Amnesty Book Club: Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd

Amnesty International: Book Club explores human rights stories from around the world through literature, aiming to bring awareness and action by reading.

Through this book club, together we can engage as readers and have a shared commitment to expand our understanding about global injustices. By asking questions and leaning into conversations designed to promote thoughtful group discussion, this reading group will open us up to the plight of others and hopefully in turn encourage us to take real action on the human rights issues the books raise.

Our next read will be:
Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd

Perfect Victims is an urgent affirmation of the Palestinian condition of resistance and refusal―an ode to the steadfastness of a nation.

Palestine is a microcosm of the world: on fire, stubborn, fragmented, dignified. While a settler colonial state continues to inflict devastating violence, fundamental truths are deliberately obscured—the perpetrators are coddled while the victims are blamed and placed on trial.

Why must Palestinians prove their humanity? And what are the implications of such an infuriatingly impossible task? With fearless prose and lyrical precision, Mohammed El-Kurd refuses a life spent in cross-examination. Rather than asking the oppressed to perform a perfect victimhood, El-Kurd asks friends and foes alike to look Palestinians in the eye, forgoing both deference and condemnation.

How we see Palestine reveals how we see each other; how we see everything else. Masterfully combining candid testimony, history, and reportage, Perfect Victims presents a powerfully simple demand: dignity for the Palestinian.

Our book club meeting will be on:
June 3rd, giving us all time to read ‘Perfect Victims’ and come curious to the reading group ready to discuss.

The book club meeting is free to attend, we just ask all participants to purchase an item from the venue's drink menu to support the space.