Julie Burchill, the media commentator known for her outrageous, often offensive and contentious opinions, has stirred up another hornets’ nest. She has had her book ‘Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity killed progressive politics’ due out in March, dropped by publishers Little, Brown after a row with Muslim journalist Ash Sarkar. She was accused of ‘crossing a line’ by posting ‘Islamophobic’ comments on Twitter. Burchill had tweeted that Sarkar’s worship of the Prophet Mohammed was the ‘worship of a paedophile’, referring to the 7th Century leader’s marriage to his third wife Aisha when she was around 10.
Born 3 July 1059 Bristol, England, Burchill is a Sun Cancer opposition Saturn, sextile Pluto and trine – so an odd mix of under-confident and utterly unyielding. What causes the problems is her Mercury, Uranus, Mars spread out through Leo which will make her attention-grabbing, explosive, uncompromising; and with her Mars squaring Jupiter she’ll be a risk-taker and impulsive. She’s not a happy camper from later this month to late January with a major disruption from tr Uranus square her Sun/Pluto midpoint; followed by a disastrous two years of scary, risky tr Pluto square her Mars/Saturn midpoint.
It may or may not blow up into a “Satanic Verses” Rushdie standoff but even if it doesn’t will provoke similar arguments.
In 1988 author Salman Rushdie had to go into hiding with heavy security after death threats were made against him for a novel that Westerners would not have raised an eyebrow over. Joan Bakewell remarked at the time it was a problem for a basically tolerant country when it takes in intolerant elements – it doesn’t know what to do with them. The UK has no interdict against blasphemy, while Islam does. And it’s why the rigorously secular French made such a stand over Charlie Hebdo, ditto the Danes over the Muhmmad cartoons.
There was an excellent book years back by, I think a Norwegian journalist, about the position of modern women in Islamic countries which certainly included detail about Muhammad’s complicated marital history. She was not popular but whether she spent the rest of her life in hiding I don’t know.
Ash Sarkar is a left-wing journalist and political activist, 17 April 1992, and has an Aries with a super-determined Pluto trine Mars, sextiling onto a highly strung Uranus Neptune in Capricorn. She enjoys jousting with Burchill in a fight for the upper hand and last word with both their respective Jupiters and Pluto colliding. And Sarkar’s Pluto squares Burchill’s Mars for a hostile clash.
In some ways it’s a spat in a teacup. But it also highlights an unresolved and unresolvable problem about respect for other cultures/religions when they don’t offer respect for the mores of the country they choose to live in.
Julie Burchill abandoned her son just because she couldn’t be bothered to look after him.
Laws prohibiting blasphemy and blasphemous libel in the United Kingdom date back to the medieval times as common law and in some special cases as enacted legislation. The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were formally abolished in England and Wales in 2008. Equivalent laws remain in Scotland and Northern Ireland but have not been used for many years. In 2020, the Scottish Government committed to removing Scotland’s from statute in recognition of the fact that blasphemy laws are used to carry about human rights abuses around the world. Wiki
More free speech clashes – this time between Le Carre and Rushdie – to add new perspectives.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/should-free-burn-korans-john-le-carre-salman-rushdie-fought/
Actually, ‘Blasphemy’ is and always has been a criminal offence under UK law – only that it applies to the Church of England, the established religion only.
Back in 1977, or thereabouts, Mary Whitehouse successfully prosecuted the editor of ‘Gay News’, which had published a poem depicting ‘Christ as a homosexual’. The editor, one Mr. Lemon, as I recall, was fined heavily, as was Gay News.
People make comments all the time, you can choose to be offended or ignore them
Perhaps it is the upcoming Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius but I am tiring of provocateurs and whiners in all their forms be they Julie Burchill, Ron Liddle or Ash Sarkar. I would happily send them all to a remote island where they could rant at each other or play the victim card about events long ago until the end of time. All sides are full of hypocrites who are happy to play the history card when it suits them and to ignore it when it does not. A curse upon them all.
Agreed, Hugh. Just sounds like the of barking dogs to me. A tale told by an idiot….
*Barking of dogs.
Couldn’t agree more, Hugh. Abolish screamers.
According to Wiki, in 2002 Burchill narrowly escaped prosecution for inciting racial hatred against the Irish. Burchill describes herself as a Zionist and has form when it comes to Islam. Burchill raged against Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah’s (from the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue) defence of Muslims and her advocacy of the Palestinian cause. In Burchill’s words, the rabbi “respects PIG ISLAM”.
If tweets similar to the ones Burchill made towards Sarkar came from a left-wing commentator and were directed at a person of Jewish heritage I suspect the reaction would be very different here – such a person would be accused of indulging in anti-semitic tropes and gaslighting, but Sarkar isn’t Jewish just a Muslim.
Why is it deemed reasonable for Sarkar to be attacked for her Muslim identity when critiquing Rod Liddle’s comments? Burchill was, in effect, saying that Sarkar had no right to criticise Rod Liddle, or any man fantasizing about underage girls, as she *worships* Mohammed (which is incorrect as Mohammed was a prophet not the son of God) who had a child bride? I think Burchill has deleted that tweet since. Sarkar does get a lot of far right abuse on twitter telling her to ‘go back home’, all Muslims are paedophiles, and is routinely called the four letter word beginning with ‘P’. Burchill’s tweets about Sarkar’s Muslim heritage only give succour to such feelings. But are we saying Sarkar should take it on the chin?
I am sure Burchill’s book will reach the public eventually and be a great success for the author.
Reading her wiki entry I wonder – a) whether she’s quite sane: and b) whether she’s a contrarian, saying the opposite of what’s expected just to choke off her audience; or c) she’s like Trump chucking stones into the pond like a three year old to enjoy the ripples. I guarantee her Uranus is angular.
But I have to say I agree with Trump, those who engage with her are dancing the same dance. Deprive her of the oxygen of publicity (I know – mea culpa) and she’ll deflate.
There was a time when Julie Burchill was a highly respected writer for the NME,
back in the late 1970s.
She now turned into the twin sister of Katie Hopkins. I used to find her rants very
cruel and offensive, until I heard JB’s voice on a chat show.
She sounded about 10 years of age.
I haven’t taken her seriously since then.
Thankyou Marjorie
for all the work you do
which includes letting us all
sound off here
love it
I don’t read Rod Liddle whom I find tiresome and not funny. Like Burchill he’s a deliberate provocateur and inciter just to grab attention and spark off an angry or outraged response. But hey, it’s a free country. Within the bounds of the (v strict) libel laws and the Race Relations Act he’s free to spout off about whatever floats his boat that week. Frankly both he and Burchill sound a major pain.
But causing offence and tramping on other people’s sensitivities isn’t against the law. And it shouldn’t lead to repercussions such as having books cancelled.
And I don’t care where Ash Sarkar was born. By choosing to live in a country you choose to abide by its laws and its mores, which in this case, since the UK allows for a multiplicity of opinions, means tolerating difference. Don’t use your sensitivity to a perceived offence to shut down debate.
It may be that the publishing house fears violence directed at them.
thank you all for those updates which totally adjust the perspective of this conversation.
brilliant
The spat started with a Rod Liddle article in which he wrote that he didn’t become a teacher because he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from attempting to have inappropriate physical interaction with underage schoolgirls. Sarkar wrote a rather hostile response to this which provoked Burchill’s bizarre twitter rant about Mohammed and paedophilia. The furore is that Burchill chose to attack Sarkar’s response to Liddle’s inane musings via a personal attack on Sarkar’s religious identity, and that is why her book has been pulled. Some of Burchill’s tweets to Sarkar during this spat are a bit creepy and stalkerish. Burchill has now taken parts of Sarkar’s old twitter bio and put them into her own twitter bio and she’s crowing about it.
Interesting comments. Have any of you actually followed the sequence of events here? Ash Sarkar criticised Rod Liddle because he wrote a piece in the Spectator suggesting he had an attraction to under age girls, and Julie Birchill shot back in his defense with a swipe against Muhammed marrying an underage girl. So what is the culture here? That in Britain men lust after underage girls? Is that what you are supporting? As Ash Sarkar points out Birchill is using events 1500 years ago (and about which there is some discussion), while she was talking about someone who is alive today.
interesting.
Julie loves to say things that cause alarm. I remember the furor when she called Phil Collins ‘old stocking face’
why do we complain when we have to deal with complexity? I’ll swiftly add that this negotiation goes in all directions.
humans have marched on other humans, conquered them and changed the name of their countries, all over the place.
they’ve floated on boats and claimed countries they found, for some king or Queen.
they’ve written glowing accounts of such acts of rape and pillage and filled the minds of their citizens wit unearned pride along the way.
history, it’s a mess! maybe a glorious mess at times but in other moments shameful.
the English language is a gorgeous hodgepodge of other languages. of generations of upgrades and modifications.
of arguments about split infinitives and correct speech.
this IS who we are.
making, remaking, pulling apart, figuring it out, falling out.
Julie makes a statement, fairly uninformed but that’s her choice. Yer man reacts. we all raise our arms and get into position.
or it’s a great time to dig into these issues with love and humor.
I always find it fairly amusing when people complain of having to consider other points of view.
isn’t this how we expand our consciousness? or are we just to accept the status quo. maybe it’s good to open our hearts and minds to different perspectives without hunkering down immediately?
Congratulations on being one of the few people who recognises the value of humour…there ain’t none …in all these sexist/racist/questions….being human is enough in most cases, without defining genitalia/political stance/idealologies (?) hmm did I say that, I’ve had 2 wines and maybe stepped over the mark….well said.
Thanks Marjorie, I was wondering about this. Julie Burchill has always enjoyed provoking or shocking people, and that’s partly why her work has been published for so long. Of course it’s unwise and sometimes inappropriate to cause offence, but if society goes too far in shutting it down we are heading in a dangerous direction.
I was reading recently about John Lennon, around the anniversary of his death earlier this month. He sparked off huge public protests in the USA when he remarked that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” in 1966. He had a Scorpio Mercury, opposition an exact conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and square Pluto.
Sorry I find your last paragraph bewildering. What, in this clash between Julie Burchill and Ash Sarkar is about people “choosing to live somewhere and not respecting the culture” ? Ash Sarkar was born in the UK.
Completely agree on your last paragraph. I say when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Agree spot on Marjorie.