I haven’t seen a better encapsulation of the context of the renewed threats against Salman Rushdie than this one from Lisa Appignanesi:
The decision of Iran’s foreign ministry to enter the fray by denouncing both Rushdie (“a hated apostate”) and his award (“an orchestrated act of aggression directed against Islamic societies”) is a repeat of the mistake which began with Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa on 14 February 1989. That killing review chose utterly to misunderstand the place fiction occupies in the west and subjected it to a fundamentalist jurisdiction which essentially recognises only one book and one truth. The journalists, writers and academics who languish in Iran’s prisons – no less than the translators and publishers of Rushdie’s novel who were murdered or attacked, from Norway to Japan – are a mark of the intolerance of any form of dissent which the fatwa represented.
Intimidation and silencing of the free expression of views and the creative freedom of writers is wrong no matter what the motivation. That phenomenon, of course, is much wider than Salman Rushdie, and writers face intimidation, official censure, prison, censorship, exile, violence and even death in many countries across the world. Anyone interested in supporting freedom of expression and informing themselves about the dimensions of the problem, which cuts across civilisations and religions, might consider visiting Pen International.
I would have thought that a discussion of “the context of the renewed threats against Salman Rushdie” might include some mention of the ongoing preparations for war against Iran. I’m not suggesting that the knighthood was intended as a provocation, but’s it’s not hard to see why some people might take it that way.
How about that Pakistani minister demanding a suicide bombing to kill Rushdie? Keysar Trad later explained that the Minister’s mouth had taken his thoughts out of context.
Or Sydney PEN — and check out the impressive list of upcoming events and projects.
Thanks for posting this, Kim — I’d not yet read about these renewed threats to Rushdie, though I suppose it was to be expected. I wonder how much agonising went on behind the scenes before they gave him the gong, and what their reasoning was in the end.
And what Rushdie himself thinks about it all.
Thanks for the link, Dr Cat.
There’s also a Melbourne and an Adelaide PEN.
David, I suspect it probably wasn’t intended to be, and the Iranian authorities would have reacted in much the same way even if the international situation had been different.
Salman’s had awards heaped upon him from the furthest reaches of the galaxy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie This lot are a bit slow off the mark aren’t they?
Awards that Rushdie has won include the following:
* Booker Prize for Fiction
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction)
* Arts Council Writers’ Award
* English-Speaking Union Award
* Booker of Bookers or the best novel among the Booker Prize winners for Fiction
* Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
* Whitbread Novel Award (twice)
* Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Children’s Fiction
* Kurt Tucholsky Prize (Sweden)
* Prix Colette (Switzerland)
* State Prize for Literature (Austria)
* Author of the Year (British Book Awards)
* Author of the Year (Germany)
* Mantua Prize (Italy)
* Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy)
* Hutch Crossword Fiction Prize (India)
* India Abroad Lifetime Achievement Award (USA)
* Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism (Harvard University)
* Aristeion Prize (European Union)
And David, I’m struggling a bit here with the idea that a knighthood from a government likely to run a million miles from any further adventures in the Gulf fits in to “ongoing preparations for war against Iran”. Is Lee Harvey Oswald mixed up in this?
Sshh, Christine, Jack Strocchi might be listening.
Interesting question for comparison… what was the Soviet reaction when honors were heaped on, say, Pasternak, Brodsky, and Solzhenitsyn (among others)? Doubtless they weren’t pleased, but was there a level of frothing at all comparable to this? Were they sentenced to death in absentia? Truth is, I don’t know the actual answer, but it’d be interesting to hear about, from anyone so informed.
While I certainly don’t begrudge Rushdie his honor, considering all that he’s been through and all that he’s bravely stood up for, I’d still venture that if any group has the right to take offense, it’s probably writers of a more genuinely first-rank talent who’ve been overlooked in this regard. Rushdie has his talents, to be sure, but I just can’t bring myself to think of his work as being gold standard. (Granted, we simply aren’t living in a heroic generation, in terms of the English language, but what can you do.)
Who’ve you got in mind, JPZ? I don’t find Rushdie an easy read, but I don’t think I’d classify him as second-rate — more a case of me not being up to it. As Australian poet Les Murray once said about not liking a particular poem: ‘Perhaps we have failed a test that the poem has set us.’
So: who would you have gonged ahead of Rushdie? Who’s your ‘gold standard’?
Whether or not Rushdie deserves a gong for whatever he got it for is nothing more than a matter of idle chatter. Denizens of the old British Empire, such as we Australians, could no doubt reel off the names of a dozen less worthy recipients of Royal Honours than Rushdie.
On the subject of the supposed geopolitical ramifications of dubbing Sir Salman, David (above) would be well advised to take a cold shower.
This gesture by the political classes of Britain is not the first shot in a war with Iran. Rather it is a gesture of resignation by Britain from further military involvement in the Persian Gulf.
It is a Parthian Shot which, ironically, may serve a more useful function than years of Britain being shackled to Bush’s moronic crusade in the region.
That, of course, sets the bar of usefulness very low indeed.
“Rushdie has his talents, to be sure, but I just can’t bring myself to think of his work as being gold standard.”
Having read a bit of Rushdie, and then tried to read a bit more (ie more recent stuff), I kind of feel like his work in the ’80s and early ’90s was on a bit of a higher level then, say, ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feet’. I could probably be encouraged to give it another go, but maybe I’d prefer to go back to ‘Midnight’s Children’ again? Do we have anybody hear who’s read Rushdie comprehensively, and could give an informed opinion?
On the fatwa, there was a great piece by Mani Haghighi called ‘Neo-Archaism’ a couple of years back. Highly recommended for those who are tired of the intra-liberal discussions on the fatwa. It’s in a collection called ‘A Shock to Thought’ edited by Brian Massumi. I’m not endorsing it, as such, but it was quite a different take on it.
‘here’ even?
Perhaps the new threats against Rushdie are symptomatic of internal tensions and changes within Iran as much as anything else? (Not that that will be making Rushdie et al feel any better)
1. Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton
Don’t you … don’t you worry about that!
Fixed
3. Robert Mugabe KCB
If you want to read a great critique of Rushdie, Tim Parks wrote a brilliant essay about him and The Ground Beneath Her Feet in his great anthology, Hell and Back. I recommend it to anybody; really first-class criticism.
4. Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare
What about me?
Thank patrickg, I’ll check it out.
I wouldn’t worry about it. They hand those things out to anybody
He’s absolutely correct.
Al Jazeera has asked me to renounce mine as a protest against Rushdie.
I’ll do the decent thing, of course.
Isn’t that dangerously close to some kind of ‘denunciation’? :-;
See here, Rob:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/06/21/quaint-reverence-for-the-power-of-old-media/#comment-378250
Sorry, what’s your point, Mark?
That most calls for “loud denunciations” are made for political purposes (and those who make the call rarely show much interest in the issue at hand unless there’s a kick the left angle) and that in fact, calling for practical action combined with a non-politicised “denunciation” is a much more appropriate thing to do. As Kim has demonstrated in this post.
I think loud denunciations of the latest call for Salmanocide as well as the originals in 1989 are very much in order.
I’ve denouced it, Rob, and I’ve suggested something that people could do if they’re legitimately concerned. What’s your problem, dude? I’m not yelling loud enough? Not taking the chance to attack Islam and the left at the same time?
The Iranian Gorvenment isn’t exactly known for it’s tolerance and devotion to freedon of expression.
Of course, it’s certainly not alone in that regard. We could go into lists of both leftist and right-wing regimes, of muslim and non-muslim governments all over the world that are in the same boat, but what’s the point?
So some ranting nut-job from the Iranian Foreign Ministry denounces Rushdie and calls for his death. People just yawn and turn to the sports pages. Apart from glued-on Jihadists of the sort that ASIO is no-doubt keeping a very close watch-upon, no-one gives a continental. At least in this country.
I guess if we had the misfortune to live in a dump like Iran (or Burma, or North Korea, or Saudi, or anywhere else where totalitarian arse-wipes run the show) we’d probably respond differently.
I think it’s great that Rushdie has been gonged, because it offends all the right people. What we need is more offence of precious fascists, not less.
Dr. Cat: “Who’ve you got in mind, JPZ? … As Australian poet Les Murray once said about not liking a particular poem: ‘Perhaps we have failed a test that the poem has set us.’ So: who would you have gonged ahead of Rushdie? Who’s your ‘gold standard’?”
Huh, interesting questions. Whilst I wouldn’t pretend to know anything a-tall about the hows and whys of the decision of her maj &c. &c. to dub one chap Sir Something and not another (and I hereby invoke my national birthright to find all this Sir and Lord business completely comical), nevertheless I’m pretty sure it can’t strictly be about literary merit per se; these titles aren’t strictly speaking a talent contest, are they? So in one sense my original comment was in fun. But in light of the truth-telling quote from Mister Les Murray, the questions posed by Dr. Cat remain interesting. I think I can’t honestly answer them without writing a miniature zany manifesto about my crackpot theories of literature, so I don’t want to derail the thread; but when it starts to run out of its own natural steam, hopefully I’ll try to come back and answer at more leisure.
Evan: “So some ranting nut-job from the Iranian Foreign Ministry denounces Rushdie and calls for his death.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure a fatwa is not a rant, nor is it a random zany pronouncement like a blog comment: it is a learned, deeply considered legal-religious ruling, carefully issued in the light of a particular form of well-established religious-political jurisprudence. As such, it accurately reflects the worldview of the cleric (and his society) who issues the fatwa, and is not a mere idiosyncratic expression of “personality”.
Which is to say, there is a considerable body of serious, traditional, solidly-founded Islamic jurisprudence which clearly supports (and indeed demands) making death threats against people like Rushdie — and actually killing them whenever possible. And it’s been actually done many, many, many times, all throughout the last 1,600 years of actual history. It isn’t a joke, nor is it a “rant.” It is an accurate picture of some very important and often normative schools of Islamic law, not a distortion thereof.
Hey, multiculturalists! Say hello to your playmates!
I’ll just leave you two alone for a while now, so’s you can get to know each other…
In this case, it’s more of a press release from the Iranian Ministry than a fatwa, j_p_z.
Interesting thread this, for any number of reasons.
1) read Mark’s explanatory link provided for Rob and Rob’s resulting inability to understand Mark’s (straightforward, to me) point. A great releif for me, I was feeling cut up about not getting simple ideas across to some but it seems that if the exponentially more literate Mark has the same problems I need not feel so bad- perhaps the problem is in the reception?
2)Iran is typical of traumatised post-ww2 states in that region through interference from outside influences, suffering instability as a result. I venture to offer another “simple” insight, that if our country had been stuffed around as badly as Iran, we would be undergoing political upheavels, too!
3) A minor niggle, Kim. It may have helped had someone offered a quick precis as to why the Iranians issued the original Fatwa; what they found so offensive about “Satanic Versus”. I noticed someone offering a link to critiques of Salman Rushdie elsewhere, perhaps they could offer a more detailed explanation as to the hostility for the benefit of the thread?
4)With David and Katz’ comments in mind, am sure the poms knew the award would be offensive. A good barometer for mutual understanding. The West (as usual) needed to be a bit more sensitive, Iran (as usual) needed to stop being so touchy.
From an article by The Economist comes this:
The India Daily article on the couple and article on the recent split-up kinda describes the attitude of the general population rather than the mullahs.
Dave Bath
The Guardian must use different sources to The Economist
So here we have English residents telling their Head of State, she is not to bestow their nation’s honours unless consulting the Pakistani masses first!!??
No. Any bastard can pronounce a fatwa, as was hilariously demonstrated by the splendid John Safran.
Watch and learn. It doesn’t get much zanier than this.