The Stuff:
This memoir was written by Egyptian-American Nonie Darwish who spent her childhood in Gaza. Her father, Colonel Mustafa Hafez, served as commander of the Egyptian Army Intelligence in Gaza, then under military control of Egypt. Hafez was assassinated by the Israeli Defense Forces. Darwish’s brother was wounded in the same attack. The surviving family returned to Egypt. Darwish’s father was revered as a shahid, a martyr.
According to Darwish, her education and upbringing included a constant indoctrination of hatred against Israel and all Jewish people, though she admits she doubts she had ever met anyone Jewish.
She notes that while she came from a privileged background, most Egyptians live in dire poverty. Later, she married and immigrated to the United States. The move changed her perspective on many things. She met Jewish neighbors, who turned out to be something other than the slavering demons her upbringing taught her to expect.
She later becomes a Christian, a political conservative, a writer, and a speaker.
Thoughts:
Darwish writes in an easy style, albeit the text might have benefited from another pass through the typewriter. Picky me.
Despite the tragic loss of her father, she seems to have had a happy childhood surrounded by family. The reader understands how much she misses Egypt and Gaza. The author offers poignant memories and cute anecdotes, all the things that breathe life into a memoir.
As the daughter and niece of immigrants myself, I am fully in sympathy with her immigrant experience, and her longing for home while discovering new conventions in the United States.
However, her view of the world is simplistic. Islam is oppressive, teaches its adherents to hate, and leads to violence; the West is liberating—nothing in between. She touts the personal liberties offered in the United States without a glance at its history of racism. None of the Muslims I’ve known or worked with offered a threat to life or limb. The point is, I don’t see things as black and white as portrayed in the book.
It would be interesting to see what she has to say about the current Israel-Hamas War, with both sides responsible for many civilian deaths and committing what certainly appear to me to be atrocities. She was the founder of a group called Arabs for Israel and a director of an organization called Former Muslims United. The Southern Poverty Law Center has declared some of the groups and their affiliated groups to be anti-Arab and Islamophobic.
While she does come down hard on Islam in the book, she calls for its reform, particularly concerning the treatment of women. She also speaks of mosques as places of recruitment for terrorists—something that just ain’t so any more than a church recruits abortion clinic bombers.
Darwish’s story is interesting. The book is a quick read, but I can’t buy her worldview or politics.
Title: Now They Call me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad For America, Israel, and the War on Terror
Author: Nonie Darwish (b. 1949)
First published: 2006 (updated 2007)
Reviews of Old and New Stories. Mostly Old 
Ouch. I can’t understand people that don’t view the world in grey tones.
It’s easier, I suppose. I’m sooo right and you’re sooo wrong. It just has very little to do with reality.
Very little seems to be all or nothing.
I agree. It’s not often a choice between good and evil (outside of comic books) but between good and better or the lesser of two evils.
Hmm, don’t think I would agree with her simplistic world view either, but it would be interesting to read a book by someone who grew up in Gaza.
Yes. It was interesting. A lot of it was sad. Her father was assassinated, after all. But she went from one black and white view of the world to another black and white view.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have touched that book with a 10-foot pole. Maybe it’s narrow-mindedness on my part, but I also think that whenever I see a book that features the American flag and has a subtitle along the lines of “Why I Renounced Jihad For America, Israel, and the War on Terror,” I know I’m going to be subjected to right-wing Islamophobic propaganda. If I were, say, a working journalist assigned to do a story on jihadists who “turn over a new leaf” and reject their old worldview, I would give this book a “look-see.” As a general reader looking for an interesting non-fiction book about the wars in the Middle East from one person’s view? A hard pass.
You, my friend, are braver than I am when it comes to reading books like this. Fine review, though!
Thanks for your kind words.
I confess, you are wiser than I. I think this is one of the books I swept up when Borders was going through its death throes. Is there violence and hatred in Islam? Sure. But I also drive by the local Planned Parenthood and see people screaming at strangers trying to get services there. And I read about places being bombed and doctors being assassinated because people are “pro-life.”
Long ago and far away, my then-boyfriend and I visited a friend in the hospital. I think we were both about 16. This is a small town. Next to the hospital was a Planned Parenthood. There was also an ice cream parlor. After we got done visiting the friend, we stopped for ice cream, which meant crossing in front of the Planned Parenthood. I knew what it was, but since the boyfriend and I weren’t intimate, had never been inside.
So, on our way to get ice cream, some clown screamed at him, “Don’t let her kill your child!”
The long and short of it was, I told him that was the last time I’d even get ice cream with him.