John Boyne properly nails his colours to the madt

[PretzelKnot]

It’s taken a while but well done John.

”A really smart piece by Brendan O'Neill for
@spikedonline.
The people who are currently trying to destroy @roisinmurphy's life & career for defending vulnerable children are mirror images of those who tried to destroy Sinéad's life & career 30 years ago.

Self-appointed moral arbiters and men's right activists who cannot bear the idea of a woman's voice being heard.

For me, this story is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I am no longer going to stay silent on the way that women are treated.

I will defend women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, and lesbian rights to my dying day. I will also defend trans rights.

But I will not defend the online activists who are neither gay, lesbian or trans but who exploit the lives of LGBT people simply to earn followers in the hope of giving themselves a voice in the world and, in time, monetising that.

If that costs me readers or my career, so be it.

On June 9th 1954, at a Congressional hearing, Joseph Welch said to Senator Joe McCarthy: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

I would ask the same question of the people who are trying to destroy the life of a woman who has done nothing - NOTHING - but suggest that vulnerable children should be protected.

You have done enough, all of you. Have you no sense of decency?”

https://twitter.com/johnboynebooks/status/1698793743761969267?s=46&t=f8U9xaap9RM6pcBCdpsFIA

I do think the tide will continue to turn, Roisin Murphy is in my view the last angry lashing out of a dying beast (ie the TRA movement). In fact I think Roisin's plight will remind reasonable folks in the LGB community of how ridiculous the whole thing is (she has a big gay fanbase and an awful lot of gay men are not hugely enamoured of TRAs).

Musk enabling and protecting free speech on Twitter has played a huge part in the turning of the tide. And we're now getting more and more celebs speaking out against cancel culture, most recently Woody Allen.

If we compare the public discourse on this issue in 2020 (lesbians being told to accept 'ladydique' as it had a 'feminine mouthfeel', ewwww) vs where we are now, we can see how much things have changed and will continue to change.

This is fantastic. Being able to admit you were wrong, openly changing your mind on the basis of evidence, being humble, those are the kinds of qualities I'd like to see in people who seek to represent us.

Fantastic, classy, thoughtful apology. Kudos to John Boyne.

I couldn’t agree more. Humility is a very underrated quality.

Well said John Boyne. Perhaps his courage and humility will embolden other writers like Colm Tóibín or Sebastian Barry to speak out now.

Apologies if they already have ! There's loads of authors I just picked those two at random

Lovely apology. Brought a tear to my eye. I like his resurrection of the 'have you no shame'. It should be trotted out to all those people claiming women can have penises, that men (of any stripe) belong in female single sex spaces or that gender confused kids should be medically or surgically.....altered.

Everyone knows what a woman is, 'have you no shame?'

elgreco BITSP was a story and yet it is being used in schools. As posted up thread there are too many inaccuracies in the book unlike The Diary of Anne Frank and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit which are factual. As far as Boyne is concerned I am glad he has realised that women are protecting women's hard won rights.

Someone got me the Echo Chamber for Christmas. On the TBR pile. I must attack it now!

You have done enough, all of you. Have you no sense of decency?

Obviously, the answer from TRAs is absolutely not. They are, in my opinion, beyond redemption and don't give a flying fuck. Their entire point is lack of decency, and eulogising it.

But for those who are still priding themselves, or attempting to, on being faux progressive, it's an excellent question. Not least because it bloody well demands an answer.

i've never read John Boyne (seen the BITSP film), but his knack of cutting through the crap is very appealing to me.

I like the way he instantly, and wearily, identified Owen Jones' (failed) attempt to use condescension as a weapon.

Jones' spitting anger when he realised he had been masterfully out-patronised was highly entertaining.

Graham, without equivocation, without excuses, and without evasion: you were right, I was wrong, and I apologise.

I am so pleased for Graham that at last a prominent public figure has said this to him.

Classy apology. Very happy we have another ally who is now willing to speak publicly, it does feel like the ship is finally.. finally.. slowly turning.
I guess if I was glinner or (or any of the other tireless campaigners) I’d be feeling a bit bitter, but ultimately so few public figures have had the intellect and foresight to see what was happening and what the consequences would be, and even if they did, the guts to speak out and put their head above the parapet.
So those that have finally been able to do so, I welcome.

Brilliant from John.
The Hearts is one of my favourite books, when I’d finished reading it, I carried it around in my bag for ages, not wanting to let it go. John is a truly wonderful storyteller.

It seems a weird part of human nature that it's so personally hard to make a heartfelt apology, but it makes other people's respect for you go up not down.

As had been said aleady that's a very sincere apology from Boyne. It's sad that this issue has caused so much division in society and between friends. I hope that with more people realising how religious at it's very corrupt core it is, that the end is ever closer.

Before you celebrate an anti-Semitic opportunist like John Boyne you should have a look at the kind of person he is.

Ffs

Maitlis will surely know Hannah Barnes

@vibecheck
Calling somone anti-semitic can be libellous. You might want to be more careful when you are trying to discredit people by smears.
All your post does is just make wonder how squeaky clean you are?

I know BITSP is hugely problematic, not because it's antisemitic but because it's romanticising horror. Two little boys would not have become friends through the wire because the Jewish children were murdered when they arrived at the camps. Any boy large enough to survive would be worked (probably to death), not left sitting around.

But fair play to John Boyne on this one.

That is a good apology, though I agree with @NitroNine about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas being profoundly problematic, at best, and think it’s appalling that it’s turned into a kind of approved children’s textbook on the Holocaust.

I haven’t read his trans novel, because I suspect it would enrage me, though good to see him refusing the term ‘ cis’.

His success means he’s in a comparatively powerful position, like JKR. Many of my novelist friends who make a much more precarious living, are in fear of being put on the spot about gender at readings and Q and As, and losing their publishers and teaching jobs.

A previous poster has already extensively explained the reasons why TBITSP is a hugely problematic novel that does not accurately reflect the Holocaust. What she did not do, was write off Boyne as an antiSemite and actually had a considered response.

your answer to this thread may as well have said “Don’t listen to him because he’s a mean old poopy head.”

Not to mention that it turns the actual mass murder of Jewish children into a gothic fictional backdrop for the mistaken killing of a non-Jewish child, especially as the Jewish child would not have survived long enough to befriend a camp commandant’s child — there’s a sense he’s just there to morally educate the other child, like the ‘Magical Negro’ who’s just there to help the white hero on his journey. And the cutesy Auschwitz as ‘Outwith’ and Fūhrer as Fury stuff is trivialising.

Not to mention that there was some study by the London Jewish Centre that found that some horrifying percentage of children reading it thought it was a true story and that Bruno’s death brought an end to the camps.

Good intentions don’t make it ok.

Quite moved to see such an apology to Glinner.

As others have said, let's hope it causes reflection, especially from the literary and arts world into the treatment of Graham Linehan.

I couldn't be more sure that he will looked back on as a rare person of immense backbone, particularly in the spineless comedy world. Let's hope the rehabilitation is sooner rather than later though.

Article in the mail about it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12482053/Boy-Striped-Pyjamas-author-John-Boyne-apologises-Graham-Linehan-tells-right-four-years-criticising-Father-Ted-creator-trans-debate.html

As good as it is to see that kind of apology, it's worth remembering that it's up to Linehan to decide if he wants to accept it or not. I don't doubt this could be stirring up a lot of complex emotions for him. And he may not be ready now, or ever, to accept it. As much as I think extending a golden bridge to those who admit they were wrong is really important, this is also a personal matter. I really hope it ultimately feels positive for Graham Linehan.

this! it's exhausting and unhelpful