We Need New Stories

I loved reading We Need New Stories! This is a book which reflects exactly how I feel about the way in which ideas such as political correctness and free speech are being corrupted and manipulated away from their original meanings, and Nesrine Malik encapsulates her investigations and arguments in such a way that I can point directly to We Need New Stories and say 'read this' and 'this is what I want to say'. I no longer have to feel isolated as I try to wrangle my thoughts into coherence! Instead I am inspired to feel part of the journey towards a fairer society which doesn't put only straight white male identity at its centre.

Malik looks back through history to illustrate how movements towards greater equality have historically been dismissed and subdued through the use of the same tired arguments. Surely X isn't needed because the situation is already so much better than it used to be or so much better than somewhere else? Isn't X going to be a step too far? Having read Malik's revelations of these phrases being repeatedly rolled out over the past century and beyond, I giggled to spot a 'taking feminism too far' clickbait headline on Twitter the very same afternoon. Her clear explanations of how we are manipulated into submitting to the old status quo have allowed me to now easily recognise this all around me. It's so endemic to as to have become almost invisible, but a simple awareness of the machinery not only renders it obvious, but also somewhat ludicrous.

To have everyone's sense of their own identity negated by a fictional idea of what we all 'should' aspire to is, when I really think about it, a very strange state of affairs. Especially when the main attributes for power such as the 'right' gender, skin colour or sexuality can't be put on at will so most people will find themselves excluded. We Need New Stories showed me another way to view my society and is a great complement to other books I have recently read including How To Lose A Country by Ece Temelkuran and Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba. Right now does feel like the right time for another great social advance and I feel that telling new identity stories has to be at the centre of the movement in order for it to succeed.