Gutless indeed. Islamic groups worldwide are doing next to nothing to fight against real-life Islamic terrorists, but feature one in a novel or a TV show, and it’s off to the battle stations. “Islamic fears kill off children’s thriller,” by Murray Waldren and Jodie Minus in The Australian, with thanks to Danlew:
A LEADING children’s publisher has dumped a novel because of political sensitivity over Islamic issues.
Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller for younger readers because the “baddie” was a Muslim terrorist.
A prominent literary agent has slammed the move as “gutless”, while the book’s author, award-winning novelist John Dale, said the decision was “disturbing because it’s the book’s content they are censoring”.
“There are no guns, no bad language, no sex, no drugs, no violence that is seen or on the page,” Dale said, but because two characters are Arabic-speaking and the plot involves a mujaheddin extremist group, Scholastic’s decision is based “100 per cent (on) the Muslim issue”.
This decision is at odds with the recent publication of Richard Flanagan’s bestselling The Unknown Terrorist and Andrew McGahan’s Underground in which terrorists are portrayed as victims driven to extreme acts by the failings of the West.
The Unknown Terrorist is dedicated to David Hicks and describes Jesus Christ as “history’s first … suicide bomber”.
Typical.