This essay, a review of the BBC documentary The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the use of predictive algorithms by local authorities.) It was published in the Observer, 3 March 2019, under the headline ‘The Satanic Verses is still creating monsters, even new book-burners’.   Sometimes, you just have to shake your head to clear it and look again. Did he really write that? So it was […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books, Free Speech • Tags: bookburning, british politics, censorship, mobbed azhar, muslims, offence, racism, rushdie affair, salman rushdie, the satanic verses