Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Let it be noted, you're still not supposed to/allowed to

write things that upset the fundie muslims and their suckups:
After he got the call from Ms. Spellberg, Mr. Amanullah dashed off an email to a listserv of Middle East and Islamic studies graduate students, acknowledging he didn't "know anything about it [the book]," but telling them, "Just got a frantic call from a professor who got an advance copy of the forthcoming novel, 'Jewel of Medina' -- she said she found it incredibly offensive." He added a write-up about the book from the Publishers Marketplace, an industry publication.

The next day, a blogger known as Shahid Pradhan posted Mr. Amanullah's email on a Web site for Shiite Muslims -- "Hussaini Youth" -- under a headline, "upcoming book, 'Jewel of Medina': A new attempt to slander the Prophet of Islam." Two hours and 28 minutes after that, another person by the name of Ali Hemani proposed a seven-point strategy to ensure "the writer withdraws this book from the stores and apologise all the muslims across the world."
Yup, preemptive calls for apology, etc.
Meanwhile back in New York City, Jane Garrett, an editor at Random House's Knopf imprint, dispatched an email on May 1 to Knopf executives, telling them she got a phone call the evening before from Ms. Spellberg (who happens to be under contract with Knopf to write "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an.")

"She thinks there is a very real possibility of major danger for the building and staff and widespread violence," Ms. Garrett wrote. "Denise says it is 'a declaration of war . . . explosive stuff . . . a national security issue.' Thinks it will be far more controversial than the satanic verses and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP." ("The Jewel of Medina" was to be published by Random House's Ballantine Books.) That day, the email spread like wildfire through Random House, which also received a letter from Ms. Spellberg and her attorney, saying she would sue the publisher if her name was associated with the novel. On May 2, a Ballantine editor told Ms. Jones's agent the company decided to possibly postpone publication of the book.

I understand the company being worried about the situation; I'm also very pissed that the possibility of screaming muslims calling for blood and threatening death is pretty much expected anymore. And that belly-crawling bullcrap, 'declaration of war', etc., is enough to make you puke. "We must not upset them with a work of fiction(or fact, either one) they won't like, as they will call us names. And threaten to kill us."

I'm getting pretty damn tired of the sensitivities of these clowns being used as reason not to publish something. Same group of people have no problem publishing stuff that upsets Christians or Jews or Buddhists or whoever; hell, sometimes they delight in it. But GodGaia forbid they upset muslims, at least the group that screams and yells and threatens.

3 comments:

BobG said...

Remind me to not buy anything from Random House Publishing.

Anonymous said...

Put some of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's books on your shopping list.

She spent her teens as a fundamentalist, but has done sufficient work in drawing attention to things such as forced marriage "honour" killings and the general violence and abuse of women in the name of the "Proffit" to earn herself a fatwah.

The director of the short film she wrote; Theo Van Gogh was shot, had hist throat cut and the text of a fatwa for Ayaan stuck to his corpse with a knife...

Keith
ps, I know how to spell "Prophet", but that wasn't the term I was using for the 51 year old cult leader who "maried" a 6 year old girl, then raped her when she was 9.

Firehand said...

I've read about her, and some interviews; haven't gotten around to her books yet.

And yeah, Van Gogh murdered on the street, the the movie weenies ignored it or made excuses, either cowardice or 'PC-at-any-cost' attitude. Or both.