Synthesis: The Complete Book (Volumes 1-5)

By Shahbaz Fazal

Synthesis: The Complete Book (Volumes 1-5) - Shahbaz Fazal
  • Release Date: 2017-07-11
  • Genre: Politics & Current Events

Description

Synthesis is the story of five escapees from US Guantánamo in Cuba, that unravels from 2004 to 2017; an adventure story of what happens to them under Cuban jurisdiction and the international repercussions that follow. The book also exposes the connections between the war on terror, the military-industrial complex and banking, as part of neoliberal order of growing inequalities working in the best interests of the world’s top 1% and corporations. A polemic of our time. 

It’s a fact-based extensive book (202k plus 67k in references – in five volumes), and is set in tropical, Spanish speaking communist Cuba. It shows aspects of its people, politics and culture that are juxtaposed with Western systems, especially the US and UK. 

Over half of the book is the escapees’ storyline; how the Cuban authorities deal with them, their individual characters, disparate backgrounds and group dynamics. The other half is narrated by a mythical White-Dove bird, who uses a blockbuster approach to critically examine different but interrelated issues, that show us the big picture. 

These different but connected issues range from the war on terror to freedom and democracy; the banking crash to the Iraq invasion and emergence of ISIS; the US-led NATO policies to Snowden’s revelations. All driven by a 40-year neoliberal project, that requires strong states and weak citizens to succeed; hence the war on terror, loss of civil liberties, mass 24/7 surveillance, etc. 

Synthesis shows – far from stopping terrorism, US-NATO policies have massively increased their numbers and created far more blood-thirsty terrorists, such as ISIS. While the Pentagon’s agenda of encircling Russia with US-NATO bases and regime changes, has ensured its greatest past enemy remains its greatest future reason for ever-expanding military budgets. 

The book concludes with the period 2015-17, by assessing the results of US-NATO regime change and war on terror policies; a devastated and war-torn Middle east and north Africa; European refugee crisis; Russian intervention in Syria; ISIS’ 2015-16 Paris atrocities; and it highlights the utterly dire situation of 26 million Yemeni people – right now. 

Followed by Theresa May’s snap election of June 2017, that not only denied her the mainstream media predicted landslide victory, but events led people to make direct connections between UK’s foreign policies and terrorist attacks in Manchester and London. 

Synthesis is bold and provocative. It will inform and enlighten the reader to question everything they’re told, and encourage them to think for themselves. The book mostly uses plain language (some very strong language), and there are two different endings to the five escapees’ story, as well as a third overall ending to the entire big picture story.