What they’ve assented to
Sir Salman, on the other hand, is partly the creation of the fatwa…The Sir Salman recognised for his services to literature is certainly no neocon but is iconic of a more pernicous trend: liberal literati who have assented to the notion that humane values, tolerance and freedom are fundamentally western ideas that have to be defended as such.
No he isn’t, no he doesn’t, no they haven’t. That’s crap. What they’ve assented to (the liberal ones – if they haven’t they’re not liberal) is the opposite: that humane values, tolerance and freedom are universal ideas that have to be defended as such, and that claiming they are a monopoly of any one region or nation or ethnic group is highly illiberal as well as dangerous.
I’ve never been a fan of the honours system, but yet again – what a load of tosh in the Grauniad!
It was fun to watch John Snow making Labour peer Lord Ahmed look very silly on Ch4 news – Ahmed essentially ending-up by saying that “divisive figures” shouldn’t be honoured. And by that he clearly meant anyone he didn’t personally approve of. Had to laugh as he claimed to be a middle ground between:
a) people who want to give Rushdie a gong
&
b) people who want to suicide bomb him.
mmmm…yesss…that’s the two ends of the spectrum alright!
ho hum. Supernaturalist is as supernaturalist does, yet again. :-)
I want to see LORD DAWKINS in the next round!
;-)
No, neither have I ever been a fan (though I admit I was pleased when Derek Jacobi got his K), but one doesn’t have to be to find fans of murder getting in a snit about a knighthood – enough to make a cat sick.
Of course, if Gordon Borwn were to trump Blair (and he is almost wetting himself with the anticipation of doing so) then he could give Rushdie a peerage (Lord Rushdie of Tehran!) which would make him eligible to sit in parliament. Now that really would get on the Ayatollah’s tits!
ahem… *Brown*… scuse me…
MCB = Merciless Corrupt Blackguards.
[…] Appignanesi gives Priyamvada Gopal one in the eye […]