Rushdie sparked calls for his own execution – right?
The flattering descriptions continue. The BBC says Rushdie’s book ‘sparked worldwide protests’. The Guardian says ‘The Satanic Verses provoked the ire of many Muslims and led to the issuing of a fatwa,’ and still talks of a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s ‘execution,’ still says the book was ‘immediately condemned by the Islamic world’ (it’s hard to know what that last phrase even means – it sounds quite surreal). On BBC World News last night a reporter said Rushdie ‘affronted Muslim values’ by writing the book. Horrible, toadying stuff.
Lisa Appignanesi gives Priyamvada Gopal one in the eye though.
During the dark years of the Fatwa, Rushdie lent his fame to help less well-known writers around the world who suffered similar fates or found themselves persecuted either by states or religious hierarchies for their work. As a vice-president of English Pen, the world association of writers, and for some years president of American Pen, he worked indefatigably for the cause of free expression, joining with us here to combat the worst excesses of the government’s “religious hatred” legislation. Perhaps in awarding him this honour, the government has also come to recognise the crucial importance of a freedom which underpins so many others. Rushdie’s “services to literature” also extend to a singular generosity in helping young, and particularly Asian, writers make their way in what is often a difficult literary marketplace.
Universal values, universal liberal values, not western, not European, not white. Universal. Think about it, Priyamvada Gopal.
Saying that X led to W, or provoked Y, or sparked Z is stating causes, not an assignment of blame. Or do you think the protests, fatwas etc would have happened in the absence of the book? That would be truly surreal.
Andrew:
You are missing the gaps:
1) If I were to publish such a book and no one heard about it then there would be no protests. So mere publication is not enough.
2) If having heard of my book the relevant religious authorities decided to ignore it or gave its publication a benign interpretation then there would be no protests.
3) If the relevant religious authorities condemned the book but were ignored there would be no protests.
4) If the relevant religious authorities condemned the book but their followers demanded to read the book for themselves there would be no protests like those in the Satanic Verses case, where translators were attacked and in one case murdered.
Most of all what you miss is that expressions like “there were reactions” are in the “passive voice devious” since it would be correct to say that “people reacted” and people *always* have a choice whether to react and how to react. The deviousness is in the implication that we are talking about reactions in the Newtonian sense, as if people were inanimate objects
Saying that X led to W, or provoked Y, or sparked Z is stating causes, not an assignment of blame.
“Provocation” is not a neutral term. It assigns a character or value to a causal act, and it is therefore an assignment of blame. It also identifies something as a causal act, which isn’t neutral either.
And you are confusing cause with response.
For example:
My drinking too much last night has caused me to have a hangover this morning.
My response to this is to shrug my shoulders, not to firebomb the distillery.
Or do you think the protests, fatwas etc would have happened in the absence of the book?
Ha ha.
Yes. Those who needed them would have found something else.
The protests (nice euphemism for death threats and riots) didn’t occur because and only because of the book. They were a considered and constructed response. And they were not a necessary or reasonable response.
Furthermore, the “protests” were deliberately organised, fomented and encouraged by religious “leaders”.
Why does this remind me of the failure, at the very last gasp, of the Polio vaccination programme, because of religious loonies in Nigeria.
Who are still walking the surface of the planet, I may add.
If anyone deserves a death sentence, preferably “something lingering with boiling oil in it”, it is things like them, who have certainly condemned many children to either a painful death or years of suffering
“Saying that X led to W, or provoked Y, or sparked Z is stating causes, not an assignment of blame.”
No; saying that X provoked or sparked Y is (implicitly) claiming that X was a sufficient cause as well as a necessary one. It is at best a radical simplification and thus drastically misleading. Consider:
‘Terry provoked the robbery by carrying a bag with $500 in it.’
Terry’s bag was a necessary cause of the robbery, but certainly not a sufficient one, and saying it that way would in most contexts look very odd.
‘Terry provoked the rape by being out on the street without a hijab.’
It may be that Terry’s failure to wear a hijab was in fact a necessary cause, but was it sufficient? And is that not a tendentious way to put it? If you were Terry, would you not think it was a tendentious way to put it?
“Since the time of the fatwa, Rushdie has not had security, either private or through the government”.
I am amazed at that fact.
One would think that for the rest of his life – post Satanic Verses – that he would have to been in virtual hiding.
However, from here on in it will obviously be a different story. There is I believe a big bounty on his head. By one of Iran’s state “bonyads”, or foundations. In 1990, he published an apology and reiterated his respect for Islam. Yet the Iranian’s despite his apology to the Muslims cannot rescind the fatwa. “The historical decree on Salman Rushdie is irrevocable and nothing can change it”, a statement carried by Iran’s official IRNA news agency said.
In 2003
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards renewed a call to kill the author Salman Rushdie, who Iran condemned to death 14 years ago following the publication of his best-selling novel The Satanic Verses. The hard-line military organisation, which answers to Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the original fatwa was still valid.
On February 14, 1989, the late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill the writer, claiming The Satanic Verses was an insult to Islam.
In 1998, almost a decade later, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa, but under Islamic law could not rescind it either. However, in Jomhuri Islami newspaper ran a 16-page supplement with a front-page cartoon of a dead Rushdie being carried in a coffin draped with flags of the US, Britain and Israel. Ayatollah Hassan Saneii, head of the semi-official Khordad Foundation that has placed a $2.8 million bounty on Rushdie’s head, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that his foundation would now pay $3m to anyone who kills Rushdie.
February 14, 2006:
Nothing has changed. “The fatwa by Imam Khomeini in regard to the apostate Salman Rushdie will be in effect forever”, and that one of Iran’s state bonyad, or foundations, has offered a $2.8 million bounty on his life.
June 15, 2007: Rushdie receives knighthood for services to literature sparking an outcry from Islamic groups