Tag: Francine Prose

Prose v Rushdie on social media, as told by The Guardian. Drama, deep rifts, clickbait, etc etc etc.

Rushdie, who has been vehement in his support of PEN’s choice and who tweeted earlier this week that “the award will be given. PEN is holding firm. Just 6 pussies. Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character”, responded to Prose’s post, pointing to his already-stated regret in using the word “pussies”.

But he made it clear he wasn’t backing down on another allegation, made in a letter to PEN earlier this week, in which he described Prose and the five other authors to have withdrawn as “the fellow travellers” of “fanatical Islam, which is highly organised, well funded, and which seeks to terrify us all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, into a cowed silence”.

I don’t think they intend to be fellow travelers, which makes that not quite the right term for them. I don’t think they realize the extent to which they’re buying into the most theocratic brand of Islam at the expense of the more liberal brands.

His Facebook post repeated the allegation: “‘Fellow travellers’, yes. No question of that. As for ‘fine distinctions’, here’s what I see. Our fellow artists were murdered for their ideas and you won’t stand up for them. I’m very sorry to see that. I think you’ll find the vast majority of the PEN membership will be sorry, too.”

Prose said the phrase had “attained great currency during the Army-McCarthy hearings, when it was used to smear and ruin the lives of many innocent people by suggesting a relation with the communists plotting to bring down our country”, and that while she “sympathise[s] with the dead cartoonists … if I am going to stand up, I feel that my time is more usefully spent standing up for the living: the journalists throughout Latin America and the Middle East risking their lives to tell the truth about the world we live in”.

Describing himself as “immensely saddened” by the situation, Rushdie told Prose he used the phrase knowingly, because Prose, Carey, Ondaatje, Cole, Kushner and Selasi had chosen to “make a political ACT”, by pulling out of the gala.

“What the act says is that you judge CH as being at fault. And by making that public judgment, the act, not any words you say, places you in the enemy camp. It just does,” he wrote.

“In politics you can’t both be for and against. Your act says you are against. And that makes you (plural) fellow travellers of the fanatics. I wish it were not so, but it is, and when Peter Carey asks if it’s even a free speech issue, and calls PEN self-righteous for taking it up, and then attacks the entire nation of France for its arrogance; and when Teju Cole says that Israel is the cause of anti-semitism; then you have some very unfortunate bedfellows indeed. I hope that our long alliance can survive this. But I fear some old friendships will break on this wheel.”

It makes them at least supporters of the fanatics.

I hope the fellow traveling strange bedfellows don’t persuade many more to join them.

Francine Prose on Facebook on Monday:

Why is it so difficult for people to make fine distinctions? The writers opposing the PEN award support free speech, free expression, and stand fully behind Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish whatever they want without being censored, and of course without the use of violence to enforce their silence. But the giving of an award suggests that one admires and respects the value of the work being honored, responses quite difficult to summon for the work of Charlie Hebdo. Provocation is simply not the same as heroism. I do hope that the audience at the PEN gala will be shown some of the cruder and more racist cartoons that CH publishes, so they will know what they are applauding and honoring. I’m disheartened by the usually sensible intelligent Salman Rushie’s readiness to call us “fellow travelers” who are encouraging Islamist jihadism, and also to label us, on Twitter, as “six pussies.” I can only assume he meant our feline dignity and was not implying that we are behaving like people who have vaginas. It would be sad to think that a writers organization cannot discuss free speech without resorting to political accusations and sexual insult.

Well, speaking of fine distinctions, what about the fine distinction between actual racism and satirical meta-racism? What about using racist tropes as a way of mocking racism?

That seems to be a fine distinction that Prose is ignoring or unaware of.

You can argue that that’s a bad idea; you can argue that that kind of satire doesn’t travel well, because customs differ from place to place; you can argue that it’s risky; you can argue a lot of things. But it’s just silly to pretend there actually is no distinction between racism and satirical meta-racism.

Francine Prose expanded on her thoughts in the CBC interview, in a piece for Comment is Free. Her expanded thoughts make my skin crawl.

When I learned that PEN had decided to award the Freedom of Expression Courage Award to Charlie Hebdo, I was dismayed. I had agreed to serve as a literary table host and I wondered what I would do when the crowd around me rose to its feet to applaud an award being given – in my name – to what I felt was an inappropriate recipient.

She still doesn’t understand what Charlie is. She thinks it’s a right-wing racist rag.

Let me emphasize how strongly I believe in the ideals of PEN; for two years I was president of the PEN American Center. I believe in the indivisibility of the right to free speech, regardless of what – however racist, blasphemous, or in any way disagreeable – is being said.

Why is she pairing racist with blasphemous?

I believe that Charlie Hebdo has every right to publish whatever they wish.

But that is not the same as feeling that Charlie Hebdo deserves an award. As a friend wrote me: the First Amendment guarantees the right of the neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, but we don’t give them an award.

She likes that disgusting and dead-wrong comparison so much she uses it again. I repeat: Charlie Hebdo is not comparable to neo-Nazis!

The bestowing of an award suggests to me a certain respect and admiration for the work that has been done, and for the value of that work and though I admire the courage with which Charlie Hebdo has insisted on its right to provoke and challenge the doctrinaire, I don’t feel that their work has the importance – the necessity – that would deserve such an honor.

So that’s a reason to back out of the ceremony? That’s a reason to cringe at the thought of people applauding Charlie? That’s a reason to throw Charlie under the bus weeks after ten members of its staff were slaughtered?

Perhaps my sense of this will be clearer if I mention the sort of writers and whistleblowers whom [sic] I think would be appropriate candidates: Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, the journalists who have risked (and in some cases lost) their lives to report on the wars in the Middle East. Or the extremely brave Lydia Cacho, who has fearlessly reported on government corruption in Mexico, along with the dozens and dozens of Mexican journalists who have been murdered for reporting on the narco wars.

No, that’s not clearer, because being able to think of people you would prefer to see get the award is not at all the same thing as backing out of a commitment to be a host at the award ceremony. Not even close. You’re not just sitting out the award because you don’t like Charlie, you’re canceling an appointment to be there because you don’t like Charlie.

I have been deeply shocked to read and hear some critics say that the position I have taken, along with other writers, amounts to an endorsement of terrorism. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I also don’t feel that it is the mission of PEN to fight the war on terrorism; that is the role of our government.

That, frankly, is an idiotic thing to say. The “war on terrorism” is Bush-era propaganda, and has nothing to do with writers and journalists and cartoonists being in solidarity with colleagues who are murdered by theocratic terrorists. The fact that the Kouachi brothers fit the label “terrorist” is not a good reason to cancel an appointment to host at the PEN awards ceremony. It certainly is the mission of PEN to publicize and resist violent attacks on writers, journalists and cartoonists.

Our job, in presenting an award, is to honor writers and journalists who are saying things that need to be said, who are working actively to tell us the truth about the world in which we live. That is important work that requires perseverance and courage. And this is not quite the same as drawing crude caricatures and mocking religion.

Wait. What? So a novelist who writes fluffy comedies, for example, is not eligible for a PEN award? PEN covers only writers and journalists who do serious, truth-telling work? Poets, mystery writers, fantasy writers – they’re all out? Fiction is out? Satire is out? (Prose herself has written satirical fiction. Is she ineligible?)

The bitterness and rage of the criticism that we have received point out how difficult people find it to think with any clarity on these issues and how easy it has been for the media – and our culture – to fan the flames of prejudice against Islam.

Is it ok if I criticize the Vatican? Or is that forbidden too?

The narrative of the Charlie Hebdo murders – white Europeans killed in their offices by Muslim extremists – is one that feeds neatly into the cultural prejudices that have allowed our government to make so many disastrous mistakes in the Middle East. And the idea that one is either “for us or against us” in such matters not only precludes rational and careful thinking, but also has a chilling effect on the exercise of our right to free expression and free speech that all of us – and all the people at PEN – are working so tirelessly to guarantee.

As I said yesterday – bullshit. Complete bullshit. Avijit Roy wasn’t a white European. Washiqur Rahman Sabeen Mahmud wasn’t a white European. Taslima Nasreen isn’t a white European. Salman Rushdie isn’t a white European. This stuff is insulting garbage.