Fathers and Sons and a Surprising Discovery
One of the subtexts of Fawaz' book seems to be how age dampens militancy. Kamal Habib's journey from radical militant to aggrieved, non-violent Islamist is the same journey that most of his militant generation made in Egypt following the grudging peace they made with the government in 1997.(Holdouts like Ayaman Zawahiri obviously have rejected that ceasefire.) Now what seems like a younger generation in Egypt, at least in the Sinai region, have taken up terrorism and have launched a new deadly campaign even more vicious in some senses than the terror campaign directed at tourists in the mid-90s.
For some reason this called to mind Turgenev's classic study of militancy over the generations Fathers and Sons, a portrait of how the 'liberal' generation of 19th century Russia was supplanted by the next nihilist generation, and reminded me that works like Turgenev might shed light on the question of how militancy is effected by generational changes.
A real suprise in Fawaz' book I thought was his discovery of al Qaeda groups in the Palestinian camps of southern Lebanon. Thats news to me and an important find.
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