Some of you may be aware that we were due to hire our community space out on the 29th of June for a screening of the film Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie. While we, as a shop, supported Corbyn’s grass-roots movement and his alternative approach to economics, as well as his policies of social inclusion, we made the difficult decision to cancel this hire.
At the time of accepting the room hire booking, we were barely aware of the film and had no idea of the controversy surrounding it. It is important that you are aware that no individuals or organisations put any pressure on us to cancel this hire, we take full responsibility for the decision. We received a direct message on 21 June, 8 days before the hire asking us if it was appropriate for us to screen this film. As a result, we spent some time looking into the nature and content of the arguments and issues surrounding the film for ourselves. We also looked into the wide and varied responses to the film, from institutions and publications such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Morning Star, with more being published daily (which we are trying to keep on top of). As such, we found it might be in breach of our ethos and code of conduct regarding anti-discrimination and anti-semitism. As an organisation which respects a balanced argument, it was imperative we looked earnestly at both sides of this debate. Ultimately however, it was clear that this was going to be a very divisive issue and one of our guiding principles is promoting unity. This along with our desire for equity, inclusion, and social justice, and the imminence of the booking made it difficult for us to continue with the hire as originally planned.
We also want to be clear that the decision to not to proceed with this booking does not reflect a change in our solidarity with Palestine. We continue to sell Zaytoun products in support of Palestine as well as books about Israeli apartheid. However we recognise that some of the rhetoric surrounding Israel slips into anti-semitism and we also stand in solidarity with the Jewish community who often experience conflation between the actions of Israel as a nation and Jews as an ethnic and religious group.
In addition to the film potentially breaching our ethos and code of conduct, we wished to remain consistent with the anti-conspiracy stances we had taken toward issues such as Anti-Vaxxing, Q-Anon, and the war in Ukraine and our research led us to believe that there may be conspiracy theories aired in the film that are not related to anti-semitism. Proliferating conspiracy theories can lead to significant legal problems and as a small organisation already struggling with the cost of living crisis we simply do not have the funds for legal fees. Controversial though it may be, our first priority has always been toward our community, which is composed of individuals from many different cultural, religious, social, and economic backgrounds. We believe it is of the utmost importance that this space remains one which is open, which prioritises unity, and truth. We hope this helps you understand our decision making process so far.
However, we do recognise that we cannot always make the right decision, and respect that some of you are disappointed by the one we have made. In the coming weeks, we will be reflecting on these circumstances, and will try to resolve them as best we can. We will also be engaged in reading new information on this issue as it becomes available. As ever, this is a movable feast and it's important that we move with it as we try to craft a resolution which assesses the subject as objectively and fairly as possible.
One way we plan to resolve this issue is to hold a constructive discussion on our decision making process and how we reflect the views of our community. This will probably take place in the week beginning the 7th August. If you would like to be involved in this discussion please do email Jamie at jamie@octoberbooks.org with the subject line ‘next steps.’
Finally, we also want to highlight that some of our team members have been subjected to verbal abuse since we took the decision to cancel this hire. This is unacceptable. We are a small team, all working part time at National Living Wage rates because we passionately believe in the ethos of October Books and are trying to have a positive impact on our community. We will always be willing to have reasonable discussion and debate and accept that, of course, we won’t always get every call right but our team, in the shop and online, have the right to do their jobs without being subjected to verbal (or physical) abuse and intimidation. In light of this, we hope you will accept that individual team members in the shop and on social media won't be engaging in further conversation about this.
