Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
You Still Can't Write about Muhammad.
From today's Wall Street Journal:
You Still Can't Write About Muhammad
By ASRA Q. NOMANI
August 6, 2008; Page A15Starting in 2002, Spokane, Wash., journalist Sherry Jones toiled weekends on a racy historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. Ms. Jones learned Arabic, studied scholarly works about Aisha's life, and came to admire her protagonist as a woman of courage. When Random House bought her novel last year in a $100,000, two-book deal, she was ecstatic. This past spring, she began plans for an eight-city book tour after the Aug. 12 publication date of "The Jewel of Medina" -- a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet's harem.
It's not going to happen: In May, Random House abruptly called off publication of the book. The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.
Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."
The slight twist to this saga is that the whole furor was precipitated by an American academic, not some cleric. Read the whole op-ed for details.
But that does not change the fact that this decision on the part of Random House was based on fear. Fear of offending some segments of the Muslim community. Fear of what that might mean for the profits of the publisher. And fear of violence.
Corporations exist to make money. That's fine. But they don't have to be craven to do so. Self-censorship like this does no one any good over the long term. It just encourages the radicalization of religion (or any other vocal group, for that matter). It does not push for healthy intellectual debate in either the academic community or in moderate Islam. It reinforces a drive towards mediocrity in the publishing industry. And it silences an author, at least for a time.
Way to go, Random House.
Jim Downey
HT to ML - thanks!
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Too bad the moderates don't speak up in time.
That was sent in by a man named Abdul Wahid to the "Readers Corner" response forum. I wish he would contact the hysterical teacher who started the controversy, and the imam she contacted, and talk to them. Until people learn that their actions have repercussions, and that not everybody in their community agrees with them, they will continue to act as they please.
Greg, you may be correct:
If you read further in the story, you will see that Spellberg also contacted her editor at Random House who then warned her colleagues that
When you have the possibility of your business, and the people in that business, and your author, being the target of firebombings and death threads, don't you think that you'd follow an overabundance of caution and pull the book? Unfortunately, it is the violent extremist Muslims who get the publicity. Their use of violence and threats of violence, even against less extreme members of their own religion, is widely reported. So they can control the media with threats and fear.
I don't like censorship, whether imposed by the government or caused by fear and violence. But I can't blame Random House for wanting to protect its employees and authors.
money probably wasn't a major factor
I doubt, really, that they would fear based on what might happen to profits -- the book would be controversial, which would just mean free publicity. A good publicity department would just run with that. Rushdie is instructive -- in 1990, after a bit less than a year of publication, 3/4 of a million copies had been sold. Most of that was from the interest generated by the fatwa. The fact is, it got way more attention than it would have if there hadn't been the violent reaction.