The book takes readers through pretty much Siddiqui's entire life, from his birth up until a couple years ago when the book was first published in France. His childhood is a little unusual for a Pakistani boy in that his parents had moved to Saudi Arabia for work, and he spends most of his childhood there, though spending many summers and vacations in Pakistan, until he turns 16 and his family moves to Pakistan for good. What's interesting is that it was it was his father's secular notions of finding good work that moved them from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia in the first place, but he became increasingly radicalized while he lived there, which eventually sent them back to Pakistan.
What is, I think, rather more common is that, despite living in an unusual situation -- not just to my Western eyes, but even for a Muslim boy -- his youth still had many of the same issues and challenges people of all stripes grow up having to deal with. He's torn between what his parents tell him to do and what some of the older cool kids in the neighborhood want to do. He pushes his boundaries as a teen to find how strong those parental guard rails are. As he starts getting older and taking an interest in the girls, he's stymied by adults' protestations saying he's not behaving appropriately. The specifics are all unique to him, but the broad strokes are pretty common across cultures, I think, and it makes Siddiqui entirely relateable.
What all this does is set up how a boy raised in a fairly strict Islamic household became more secularized, so much so that he's eventually threatened and then outright attacked by the Pakistani military. So much so that his parents all but disown him. (The final/current relationship he has with his family is unclear, but he does note he's unsure if he'll ever try to reconile things with his father again about five years before the end of the book and the only members of his family seen or mentioned after that are his wife and child.) So much so that he has to flee the country and live as a political refugee in France. How does someone who spent a good chunk of his youth memorizing the Qaran and constantly being taught what his father thinks it means come to the conclusion that wants to investigate and criticize the same people he was told to honor without question?
Here in the United States, we sometimes see/hear stories of children growing up in white nationalist households, and shooting up night clubs and theaters and schools as they get into their late teens and early twenties. They were taught that anyone who doesn't follow their belief system is wrong. So wrong that they should be removed from the world. This happens, in part, because they are taught a specific doctrine, not to question it, and not to take in any information for any other sources. The person's parents and other leaders restrict what they're allowed to think, often leaving the person with an unnuanced and highly distorted view of the world. It happens in all forms of religion because, frankly, that's largely what religion is. (Though, fortunately, not usually as intense.) That we see it here in The Dissident Club roll out in a form of Islam is almost incidental; it happens just as much in every theology.
What keeps Siddiqui from falling prey to it is what often saves other people with similar authority figures -- access to information. Siddiqui caught just enough to start asking questions at a young age, and that continued as he grew older. Seeking out actual information instead of relying on spin is what got him into journalism. And unfortunately, that's what also made him a target. Fortunately for Pakistan, and for us, he was willing to take that risk in order to share information with those who might not otherwise get it.
The story and artwork here are solid. Siddiqui and Maury make it easy to connect with the characters and the experiences, even when, as I said, they're unusual even for a Pakistani boy. I think it sheds a light on how it's possible to get beyond the constraints an overly restrictive parent might try to put on their child, and how that will sometimes mean alienating them if they refuse to accept what the child chooses to do with their life. And, though we don't see as much of Siddiqui's father as we do of him, we do get some sense of how he was radicalized over the course of several years. It's a gripping story and one that I'm sorry any journalist might have to go through.
The Dissident Club was originally published in France a few years ago, as I said, but it came out in English last month. It is published here in North America by Arsenal Pulp Press and retails for $27.95 US. Well worth the read!
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