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A war of words has broken out between noted writers Salman Rushdie and Germaine Greer over the controversy surrounding the shooting of a film based on Monica Ali's novel 'Brick Lane'. Brick Lane is an area in London that is dominated by people of Bangladeshi origin. According to many people in the area, the award-winning novel portrays the community in a negative light. Efforts to shoot the film in the area have been foiled by protests organised by traders and others living in the area. The controversy is being described as the 'Battle of Brick Lane'. In a letter to The Guardian Saturday, Rushdie criticised Greer for supporting the protestors of Brick Lane saying her action was "philistine, sanctimonious, and disgraceful but not unexpected". He wrote: "As I well remember, she has done this before. At the height of the assault against my novel 'The Satanic Verses', Germaine Greer stated 'I refuse to sign petitions for that book of his, which was about his own troubles'. She went on to describe me as 'a megalomaniac, an Englishman with dark skin'. Now it's Monica Ali's turn to be deracinated by Germaine." According to the Guardian, Rushdie's complaints about Greer refer to an interview published in the American women's magazine in 1992 in which she allegedly said she would not support Rushdie. She is also reported to have said: "Jail is a good place for writers - they write. I told Salman that. Now he won't see me. He wouldn't accept my Christmas eve invitation." Greer, who attended Cambridge University in the late 1960s with Rushdie, later denied the report, stating: "It is clearly not what I think of Salman." Rushdie, however, was unconvinced saying after the affair: "(Greer) keeps saying rude things about me ... and about other people - then claiming she has been misquoted." The paper reported that Greer declined to comment on the latest round of her spat with Rushdie, but sources close to her suggested she is considering a written response to the escalating debate. The campaign against Monica Ali's film 'Brick Lane', which Greer is accused of backing, says that Ali's portrayal of London's Bangladeshi community and, in particular, her depiction of people from the Sylhet region is insulting. In an article in The Guardian Monday, Greer defended attempts by Brick Lane locals to prevent filming of the movie on their streets. "Ali did not concern herself with the possibility that her plot might seem outlandish to the people who created the particular culture of Brick Lane. As British people know little and care less about the Bangladeshi people in their midst, their first appearance as characters in an English novel had the force of a defining caricature." Greer said Brick Lane was a real place and there was no need for Monica Ali to invent it. But in giving her novel such a familiar and specific name, Ali was able to build a marvellously creative elaboration on a pre-existing stereotype. "English readers were charmed by her Bengali characters," she continued, "But some of the Sylhetis of Brick Lane did not recognise themselves. Bengali Muslims smart under an Islamic prejudice that they are irreligious and disorderly, the impure among the pure, and here was a proto-Bengali writer with a Muslim name, portraying them as all of that and more. For people who don't have much else, self-esteem is crucial. "For the novel Brick Lane, Ali didn't need to spend any time at all in the real Brick Lane. Movies are different. Permission is now being sought to film the cinematic Brick Lane in the real Brick Lane. "The community has the moral right to keep the film-makers out but they cannot then complain if somewhere else it is used and presented to the world as Brick Lane."
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