Julie Burchill's book deal cancelled for hate speech *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[Malahaha]

It's called Welcome to the Woke Trials and was due to be published in 2021.
I'm not sure who the publisher is; I'll update.
She says: "Reason was 'hate speech' to Ash Sarkar and 'crossing a line' - 'There was also a concern that the line might be crossed again during the promotion of the book.' I'LL SAY!"

This is all interpretation of course, but I don't think Burchill was 'defending' Liddle, again I think she was pointing out a double-standard.

So anyone at all who is Muslim and condemns paedophilia has 'double standards'?

So a Muslim who condemned the grooming gangs in Rotherham etc would be 'wrong' to do so, because they would be a hypocrite?

And again, JB only did this because Ash Sarkar is a Muslim person of colour. If Ash was a white Christian, she wouldn't have tweeted 'remind me how old Mary was when God knocked her up please' or whatever, no way.

Ash Sakar is hardly an observant Muslim woman. She is outspoken, swears, doesn't cover her head and wears short skirts. Let's face it, JB's comment was directed to her because she's brown and is vocal about Islamophobia.

Imagine leaping to the defense of a guy who has basically said he can't work with female children or he'll molest them by saying "well Mohammed was a paedo". In that case so were many prominent men of all religious leanings who lived 1500 years ago.

My own personal felling is that no-one should follow a religion, not that no-one should condemn paedophilia. I don't think this will end well though, so once again I'm bowing out.

@Imnobody4

The publisher is Hatchette. Hachette UK aims to be the publisher and employer of choice for all people, regardless of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality or socio-economic background. Sex doesn't apparently count.

I'm surprised, because Hachette are the ones whose junior staff walked out over them publishing JK's latest book, and Hachette didn't back down.

Maybe they can't be bothered to hire yet another load of staff. I work in a similar industry and saw loads of job adverts for them after the JK storm.

This is all interpretation of course, but I don't think Burchill was 'defending' Liddle, again I think she was pointing out a double-standard.

It's crap, though. Because if your first reaction to a woman attacking a man for endorsing paedophilia is to say "the leader of your religion was a paedophile" as if that's some kind of gotcha, that just speaks volumes about what your priorities are. The normal reaction would be to condemn what Liddle wrote. The fact that she didn't do that shows that her only interest was in attacking Sarkar.

It would be fine to bring up the age of Mohammed's wife in a discussion about religion. But in a discussion about a male journalist's admission that he wants to have sex with young girls? Really not appropriate.

@Malahaha - can you ask @MNHQ to retitle this as what you had quoted is inaccurate? Thanks

How is it “islamaphobia” to point out that Mohammed took a pre pubescent bride? It’s an accepted fact.

Really I don't think the content of JB's tweet is the issue. People will have different views on that, I don't generally like her style but this isnt Islamophobia IMO.

The real issue is twitter storms resulting in punishment. Any publisher worth it's salt would put a chinese wall between its authors twitter and the book they're publishing.
Would Satanic Verses have been published today? Shame on them.

"Does anyone know how old the Virgin Mary was said to be?"

Around 14.

@Imnobody4

Really I don't think the content of JB's tweet is the issue. People will have different views on that, I don't generally like her style but this isnt Islamophobia IMO.

The real issue is twitter storms resulting in punishment. Any publisher worth it's salt would put a chinese wall between its authors twitter and the book they're publishing.
Would Satanic Verses have been published today? Shame on them.

Precisely.

Who needs book burning when you can just stop publishing books in the first place.

Burchill will be fine as she will no doubt get a publisher with a backbone next time.

@RoyalCorgi

This is all interpretation of course, but I don't think Burchill was 'defending' Liddle, again I think she was pointing out a double-standard.

It's crap, though. Because if your first reaction to a woman attacking a man for endorsing paedophilia is to say "the leader of your religion was a paedophile" as if that's some kind of gotcha, that just speaks volumes about what your priorities are. The normal reaction would be to condemn what Liddle wrote. The fact that she didn't do that shows that her only interest was in attacking Sarkar.

It would be fine to bring up the age of Mohammed's wife in a discussion about religion. But in a discussion about a male journalist's admission that he wants to have sex with young girls? Really not appropriate.

I disagree, though I can understand both sides to this conversation.

As another PP said, I don't think the comment was a "gotcha" or a defense of pedophilia, I don't think it was rooted in racism, or "Islamaphobia". I think it's pointing out a hypocrisy that has very real, very dangerous, real life effects outside of the internet. Religions aren't off-limits just because it means a lot to people or they might be offended. Although the delivery could have had more tact, the message is just: How can you condemn one person's actions while defending a religion that supports it?

Some different, comparable scenarios for thought (emphasis on compare, not equate):

If a vocal "environmentalist" criticized oil companies yet volunteered at one on the weekends, those who pointed out the hypocrisy wouldn't be accused of defending the destruction of the planet.

If a black woman protested dog fighting yet promoted merchandise by a known dog fighter, those who criticized her support of that person wouldn't be called misogynistic or racist, and they wouldn't be viewed as defending dog fighting.

Similarly, if a WOC condemns pedophilia while partaking in a religion that supports it, those who call out that hypocrisy are not automatically racist, religion-phobic, or defending those actions.

All of these share a single concern: why don't their actions match their words? People tend to align their actions to their morals, especially ones they are passionate about; when they don't align, especially when dealing with dangerous topics, an eyebrow raise and skepticism is justified.

It's crap, though. Because if your first reaction to a woman attacking a man for endorsing paedophilia is to say "the leader of your religion was a paedophile" as if that's some kind of gotcha, that just speaks volumes about what your priorities are. The normal reaction would be to condemn what Liddle wrote. The fact that she didn't do that shows that her only interest was in attacking Sarkar.

Yes, exactly.

If anyone wants the full background on how this iteration of two journalists being abusive to each other on twitter started, here's the Rod Liddle piece.

archive.is/ERYnv

Julie Burchill started Tweeting Ash asking about the age of Mohammed's first wife and calling her a hypocrite.

Oh, that's not good at all. Bloody hell, Julie.

The fact that she didn't do that shows that her only interest was in attacking Sarkar.

Well, of course it was. Ash Sarkar was a Corbynista and has been accused of encouraging anti-semitism Julie Burchill was vocally opposed to anti-semitism in the Labour party.

This was just an excuse for them to have a go at each other but without saying the word Israel.

People should really stop having public arguments on twitter. It never ends well.

Wasn't the Virgin Mary like, 12, when God decided to impregnate her. So does that mean that no Christian can ever say that paedophilia is wrong

As far as I am aware the Bible does not give an age for Mary. We know she was young and a virgin, but old enough to be betrothed by the standards of the time. She gave birth to Jesus and went on to have other children according to the Bible (if not Catholic tradition). I think it is very difficult to use Mary to make the case that the Bible endorses paedophilia.

Incidentally, we don't know how old Joseph is either. There is a tradition of portraying him as an old man, but the Bible does not give an age. He could have been around Mary's age, for all we know.

It is my understanding that Mohammed married his favourite wife when she was 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9. I believe these ages are given in the Qur'an, but I'm happy to be corrected on this point.

Either way, I'm not convinced JB is in the right here.

@SunsetBeetch

People should really stop having public arguments on twitter. It never ends well.

True, true

It's not the point , I know, but if Julie Birchill really asked the age of Mohammed's "first" wife that would be Khadija who was older than him. Did no-one on Twitter (I don't use it) point that out? Even if they are just point scoring, I would have thought that journalists should still try to quote correct facts where available. Aisha the younger wife was/is considered to be Mohammed's "favourite" wife.

What I find weird is that in the whole Guardian article about this, it didn’t actually explain what Julie had said. I had to come in here to find out. I read the whole article going “but what did she say??”

@cateycloggs

It's not the point , I know, but if Julie Birchill really asked the age of Mohammed's "first" wife that would be Khadija who was older than him. Did no-one on Twitter (I don't use it) point that out? Even if they are just point scoring, I would have thought that journalists should still try to quote correct facts where available. Aisha the younger wife was/is considered to be Mohammed's "favourite" wife.

Yes, Ash pointed this all out to Julie.

@SunsetBeetch

People should really stop having public arguments on twitter. It never ends well.

Yes, I can't imagine living my life the way that Ash Sarkar, Owen Jones etc do, spending every day just getting into spats on twitter. It must be so depressing!

Thank you for telling me that, Passthebottle, I havent seen the twitter thread. I think Julie Birchill's antipathy to Islam goes back to the Salman Rushie Satanic Verses controversy over 30 years ago. I was going to write twenty years but looked it up - it was 1988! that I suppose was the ultimate 'cancellation' (attempted). I used to read J Birchill in The Guardian and now I read neither. And in fact those events inspired me to find out about Islam but don't study that much now either. Does it strike anyone else that the reported comments of Ron Liddle, which I have not seen personally, are reminiscent of the Carry On culture that some people seem to be celebrating in the light of Barbara Windsor's recent death?

@RoyalCorgi

This is all interpretation of course, but I don't think Burchill was 'defending' Liddle, again I think she was pointing out a double-standard.

It's crap, though. Because if your first reaction to a woman attacking a man for endorsing paedophilia is to say "the leader of your religion was a paedophile" as if that's some kind of gotcha, that just speaks volumes about what your priorities are. The normal reaction would be to condemn what Liddle wrote. The fact that she didn't do that shows that her only interest was in attacking Sarkar.

It would be fine to bring up the age of Mohammed's wife in a discussion about religion. But in a discussion about a male journalist's admission that he wants to have sex with young girls? Really not appropriate.

Have you actually read Liddle's article? It is not remotely endorsing paedophilia. The comment was clearly a joke and against himself. The article gets more serious at the end and he is absolutely not endorsing paedophilia or pupil teacher relationships.