"If she has the right to freedom of speech, we have the right to burn books."

[Circusfire]

Monica Ali's book Brick Lane is currently being made into a film. Alas, it will not be filmed on location in Brick Lane due to a group of disgruntled locals.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1831046,00.html

and heres a link about locals bitching about the book itself

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,11711,1098739,00.html

Now pardon me but if the local community have a problem with how they are being percieved, instead of stopping a fucking film being made on location they should perhaps deal with the topics raised in Brick Lane.  If they don't want to be perceived as backward perhaps they should stop all the utterly backward arranged marriage nonsense?

[Brutus Beefcake]

Surely they'll have to buy books before they can burn them?

[EFB]

Not if you run away really fast.

[Pinball]

The Muslims are revolting.

They feel the book portrays Bangladeshis in Brick Lane as backward, uneducated and unsophisticated.

[Garfield And Friends]

"we have the right to burn books."

... that most of the protestors probably haven't read. Oh boo-bloody-hoo Mr. Salique.

[Utter Shit]

The Muslims are revolting.

Bit racist.

[Circusfire]

Not if you run away really fast.

So they shoplift too! No wonder they get a negative write up in Brick Lane.

What pisses me off about the song and dance about Brick Lane is this: minority groups now seem to think that any fictional "negative" portrayal of their community is an racist slur against them. I wonder is there a link to them being portrayed as backward savages considering they go so mental about a fictional book. Despite the rather negative portrayal of Lothians I don't seem to recall book burnings or threats when Trainspotting was published and filmed in Edinburgh.

Ooh, check out this nonsense.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2006/07/345187.html

[zozman]

Haha - they've put the word film in inverted commas.  The dreadful, counter-productive tossers.

[Borboski]

In the comments you have people referring to the "Monica Ali 'book'".

Aahhh, but is it a book, or is it a "book", ahhh, chinny rub?

[Circusfire]

The Monica Ali book is not a pure book. It is a tool of political and social attack on a community that does not need being attacked. We need the East End of London to be accurately and ethically portrayed, not being subjected to distortion, misrepresentation and stereotyping.

So a book WRITTEN BY A BANGLADESHI is a tool of attack on the Bangladeshi community?

If they feel so strongly about why don't they write their own fucking books? Maybe they could publish their diaries to show how positive their culture is.

Monday: Ordered daughter to marry complete stranger. Beat daughter.  Might honour kill her later if she doesn't comply.
Tuesday: Watched Eastenders. Protested at the publishing of a book.
Wednesday: Imported non-english speaking groom from Bangladesh.

Etc.

[Sheldon Finklestein]

Wow, that's productive.

[Circusfire]

Yes I'm a big dirty racist for daring to object to the treatment of women in the Bangladeshi community. Just like that traitor Monica Ali.

[m...wW(wwMww)Ww...m]

Maybe they could publish their diaries to show how positive their culture is.

Monday: Ordered daughter to marry complete stranger. Beat daughter.  Might honour kill her later if she doesn't comply.
Tuesday: Watched Eastenders. Protested at the publishing of a book.
Wednesday: Imported non-english speaking groom from Bangladesh.

I think you may be overestimating just how prevalent such behaviour is (including the Eastenders-watching).

[Brutus Beefcake]

Yes I'm a big dirty racist for daring to object to the treatment of women in the Bangladeshi community. Just like that traitor Monica Ali.

You mean "women".

[Sheldon Finklestein]

Yes I'm a big dirty racist for daring to object to the treatment of women in the Bangladeshi community. Just like that traitor Monica Ali.

Well, perhaps I was slightly flippant. I just felt that it was wrong to slag off a whole culture on account of a few idiots. As it happens, I like Monica Ali and, though I have not yet read the book, find it hard to believe the charges leveled against it. Why don't these groups go after people like Littlejohn? Incidentally, I checked out their website and I liked:

The Monica Ali book is not a pure book. It is a tool of political and social attack on a community that does not need being attacked.

Pure book? Bloody hell... It makes me want to dress up as Oscar Wilde and start saying "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written." Yeah, that would show them.

Also, I'd be interested to know which communities DO need to be attacked.

Book burning is pathetic and this group's actions will only serve to create publicity for the 'book' and the 'film', as they feel the need to call them.

[Circusfire]

I think you may be overestimating just how prevalent such behaviour is (including the Eastenders-watching).

Oh for the love of christ, I don't actually think every single Bangladshi man in the UK beats his daughters into an unhappy marriage.

[m...wW(wwMww)Ww...m]

Well, also for the love of christ, you did say that it was their culture. For it to be considered the culture of the people, it would have to be fairly widespread, no?

[Oscar]

Now pardon me but if the local community have a problem with how they are being percieved, instead of stopping a fucking film being made on location they should perhaps deal with the topics raised in Brick Lane. If they don't want to be perceived as backward perhaps they should stop all the utterly backward arranged marriage nonsense?

But wait a minute, why should they have an insulting film made in their own community? If someone decided to write an insulting book about me, I would shout about it, if they tried to shoot it in my house, then I would do more than blockade the road.
Maybe there is more information I'm missing, but these articles the Brick Lane community just seem to be protesting about being seen as dirty - which is pretty damaging to their businesses and general public image.

[Milo]

I like the fact that the campaign against Monica Ali's film called Brick Lane is officially named Campaign Against Monica Ali's Film Brick Lane. Very self-explanatory.

[Mister Cairo]

I've read the book and it's not insulting. It's also prettty dull, similar to Zadie Smith's White Teeth but more rambling and far less funny. I gave up two-thirds of the way through, it was so turgid.

They have the right to buy copies of the book (I assume secondhand, they're welcome to my copy) and protest against the film, but I don't believe they have the right to obstruct the fim.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Yeah the book is shit. They can have my copy to burn if they want.

[chand]

The Monica Ali book is not a pure book. It is a tool of political and social attack on a community that does not need being attacked. We need the East End of London to be accurately and ethically portrayed, not being subjected to distortion, misrepresentation and stereotyping.

So a book WRITTEN BY A BANGLADESHI is a tool of attack on the Bangladeshi community?

Well, isn't the problem that she's an English person of Bangladeshi extraction who lives nowhere near Brick Lane and doesn't really know what it's like? Apparently the reason people are worried about the book is because they fear that the fact she's Bangladeshi gives the book a kind of authority which it doesn't really have. Secondly, the problem seems to be with the portrayal of Bengali Muslims who have a kind of rivalry with the Bangladeshis to whom Ali's family belongs. Apparently the rival communities have a lot of stereotypes about each other, and Ali's book repeats some of them in its characterisations. To use an imperfect analogy, it sounds like the equivalent of a London-raised city dweller who was born in Cardiff writing a novel about provincial Welsh farmers being sheep-shaggers. I don't know how true any of it is, I haven't read the book and I'm not an authority, and of course, opinion in Brick Lane is divided between those who dislike it, those who like it, and those who don't care. Book-burning is stupid, of course.

Anyway, here's a Germaine Greer article about it which kind of illuminated the problem a little for me: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1827524,00.html

[Pinball]

The Muslims are revolting.

Bit racist.

Double meaning!

[Circusfire]

Well, isn't the problem that she's an English person of Bangladeshi extraction who lives nowhere near Brick Lane and doesn't really know what it's like? .

Of course, I forgot the law that states that all fiction must be 100% accurate and can only be written by a member of the community where the fiction is based.

Apparently the reason people are worried about the book is because they fear that the fact she's Bangladeshi gives the book a kind of authority which it doesn't really have.

Nonsense. The book is objected to as it is viewed as giving the impression the residents of Brick Lane are ever so immoral as the character in it has an affair with a muslim man. To quote "Our women aren't like that."

[Notlob]

Quick notes - arranged marriage and forced marriage are two very different things.

-I wonder why there's an issue about this book, and not White Teeth? I haven't read Brick Lane, but White Teeth could also be perceived to be insulting if someone wanted to look at it that way.

- I like their campaign title too.

- I think with Asian/Sub continent communities in general, there seems to be such a narrow range of portrayal in general, and usually negative in my experience. Either that, or it's a case of, @Look at how strange they are - weird eh??!" There's no real sense of them as people. Generally speaking.

Gaah, gotta go.

[imitationleather]

London's Eastenders don't watch EastEnders, because they don't recognise its version of their demanding and rigorous minority culture. They watch Coronation Street instead. Farmers don't listen to the Archers.

Er, what?

[Ciarán2]

Well, isn't the problem that she's an English person of Bangladeshi extraction who lives nowhere near Brick Lane and doesn't really know what it's like? .

Of course, I forgot the law that states that all fiction must be 100% accurate and can only be written by a member of the community where the fiction is based.

But you know how propaganda works, Circusfire. All kinds of political issues are contained in works of fiction, it's not unreasonable to be aware of what gets read between the lines and to question the effects the book will have on a community. You seem rightly concerned with issues which affect women negatively, if I were to show you a work of fiction which was loaded with mysogynistic crap and you took offence to parts of the book, would it be fair or right for me to castigate you and say "well it's only a book you stupid bitch"?

Apparently the reason people are worried about the book is because they fear that the fact she's Bangladeshi gives the book a kind of authority which it doesn't really have.

I think that's a fair comment.

Alright, I don't need "authority" or any in-depth knowledge of what it's like to be a U-boat captain to write a novel about life on a U-boat. But that's kind of beside the point.  When a group of people, an ethnic minority, is portrayed negatively, it is reasonable to be alert to it and question the motives behind it and what effects it may have. Do you remember those episodes of Eastenders set in Ireland in the mid 90s  - the uproar they caused? And the way the BBC was inundated with complaints from Irish people and British people alike? But...it's "only a fiction! So, hey, they're right - we are backward potato chomping Murphys who can't tell the difference between a soap opera and real life!" For once, that Eastenders nonsense proved that people are capable of spotting when there are detrimental effects to be had from a a work of fiction which is felt to be inaccurate or unjust in some way.

It's still a bit silly to burn books though.

[hands cold, liver warm]

she's from bolton originally. I live quite close to bolton and can categorically say that boltonians are the biggest bunch of wankers in the world

burn her book

[Pinball]

BBC's EastEnders certainly is laughably inaccurate in reflecting the reality of the East End. First of all, it's in English, whereas in reality Bangladeshi is the most common dialect, ahead of cockney.

That said, it's probably just as well that the Beeb doesn't include more Bangladeshis in the cast, as 'The Community' would no doubt hold even more demonstrations against freedom of speech. They clearly don't understand the majority culture and legal framework of the country they're supposed to be living in. Sorry if that sounds racist, but tough shit, that's the bottomline IMO. Either they integrate or fuck off.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It's hard to know who you want less in your country after comments like that.