UK: Graphic novel depicting Muslim suicide bomber pulled from publication for “Islamophobia”
It sounds as if it was a stupid book: “When a young boy enters a library wearing an explosive vest hidden underneath his lovely new red jacket, he has only one plan on his mind. But as he observes those around him becoming captivated by the books they are reading, the boy can’t help but question his reason for being there.”
This reflects the false assumption that many non-Muslims hold, that jihad stems from poverty and ignorance. Zainab Akhtar wasn’t far off when she described the book as “an illiterate brown Muslim boy who goes into a library with a suicide bomb only to start having second thoughts because people seem so into the world of books and if only he could read.”
In reality, suicide bombers can read, and they read the Qur’an’s guarantee of Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111).
But the letter calling for the banning of the book said: “The simple fact is that today, the biggest terrorist threat in the US is white supremacy.”
That is a false claim. But even if it were true, what does it matter? Would the existence of the supposed white supremacist terror threat mean that there is no threat from Muslim suicide bombers? Does the existence of white supremacist terrorists mean that no jihad terrorists exist, or that we cannot discuss them?
A stupid book indeed, but the reasons for dropping it from publication are even worse.
“Graphic novel ‘steeped in Islamophobia’ pulled after protests,” by Alison Flood, Guardian, November 26, 2018 (thanks to Ralph):
A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library, a controversial new comic that has been described as “wilfully fear-mongering and spreading harmful stereotypes”, has been pulled from publication following a barrage of criticism.The graphic novel, written by the Newbery medal-winning author Jack Gantos and illustrated by Sandman artist Dave McKean, follows a young, brown-skinned would-be terrorist. It was due to be released in May 2019.“When a young boy enters a library wearing an explosive vest hidden underneath his lovely new red jacket, he has only one plan on his mind. But as he observes those around him becoming captivated by the books they are reading, the boy can’t help but question his reason for being there,” reads a description from its publisher, Abrams.Comics publisher Zainab Akhtar described the comic on Twitter last week as dealing with “an illiterate brown Muslim boy who goes into a library with a suicide bomb only to start having second thoughts because people seem so into the world of books and if only he could read”.“Because reading will help the ignorant brown Muslim boy question/renounce his beliefs, you see, in addition to being some vague kumbaya about how a specific interpretation of culture will save the barbarian,” she wrote.An open letter to Abrams from the Asian Author Alliance, signed by more than 1,000 writers, teachers and readers, called the book “steeped in Islamophobia and profound ignorance”.The letter continued: “The simple fact is that today, the biggest terrorist threat in the US is white supremacy. In publishing A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library, Abrams is wilfully fear-mongering and spreading harmful stereotypes in a failed attempt to show the power of story.”Gantos’s story was originally part of Here I Stand, a 2016 young adult anthology for Amnesty International, which said at the time that Gantos’s story “celebrates the power of books to transform lives”.As criticism of the comic spread online, McKean, one of the UK’s most acclaimed comics illustrators, responded, saying that the book was “firmly on the side of literacy, empathy and non-violence”.“The premise of the book is that a boy uses his mind and faith to decide for himself that violence is not the right course,” he tweeted. Responding to a reader who had said the story was about “a brown boy basically learning all this from a white space”, McKean said that he had “had just this anxiety when the script came to me. I just hoped we’d moved beyond each of us only being able to talk to and from our own little cultural bubble. My responsibility was to research, talk to consultants.”On Monday, McKean told the Guardian he felt it was “absolutely the right decision to bin the book”. “A few factors changed from the initiation of the project until now, and I’m sure we all have our own thoughts to take away from all this. I already had my doubts that a story like this should come from outside the community involved, and the arguments on Twitter convinced me that it shouldn’t,” he said. “I’ve listened and learned a hard but valuable lesson.”…
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