About book The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From The Fault Line Between Christianity And Islam (2010)
What an amazing book. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end and found myself captured by the stories. Eliza Griswold entered a world that no one here in America has a clue about and manages to put the reader in the emotional context of the surrounding as though it's right outside your front door. She visits both palaces and jail cells, tribal chiefs and prisoners of war, pastors and imams, getting the stories. Her ability to put that experience on page is amazingly clear to the most novice of readers. Never at any time does the book seem to heavy on politics or religion yet it involves both constantly. We here in the west essentially "choose" our religion in an environment of freedom and can then delve in and out of that religion at will. Griswold takes you to places where you essentially belong to a religion out of the sheer necessity of survival and religion is the full time center. There is no place for sitting on the fence in these locations, you are either all in, or you find yourself without a protective edge. I understand much greater the fears of parts of the world that living here in America, I never have to consider after reading this. Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about cultures and religion. This is an on-site rendition of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’. Ms Griswold goes boldly to outposts in Africa and Asia to meet radical (and rabid) Christians and Muslims. By radical I mean people who may kill because of words written in their so-called sacred texts. But the book goes beyond that, as Ms Griswold explores the why and the localities of these conflicts. She puts a historical and geographical context in her interviews. There are different manifestations of these ‘radicals’ – some, like in Nigeria, seem to have exhausted hate and rhetoric and hopefully the truce established will not expire. What is also apparent with these religious extremists is their intolerance of liberal religious views in the West. Religions in the Western world receptive to Gays, pro-choice, woman’s rights, general openness to sexuality … are an apostasy to fundamentalist Christians and Muslims in the tenth parallel. There is another religion in the areas discussed by Ms. Griswold where there are no shades of grey. Sometimes we have a view of this in the U.S. when abortion clinics are bombed. But I don’t know how the ‘born-again’ evangelicals in the U.S. would fit in or adapt to Africa or Asia. As the writer points out, religion in these countries is a way of life because there is no government infrastructure that they can rely on for social and economic support.There is among both Muslims and Christians in Africa and Asia a strong tendency to revert and restore a view of the way religion was several centuries ago – a literal view of the Quran or the Bible. So this is another clash with modernity. It is difficult to see a resolution of this religious conflict with modernity. It did seem that Muslims in Malaysia were successful at this.This book does have more of a focus on Christianity and Ms. Griswold (in my opinion) is more comfortable in that milieu, but there are several excellent encounters with Muslim fundamentalists, particularly in Somalia and Asia. Ms. Griswold is a keen observer and is able to provide several perspectives when she is conducting an interview.
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OH my goodness what a book and an eye opener. Loved it, in a weird way but loved it.
—violin12713
