What’s going on with Omid Djalili?

[RoyalCorgi]

About 18 months ago, Djalili tweeted a BBC article about the government’s plans to promote free speech on campus. The article cited a few examples including Professor Selina Todd, who was hounded for her gender-critical feminist views.
Djalili’s comment about the article was “There’s food rotting on the docks, 1000's of companies going out of business, the worst death rate in the world and they're worried that students don't really want to listen to Nazis?”

twitter.com/omid9/status/1361631182023237633

Obviously people tried pointing out that Professor Todd is not a Nazi, but as usual he ignored them and doubled down.

A few days ago, he tweeted a short video from his stand-up routine about the Iranian women’s football team containing four men “posing as transgender”:

twitter.com/omid9/status/1564614480243326980

It did look as if finally the penny might be dropping – though Djalili doesn’t seem to have thought too closely about how to tell the difference between four men “posing as transgender” and actual trans women.

A few women responded to the tweet by asking whether he regretted calling gender-critical women “Nazis”.

Djalili didn’t take very well to that and denied calling women “Nazis”. He seems to have got into a nasty argument with Dr Em, who has now deleted her account.

He claims that his original tweet (the one about students not wanting to listen to Nazis) had “nothing to do with feminist or transgender issues” and that Dr Em “got crossed wires, claimed victimisation when I called her out then deleted her tweets.”

twitter.com/omid9/status/1565073116547751938

At this point you have to wonder if the man is a bit slow on the uptake, given that his original tweet, and the article it linked to, are still there in black-and-white.

People are still trying to explain it to him, and he’s still denying it.

He’s got form for this sort of thing. Disablist jokes iirc. He can’t back down. Ever.

Boring little man.

Actually I think he is right. His original tweet was ambiguous and open to being wrongly interpreted. I think he probably linked to that article without really reading it. It's counterproductive to bring it up again.

Oh no
I didn't realise he drank the Kool Aid ☹️

He’s just a follower. It’s a good sign though, shows the tide may be turning

I think he probably linked to that article without really reading it.

That's his look-out, then, isn't it? You shouldn't go round calling people "Nazis" (which is an extremely strong accusation) if you haven't even bothered to find out who they are or what they're supposed to have done.

The fact that he doesn't have the decency to apologise, even when this has been pointed out to him, speaks volumes.

His original tweet may have been ambiguous, but iirc he doubled down against gender critical women.

Then tough. He made a mistake. Simple to apologise for!

It doesn't really matter how it started, he has now successfully identified as a total twat.

He’s promoting his tour imo. It’s a good way to do it

Snooze

That's hilarious!!

I think we need to have a golden bridge for those who are beginning to see the truth. People in the public eye are always going to find it difficult to row back from their previous TWAW position. And I think they should be able to make the transition back to gender critical sanity. I was all “be kind” until I went onto mumsnet feminist board and it took a while for me to understand the problems with TWAW and MRAs . I’d hate to have my previous thoughts thrown back in my face.
I suspect a lot of people very soon will be forgetting how they parroted Stonewall.

Yeah I was coming to say that even if he was talking about that (which he denies), we should be allowing people to change their minds without waterboarding them into admitting they were wrong. It's ok, he wasn't responsible for TW in sport etc etc. Let him change his mind without harassing him into admitting some kind of guilt.

I agree. I find this very frustrating about GC people on twitter. Some can be prone to dogpilong even though they know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Hi. Did you mean to post this at your alarm clock?

Wasn't there was a talk at Cambridge Uni where a lecturer did an impression of hitler? It offended students and they took the matter up and there was a debate on social media about the lecturer apologising? That what I would have thought the original tweet was about.

…ahh but reading OP it sounds like responding to an article. On its own I would have thought it was about the nazi incident at Cambridge.

Dr Em will be back, she often has breaks.

Yes, you're thinking of Andrew Graham-Dixon who apparently did an impression of Hitler during a debate. That isn't mentioned in the article, though. In fact the article only gives two examples of free speech coming under attack: one is of an anonymous student whose father, Paul, says he was ostracised at university for his views on Brexit; the other was Professor Selina Todd, a feminist and an historian of the working-class, with notably left-wing views.

So, almost certainly Djalili didn't read the article, and just decided that the people whose free speech the government wanted to defend were Nazis. He was too lazy to take the three minutes required to read the piece and too full of his own self-importance to accept that he was wrong when people pointed it out.

And even though he must now know he was wrong, he is still trying to pretend that he isn't, and that everyone who has criticised him is stupid.

Yes, it was parody, I think he was pushing the boundaries. Didn't end well.
It was in a TV programme too, can't remember which though.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59214397

It also happened several months after the article Djalili was tweeting about, so he can't have assumed that that is what the BBC article was referring to.

Don’t give newly GC people a hard time, they’re going to get a load of shit from the TRAs and labour without giving it to them from both sides.

Presumably he's made money/sold tickets/raised profile of the TRA nonsense.
So, I expect him to explain publicly why he's come to a different view.
I'm all for the golden bridge for people who've changed their mind but I expect some one who's profited from it to explain why they've changed their position.

FS. You are never going to get people to change their mind if you hound them for what they used to believe. What do you want? Them to say oh I was wrong and you were right and wasn't I stupid?
OD doesn't particularly seem a man likely to do that.

I'm with previous posters. Some people will need to answer to pushing this stuff, for example Mermaids and in the US cheerleaders of considerable influence like Diane Ehrensaft and Jack Turban, but for mere followers like OD, even if their actions were self-serving or even cynical, it's best to allow them to slink away and quietly rehabilitate their social media history.