REVIEW: "Love Thy Neighbor" by Ayaz Virji M.D.
November 8, 2016, was my worst birthday ever.
Election day has fallen on my birthday only a handful of times. I remember the first. I had gotten a doll whose hair would shrink if you cranked her arm down and regrow of you turned a wheel on her back. I took the doll, still fresh and smelling incredibly plasticky, into the voting booth. My mom talked to me about who she was voting for and let me pull the levers to lock in her choices.
On November 8, 2016, I woke up excited. For my birthday this year, I would get a brand new president. Making it even more special, it would be the first woman to hold the office.
My husband gifted me white pants to wear when I went to the polls, a nod to the suffragettes. I voted and we went to happy hour, drinking down pitchers of margarita that I assumed would be celebratory but, as it turned out, were just numbing me for a terrible blow.
As the night ticked on, it became increasingly clear that I wouldn't be getting my birthday wish. My candidate would lose. And I, along with 65 million others whose votes had mirrored mine, would be devastated.
We were upset because we worried about our new president’s divisiveness. We worried that the election of this man, who had led Build the Wall chants and campaigned on the concept of a Muslim registry, would usher in a new era of even bolder hate.
And some people, I knew even then, would take much more of the brunt of this newly invigorated, disgustingly public discrimination.
While this president was a threat to me because his ideals didn’t reflect my own, he was a much more direct threat to others. People like Ayaz Virji, the co-author of this book.
In this work of non-fiction, Virji provides insight into what it’s like to be a Muslim in America. In sharing with readers experiences both prior to, and following, the election of Donald Trump, his implied goal is to build not a wall, but a bridge.
And never before was the need for a bridge as obvious as after the 2016 election. While there has, sadly, always existed a subsection of the population who quietly hate those who are different, it’s been decades since hate was as flagrant. This is particularly true in the tiny town that Virji calls home. In rural Dawson, Minnesota, where Virji serves as a community doctor, “Minnesota nice,” has long kept hidden deep prejudices that have presumably always bubbled under the surface.
In response to his discovery that his neighbors, perhaps, didn’t love him and his family as deeply as he had always assumed, Virji worked with a local pastor to develop a lecture. “Love Thy Neighbor,” as it would come to be called, was a lecture designed to dispel myths about Islam. To allow the community members who were scared because Virji was different to see that Muslims aren’t so different after all. To replace some of the misinformation, that ran rampant both in the days leading up to the 2016 election and in the years following, with actual fact.
But Virji would come to find, frustratingly enough, that not only would some not greet him with open arms, but they also wouldn’t even open their ears to his message. And if we won’t even listen to each other, how can we ever love each other?
This book was a distinctive read. A very personal recounting of a ridiculously pervasive problem. And it’s probably the distinctive nature of this book that makes it a difficult one to review. Honestly, the degree to which readers connect to this book will likely depend on how open they are to the information it contains. Just as some attendees to Virji’s talks refused to engage with his message, some will dismiss this book. And… that sucks. Because I do agree with Virji. I do think that we need to focus more on what makes us the same and less on what makes us different. And I hope this is a mutual desire at which we will eventually arrive.
My only challenge, in regards to this book, was structural. It was a bit… all over the place.
This doesn’t surprise me, though, as in describing the lecture he gave — the lecture after which this book was titled — Virji explained that it was a bit… hectic. It was a talk created by thrusting together bits and pieces of information, following a loose structure from which he often deviated. And that’s what this book felt like as well.
It was structured in somewhat chronological order, but, throughout, there were rambling asides. It’s not that it wasn’t effective in communicating the intended message. For the most part, it was. But some of the strength of the content was lost because the book meandered so much.
In fairness, part of the problem might have been that I wanted some… happy ending. I wanted some resolution — or at least some comfortable stasis — but this never really came. And, honestly, I understand why. Because, in America, we are far from reaching a place of comfort and acceptance. Now, more than ever, life is tumultuous. And this tumult doesn’t make for the satisfying conclusion that one wants. I do believe, though, that step 1 in reaching that conclusion is opening ourselves up to other’s voices. And one of the voices to which I would recommend readers open themselves is Virji’s.
This book received 4 out of 5 cocktails.
I’m proud of myself for continuing to dedicate more time to reading non-fiction. Are you a non-fiction reader? If so, which books should I check out? Tell me about your favorite non-fiction reads in the comments, below.
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