Debatable Cause, Undeniable Consequences

The Incidental Jihadi:

An Alternative Point of View

Author: Samrat Mitra

Publisher: Self-published, San Bernardino, CA, 2017

                                                                     

This is a novel about the modern-day war in the Middle East. The author states the events depicted, though, are not fictional. They can be found documented on the Internet. They provide “an alternative point of view” for consideration. It isn’t pretty.

It is the story of a young geologist/surveyor that is sent on an assignment to the Golan Heights during the ongoing so-called ‘holy war’. Through a series of events, the otherwise short trip turns into over half a decade of astonishment, stress, separation, and remorse for him and his family for this young Israeli, a naturalized citizen of Great Britain. His wife and child are taken hostage, he personally gets involved in the Syrian War, suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, and makes a daring attempt to rescue his loved ones.

The story is told in the first person by the main character’s post-traumatic event’s namesake. With its beginning in New York after the main plot has occurred, and it’s returning there near the end of the story, the book reminds me of that famous movie, Dr. Zhivago, and the intermediate story in Samrat Mitra’s book is just as fast-moving and gripping. I found the book reading so much like real life. As a follower of more conservative media sources, much of the content in the events depicted rang a bell, although a most discordant one.

Mitra gives us some interesting insights into our own collective personality and experience as a global society. For example, he writes early in the book, “Recorded video posted on websites around the globe from the first-person point of view turned us into voyeurs for violence.” And then shares the consequences of such viewings when he writes, “Our admission ticket to view the spectacle is not the price we pay to view them, [but the fact that we become desensitized] to the world around us, [accepting it], and [living] happily in denial.”

Please note: While the copy I reviewed was a beta version and needed some editing which the author is pursuing, it was still very readable and in fact, added to the authenticity of the story being told.

The author also has a yen for asking some very difficult questions that can be applied repeatedly to the matter of how we handle news of war and terrorism and abuse and may I add all the ‘dark’ issues involving life and death. He writes or more correctly warns, “Do we have an option but not to pay a heavy price for our past neglect and transgressions?”

But there’s more to the main character than discovering oil, fighting wars, and making dangerous rescue attempts. In the process, he shares with us some very insightful understandings of love and romance, some thoughts that the average person would never admit to. One such example is, “Sadly, the intensity of affection [demonstrated by] one lover [towards his/her beloved] is never equaled by [that of] the other.”

Samrat Mitra has a wonderful way of bringing a person’s faith into his story and at one point has the main character’s wife asking, “Why did God choose to test us, what did we do wrong?” It’s a question many readers can identify with and the author’s answer, through the main character, is well worth discovering.

There is also no shortage of commentary on war, terrorism, the role of big business in global politics, war’s effects on the family, trust, and hope.

The book has several surprising endings, some perhaps that could leave a reader stunned. Still, the author succeeds in what I believe was his key objective – to deliver a warning to all the world that the conflict now taking place in the Middle East, whether we like it or not, is now “finally shading the world in darker inevitable shades.”

Highly recommended to anyone who is concerned about life and death beyond the borders of their daily commute.

·      Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, October 9, 2017. www.accordconsulting.com

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