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Jillian Becker

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Jillian Becker
Born (1932-06-02) 2 June 1932 (age 92)
Johannesburg, South Africa
Pen nameJillian Becker
NationalityBritish and American
CitizenshipBritain and United States
EducationBA
Alma materUniversity of the Witwatersrand
Notable worksHitler's Children, The Keep, The PLO
Notable awardsPushcart Prize
Website
www.theatheistconservative.com

Jillian Becker (born 2 June 1932, Johannesburg, South Africa)[1] is a novelist,[2] prize-winning story-writer, critic, journalist[3] and lecturer, best known internationally as a writer, researcher, and authority on the subject of terrorism[4] and a prominent atheist.[5]

Life

Her father, Dr Bernard Friedman, was a South African surgeon and politician who co-founded the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. Becker says in book jacket biographies that she was "undereducated" at Roedean School in Johannesburg. At the age of 14 she won first prize in a national essay competition on the evils of race-discrimination set by the (anti-apartheid) Institute of Race Relations.

She graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand where she made a lifelong platonic friendship with the scientist, Lewis Wolpert and the writer, Lionel Abrahams. She left her first husband, Michael Geber, in South Africa to live in Italy with her second husband, Gerry Becker, later moving to Mountfort Crescent off Barnsbury Square, in London. It was here that Becker's friend, Sylvia Plath, came to stay with her young children in the days immediately before Plath committed suicide and it is here that Becker's book about Plath's last days, "Giving Up" is based. Becker has been a British citizen since 1960.[1][6]

She had two marriages which ended in divorce, succeeded by a long relationship with Bernhard Adamczewski who filled the triple role of co-director of IST (see below), computer manager and explosives expert, having become qualified in the use of explosives when he had worked in the South African gold mines in the 1950s. The marriages produced three daughters and six grandchildren.

Becker is on the council of the Freedom Association.[7] She lives in California.[8]

She is the manager and editor of The Atheist Conservative blog.[9] She is a lifelong friend of the atheist scientist, Lewis Wolpert, and she knew and frequently corresponded with the famous atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, and the Irish artist husband and wife pair, Philip and Barry Castle. Indeed, Barry painted a portrait of Becker and Adamczewski.[citation needed] A series of biographical sketches about southern African writers she has known, such as Doris Lessing and Lionel Abrahams and others has been published in the New English Review in 2020.[10]

A lecture series titled The Jillian Becker Annual Lecture was launched under the auspices of The Freedom Association in 2018. The invited lecturers are required to speak on the general theme of the importance of individual freedom and/or of the nation-state.

Published works

Her early work (see below) is mostly fiction which was banned in her native South Africa, under the apartheid regime.

She has written an account of the death of her friend, the poet Sylvia Plath, who stayed with Becker for the last weekend of her life.[11] Dissatisfied with the biographers' treatments and after seeing the film script to Sylvia (and declining the opportunity to have anything to do with the film), Becker decided to write her own account of Plath's death: Giving Up: the last days of Sylvia Plath. Becker was also a friend and near neighbour of Douglas Cleverdon, whose wife, Nest, gave Becker spare clothes for Plath's children during the period just after the suicide was discovered. When her memoir The Last Days of Sylvia Plath was published in Britain in 2002, its revelations were the subject of a major feature by the Independent on Sunday, provoking both supportive and hostile comments. The printed correspondence brought to light new facts about the poet's life.

Her most famous book, Hitler’s Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang, is about the German Red Army Faction. The book was chosen by Golo Mann as Newsweek (Europe) book of the year 1977[12] and serialised in newspapers in London, Oslo and Tokyo.

The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization was commissioned by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and published in 1984. Becker spent months in Lebanon during the war in which Israel drove the PLO out of that country. She claimed to have retrieved secret documents from ruins of bombed PLO office buildings and to have interviewed Lebanese of all denominations and Palestinians who had experienced PLO oppression, as well as supporters, members and leaders of the PLO.[13]

Other works include novels and short stories (see below) and numerous contributions to periodicals, such as Simone Weil: A Saint for our Time? She has written for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times Literary Supplement, The Salisbury Review, Encounter, The Quarterly Review,and Standpoint; and in the US, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, Terrorism an international journal,The New English Review, and The New Criterion. She has contributed to scholarly articles on terrorism in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Institute for the Study of Terrorism

In the 1980s, Becker served in a multi-party working group to advise the British Parliament on measures to combat international terrorism. She was also consulted by the embassies of several countries affected by indigenous terrorist organisations, some of which were supported by foreign nation states. In many of these cases, terrorist activity was an aspect of proxy wars, or what Becker called "the hot spots of the Cold War".[14]

In 1985, with Lord Chalfont, a former minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, she founded the "Institute for the Study of Terrorism" (IST) of which she was executive director from 1985 to 1990. With Chalfont on the presiding council were Baroness Cox, who was then deputy speaker of the House of Lords, and Lord Orr-Ewing. The institute's International Advisory Council included experts in many Western countries on terrorism, security, weaponry, and geo-politics. In the Institute itself Becker worked with a small staff of researchers and translators. Bernhard Adamczewski was her co-director at IST.[14]

IST kept in close touch with the Bomb Disposal Unit of the Metropolitan Police and the Airport Police Authorities. On some occasions IST received information, for instance about the smuggling across international borders of explosive material, before it had been conveyed by official channels, and was able to alert the relevant authorities. Institute personnel undertook to test airport security by smuggling imitation bombs in luggage through international airports, and found it deficient.[citation needed]

The chief purpose of the institute was to gather intelligence about terrorist organisations and their membership, and keep the British Parliament and the media informed about them, countering the propaganda and exposing pretexts and lies put out by the violent organisations themselves.[15] IST commissioned expert studies of terrorist groups and distributed them to members of both Houses of Parliament, to newspapers, individual journalists, radio and television news channels, foreign embassies, Customs and Excise, police forces, military experts, and university departments. It also held seminars addressed by experts in relevant subjects from many countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle and Far East.

IST cooperated with the Institute for the European Defence and Strategic Studies, (set up by Peter Blaker, Baron Blaker) in the organisation of an international conference on defence at Windsor in 1986. Also, with the Faculty of Laws of the University of London, the Institute held an international conference in 1988 at Ditchley Park, the venue of many Anglo-American top-level conferences. The three-day event was opened by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. One of the most important addresses was given by John Hermon, Chief of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

IST was a registered charity, supported mainly by charitable donations but also partly self-supporting by providing expert consultancy and supplying reports to private companies, such as those needing risk assessments when expanding into foreign countries.[citation needed]

In 1990 the institute was forced to close as many donors stopped their contributions, convinced that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Communist satellites in Eastern Europe, there would be no more internationally sponsored terrorism. Becker warned that terrorism, far from being over, would become an even greater menace in the coming years, but she failed to persuade donors of her point of view and so lost their support.

The archive of the institute was bought by the University of Leicester, and was one of the collections with which the Scarman Centre, a research facility for the Department of Criminology, was founded. (The Scarman Centre is now Leicester University Department of Criminology)

Books

Selected fiction

  • THE KEEP Chatto & Windus, London 1967 Penguin 1971 ISBN 0-14-003204-5; ISBN 978-0-14-003204-8 reissued as A PENGUIN MODERN CLASSIC 2008 ISBN 978-0-14-318561-1
  • A CRY IN THE DAYTIME (inter alia, South African Writing Today edited by Lionel Abrahams and Nadine Gordimer Penguin 1967 ISBN 978-1-199-12324-4 ISBN 1199123242)
  • THE STENCH (inter alia, On the Edge of the World edited by A.D.Donker 1974 ISBN 0-949937-76-2 ISBN 978-0949937766) Re-published in the USA earned a Pushcart Prize award.
  • THE KEEP Penguin SA, Modern Classics 2008 ISBN 978-0-14-318561-1
  • THE UNION, Chatto & Windus London 1971 ISBN 0-7011-1625-0
  • THE VIRGINS Gollancz London 1976 David Philip Cape Town 1986 ISBN 978-0-86486-050-7 (0864860501)
  • L: A NOVEL HISTORY Ferrington London 2005 ISBN 1-898490-46-5
  • A TOUR IN A FOREIGN LIFE eBookPartnership USA 2014 ISBN 978-1-78301-452-1
  • SECRET LOVE AND OTHER STORIES Gothenburg Books USA 2019 ISBN 978-1-7333081-1-3; ISBN 978-1-7333081-0-6
  • MORDEC RAIDS ENGLAND (THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MORDEC THE VIKING) Gothenburg Books 2018 ISBN 1732727503; ISBN 978-1732727502
  • MORDEC'S QUEST (THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MORDEC THE VIKING)Gothenburg Books 2018 ISBN 173272752X; ISBN 978-1732727526
  • MORDEC & THE LOST BOYS (THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MORDEC THE VIKING) Gothenburg Books 2018 ISBN 1732727562; ISBN 978-1732727564
  • MORDEC & THE HIDDEN HAND (THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MORDEC THE VIKING) Gothenburg Books 2018 ISBN 1732727546; ISBN 978-1732727540
  • MORDEC THE CONQUEROR (THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF MORDEC THE VIKING) Gothenburg Books 2018 ISBN 1732727589; ISBN 978-1732727588

Non-fiction

Memoir

  • GIVING UP:THE LAST DAYS OF SYLVIA PLATH

Ferrington London 2002 ISBN 1-898490-31-7 ISBN 978-1898490319 St. Martin's Press New York 2003

As editor

  • THE SOVIET UNION AND TERRORISM by Roberta Goren, with an Introduction by Robert Conquest, Unwin Hyman, London, 1984[22]

Specialist publications

  • THE SOVIET CONNECTION: STATE SPONSORSHIP OF TERRORISM Institute for European Defence & Strategic Studies, occasional paper No 13: 'The Soviet Connection': 'State Sponsorship of Terrorism' by Jillian Becker. London 1985 ISBN 0-907967-60-4 ISBN 978-0907967606
  • EXPLODING THE MYTH OF THE PLO London 1986
  • NEO-NAZISM: A THREAT TO EUROPE? Alliance for IEDSS London 1993 ISBN 0-907967-47-7 ISBN 978-0907967477
  • THE STRUGGLE FOR WHAT? TERRORISM IN WEST GERMANY IST London 1988
  • ANOTHER FINAL BATTLE ON THE STAGE OF HISTORY Libertarian Alliance London 1988 ISBN 1-85637-400-9 ISBN 978-1856374002
  • THE MAKING AND MEANING OF BRITISHNESS: NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE 21st CENTURY Right Now Press Ltd 2007 ISBN 9780954053420
  • SENDERO LUMINOSO: A NEW REVOLUTIONARY MODEL? Institute for the Study of Terrorism, London, 1987

As part-author CONTEMPORARY TERROR: STUDIES IN SUB-STATE VIOLENCE ed. David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf Essay: CASE STUDY, FEDERAL GERMANY Macmillan London 1981 BRITISH PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM ed. Paul Wilkinson Essay: ANOTHER FINAL BATTLE ON THE STAGE OF HISTORY George Allen and Unwin London 1981 TERRORISM: HOW THE WEST CAN WIN ed. Benjamin Netanyahu Farrar Strauss and Girou Inc. New York 1986

References

  1. ^ a b "Sylvia Plath: Jillian Becker on the poet's last days". BBC News. 10 February 2010. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
  2. ^ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jillian-Becker/e/B001IYTNSM
  3. ^ "Hitler's Children, by Jillian Becker; Carlos: Portrait of a Terrorist, by Colin Smith". November 1977.
  4. ^ https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/digitallibrary/smof/counsellor/jenkins/oa10569/40-274-12009466-oa10567-001-2017.pdf
  5. ^ "The Atheist Conservative: » 1. About us".
  6. ^ "New Penguin Modern Classic: The Keep by Jillian Becker". Penguin Books South Africa. 29 September 2008.
  7. ^ The Freedom Association - Council and Supporters Archived 7 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Jillian Becker | Authors | Macmillan". Us.macmillan.com. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  9. ^ "1. About us". The Atheist Conservative. 6 May 2009. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  10. ^ "Jillian Becker".
  11. ^ "Sylvia Plath: Jillian Becker on the poet's last days". BBC News. 10 February 2013.
  12. ^ Alvarez, Alberto Martin; Tristán, Eduardo Rey (5 August 2016). Revolutionary Violence and the New Left: Transnational Perspectives. ISBN 9781317291374.
  13. ^ "The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization". Authorhouse.
  14. ^ a b "Becker, Jillian (Ruth) 1932-". Archived from the original on 14 November 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2016 – via HighBeam Research.
  15. ^ Malcher, Alan (1991). "The 1990s – the Decade of International Unrest?". The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles. 64 (3): 209–214. doi:10.1177/0032258X9106400305. S2CID 148950296.
  16. ^ Podhoretz, John (15 January 2013). "Egypt's U.S.-Subsidized Politics of Hate". Commentarymagazine.com. Retrieved 20 June 2015.[permanent dead link]
  17. ^ Jillian Becker (27 August 2014). "Nadine Gordimer: 'Comrade Madam' | Standpoint". Standpointmag.co.uk. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  18. ^ "Taken for a Ride with Doris Lessing".
  19. ^ "Lionel Abrahams: A Voice for This Season".
  20. ^ "Recollections and a Relic of Sylvia Plath".
  21. ^ "The Art of Nadine Gordimer".
  22. ^ Seth Mandel (22 February 2013). "Anti-Semitism in France and the Ghost of Emile Combes". Commentarymagazine.com. Retrieved 20 June 2015.[permanent dead link]
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