preconceptions about the Taliban April 5, 2010
Jean MacKenzie (Kabul, Afghanistan)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
"My Life with the Taliban" may not be for everybody -- only for those who seek to truly understand the movement in its historical context. Those who insist on remaining mired in prejudice, who prefer demonization of the Taliban to a closer examination of their motivations and goals, should skip this book. Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef's account of his early years as a struggling Taliban official gives us a deeper and more realistic view of a group that has been branded with all of the sins of Afghanistan and none of its virtues. Readers who say that Zaeef's version of events is self-serving are undoubtedly correct -- this is a personal memoir, not a cold historical treatise. But it gives us an invaluable glimpse of a man and his time, it draws back the curtain on a period about which we have very little real information.
Some people will be made uncomfortable by Zaeef's account of his treatment at the hands of the Americans following the Taliban's ouster -- it is much more difficult to justify cruelty towards those we do not know. But, again, Zaeef and his editors perform a valuable service in introducing us to Guantanamo from the point of view of one of its inmates. Most readers will be moved to anger and outrage -- Zaeef was a diplomat, not a fighter -- but, again, sympathy with the Taliban is not an emotion everyone can handle.
"My Life with the Taliban" should become standard reading for anyone who wants to study Afghanistan today.
Jean MacKenzie, Afghanistan-based journalist.
Required reading for students of Afghanistan April 5, 2010
Graeme C. Smith (Delhi, India)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The entire world wants to understand the Taliban these days, it seems, as the war in Afghanistan becomes the topic of the moment. Precious few people can tell the inside story of the shadowy movement, however, which makes Mullah Zaeef's autobiography an incredibly important book. If your government sends soldiers to Afghanistan, you must read this. By revealing the inner workings of the Taliban from the early days of the movement, Zaeef challenges the accepted wisdom about the
insurgency now facing international troops. By the time you're finished reading, you might not sympathize with the Taliban - but you will know them as people, not monsters.
A serious contemplation of the idea of "Taliban" April 5, 2010
Joshua R. Foust (Oakton, VA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is unfairly maligned as being a work of Taliban apologetics. It is that, to a certain extent, but it is an important counter-narrative to the dominant "Taliban=evil" one. Mullah Zaeef writes of how and why he chose to join the movement and work toward its end; just as upsetting, perhaps, to an American audience, is his description of how we treated prisoners at Guantanamo - even legitimate ones like former regime officials.
Does this book maybe go too far toward excusing the Taliban's activities? Yes. But don't blame the translators for that (they are just that - translators). Just as we give our own disgraced politicians the chance to explain themselves through memoir, so should we do that for Zaeef, especially when understanding the justification of our enemies is so vitally important.
Joshua Foust
[...]
The most important book you can read about Afghanistan April 5, 2010
Erik N. Nelson (Davis, CA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
"My Life with the Taliban" is easily the most important work to come out of Afghanistan since the West realized it had not defeated the Taliban in 2001 and indeed was not winning against an ever-strengthening insurgency. Successive American commanders of the international coalition trying to defeat the Taliban and their allies have said there cannot be a military solution to the conflict. If you agree with them, you have to read this book. In order for there to be a viable political solution, the Afghan government, Western leaders and those they represent need to understand who the Taliban are. What Mullah Zaeef and his two writer/editors have done is remarkable not because it is an encyclopedia of who's who and what's what with the Taliban. That may never be written. But what they have done is open the curtains, through they eyes of one very important member of the movement, to a hidden culture that the rest of the world, from US four-star generals to left-wing German ministers to worried British voters, are now forced to reckon with.
A unique insight into the Taliban and its origins April 11, 2010
Neil Paterson and Anna Paterson (Germany and UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book may outrage some, but it is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the country where the US and NATO-led war costs more lives every day. There is no pretence here - Zaeef is an opponent of the West's intervention in his country and continues to consider himself a Talib, if he is no longer an active member. Zaeef does not claim to be a historian - this is an autobiography, a form making no claims to `objectivity'. But historians will view this as an important source, telling a side of the story that has been completely absent in English-language accounts of the Afghan conflict so far.
Reading this book with all its references to belief and scripture leaves the impression of a passionate Afghan nationalist who believes the Pashtuns are disenfranchised and who hates the Americans and the Pakistani ISI in equal measure. The section about Guantanamo should be read for itself alone by anyone who feels the West is more `civilized' than the Afghans. It is also impressive to read of Zaeef's attempt as ambassador in Pakistan to obtain the release of the Taliban prisoners in the Kunduz area who were subsequently massacred. On the other hand, Zaeef's account contains frustrating silences, as one might expect from a memoir. There is no mention, for example, of the Taliban's alleged use of opium money, or the use of suicide bombs and the civilian casualties they have caused.
You may end up disagreeing with both reviewers and book, but you should still read it. If you end up, like us, with a sense of respect for Zaeef, who comes across as an honest and committed man - is that really so appalling?
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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