Bloodthirsty Liberal

I barely care enough about this to type it up, but it’s a pretty good example of liberal good intentions run amock:

British novelist Salman Rushdie has squared off against feminist icon Germaine Greer, labeling her support for a group of Bengali film protesters as “philistine, sanctimonious, and disgraceful.”

The protesters oppose the film version of Monica Ali’s book “Brick Lane,” a story about a Bangladeshi woman living in the area of east London, because of the way the book depicts people in the area. Their campaign has led to the cancellation of plans to shoot scenes for the movie in the neighborhood.

Greer wrote that locals had a right to prevent filming, and that Ali failed to realize that some residents might have found her plot outlandish. Others have supported the book and film.

Ali “writes in English and her point of view is — whether she allows herself to impersonate a village Bangladeshi woman or not — British. She has forgotten her Bengali, which she would not have done if she had wanted to remember it. When it comes to writing a novel, however, she becomes the pledge of our multi-ethnicity,” Greer wrote Monday in The Guardian newspaper.

Rushdie, who received death threats after writing “The Satanic Verses,” lashed back at Greer with a letter in The Guardian newspaper.

“At the height of the assault against my novel ‘The Satanic Verses,’ Germaine Greer stated: ‘I refuse to sign petitions for that book of his, which was about his own troubles.’ She went on to describe me as ‘a megalomaniac, an Englishman with dark skin.’ Now it’s Monica Ali’s turn to be deracinated.”

I admit I can’t understand what Greer is talking about, but it’s pretty astonishing when one writer defends the censorship of another writer.