How dare you knight the man we want killed?
I felt very close to losing my temper when reading this.
Also today, Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said many Muslims would regard the knighthood as the final insult from Tony Blair before he leaves office next week. “Salman Rushdie earned notoriety amongst Muslims for the highly insulting and blasphemous manner in which he portrayed early Islamic figures,” Dr Bari said. “The granting of a knighthood to him can only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world. Many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world.”
Insult is it. Rushdie earned notoriety is it. Harm to our image is it. Contemptuous is it. What about the serious and dedicated effort to get the novelist murdered merely for writing a story about ‘early Islamic figures’ you contemptible apologist for theocratic tyranny? What about that? Eh? Eh? Why are you so worried about an award given to a novelist and so unworried by murder and attempted murder? Why do you have such a pathetic, ludicrous, immoral, twisted sense of priorities? What is the matter with you?
The Guardian does the vocabulary thing, of course. ‘The comments follow other condemnation of the award for Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses provoked worldwide protests over allegations that it insulted Islam.’ The novel ‘provoked’ protests. Bad novel, naughty Rushdie, provoking and insulting dear kind caring Dr Bari and his hundreds of millions of friends.
Three cheers for Tony for pissing of the m.c.b.his work is now done!
Lord Ahmed, a labour peer and former labour MP, is quoted in the Guardian as saying that Rushdie is a man ‘who has insulted the British public’, presumably by writing award winning novels – what a bastard!
I wish I could say that hearing such sentiments expressed was shocking.
I don’t concur with your condemnation of the Grauniad’s reporting in this article, though: sometimes comment is unnecessary. Did you really feel that the Graun was sympathetic to the wacko contingent here? That wasn’t the feeling I got.
If you think that the Guardian’s coverage is ambivalent, you should take a look at the Daily Mail.
Seems that they are delighted that the fascist regimes in Pakistan and Iran are back to calling for the murder of Rushdie and for a wave of suicide bombings in response to the award of a medal.
Mind you this is from the paper that had a front page stating ‘Hooray for the Blackshirts’ in the 1930’s. Plus ca change…
The first two comments on an article on the history of the “Rushdie affair” in today’s Times:
>If the British Establishment were really sincere in their purported love of Free Speech, then a knighthood to British Historian David Irving would be in order. Irving is a much better and far more important writer than Rushdie, and paid the price of 16 months of incarceration in an Austrian prison.<
Aftab A. Malik, Esq., Beverly Hills, CA
>Might be better if in future all such honours are submitted to the Pakistani government for approval before being signed off by the Queen. Come to think of it why not have a similar system for all UK government appointments (politicians, judges etc) and all literary and artistic awards (BAFTAs etc). In this way anyone critical of Islam can be weeded out of the selection process at an early stage. Surely such a “minor” infringement of our civic liberties would be worthwhile if it spared any offended Muslim the necessity of burning the Union Jack in public or detonating himself. Or perhaps not.<
David, Leeds, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1950780.ece
Thank you for writing about this – yours is the only sane coverage I’ve been able to find. If I see one more mealy-mouthed, equivocating article I’ll scream. Rushdie’s right to freedom of expression is more important than these frothing lunatics’ ‘right’ not to be offended.
I am curious why no fatwa has been issued (or has there, have i missed it?) against Christopher Hitchens, whose blasphemously titled ‘God is not great’ book has recently been published? Salman’s experience was chilling enough, but are our islamist friends just biding their time before deciding to further send shivers up our spines by declaring Hitchens a blasphemer (all i said was ‘that piece of halibut was good enough for jehovah’).
So Ahmed calls for the K to be revoked. I wonder if he’ll hand in his peerage in protest, the twat.
I’ve been away from most blogs for weeks because of work pressures. So it’s doubly refreshing to see once again Ophelia’s weapons-grade rhetoric blazing from all barrels.
There’ll be a helluva backlash before this is over. The nutters are just inviting the National Front to take up their red, white and blue cudgels.
“The nutters are just inviting the National Front to take up their red, white and blue cudgels.”
Precisely, so they can try for another round of oppressive – “musn’t offend peoles’ religious sensibilities legislation.
It is to be hoped that people are finally waking up to this one.
“The nutters are just inviting the National Front to take up their red, white and blue cudgels.”
That’s why it’s so important that progressive people take the lead in standing against this fundamentalist bullying. My belief is that your average non-intellectual, non-media Brit is just as fed up with the kow-towing to radical Islam as we are. What really would be disastrous is if, finding no support from the conventional political classes, they turned to the fascists in desperation. It’s vital for us to take a principled, non-racist, pro-liberal democratic stand against this movement.
And once again, congrats to Sir Salman. Loved Shalimar the Clown, by the way.
Benny, the difference between Rushdie and Hitchens in the eyes of the mullahs is that Rushdie was born to Muslim parents and so is in their eyes a Muslim. By writing the Satanic Verses he was deemed to have rejected Islam and is therefore apostate – the sentence for which, according to the ravings of a 7th century goat molester, is death.
Hitchens has been an Anglican, Greek Orthodox and married by a Rabbi (all the while maintaining that he is a lifelong atheist) so his defamation of the so called prophet is, to the troo beleeevar, par for the course – he will, like thee and me, burn in hell anyway.
Yeah, about outflanking the National Front. Liberal secular universalist opposition over here, folks.
outeast, no, I didn’t think the Guardian article as a whole was sympathetic, I just think all journalism ought to avoid saying Rushdie or his novel provoked or caused or sparked or triggered or aroused outrage – journalism ought not to make the outrage Rushdie’s doing in any way. It’s very like saying ‘the woman provoked her rape by walking past the man’ or ‘the victim provoked his murder by wearing a nasty hat.’ Rushdie didn’t provoke anything; he wrote a novel.
“Thank you for writing about this – yours is the only sane coverage I’ve been able to find…
| Lucy | 2007-06-19 – 11:00:25 |”
You haven’t been looking very much then.
On the other hand, there was this in last Sunday’s Observer:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2104875,00.html
Did anyone gasp at the passage further down in the Guardian piece? “We deplore the decision,” said Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam yesterday. Rushdie’s knighthood would hamper inter-faith understanding, she said. “This we feel is insensitive and we [will] convey our sentiments to the British government.” Interesting that Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokespeople are being schooled in western multiculturalist jargon about “interfaith understanding” and protecting sensitivities while its parliamentarians urge reprisals.
The pakistani reaction is more understandable if you know something of their history :
Ghazi Ilm ud Din Shaheed , in 1929, heard another muslim, Syed Ataullah Shah Bokhari, talk about the book Rangila Rasul published by publisher Rajpal which allegedly insulted the Prophet He went home and inquired who had written the book. He was told that it was written by the editor of Pratab Lahore, Mahashay Krishna. He went and killed Rajpal in his shop in February and was hanged by the british in October 1929.”
The founder of Pakistan, Ali Jinnah defended Ghazi and Allama Iqbal, the poet considered the soul of the nation, called him a shaheed or martyr and carried his bier in the funeral procession. Both men are considered “moderate secularists”.
The murderer is to this day venerated by Pakistanis who have built him a shrine at his gravesite at Miana sahib and have yearly two-day celebrations of this slayer of ‘blasphemy’. Talk about national heroes…
In the first link below, a pakistani journalist revisits the old ‘hero’ in the light of a more recent wannabe, Amir Cheema, who tried to do a similar job on the editor of the Die Welt for the ‘blasphemy’ of the danish cartoons.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C12%5C16%5Cstory_16-12-2005_pg3_2
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-10-2004_pg7_24
mirax,
I’m not sure ‘understandable’ is exactly what you mean…Predictable? Unsurprising? ‘Understandable’ includes an overtone of something like ‘pardonable’ or ‘not so terrible’ and knowing you I don’t think that’s what you mean.
I should know more about Jinnah…
‘ …knowing you I don’t think that’s what you mean.’
You can take that to the bank and cash it.
explicable is probably what i mean. I am rather shocked by that bit of information i posted above, Ophelia. To have a 77 year long fetish for a man such as Ilam Din!
Supposedly, the murderer’s body was exhumed after 13 days and found to be still ‘fresh’, sealing his shaheed status…so there was a further layer of supernatural mumbojumbo invented to keep this man’s memory alive.
@ Don, yes, you are right but do I detect a PP-inflected note of disapproval …?
Argh, yes, I’m shocked by all of it. I’m shocked by the warped priorities. Rushdie’s book is an outrage; people murdered for ‘blasphemy’ or ‘apostasy’ no problem. It’s revolting.
David! I didn’t realize that was you (until I looked). Hiya. Yes, I did gasp; I saw Tasnim Aslam saying her piece on BBC world news last night, and I was shocked. She looks perfectly sane, and she talked the most appalling drivel.
mirax,
Scarcely. I’m struggling to think of a single comment you have made with which I did not agree. You may find that worrying.
By the way, guess who’s back and on the case.
http://www.jesusandmo.net/
Ha! ‘Do they have effigy shops in Pakistan or something’ – good one.
Hey, has anyone heard a sqeal out of the cat as yet? Or is it singing a different tune? How very unchristian!
<>“squeal” out of the writhing cat<> -should have read.
*You may find that worrying*
I find it a relief. Phew! Thanks, I often felt that way about your posts on PP. But ultimately, PP left me with a nasty taste in the mouth and a certain defensiveness about judgements, real or imagined. And yeah, I do realise that my being thin-skinned is entirely my problem… ;-)
mirax,
Really? I must have misjudged my tone, as I hold you in the highest esteem.
You rock, mirax.
Don,
Wow, I certainly didn’t expect that ,thanks.
Ophelia,
No one rawks on your scale, woman! Thank you AGAIN for B&W, my daily shot of sanity.
Grin
My pleasure!