Letters: Why I left the Society of Authors

Write and wrong

Sir: As a former member of the Society of Authors I read with interest Julie Bindel’s article about its failure to defend J.K. Rowling when she received death threats (‘Write-off’, 26 November). I asked on the society’s ‘Children’s Writers and Illustrators’ Facebook page why they had not spoken out in support of a fellow children’s author and the administrator replied that Rowling ‘has not requested an intervention’. I hadn’t realised that the defence of freedom of speech was something which had to be specifically requested. The other responses I got ranged from blandly negative to downright vitriolic and it wasn’t long before the administrator closed the discussion. I’m quite certain that was in order to protect the society rather than any of its members. I didn’t leave the SoA in a blaze of glory, I just didn’t bother renewing my membership. I suspect I’m not the only one.

John Harris

Chelmsford

West isn’t always best

Sir: While one can hardly disagree with the overall tenor of Harriet Sergeant’s declamation of the monstrosity of the Iranian regime, it is misleading to describe it as a ‘medieval Islamic theocracy’ (‘Massacre of the innocents’, 26 November). With an intellectual milieu formed by Neoplatonic readings of the Quran, medieval Iran nurtured some of the greatest scientists, philosophers, mystics and poets of the contemporary world, including many women. Indeed, the medieval Islamic theocracy tout court was surely a happier place for women, Christians and Jews than are many of its modern successors. For now, perhaps Iranian girls have better access to social media than to books, and football and TikTok are more effective weapons in the fight to shame the tyrants. But in the longer term, a recovery of some older Persian insights may yield a better future for Iranians than the wholesale adoption of western secular liberalism, the results of which are not always the envy of the world.