Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Wednesday August 25, 2010
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CAPTIVE: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban
Jere Van Dyk
Times
ISBN 978-0-8050-8827-4
269 pages
$25
Reviewed by Ann Scott Tyson
In the opening pages of journalist Jere Van Dyk's stark account of his ill-fated foray into Pakistan and capture by the Taliban, he takes readers back to 1973, the year he drove an old Volkswagen across Asia to Kabul. That trip marked the start of Van Dyk's lifelong fascination with Afghanistan, where he covered the Afghan mujahideen leaders during their war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and the Taliban insurgency since 2001. The insights that he has drawn from his decades of experience in Afghanistan and familiarity with Pashtun culture in particular make his account of 45 days of captivity with the Taliban rich and revealing.
Van Dyk's history with mujahideen figures such as Jalaladin Haqqani and Gulbadeen Hekmatyar, who are now allied with the Taliban, served as background for his plan to disappear into Afghan society and then secretly cross the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan. "I wanted to explain the Taliban to the outside world," he writes. "I wanted to go deep into the heart of Taliban country, to get to their leaders, men I knew from the 1980s, and through them, perhaps even to find Osama bin Laden himself."
He grew a beard, stayed away from officials and other journalists and set off with his interpreter and guide to meet a contact in the Eastern city of Jalalabad who would lead them to the Taliban. But only a few hours into the journey, walking in the mountains of Pakistan, they were surprised by a group of Taliban armed with rifles and rocket-launchers, who sprung out from behind rocks and apprehended them. "I couldn't run. I couldn't do anything. I was dead. I was going to die," Van Dyk writes.
The first section of the book, leading to his capture, is called "The Way of the Pashtuns," and in it Van Dyk deftly weaves lessons on tribal culture into his narrative. For example, he describes how after his blindfold is untied in a small mud hut, one of the first questions his Taliban interrogator asks him is "What is your father's name?"
"This was deep Pashtun culture, where it was necessary to know a man's father's name, and his grandfather's name, to know who he was, where he fit in society, and what kind of a family he came from. These were Taliban. They wanted to create a new world where the equality of Islam overruled rigid, tribal hierarchy, but they were still Pashtuns." This theme -- of the tension and interplay between Islamic law and ancient Pashtun tribal codes within the Taliban mentality -- is one of the most compelling of the book. The author provides a detailed comparison of the two belief systems and where they dovetail and diverge. Under the Pashtun code of honor, he writes, "a man must never let an insult go unpunished. Sharia, or Islamic law, on the other hand, is interested in arbitration, settling a dispute." Once Van Dyk is captured, a Taliban leader describes how his fate dangles between the Pashtun tradition of hospitality and Islamic law. "If you have been invited ... you will be free to go on your way," the leader said. "If you haven't been invited, we will judge you under Sharia."
Another theme is the author's struggle to come to grips with his own morals and the Christian faith of his youth even as he comes under intense pressure to adopt the Islamic beliefs and rituals of his mercurial captors. Van Dyk calibrates his every move for its potential to allow him to survive. "The Maulavi wanted me to become Muslim and to take their message to the world. If I could only do that, I wouldn't have to try to find a million dollars," the amount the Taliban wanted for his ransom, he wrote. "But I couldn't convert."
Beyond the harrowing experience of his kidnapping, and questions of trust between him and his Afghan interpreter and guide, Van Dyk also offers insights into the competing interests and loyalties of Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. military and government organizations. "The Pakistanis are using the Taliban, I believe, trying to destroy the tribal structure. They are deeply involved in backing the Taliban. They are, I believe, using U.S. taxpayer money to kill U.S. soldiers," he writes based on impressions from sneaking across the border of Afghanistan into Pakistan four times before his capture.
The book, drawn largely from notes that Van Dyk's Taliban captors allowed him to write, is organized as a daily diary of the 45 days in a makeshift Taliban prison. As such, it moves slowly in places. And, while undoubtedly authentic, Van Dyk's constant wondering whether he will be taken out and shot or otherwise executed can become slightly tedious for the reader who obviously knows the outcome. On the whole, however, this first-hand account offers a rare and complicated portrait of the Taliban mentality seen through discerning Western eyes.
Ann Scott Tyson is a staff writer for The Washington Post who has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She can be reached at tysona(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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THE GREAT BRAIN RACE: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World
Ben Wildavsky
Princeton Univ
ISBN 978 0 691 14689 8
240 pages
$26.95
Reviewed by Michael Alison Chandler
Globalization is changing the food we eat, the way we communicate and, increasingly, the way we go to college. Nearly 3 million students were enrolled in universities outside their borders in 2009, a 57 percent increase over the previous decade, according to the Institute of International Education, which facilitates exchange programs.
"The Great Brain Race," by Ben Wildavsky, takes a comprehensive look at today's worldwide marketplace for college students -- with stops in such places as Singapore, South Korea and Saudi Arabia where western schools, including the University of Chicago and potentially George Mason University, are opening satellite campuses or where local governments are making heavy investments in American-style research universities. The author, a former education editor at U.S. News & World Report, also explores the latest attempts to rate the world's top colleges now that more students are degree shopping across borders.
These rapid changes are provoking anxiety in some politicians, particularly in the United States, where the higher education system has attracted the world's top academic talent for more than half a century. In India, which sends more students to American universities than does any other country, lawmakers have been anxious to stanch the brain drain but reluctant to open the market to foreign colleges they fear will only cater to the elite. Many would rather seek investment for their own overwhelmed education system.
But Wildavsky emphasizes that greater competition for scholars is not to be feared. "Increasing knowledge is not a zero-sum game," he writes. Better educational opportunities around the globe, he predicts, will lead to greater innovation and economic growth worldwide.
Michael Alison Chandler can be reached at chandlerm(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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