Aja Romano asks ‘Can I still read Harry Potter?’

AJA ROMANO claims to have been a Harry Potter superfan for yonks! So much so that the BBC has invited her to present a 30-minute Radio 4 documentary called: ‘Can I still read Harry Potter?’

Alas, in June this year J.K. Rowling ventured her views on the trans issue resulting in Romano rethinking a treasured childhood allegiance. On Thursday Radio 4 at 11.30am addresses questions about cancel culture, safe spaces, the appeal of Potter for LGBTQ readers and the new online relationship between authors and fans. Meanwhile, the Financial Times critic reports that Rowling has suffered a increase in sales since furore about her comments began. ***********************************************************

Hokey Cokey on Corbyn Friend's Facebook Page

Curious Corbynite Dance as Site Censor's Stefan Cholewka

  I put my right hand in, 

I put my right hand out,

In out, in out. 

 

shake it all about.

THE Hokey Cokey* is a famous traditional campfire song which has recently been adopted as method of punishment by the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page to confuse readers as to its method of administration of the site.  It follows critical allusions about the self-confessed fraud, the now Rochdale councillor Faisal Rana, who breached electoral law when he obtained and used postal votes illegally.  It was widely reported at the time that he had accepted a police caution, but the Rochdale Labour Party continued to back him, as do other useful idiots.  

Recently Stefan Cholewka, Secretary of Rochdale Trade Union Council, in a personal capacity posted some links critical of Cllr. Rana's historic conduct on the Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.  Owing to this act Sam O'Brien, a local trade union activist, then threaten to withdraw from membership of the Facebook page if Stefan's comments remained up.  

One of the Facebook administrators then obediently removed Stefan's comments, but also seemingly someone blocked Stefan from both access and posting on the site.  Then suddenly, earlier this week, he was readmitted and began posting items.  Yet within 24-hours of his readmission to the Facebook page he reported that he was out again.

'In out, in out. 

 

shake it all about.'

 

This seems to be the politics of the famous Hokey Cokey music hall dance and suggests to us that the fall of the Red Wall in the North of England may not be temporary event, as it points to a continuing degeneration in the psychology of those elements like Sam O'Brien, who seemed to think that they have the 'key to the universe'.  It is the mentality of what the French call the idée fixe, which among some elements of the Anglo-Saxon left seems to be evolving into monomania.

If they do not get a grip sites like Rochdale's Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page will become impoverished: mere megaphones bleating like of sheep. 

* The Hokey Cokey (United Kingdom and the Caribbean) or Hokey Pokey (United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Israel)^[1] is a famous, popular campfire song and participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well known in English-speaking countries. It originates in a British folk dance, with variants attested as early as 1826. The song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in the UK. The song became a chart hit twice in the 1980s. The first UK hit was by The Snowmen, which peaked at UK No. 18 in 1981.

WHO'S AFRAID OF SAM O'BRIEN?

Editorial comment:  This month it was brought to our attention that two live links had been taken down on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.  The links were to items on the NV Blog that had been put up as comments by Stefan Cholewka and led to posts critical of the establishment politics in Rochdale.  Since they were removed a local Rochdale activist, Sam O'Brien, has admitted that he threatened to withdraw from membership of the Facebook site, if the links were not removed.  

There are eleven administrators on the site and two have told NV that they were not consulted.  At this time we have not been able to contact the other administrators and it may be that they have not been consulted either, but Sam O'Brien has been kind enough to offer his thoughtful observations below.  We leave it our readership to judge the profound wisdom of his case.  We understand that any one of the administrators could remove content on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.

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Can this really be the language of the Enlightenment?

Editor's explanation:  Below is a recent e-mail from Sam 

O'Brien, a Rochdale trade unionist who prides himself on 

being an ardent 'anti-racist'.  Northern Voices does not 

believe in providing 'trigger warnings' on content 

as generally we anticipate our readers will have 

stern constitutions and to be intellectually robust.  

Yet some may easily find Mr. O'Brien's style 

surprising and even curious. 

Hello Brian,

'I didn't object. I said it was racist bollocks. I feel I am probably wasting my time but I will ty [sic] to spell it out to you. 

'You say in your article that Rochdale has been overrepresented by Muslim councillors and that has not been healthy for the democracy and moral status of the town. That is racist. Saying that there are too many Muslim councillors and that damages the democracy and morality of the town is racist bollocks. Complete and utter racist bollocks. Its the sort of racist bollocks that the BNP used to come out with, It is what the EDL say. Can you not hear yourself and how fucking offensive you are being?

'You go on to say that you are worried that the problems of the Indian sub-continent are becoming too much of an issue in the politics of the town. So the way Rochdale's councillor's vote is not influenced by whether they are left right or centre but by what is going on in Kashmir and Bangladesh. Racist crap. Again straight from the leaflets of the BNP to the pages of Northern Voices. 

'You implicitly blame all Muslims in Rochdale for propping up paedophile MP Cyril Smith. Racist bullshit. Was it not the white politicians who covered for him? Was it not the Met who disappeared the files on his abuse? The white chief executive who was willfully ignorant of the abuse? No somehow in your bizarre racist conspiracy theory world it was Muslims who were to blame. Shameful and disgraceful to publish this disgusting crap.

'I would love to know who it is on the admin team of the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook Page who thinks this is ok?

'If Stefan is standing by this racist bullshit he should consider his position within the trade union movement. 

'If this appears again on the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn page I will be leaving it.'

Sam

 

 NV Editor's Footnote [10th, August 2020]:   We would suggest that the decision of Rochdale's Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page administer who took down the contents of Stefan Cholewka comments without apparent debate, following Sam O'Brien's threat has behaved in a cowardly manner and by so doing has effectively brought the site into disrepute.  This is apparently being compounded by the fact that since then Stefan has been unable to post comments on the site.  Shortly we hope to be able to make a fuller statement on this matter explaining our own approach.

Editorial update [12/08/20]:

YESTERDAY a source close to the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page told us that comments by Stefan Cholewka have now been enabled again on the site.  This is clearly to be welcomed.

Meanwhile, Sam O'Brien has e-mailed us to say that 'All my comments are in a personal capacity' and not in any way related to any of his political or trade union affiliations. 

 

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‘Cancel culture’ Condemned by Noam Chomsky &

Salman Rushdie et al. in Harper’s Magazine

“HARRY POTTER” writer J.K Rowling, “Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood and “Midnight’s Children” writer Salman Rushdie are amongst 150 public figures to have signed a letter condemning the practice of public shaming, or ‘cancel culture’ as it is known popularly.

‘Cancel culture’ is a term used to describe individuals who have shared an unpopular opinion or have past behavior that’s deemed offensive, who are ‘canceled’ on social media. Rowling is one such example, due to her views on the trans community.

Atwood received considerable backlash in late 2016 after supporting an open letter calling on Canada’s University of British Columbia to provide its reasons for suspending and firing novelist and instructor Steven Galloway after sexual assault allegations emerged.  Meanwhile, Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” has also drawn criticism over the years for its depiction of Islamic beliefs.

Other signatories of the letter include authors Martin Amis and Jeffrey Eugenides, public intellectuals Malcolm Gladwell and Noam Chomsky, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, psychologist Steven Pinker, feminist Gloria Steinem, chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov and CNN and Washington Post journalist Fareed Zakaria.

The letter, published Tuesday in Harper’s Magazine, states:  “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.  While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.”

“Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal,” the letter argues.  “We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.”
“We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us,” the letter concludes.

The letter has provoked a deluge of online responses.  Author and transgender activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, who signed the letter, recanted her position within hours.  “I did not know who else had signed that letter,” Boylan tweeted. “I thought I was endorsing a well-meaning, if vague, message against Internet shaming.   I did know Chomsky, Steinem and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company.  The consequences are mine to bear.  I am so sorry.”
 

Similarly, historian Kerri K. Greenidge, an original signatory, was removed from the list after she tweeted that she does “not endorse” the Harpers letter, and had contacted the publication about a retraction.

Surgeon and scientist David Gorski tweeted: “I read the letter. It’s the same old whiny BS about ‘cancel culture’ from privileged people with large audiences complaining about facing criticism and consequences for their speech.  I am unimpressed.”

Meanwhile, John Boyne, author of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” tweeted:  “I agree with this letter completely.  Self-appointed witch-finders hounding people for perceived moral slip-ups while trashing reputations, destroying careers, shouting down women & pursuing cancel culture is the opposite of free speech & reasoned debate.”

PUBLISHED TODAY IN VARIETY MAGAZINE

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