Activist Idea: Bring Soraya to your book club this summer!

Tuesday, 07. 7. 2009  –  by Anna

“Whatever we're powerless to change at this moment, we can choose to use our voices for longer-term impact.”
– Irshad Manji in a recent newsletter to readers of her blog www.irshadmanji.com

Over the last couple of years, I have noticed a pattern in my reading. The books I have read, or at least added to a growing list for later, all have a few essential qualities in common: they are stories by and about Middle Eastern and/or Arabic and/or Muslim women and their experiences. I did not give the fact that I am none of these things (except for a woman) much thought in the beginning. I simply devoured the books I found and racked up hefty bills with Amazon (foregoing my usual Brooklyn Public Library route so that I could write in the margins). The longer my list became, the more I realized I was tapping into a genre of its own, and creating what felt like the skeleton of a syllabus. It must have been this academic context of exchange that inspired me to have conversations about what I was reading with others, not just for the thrill of co-analysis, but because the experiences that have been written about inspire in me a sense of urgency, too.

The stories are relevant today and as far as one can get from the frivolities of “chick lit”—although, simultaneously, a great appeal of the stories I was reading is precisely a focus on the female perspective and experience, so distinct from any man’s. The significance of these stories is that they boil down to human rights, which inspires in me an impassioned desire to advocate. Open conversations in the form of a book club could—should—lead to some form of action, dialogue being the very important first step and an action in and of itself.

That said, when I read Irshad’s newsletter about a brave new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., I didn’t doubt for a second that a viewing and subsequent conversation were the only way to start a book club like the one I envisioned. Such an experience boils down to a few key components that would, of course, ultimately overlap and coalesce into a single, more unified happening. These components are: 1) Exposure; 2) Digestion; 3) Debriefing; 4) Deeper Dialogue; and 5) Action.

Typically I prefer to read a story before seeing its film version. But in the case of Soraya M., and in starting a book club, I instinctively want to see the movie first. Immersing ourselves (as a book club) in the visual representation of this horrific, and yet very real, happening seems to me the most powerful way to delve into it. There’s no better way to start a group conversation than on a high, and experiencing the story in just a couple of hours could give us an immediate introduction to the kind of stories and issues we want to discuss. And then, as a group, if we decide it is important to read the book before transitioning to another story, then that’s what we will do.

I think that combining and comparing the visual and written versions of this true story can give us a fuller picture with the ability to imagine more using descriptions and actual scenes from the place where it all happened. Reading the language used to describe this event could also give us the vocabulary we would need to express our own impressions better. I would like to start a blog for the group so that we could keep conversations going between meetings, include people unable to be with us in person, and make our forum a public one.

In many ways, our dialogues are action. But I hope that a part of the conversations will also be to have more public dialogues and exchanges that can spur more exposure which would begin this cycle for others, and spread our collective voices so that they may be heard.
–Anna Antoniak

To get ideas for books you or your book club can really sink your teeth and soul into, check out the Suggested Reading List on this site.

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