In 2005, Irshad Manji published The Trouble With Islam Today. It was controversial. The tragedy of 9/11 still reverberated and she was both a proud lesbian and a person of faith. She was often on TV debating these issues and her answers were always quick, fierce and showed an indomitable intelligence.
That year the Bookshelf hosted an event with her and ironically she was friendly and gracious, not at all the edgy person that came through on TV. Very soon after that she disappeared from the limelight as she moved from Canada to the United States.
Manji has resurfaced in her latest book, Don’t Label Me.
Although her pluralist and egalitarian values haven’t changed, the way she operates in the world has.
At the height of her popularity, she began to have panic attacks in public. She felt that she had become just another brand, often combative, mouthing the same words ad nauseam. The pressure to be “right” yielded to the freedom of being real. As she says, she “disintegrated from a firebrand to a zombie” and lost herself.
She took some needed time off and began to mediate her understanding of a larger world through two new friendships - Jim, a lifelong Republican, someone who radiated civic virtue and Lily, a rescue dog that she and her partner took in. She had never had any Republican friends and she had no love for dogs either.
Jim turned out to be the kindest person she had ever met and Lily grounded her and became a constant companion. As strange as this may seem, much of the book is a dialogue between Irshad and her dog. But it works!
Irshad and Lily travel the terrain of the brittleness of political correctness giving many examples of how some activist communities use shame as a tactic.
The book is full of examples of how Twitter pile-ons and Facebook humiliation widen the divide between us and shut down dialogue. It ignites the “us against them” that lurks in our reptilian brain and prevents us from taking disagreement as an invitation to engagement. She cites a wonderful quote by James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
It’s also full of positive examples where tolerance and open-hearted rapport actually forge new relationships.
To be clear, Manji has not given up the values of her youth. Her new playbook contains some rules of engagement which include things like: self-evaluate, interrogate your biases, ask your adversary if there are things that you don’t understand about their perspective, listen to understand, not win, don’t berate, relate, be open to changing your mind.
These seem like pretty good truths to follow at any time but now, when the political divide widens everywhere, they are even more essential!
Barb Minett is a lifelong lover of books, a longtime resident of Guelph and co-founder of the Bookshelf at 41 Quebec St. in Downtown Guelph. She can be reached at [email protected].
