Douglas Murray on Salman Rushdie: This Time, Britain Must Stand Behind Him
Douglas Murray has written two pieces about yesterday’s attack on Salmon Rushdie, one for the Telegraph, another for the Spectator.
In the Telegraph, he urges the British Government not to equivocate in its support for the novelist – no ‘On the one hand…’ type of response in which condemnation of the attack is quickly followed by an acknowledgment that some Muslims find The Satanic Verses deeply offensive.
The attack in New York on Salman Rushdie has brought back sharply into focus the fact that the Booker-winning novelist has been a target for Islamists for over three decades, ever since the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988. After that novel’s publication the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa against Rushdie. Encouraged by British Muslims, the Iranian leader accused Rushdie of blasphemy and put a bounty on his head. For many years Rushdie lived in hiding, protected by the British state.
Rushdie described those bewildering, terrifying, heroic years living in hiding in his 2012 memoir Joseph Anton. It is quite a work, detailing every demoralising corner of the affair. It includes accounts of the politicians of both left and right who failed to support the novelist, as well as the writers, artists and other public figures who pretended that the Ayatollah had committed an offence, but so had the author of the novel. And of course the crowds of Muslims in Bradford and other cities who burned copies of the book and were allowed to call for Rushdie´s murder on British streets and television.
He concludes:
Let us not have a repetition of the caviling, caveating and cowardice we saw from some quarters in 1989. No ifs. No buts. No “on the one hand, on the other”. A British author has been attacked. This time, let his country be fully behind him.
In the Spectator, he’s more emollient, praising the efforts of Susan Sontag and others who stood by the beleaguered author:
In his 2012 memoir – Joseph Anton – Rushdie wrote about the fatwa years. The book is a detailed chronicle of all the people who let him down: the MPs who promised support and then whipped up mobs; the political figures of left and right who said that while the Ayatollah may have caused an offence so had the novelist; the authorities who allowed Muslims in Bradford and others on television to call for a British subject’s murder with impunity.
But it is also a chronicle of the people who supported him, the friends who stood by him and the public figures who stood up for him. One of them was the American writer Susan Sontag, who helped organise a public reading of Rushdie’s work in New York. As Sontag said, the moment called for some basic ‘civic courage’. It is striking how much of that civic courage has evaporated in recent years. Today no one would be able to write – much less get published – a novel like The Satanic Verses. Perhaps nobody has tried. From novels to cartoons a de facto Islamic blasphemy law settled across the West in the wake of the Rushdie affair. The attack today will doubtless exacerbate that.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Here is a tip for the lefty politicians who will struggle with this:
Imagine Rushdie is a gender fluid transsexual campaigning for trans rights and same sex toilets. And just say all those things about freedom of expression and how terrible it is to discriminate against someone for what they believe, when referring to the LGBT blah blah blah people. And try not to think too much that it’s about Salman Rushdie in this case.
As Drag Queen Groomer Time found out when they tried to hold their event in Rochdale recently, they are still below the Islamists in the pecking order – their event was swiftly cancelled once a certain local community found out and Antifa where surprisingly quiet about it as well.
I was disappointed to read this from Douglas “People have been calling for his death for over three decades, ever since the publication of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.”
It is not “people” it is a particular group who have done this and Douglas has written extensively about the issue, not least in two excellent books on the subject of so-called multi-culturalism in Britain and Europe.
The guilty ones are Muslim and should be referred to as such.
Of course a precedent was set with Pakistani muslim men trafficking and raping white English girls. The perps were always referred to as ‘men’ or ‘men of Asian origin’ – not many Japanese men who resemble Pakistani muslims – instead of Pakistani muslim men.
Utter hypocrisy and utterly racist.
More specifically a certain demographic among ” Pakistani muslim men”. I understand that many of them have connections to certain rural areas of “Pakistan” (though probably not the Hunzas).
There’s not a hope of the cowards in Government “standing behind” Rushdie.
There’s a teacher in Batley, who is still in hiding and fearful for his life at the hands of a bunch of violent, Muslim extremists who objected to him doing his job and teaching their kids.
And the Government has done SFA about it.
Why would the political establishment put their heads above the parapet when they (establishment parties) will get elected anyway if they ignore the issue? Only when the establishment feel their house being rocked will they take action.