Last Friday’s brutal attack on Sir Salman Rushdie was a shocking example of the ongoing threat to freedom of expression in our society.
Since that barbaric incident in upstate New York, politicians, artists, writers, and commentators have lined up to express their outrage and support for everyone’s right to speak their minds and tell their stories without fear.
But it would be easier to take those words seriously if so many of our cultural leaders, especially publishers, broadcasters and educators, had not shamefully colluded with intolerance in the past.
This week they formulate their slogans about freedom. But in their actions in recent years they have all too often been the allies of totalitarianism, persecuting dissenters and enforcing groupthink. They endlessly trumpet their commitment to diversity, but they have only contempt for diversity of opinion.
Shameful
Cracks in the liberal facade of resolve began to appear almost as soon as the mullahs of Iran issued their fatwa against Rushdie in 1989 following the publication of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. Even then there were many public figures who were ambiguous or even sided with the fanatics and book burners.
A particularly nefarious example was Baroness Shirley Williams of the Liberal Democrats – whose party is said to be defending liberty at its core.
Last Friday’s brutal attack on Sir Salman Rushdie was a shocking example of the ongoing threat to freedom of expression in our society
She told a BBC Question Time audience in 2007 that he had “deeply offended Muslims in a very strong way”, had been protected by British police “at great cost to the taxpayer” and that it had been a “mistake” to tell him to confer knighthood’.
The obsession with not offending a vocal minority is now the central theme of the cultural tingle that pervades our public life. This weakened stance, clothed in the language of “inclusion” and “equality,” is now being used to justify an accelerating indulgence in extremism. I think it is no exaggeration to say that we now have a de facto blasphemy law in this country due to the presence of Islamist militancy.
When a teacher in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, alluded to the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson last year, he was soon chased from his job by a mob of protesters and remains in hiding.
Today no publisher would think of touching a book like The Satanic Verses. The fear of accusations of Islamophobia prevails in art and literature and creates a climate of censorship.
In June, the film The Lady Of Heaven, about the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, was pulled from theaters after protests by angry Muslim demonstrators.
But religion is only one aspect of this insidious brand of Orwellian mind control. It can also be found in an insane desire to punish any deviation from prescribed orthodoxy regarding race, multiculturalism, or—above all—transgender rights.
As a former prolific writer whose literary career was shattered by the unfair accusation of transphobia, I recognize all too well the devastating impact of this new style of McCarthyism.
Until this trans series exploded, I was having success on both sides of the Atlantic with novels written for a fantasy series under the Erin Hunter name.
In June, the film The Lady Of Heaven, about the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, was pulled from theaters after protests by angry Muslim demonstrators
But then I committed what the vocal trans lobby called a “thought crime.” My offense was adding the hashtag “I stand by JK Rowling” to my Twitter page.
Now Joanne Rowling is probably the most successful author in world history, a woman of incredible creativity and imagination. But in our twisted world of toxic identity politics, she has been turned into a hate figure by the witch hunters of the Twitter mob for committing the heresy of challenging some of the shibboleths of trans dogma.
She herself is the target of constant abuse and death threats. Just hours after the Rushdie attack, a Pakistan-based Twitter user warned her, “You’re next.”
Another indicator of the hysteria generated by the trans activists was that scores of young, well-paid, privileged professionals at her publishing house, Hachette, wept over the fact that they would not be able to work on their next book because of their transphobia.
Rowling’s phenomenal earning power meant her publisher and agent were ready to take on the scream bullies. Many others were less fortunate without their wealth. When I was targeted by trans agitators for my JK Rowling hashtag, my agent and publisher meekly gave in and I was left out in the cold.
Insane
I haven’t been able to write a book since and had to retrain as a truck driver to support my family. Others suffered the same fate, like my friend Rachel Rooney, who was ridiculously attacked for “transphobia” for her upbeat children’s book My Body Is Me.
Father Ted’s creator, Graham Linehan, lost his marriage and career in the face of insane attacks from trans fanatics for his willingness to stand up for women’s rights. But it’s not just the targeted writers. The whole point of these mobic “cancellations” is to intimidate and silence other writers – and it works.
What makes this pattern all the more shameful is that the organizations designed to defend liberty are pliable in their erosion. This is particularly true of the Society Of Authors, whose recent record of championing embattled authors is appalling.
His faint-heartedness is embodied in his chair, Chocolat best-selling author Joanne Harris.
Instead of fighting for our rights, she seems all too eager to downplay the importance of freedom, as revealed in an embarrassing tweet she sent after the Rushdie attack and a death threat to JKRowling.
Launching a hilarious online poll, she asked society members, “Have you ever received a death threat?” and included the lines “Hell, yes” and “Show me, dammit.”
Fail
Her abusive attitude should come as no surprise, since the society under her leadership has never made a clear statement condemning Rowling’s deadly critics. Authors have now written an open letter to society and demanded that they finally take their failures seriously.
Harris was also not outspoken in her defense of writer Kate Clanchy, who was dropped by her publisher after a dispute over allegations of racism in her memoir about teaching at an inner-city school. It was the Society’s president, author Philip Pullman, who was ousted in the wake of the Clanchy dispute while Harris continued her rule of retreat.
Their failure to speak out against violent threats is typical of the cultural establishment that has lost its sense of integrity. This is why a respected writer and philosopher like Professor Kathleen Stock can be ousted from her post at Sussex University by trans supporters who wear balaclavas and issue threats of intimidation.
The ideologues want propaganda and obedience, not art and exchange. As I found in my own late career argument, they are censoring, judgmental and vicious, the very last people who should dictate the nature of our culture. I can only hope that attacking Rushdie and threatening to kill Rowling amidst the darkness could be a turning point.
Gillian Philip is a writer and activist.