Paula Jolin's In the Name of God

I had never heard of In the Name of God by Paula Jolin before this class. When I read the synopsis I was excited to delve into this dark and complex concepts in the text but while reading it I was let down for a couple reasons.

I always want to know about the author’s worldview before reading a text so a have a deeper understanding of the work. So for In the Name of God I wanted to know exactly what the author’s knowledge and experience was with the Islamic Syrian culture. I was happy to find she had lived in the Middle East for several years and that many of the characters were based on people she had encountered. But as I read I realized that taking on the feat of putting oneself in a character like Nadia is dangerous and attempts to speak for a specific culture and opinions. Without having truly experienced her place I think it does a disservice to what would have been a great concept.

One of my favorite and I think most valuable things about literature is its ability to give the reader insight into a different perspective. This leads to empathy and understanding of more people and viewpoints. However like I said before Jolin’s outside perspective trying to write about an inside perspective makes the work lack creditability.

Another thing that concerned me was the message it sends. This is a delicate text as well because it could easily be read as defense of terrorism. I get that she wanted to show how someone could be influenced, like Nadia, into thinking it was the right thing because of her beliefs. However we want to teach students that intolerance for any reason or any side is wrong.  In a time of a wave of Islamophobia (also the fact that my word document doesn’t recognize this as a word is disconcerting) it is important for students to see that radicalism and terrorism is not the normal in Syrian culture.