By Jenn McGarrigle
Monia Mazigh knows what it’s like to have your life torn apart overnight.
Mazigh was propelled into the spotlight in September 2002 when her husband, Maher Arar, was deported to Syria where he was held without charge and tortured for more than a year. She campaigned tirelessly and successfully for his release, a campaign she later documented in her memoir, Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar.
On Thursday (March 9), Mazigh will share her story – and read from her latest work of fiction – at Vancouver Island University. All are welcome to attend her afternoon reading at 1 p.m., meet-and-greet at 4:15 p.m. and evening talk at 5 p.m., called Despair, Hope and Beyond: Talk and Q&A with Monia Mazigh, during which she will share her story of her fight to free her husband and reflect on how it changed her vision of the world and led to her work as a writer and human rights advocate.
Mazigh’s visit is being organized by the VIU Faculty Association’s status of women committee. Kathy Page, committee chairwoman, says the reading and talk celebrates International Women’s Day, which takes place the day before Mazigh’s visit.
“I wanted to bring in a strong woman who would appeal to as many disciplines as possible,” says Page. “Her story appeals to a wide range of different areas, including history, political science and psychology. It’s a compelling story – one that people will connect to in many different ways – and she conveys it very candidly. I think people will get lots of different things out of it.”
Arar, a telecommunications engineer and entrepreneur, was returning early from a vacation with his family in Tunisia when he was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. He was then deported to Syria. Throughout that time, Mazigh fought tirelessly to get him released.
“It was a really hard time for me – I had lost my husband and I was not working, I was on maternity leave,” she remembers. “But I didn’t give up, I kept repeating the same message, even when politicians didn’t listen or reply. I just kept talking about it to the media, and I was able to surround myself with people who supported me, who believed in my husband and campaigned with me.”
Her campaign was successful and a Canadian commission later publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized to him. The whole experience drove Mazigh to write first her memoir, published in 2008, and then two fiction novels.
“My life changed after that,” said Mazigh, who holds a doctorate in finance from McGill University and has worked at the University of Ottawa and taught at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. Following Arar’s return, she ran in the federal election as a candidate for the NDP in 2004, gaining the most votes for her riding in the history of the NDP. “I learned not to always trust whatever story is being told in the media, and how to stand up for justice, both for me and other people in similar situations.”
Jenn McGarrigle is a writer with VIU’s communications department.