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!"

Hmm, I see where you're coming from, but I think Christians should be called out for some of the stuff in the bible, and I wouldn't call that "Christophobic" (is that what it's called?).

Why? Being a Christian does not mean that you uphold everything written in the Bible, or even believe it. Many, many don't.
It means you believe in the words of Christ, and that he is your personal saviour.

@RoyalCorgi

Nobody comes out of this really well. Liddle's article (published in 2012) is no doubt supposed to be funny, but isn't. He makes a joke about how he decided not to become a teacher because he wouldn't have been able to stop himself shagging the students. He says he wouldn't have gone much below year 10. Utterly hilarious.

When Sarkar tweeted the link to the Liddle article in her usual tone of moral outrage, Julie then made the remark about Mohammed's underage wife. She then made it worse by claiming that Sarkar "worshipped" the prophet, which is very much a no-no in Islam.

Then all the wokesters got terribly offended about how Islamophobic Julie was.

It concluded with her publisher cancelling the book.

Dear god.

God, it’s depressing that people like Burchill and Liddle can hoover up so much airtime for just saying grim, horrible things. I hate that it’s all just a frenzy of unpleasantness and a sort of competition as to who can say the most “controversial” (read: vile) thing.

@2020quelhorreur

God, it’s depressing that people like Burchill and Liddle can hoover up so much airtime for just saying grim, horrible things. I hate that it’s all just a frenzy of unpleasantness and a sort of competition as to who can say the most “controversial” (read: vile) thing.

^ This. One of the reasons I say nothing the least bit controversial on Twitter.

Think I stopped paying attention to Burchill back when she still wrote for the observer. Bloody London based media lot (and hangers on, of whom there are a few in MN) regurgitating crap as if it’s worthy. Give yourselves a breather, you can safely just ignore twatty columnists, they contribute nothing except a moment’s ill-argued nonsense, which floats away like a bubble, pops, and is gone. I often think theirs is one of the most disingenuous occupations around.

Would Satanic Verses have been published today?

Well, that's a great question - I haven't a clue.

Anyone?

Gosh that seems another lifetime away since satanic verses and the fatwah out on Salman Rushdie. Still havent read the book yet

A slight aside:

I'm not on Twitter nor my children or their partners. None of my friends or any of my children's friends are on it. So which people use it? What demographic? Just curious..

Anyone?

(I mean does "anyone" have any ideas.)

Most of the people I know who are prolific on Twitter are late 20s to early 40s, work in media or journalism, and sometimes tech, and are super woke. Although I do know one older bloke who is late 50s and very conservative who uses it to bang on about snowflakes etc.

So basically, nobody in the middle of the political spectrum. And most people seem to only follow those they agree with, so it's just a big boring echo chamber.

Still havent read the book yet

Do read it, it's very good! Very funny in places, very sad in others.

Burchill's comments to Sarkar were awful - basically not allowed an opinion on a matter totally unrelated to religion because she was raised Muslim. Given Sarkar's mode of dress and 'fucks like a champion' claim, I don't think she's particularly devout. As has been pointed out, if a white Christian made a comment about child-welfare Burchill didn't like, it's inconceivable she'd reply with 'your God murdered Egyptian first-born babies'.

I also note that Burchill called her a 'sow' - remember this is a woman who sacked-off her Rabbi in Brighton for not calling Islam 'Pig Islam'. She probably thinks that bacon is Muslim kryptonite.

Thank you andawaywego.

So an online meeting place for like-minded inadequates?

It hasn't aged well 'twitter'

So an online meeting place for like-minded inadequates? lovely.

I have a twitter account but have never used it. I do look at links from here but it isn't how I like to pass my time (71 and not enough time left to waste

frazzledasarock said:

"The Quran does not mention the Prophet Mohammad's wife Aisha’s age. She was the only virgin he married."

But the hadith do mention it, and she was 6 at the time of marriage, and 9 for sex.

Also, Muhammad wanted to marry a baby (when she got a little bit older) but he didn't live long enough to do it.

Then apparently Muhammad was into sucking the tongue of young boys. Here is David Wood getting into that issue:

@DJLippy

There is not lower age limit for marriage in Islam. Do you think the fact that Muhammed married a 9 year old and consumated the marriage when she was 11 has anything to do with that?

islamqa.info/en/answers/146882/is-there-a-set-age-for-marriage-in-islam

11...let that sink in

There’s no lower age limit for marriage in Christianity either because religious texts don’t set the age of consent. That’s what the laws of whatever country you are referring to is for. Afghanistan has the same age limit for marriage for girls as we do and insist that boys need to be 18 whereas we allow 16 year olds of both sexes to get married.

Would anyone have an issue with catholic phobia if julie had said the equivalent to a someone of the catholic faith? Eg regarding paedophilia in the catholic church. Its not phobic, just goady.

As far as I know AS doesn't talk much about her personal faith, but the fact that you would already be distinguishing between different denominations in Christianity would show that you were exercising greater discernment when talking about Christianity.

It would also still be a stupid argument that can't be defended intellectually, and as a publisher I would still be weighing up the number of books I might sell against the cost of all the hassle.

I can understand people thinking it rude and inappropriate to say that. Maybe.

But Ash Sarkar, although she may not really be following the religion, does apparently want to identify as Muslim and make a fuss about "Islamophobia". That basically means she is attacking a lot of other people as "bigots" for being critical of her religion. (Which she probably doesn't take seriously enough to follow; but other people should stay silent about it and not criticize anyway.)

Well OK then, you have kind of placed yourself in the line of fire.

Attacking people as hypocrites is a borderline fallacy however, depending on the exact context.

Yes, the issue is not what the Quran says or doesn’t say. It’s the fact that someone of Muslim faith is not allowed to level legitimate criticism of a man who jokes about how he wants to shag teen girls. It’s singling AS because she is Muslim but not having an issue with the many many white people who also tweeted their disgust at his views. And RL’s views were disgusting 8 years ago and they are disgusting today. It’s not some historical context rubbish because it’s been a very long time since it’s been remotely socially okay for a man in his 40s to joke about sexual activity with 14 year old girls.

If you look up the dictionary definition of "Islamophobia" it says "a dislike of Islam".

So we all have to like the ideology/belief system that is Islam, or we are being "Islamaphobic".

I find it terrifying that not only can we not criticise Islam, but that we are all now being compelled to "like" it

It's all very well us all having a pop at Twitter and god knows, there's a lot to criticise. The thing is though, if it wasn't for Twitter I might never have heard about Maya Forstater, Harry Miller, Kate Scottow's appeal, Fri Martin's appeal, last week's Women and Equalities Committee hearing. I quite possibly wouldn't have learned about Keira Bell's case until after the judgement. And so on and so on.

I know a lot / most of these stories find their way onto FWR but normally (from what I've seen) only after first being aired on Twitter.

So whatever its failings, until the mainstream media learn to do their job and report the news - as opposed to what they think we need to hear - then I don't know of any alternative. But suggestions always welcome!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55331063

It's interesting that Burchills comments are reported, but the comment by Liddle that started it all aren't. Meaning this isn't reporting. It's agendaing.

I have never had much time for either Burchill, Sarkar or Liddle and Burchill was definitely out of order.

But people have to be free to write bad, offensive, stupid books.

Otherwise nobody is free to write a good book.

@BlackForestCake

I have never had much time for either Burchill, Sarkar or Liddle and Burchill was definitely out of order.

But people have to be free to write bad, offensive, stupid books.

Otherwise nobody is free to write a good book.

Yep. Exactly this.

They all seem like fucking idiots to me. But even absolute fucking idiots should have the right to air their idiocy in the sunshine.

They all seem like fucking idiots to me. But even absolute fucking idiots should have the right to air their idiocy in the sunshine.

That's brilliant. Agree.

I do wonder if the publishers were honestly shocked at Julie Burchill going and being Julie Burchill on twitter.

Did they just think 'ah yes, famous name' when they agreed the book deal, without thinking what she was famous for? Were they so young they thought 'Guardian journalist- must be safe'?

She didn't make her name on dispassionate investigative reporting! Even in the Guardian (I'm too young for NME) I used to read her columns peering through my fingers.

I do wonder if the publishers were honestly shocked at Julie Burchill going and being Julie Burchill on twitter.

Yes. Though then again, she only started tweeting relatively recently, and doesn't have many followers. So while on the one hand I think it's ridiculous that her publishers didn't seem to know what they were letting themselves in for (did they even read the original 2013 column that sparked all this off?), I can also see that after the tweets to Sarkar (whom she called a sow, let's remember) they must have had visions of becoming embroiled in some huge Islamophobia row.

Remember what happened to Salman Rushdie all those years ago? Remember Charlie Hebdo? I can see why they'd want to avoid that.