Jason Burke
Studioso − Italia
Jason Burke is an author and journalist with the British Sunday newspaper The Observer, where he is currently Europe editor. Based in Paris, he covers a wide range of topics including politics, social affairs and culture in Europe and the Mediterranean such as the 2006 Serie A scandal that affected Italian football.
Burke has also lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan writing on Islamic extremism amongst other issues. Among numerous other conflicts, he covered the war of 2001 in Afghanistan and that of 2003 in Iraq. In 2003 Jason Buke authored, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. The book was updated and republished as Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. Both versions argued that al-Qaeda was not a monolithic outfit and that the West's foreign policy is fuelling Islamic extremism.
Giles Foden, writing in The Guardian, a sister newspaper of The Observer, notes that Burke describes "how after September 11 he became increasingly concerned about the misconceptions that were gaining currency. 'Foremost among them was the idea that Bin Laden led a cohesive and structured terrorist organisation called al-Qaida.' In its place Burke first rehearses the idea of the meta-network - al-Qaida as the UN of terrorism - which other experts have already evoked."
A further book, On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World was published in 2006. The BBC Middle East analyst, Roger Hardy, reviewed the book and described Burke as "engaging, good-humoured, nagged on occasion by fear and self-doubt, moved and sometimes overwhelmed by the world's humanity and inhumanity. He gets drunk, girlfriends come and go, he takes part in a naked table-tennis tournament in post- liberation Baghdad. He fits easily into the company of raw young troops from Michigan and Milwaukee stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, for whom war is a real-time version of Full Metal Jacket."
Hugh Miles, writing in The Independent, described Burke's second book as follows: "He is the consummate freewheeling journalist, who drinks, smokes roll-ups and the occasional joint, rides a motorbike and likes listening to funk. His objective is to shatter preconceptions and generalisations about Islam, overthrow the 'clash of civilisations' theory, expose myths and show the humanity of all people, whether they call themselves Muslims or not. He fulfils all this admirably well, taking us on a terror tour to the front line of conflicts involving militant Is-lamism: Gaza, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Kurdistan. He interviews a shady cast of characters, including a football-loving suicide bomber, a Ba'athist torturer, the Taliban and Jihadi prisoners."
Burke has also lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan writing on Islamic extremism amongst other issues. Among numerous other conflicts, he covered the war of 2001 in Afghanistan and that of 2003 in Iraq. In 2003 Jason Buke authored, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. The book was updated and republished as Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam. Both versions argued that al-Qaeda was not a monolithic outfit and that the West's foreign policy is fuelling Islamic extremism.
Giles Foden, writing in The Guardian, a sister newspaper of The Observer, notes that Burke describes "how after September 11 he became increasingly concerned about the misconceptions that were gaining currency. 'Foremost among them was the idea that Bin Laden led a cohesive and structured terrorist organisation called al-Qaida.' In its place Burke first rehearses the idea of the meta-network - al-Qaida as the UN of terrorism - which other experts have already evoked."
A further book, On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World was published in 2006. The BBC Middle East analyst, Roger Hardy, reviewed the book and described Burke as "engaging, good-humoured, nagged on occasion by fear and self-doubt, moved and sometimes overwhelmed by the world's humanity and inhumanity. He gets drunk, girlfriends come and go, he takes part in a naked table-tennis tournament in post- liberation Baghdad. He fits easily into the company of raw young troops from Michigan and Milwaukee stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, for whom war is a real-time version of Full Metal Jacket."
Hugh Miles, writing in The Independent, described Burke's second book as follows: "He is the consummate freewheeling journalist, who drinks, smokes roll-ups and the occasional joint, rides a motorbike and likes listening to funk. His objective is to shatter preconceptions and generalisations about Islam, overthrow the 'clash of civilisations' theory, expose myths and show the humanity of all people, whether they call themselves Muslims or not. He fulfils all this admirably well, taking us on a terror tour to the front line of conflicts involving militant Is-lamism: Gaza, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Kurdistan. He interviews a shady cast of characters, including a football-loving suicide bomber, a Ba'athist torturer, the Taliban and Jihadi prisoners."
Annotazioni − Fonte: Wikipedia