Anthony McIntyre ✒ 'A religion that claims it is able to behave like this, religious leaders who are able to behave like this, and then say this is a religion which must be above any kind of whisper of criticism, that doesn't add up' - Salman Rushdie.

More than three decades after theocratic fascists issued a licence to murder the writer Salman Rushdie, an assailant almost succeeded. A smile brought to a certain face in the grave of Hugh Trevor Roper.

Fortunately, Rushdie was not killed in the attack, inflicted while speaking at a New York event. He is now said by his agent to be on the road to recovery. The pen has survived the knife. The irony lies in Rushdie having been at the event for the purpose of giving a speech on the US as a safe haven for threatened writers. The US not being a safe haven for schoolkids is unlikely to be one for writers who annoy religious fanatics. 

Rushdie's woes began with the 1988 publication of Satanic Verses. Then, much of the Muslim world was convulsed by frenzy and relentlessly battered by wave upon wave of incendiary incitement stoked up by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini:

I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the The Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.

Hate Theology in an unadulterated form. There is nothing in Satanic Verses as offensive as a call to murder. 

Whether the bounty offered at the time of the original fatwa in 1987 by the Hate Ayatollah still stands is not entirely clear. Ten years after the original fatwa the Iranian Foreign Minister stated:

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has no intention, nor is it going to take any action whatsoever, to threaten the life of the author of The Satanic Verses or anybody associated with his work, nor will it encourage or assist anybody to do so.

However in 2019 Twitter took action against the account of the country's leader which stated that “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and just like divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable.” There really only is one way to impose such nonsense: repression.
 
At the heart of the Rushdie controversy sits the contrived crime of blasphemy.  Rushdie, allowing himself to be drawn onto the Mullahs' ground, denied from the outset that his work amounted to blasphemy:

It’s not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts out of context.

He later mumbled an apology which his haters dismissed. 

Not being a particular fan of Rushdie over the years, I have followed his literary odyssey with only passing interest. In 2006 I publicly backed his support for the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons which saw some on the Left side with the theocrats. I found his characterisation apt:

so much of the left always seems to fall for fascist bastards pretending to be speaking on behalf of the masses. They've done it before with communism in its various forms, and here's another bunch of fascist bastards claiming to be speaking for the downtrodden masses, and they're falling for it again.

Paramount is the need to protect his freedom to write, it being vital to a healthy society where ideas flow and are not derailed by some mullah brandishing a Stop sign. 

Most shamefully, within a day of Salman Rushdie almost losing his life for defending freedom of opinion, there has also been the spineless spectacle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, speaking fluent wankology to justify its banning of the comedian Jerry Sadowitz. 

Victory to the Committee of Public Safety
Long Live the Dictatorship of the Woketariat. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Someman Mustdie

Anthony McIntyre ✒ 'A religion that claims it is able to behave like this, religious leaders who are able to behave like this, and then say this is a religion which must be above any kind of whisper of criticism, that doesn't add up' - Salman Rushdie.

More than three decades after theocratic fascists issued a licence to murder the writer Salman Rushdie, an assailant almost succeeded. A smile brought to a certain face in the grave of Hugh Trevor Roper.

Fortunately, Rushdie was not killed in the attack, inflicted while speaking at a New York event. He is now said by his agent to be on the road to recovery. The pen has survived the knife. The irony lies in Rushdie having been at the event for the purpose of giving a speech on the US as a safe haven for threatened writers. The US not being a safe haven for schoolkids is unlikely to be one for writers who annoy religious fanatics. 

Rushdie's woes began with the 1988 publication of Satanic Verses. Then, much of the Muslim world was convulsed by frenzy and relentlessly battered by wave upon wave of incendiary incitement stoked up by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini:

I inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the The Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I ask all the Muslims to execute them wherever they find them.

Hate Theology in an unadulterated form. There is nothing in Satanic Verses as offensive as a call to murder. 

Whether the bounty offered at the time of the original fatwa in 1987 by the Hate Ayatollah still stands is not entirely clear. Ten years after the original fatwa the Iranian Foreign Minister stated:

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has no intention, nor is it going to take any action whatsoever, to threaten the life of the author of The Satanic Verses or anybody associated with his work, nor will it encourage or assist anybody to do so.

However in 2019 Twitter took action against the account of the country's leader which stated that “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and just like divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable.” There really only is one way to impose such nonsense: repression.
 
At the heart of the Rushdie controversy sits the contrived crime of blasphemy.  Rushdie, allowing himself to be drawn onto the Mullahs' ground, denied from the outset that his work amounted to blasphemy:

It’s not true that this book is a blasphemy against Islam. I doubt very much that Khomeini or anyone else in Iran has read the book or more than selected extracts out of context.

He later mumbled an apology which his haters dismissed. 

Not being a particular fan of Rushdie over the years, I have followed his literary odyssey with only passing interest. In 2006 I publicly backed his support for the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons which saw some on the Left side with the theocrats. I found his characterisation apt:

so much of the left always seems to fall for fascist bastards pretending to be speaking on behalf of the masses. They've done it before with communism in its various forms, and here's another bunch of fascist bastards claiming to be speaking for the downtrodden masses, and they're falling for it again.

Paramount is the need to protect his freedom to write, it being vital to a healthy society where ideas flow and are not derailed by some mullah brandishing a Stop sign. 

Most shamefully, within a day of Salman Rushdie almost losing his life for defending freedom of opinion, there has also been the spineless spectacle of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, speaking fluent wankology to justify its banning of the comedian Jerry Sadowitz. 

Victory to the Committee of Public Safety
Long Live the Dictatorship of the Woketariat. 

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

3 comments:

  1. Salman Rushdie 2018 on channel 4 news: "In my lifetime, society has never been as divided as it is now. People can't even agree on basic truths".

    Absolutely correct.

    You get up in the morning and have coffee your own way and news your own way. Competing truths...

    No doubt the fuck that tried to kill him would agree that it's undesirable to have competing truths.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the jail shortly after it all blew up Gino McCormack wrote a memorable poem, He had the mob chanting Salman Rushdie which morphed into Some Man Must Die. That was the idea behind the title.

      Delete