Lawrence Wright, Author of The Looming Tower

Today after our Listening class (I take five Arabic classes: Grammar, Writing, Media, Speaking, and Listening) a friend and I were lamenting the 5 minute presentations we are supposed to give tomorrow. I seriously doubt my ability to deliver a 5-minute monologue entirely in Arabic (or at least one that is mildly coherent), but I suppose this is how one learns. They say the intermediate stage is the hardest stage in learning any language, right?

Anywho, she mentioned that Lawrence Wright was coming to speak on campus later that afternoon, so instead of heading home to start figuring out wtf I could say for 5 whole minutes, we decided to head to a cafe in an alley about two blocks from school to meet some friends and have shisha and mango juice.

A few games of backgammon later, we ended up in Oriental Hall, the largest (or at least the nicest) lecture hall on AUC's main campus. The place filled quickly, and Wright (who taught ESL at AUC for two years to fulfill his "conscientious objector" service during the Vietnam War) proceeded to lecture about what I understood to be roughly the same content as his New York Times bestselling book.


Perhaps trying to condense a book into a lecture was his problem. The narrative history that Wright wove together was definitely interesting. Unfortunately, the Q&A section at the end concluded before I was able to ask him about his assertion that "The War on Terror had ended prior to the beginning of the war in Iraq." Wright proceeded to explain Al-Qaeda's reorganization from a vertical business model to a horizontal cell model, which he then credited as the reason for its ability to continue to grow and operate despite initial US/coalition successes in Afghanistan. The Iraq connection was never established or mentioned again. I wondered how the present need for US troops in Afghanistan and the apparently insurmountable lawlessness that continues to allow the northern tribal areas of Pakistan to be a safe haven and training ground for terrorists jived with his theory that the War on Terror was over prior to Iraq. I don't think the situation in Iraq has done much to prevent terrorism, but how Al-Qaeda owes its continued existence to the Iraq War remained unclear.

Additionally, I had serious doubts about some of his facts, such as that Al-Qaeda, at 20 years old, is the second-oldest terrorist organization remaining in existence--the other being the IRA. What about Hezbollah and FARC? Moreover, I found his claim that "There are more Muslims than Catholics in northern Europe and more Muslims than Protestants in southern Europe" equally objectionable. Those things may be true, but stated as facts to show how overrun European nations are becoming with foreigners (so much so that they are losing their sense of national identity) they are misleading. Southern Europe is predominantly Catholic and northern Europe is predominantly Protestant--not the other way around-- so it isn't all that shocking that Muslims aren't the smallest religious minority in those places, which is really all that those statements mean.

To his credit, Wright handled himself well under pretty heated questions after the lecture, and maintained his position that most terrorists are motivated by a variety of sociological and political causes that are not really the fault of the USA even in front of his Egyptian audience. His presentation was captivating, but could have been stronger if he had omitted the things that cast doubt on his credibility. However, if nothing else, it was a thought-provoking way to spend the afternoon.