As You Read - What parts of this story make you more alert to cultural, racial, religious differences?

[Cait]

Since the purpose of this book club is reading around the world and spending time in other’s shoes, what parts of this story make you more alert to cultural, racial, religious differences, etc.? Is this novel changing your perspective? If so, how?

[Cait]

Thus far, every part. I'm still in the very beginning of the book, but it's interesting to read about how the sectarianism is being used by the government... existing strife being utilized for current issues. It's also interesting because I just finished Americanah, in which Adichie says that the main forms of tribalism in America are class, race, and ideology, i.e. conservative vs. liberal, and you can see in the past few years how yes, those are tribalism issues that have been stirred up by others for their own ends, and how that is both like and not at all like tribalism and sectarian issues from other cultures. Also I keep thinking about how the author is both being very brave doing what she is doing as a woman, when there are never any women anywhere she is going, but also using her privilege as a woman to do those very things... undoubtedly unsafe to be a woman in a riot (especially since the government is targeting her), but I can't imagine a man would be able to pretend complete ignorance the way she is able to and be as successful about disarming people that way.

[Elizabeth]

It's interesting you say this Cait, because even before I clicked to read the replies to this question I had in mind to point out sectarianism. I find it interesting how much she talks about that being a big consideration in the protests, to keep them peaceful; she keeps describing how the government tries to play up the sectarian divisions to be able to paint the protestors as violent and divided. I see people worrying a lot about divided opinion among liberals right now in the US, but in my mind that's kind of an imagined problem -- here is a case where divisions actually provide a real risk of shattering the unified front of the resistance, and in the end I guess they actually do.

[Cait]

Right, here that unity vs. sectarianism is being very visibly and deliberately used to silence different groups - whereas Yazbek's emphasis on how the revolution wasn't sectarian isn't that people were shouting down concerns from different sects, it was just that the people were truly actually united in a cause that crossed so many different distinctions. I just came out of a little meeting emphasizing that kind of unity, versus the "stop being divisive and bringing up race" kind of unity, so this is striking home more at this particular time for me.

I'm not sure how far you are in the book yet, but there are parts where it's *very* clear how deliberately the regime is trying to destabilize the revolution and stir up sectarianism - parts where they try to get sheyks to speak "for" the movement to make it seem as though it's fundamentalist movement, parts where someone spreads a rumor saying that one sect has attacked a girl's school of the other sect, parts where the security is inciting neighborhoods to track down "moles" (and using the same "mole" more than once, which led to the neighborhood people basically saying "how stupid do you think we are, and how lazy are you?"). It was amazing to me that tactics like that weren't *more* successful - the only news is coming from the state, the regime was totally willing to murder soldiers to make it seem as though protestors had done it, etc. And then I think to myself at the same time - one, I still can't imagine this actually happening, and two - with these real divides, people still managed to think critically and stay united during these months of chaos, and democrats are worried about destruction because of critiquing one another?

[Becki]

I think one thing that inspired me most was actually the lack of sectarianism amongst most Syrians in this book. I think in the US the media tends to depict the Middle East as this region of squabbling bratty children who can't take care of themselves. I felt this book really lit up the nuances in the area and showed that the problem isn't necessarily religion or ethnicity itself, but abuse of power and resources. And it also showed how many people are/were willing to look beyond themselves into a larger picture of what is good for the world and their progeny, and who were brave enough to fight for that vision at all costs alongside any other person who would stand with them, regardless of their identity. Those tortured here include literally every single group you can think of. That was sort of grotesquely inspiring to me, to see that kind of solidarity and love despite the odds.

[Cait]

Yes, I agree that the lack of sectarianism (especially, as I said, in the face of extreme and deliberate activity by the regime to stoke sectarian fires) was amazing.

Something else that I thought of, regarding sects, etc., was about how colonialism has created issues with arbitrary boundaries. I just finished The Inheritance of Loss, and the primary story there (I think) is colonialism and how it has affected all the characters of the book, their town and district, and India in general. At one point a character talks about how the different tribes/nationalities that are grouped together in their state when that's not how they were grouped historically, and another woman says something like "The British aren't very good at drawing borders" (and someone else says "They're an island, they have no practice"). That got me thinking about what Yazbek says here about the attempts of France to create an Alawite State, and how Yazbek's great-great-grandpa (or however many greats it is) was forcefully against that, because they were all Syrians. That was very cool of her ancestor to refuse to let them be divided by sect, but it seems pretty intentional, colonialism-wise, for France to have tried to create a separate state in the first place, just to divide the people the same way the regime wants to.

[Elizabeth]

Totally agree on the sectarianism being much less of a major player than we see in the news, more like something in the background that the regime tries to play up. Like Becki said, the issues here seem to be rooted in power much more than religion. And the colonialist backdrop to the whole thing is definitely important to keep in mind.