Response To Dave Egger's 'Zeitoun'

Dear Principal Belzer,

My name is Eric Meyer, and during the summer I, along with the rest of the AP Junior English class, read the nonfiction work Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. I enjoyed the book immensely, with Eggers’ portrayal of the protagonist Zeitoun as a kind and virtuous citizen invoking powerful feelings in me at the injustices he later faced in the novel. Eggers made me care about and like Zeitoun, helping convey to me the intended themes of the novel: the unfairness of the prejudices Muslims face in America and the malfunctions of the U.S. government after 9/11. However, reports of domestic violence and attempted murder on Zeitoun’s part have recently come to light, contradicting his characterization in Eggers’ book. Zeitoun allegedly

assaulted his wife Kathy with a tire iron, luckily failing to inflict any major damage. He was arrested and while in jail reportedly attempted to pay a fellow inmate to perform a hit on Kathy, their son, and Kathy’s romantic interest. Zeitoun was ultimately found not guilty on both accounts, but there is no doubt that his reputation has been tarnished and that the superman he was made out to be in Eggers’ novel was not the full story. It was also revealed that the Zeitoun family was allowed to review and edit their book numerous times, bringing into question the accuracy of the book’s accounts.
Due to these recent revelations about Zeitoun’s true character and the questionable veracity of the story, there have been numerous calls to stop Eggers’ book from being included in the school curriculum. Eggers’ version of Zeitoun had qualities that rivaled the most flawless of heroes, and opponents of the book argue that knowledge of the real Zeitoun contradicts this image so catastrophically that the book’s otherwise powerful themes become lost, diluted by content that becomes almost laughable with hindsight. I agree with the critics on the point that Zeitoun’s moral is detracted from, but to remove Zeitoun entirely from the curriculum at this juncture would be to miss the perfect opportunity to teach about and discuss matters just as important as the themes originally intended by the novel.
The first available lesson is one about imperfection: the debunking of the myth of the Perfect Person. We have a tendency in society to create superheroes, people we idolize or aspire to become. I’m not talking only about fictional characters like Superman and Spiderman. I’m including real people, people like Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. We tend, with these real people, to focus only on their positive traits and actions. Martin Luther King Jr. led the American Civil Rights Movement, and Gandhi led India to independence and inspired other similar movements; both did so in an admirably nonviolent manner. We idealize both of these people to the point that they become their actions, one-dimensional symbols of goodness, and we lose sight of the fact that they were people with flaws just like everyone else. Martin Luther King Jr. serially cheated on his wife, and Gandhi was blatantly racist towards Black South Africans. A perfect person has yet to exist, and once we get past the illusion of perfection the question becomes whether or not a person’s benevolent acts outweigh their dishonorable ones. In this way, I believe that the book can not only open students’ eyes to the imperfect reality of the world, but that it can also induce positive discussion about whether the sum of Zeitoun’s actions constitute him as a good man or an evil one.
The second important lesson that can be derived from the book is one of gullibility, of the need to collect multiple accounts and opinions on matters rather than blindly believing and trusting everything we are told.

Many of us who read the book without the knowledge of Zeitoun’s less than desirable qualities, including myself, were completely ensnared by the feelings of injustice and anger that were invoked, which aided Eggers’ message quite handily. However, if we had done just a little bit of research we would have discovered the accounts of Zeitoun’s violent criminal actions and seen through Eggers’ false, flawless Zeitoun. Even without such glaring issues, the fact that the Zeitoun family was allowed to edit their own story would have set off a few alarms about the validity, accuracy, and honesty of the tale. This is a great example of information being shown one-sidedly in order to prove a point or send a message. In this case I think Eggers did so with good intent, but the same strategies of illusion are even more often used to craftily deceive and manipulate people into doing things outside of their own best interests, or the best interests of others. I see this principle at work all the time in the one-sided political advertisements that are displayed constantly on television and billboards, which encourage people to draw conclusions before they’re really ready to do so. Zeitoun in this way becomes a good lesson in the importance of critical thought and healthy amounts of skepticism, two abilities I think everyone should

possess.
From these potential lessons I ask that you do not remove Zeitoun from the Juniors’ summer reading list. Zeitoun is like a worn-out, malfunctioning computer. It no longer as effectively fulfills its original purpose, but it can be disassembled and recycled into something as good as if not better than the original. In this new invention, other similarly relevant and important topics such as the reality of perfection and the twisting of information to achieve a means can be discussed using the novel. However, we can still retain the memory of this new invention’s origin: Zeitoun’s initial purpose of sending a message about racism and the U.S. government’s problems can still be discussed and addressed. For you to decide to rid the school of this book simply because of a change in context would be to miss out on a golden educational opportunity. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Eric Meyer
Junior AP English Student