Customer Reviews

Shoot the Women First

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have very mixed feelings about this book; on the one hand it contains some valuable interviews with some very worthy - and hitherto neglected - individuals, such as Susanna Ronconi and Kim Hyon Hui, and the narrative that it presents is invariably lively, albeit hindered slightly by MacDonald's peculiarly lazy journalistic style (if I had a shiny penny-piece for every time a journalist misuses the word "enormity", I would now have sufficient funds to send the whole sorry caste of them back to elementary school with Collins English dictionaries). I kept mentally comparing her value-laden, interviewer-centric questions with the approach of the late, great Tony Parker, who effaced himself from his subject as thoroughly as if he had never existed.

The key problem here is the author's thesis that female terrorists are more fanatical than their male counterparts, something which she appears to assume is a given despite only the most anecdotal evidence, and which she eventually renders into something approaching a piece of Solanas-style sexism, purely on the basis of a single interview with a German counter-terrorist expert. The following is admittedly a quotation within a quote, but it is not atypical of the author's overall tendency, and it perfectly illustrates the superficiality of her central thesis:

"'There was a television programme shown here recently about a woman who had founded a computer company. Her staff comprised of fifteen employees, twelve of whom were women. She was asked why this was, was she a feminist? No, she said, her employee policy was based on substantial differences between men and women. Women understood things better and faster than men, and were more pragmatic. They not only learnt fast, they worked faster. The men, though, wanted to play with the computers, experiment and create something new. She said: 'With that attitude, I couldn't exist. I can only get the job done with women.'"

Quite aside from the question-begging fatuousness of this statement, it flies in the face of all the facts: did any woman ever starve herself to death like Holger Meins? Or Bobby Sands? Was Hans-Carl Raspe really less fanatical than Gudrun Ensslin? Was Michael Baumann less dedicated and creative than Astrid Proll? Did the GSG-9 ever issue the order "Shoot the women first"? There is no evidence of this whatsoever, and MacDonald makes no attempt to adduce any.

The truth is - as anyone with the slightest acquaintance with the RAF, Brigati Rossi or Provos will realize - yes, women are every bit as capable of violence as men, but to infer some kind of gendered ethical and personal superiority from highly selective accounts by individuals is extremely problematic. As Richard Huffmann has said: if you had to choose between shooting Gudrun Ensslin and, say, Holger Meins, you would certainly shoot Ensslin first; if you had to choose between Baader and Meinhof, you would shoot Baader, because Meinhof was a deeply ineffective terrorist. As a series of interviews and narrative accounts of some well- and lesser-known female terrorists, Shoot the Women First is a worthy read; as a theoretical exploration of what makes women turn to terrorism, however, it is a resounding failure.

Journalism requires objectivity first and foremost, but this book offers little. It makes no reasonable effort to provide points of view outside those of the perpetrators presented here.

The book profiles such figures as Pyongyang-born Kim Hyon Hui, who on Nov. 28, 1987 destroyed Korean Air Flight 858, loaded with passengers bound for Seoul; Leila Khaled, a Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacker with "great hatred of the Jews;" and Red Brigade kidnapper Susan Ronconni, whose group murdered former Italian premier Aldo Moro.

The book parrots their words, and romances their actions as well as the indoctrination of children to hatred and war. MacDonald observes children taught to throw stones at the age of two as adorable resisters, not the examples of parental and societal abuse that they are. She presents unconfirmed reports of Israeli "abuse" without skepticism and pronounces these women "extraordinary," rendering both the reports and the book suspect.

This 1991 book provides an early view of all that is wrong with the Western press corps. Now, reporters go even further, and use every euphemism in the dictionary for people who purposely target civilians. They are terrorists, not "militants" or "activists."

Presenting female killers as normal or even worthy blurs the lines between acceptable and unacceptable. I see nothing normal about their sentiments and nothing glamorous about their desire to inflict pain and suffering on innocents, be they Korean, German--or Israeli.

The author presents the transparent anti-Semitism of those insisting they "do not hate Jews, only Israelis" without comment. Carried to its logical conclusion, this view denies the Jewish people alone among peoples and nations the right to self-determination.

Sorry, but this book flunks journalism 101.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

This is a well written and well thought out piece, and it shines light into the internal dynamics of extremist groups. The tendency most often seen in the press is to depict these organizations as quite two-dimensional, overlooking the fact that these groups have substantial and complex interpersonal dimensions. The observations on the role of women are insightful and informative, in contrast to the press reports and speculations. The authors observations on the commitment and focus of women who join and/or form these groups are quite sharp.

I recommend "Shoot the Women First" for anyone who seeks to understand the extremist mindset and character.

Although the book is a little old and dated, it still provides terrific insight into the European Right and Left wing terror groups. A must read for anyone interested in terrorism and the role that women play

I've owned this book since it was published. MacDonald wrote a glamorizing and "I am Woman, hear me Howl" (or whatever the song says) paean to plain old terrorists who happen to be female.

Nothing new here, Citizen, Move Along now ...

The facts were in long before MacDonald wrote her book: women make efficient and ruthless killers. Even when the experiences of the Red Army's Women Snipers and Fighter Pilots are excluded, there are many of examples of women who kill easily and without hesitation.

Women as assassin/terrorist/mad-bomber is a scary proposition. Women and children, are definitely a force-multiplier in attacks against soft targets. After all, who expects a woman wheeling a baby carriage, followed by a couple of cutesy toddlers, to explode in the middle of a packed shopping mall. Pack the baby carriage with explosives, line the carriage with metal; strap on a bomb vest for that chic preggers look, strap on little "Junior Hamas" brand (tm) belts on the toddlers and then explode all simultaneously with a garage door remote.

Now why do you suppose that the various anti-terrorist organizations of the world are scared spitless?

MacDonald, one could opine, got the idea of exploding women started.

Maybe, maybe not, but they are out there ticking even as I write.

The strange title comes from the advice of a German counter-terrorist chief. Its the tale of women enganged in armed struggle across the world. Includes marxist struggles in Germany, Italy, Korea and nationalist stuggles in Ireland, Spain, and Palestine. Author keeps her opinions on violence to a minimum.

_Shoot the Women First_ isn't really about shooting women first, though if GSG-9 says that the women terrorists are less prone to hesitate in a snap decision situation, I'd tend to believe them.

Ms. MacDonald is a British national who took the time and trouble to interview women terrorists and find out how they feel about what they've done. She cuts through some of the legend surrounding them and has developed a fair and accurate picture of their views and activities. She had the courage to interview some of the women of the IRA, despite the fact that this could be considered dangerous ground for her as a British woman.

The uniqueness of the work and its breadth make it especially interesting for anyone who has ever wondered how the hand that supposedly rocks the cradle could be turned to terrorist violence. I only wish it were longer.

This is one amazing book. As a female and a journalist it brought a new understanding of the so-called terrorist act. It gives a light, some times deeper than others, on the lives of female terrorists/freedom fighters. For the first time there is some one who pauses to ask questions the media does not care for. I personally found the book very intelligent enlightning and entertaining, funny enough! Unfortunatly the book is out of print and this in itself raises few questions, one of them is: why such an excellent book is not available for the masses? Who is responsible? Eileen Macdonald if you are alive you should reprint your book, it is a priceless precious book, we all need and must read it.