His autobiography is out, so he is everywhere. In discussion with Andrew Marr, the subject of Imagine on BBC1, on the World Service and on BBC news online. "Loathing is a bit too affectionate" to describe how he feels about Pakistan, the BBC irresponsibly reported (Sir Salman Rushdie: 'Pakistan is on the road to tyranny', 18 September).
Rushdie told the World Service that "the most frightening change" that he saw in Pakistan was that the mass of the people seemed to have given up on the "very moderate" religious beliefs that they used to hold.
The reality with which Rushdie failed to qualify this is that Pakistan has been largely in the military's grip and on (Sunni) Saudi Arabia's pay roll for the last 35 years - and Pakistan's people, the majority of whom are very poor, have had no say in that. But this perhaps is too real for Rushdie, so he is happy to limit himself to soundbites that will raise the temperature and extend stereotypes.
Despite Alan Yentob's sympathetic and credible portrait of him on BBC's Imagine, Rushdie is not a pussycat, although he may have a gift for friendship and be a good dinner guest. After Cambridge he could have turned his intellect in any number of directions including reflecting the reality of British prejudice and history back at us. Instead he chose to shred his own, the subcontinental culture from which he came and then the religion into which he was born, despite the fact that this is a wider religion, a more composite religion, than one might think: his sister Sameen on Yentob's programme spoke of honour being central to Muslims in the subcontinent, but honour runs across north Indian history, Sikh and Hindu.
The history degree at Cambridge would have told him that fundamental religiosity is always a mask for political and geo-strategic power. In the sixteenth century the Spanish Inquisition was the theological weapon of a secret police state funded by the monarchy to impose orthodoxy, terrorise minorities, collect information, seize property, enforce blasphemy laws, ban books and force conversions. At stake was the prestige and survival of the monarchy of Catholic Spain. Today this story is being repeated and repeated over the Middle East, with the added complication of Shia and Sunni states battling for supremacy. Why didn't Rushdie stop counting the number of angels who could sit on the head of a pin and go to on this in 1989? When he finally got around to it with Shalimar the Clown in 2005 it was too late.
Free-speech is about telling the truth. You stand up for it by telling the truth, not by peddling conceited and erroneous fictions.
He is also personally not known for his humility. Marianne Wiggins, his second wife, in an interview with the Sunday Times in March 1991 spoke of his self-obsession. "While others campaigned in his name for freedom of expression, he was concerned solely with his career." "He's never aligned himself with writers being executed around the world. He's put all the focus on himself."
His autobiograpy ('Joseph Anton' is taken from Conrad and Chekhov's first names, but also close to Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding's 1742 novel: Rushdie drew on Fielding's groundbreaker of an English novel Tom Jones for style in Midnight's Children) has just been serialised on Radio 4, infact cleverly so, and to show that Rushdie is someone who has constantly courted other people's irritation with him. It must have been very shocking to have a fatwa put on him, but on 14 February 1989 he still made it to see his agent and to Bruce Chatwin's memorial service where Paul Theroux, in a rare moment of humour, said that they all expected to be back quite soon.
Rushdie went into whirling panic as the day wore on. The narrative continued that he got a call from his wife that he couldn't come back to the house because - if you were listening to this you sat forward - "there were" - what? - "there were two hundred" - two hundred what? furious fundamentalists? fatwa-wielding book burners? - "there were two hundred journalists" outside the house. Journalists? Terrifying. Completely terrifying. Impossible, I'm sorry to say, not to laugh. He didn't go home for five years.
Who can take any more of this man? Freedom of speech is hugely important but sometimes things aren't wise because they merely add heat to prejudice at a sensitive time. He probably shouldn't be across the BBC and acting as a commentator on international relations because what he does say is damaging and banal. He has a track-record of advancing debate in the Islamic world precisely nowhere. He probably should have apologised for offence caused in 1989 because goddamit, he's just a novel writer; they do not matter very much.
In bookish circles it was said that Rushdie on the freedom of speech issue was really freedom of Rushdie to say whatever he liked without acknowledging consequence. He isn't a humanitarian, he is an attention seeker, he is irresponsible. Taken at all manner of levels he may not be a very important writer. Heresy, non?
Christina Patterson: What Salman Rushdie Reminds Us About the Freedoms That We Cherish
Ben Bowler: The Worst Idea in History
Ridiculous. Free speech is about speaking freely, whatever one's views may be. And there is no greater peddler of conceited, *conceited,* and erroneous fictions than religion.
Poor little helpless babes. It's perfectly fine that they're extremist and violent, because now we know that they were MANIPULATED. Not their fault.
This article is the worst sort of condescending orientalist claptrap. Shame on HP.
From the way people react to it, people who are supposed to be educated no less, you would think it was some kind of wild hate filled screed of venom against muslims or something...It's a rather mild book, that is barely even about religion, but about migration and change that makes allusions to various religious topics to build a kind of magical realism, with the most strident message being "Doubt is good" while touching on a number of profound points.
What's more, if you want to a real attack on religion go read Twain. Letters from Earth is a complete and total attack on the bible, without pulling a punch (and one I'd recommend to anyone: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm)....and he's a celebrated American author. By the standards you people apply to Rushdie you might as well call Twain worst than Goebbels.
anyway, as Farishta says in Rushdie's book: “From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”
I almost reads like you are being sarcastic, as no thinking adult could be so ridiculous and simpleminded.
How can you blame Rushdie for hating where Pakistan is at?
Most artists are self-absorbed. They're not therapists. They're artists. We admire them for their work, not for their personalities. You don't have to be friends with an artist to appreciate his or her artistry.
The fact that Rushdie was willing to put his art and talents on the page and suffer years of hiding for it show that he is the BEST example of freedom of speech.
What you're talking about is geopolitical diplomacy. Rushdie is not a diplomat, who must watch what he or she says and follow the policy of the government he or she represents and express it delicately. He is an artist.
Somehow I get the idea that the writer here really dislikes Rushdie for reasons of her own.
What a pathetically weak little piece this is.
What little substance there is would seem to be objecting both to Rushdie claiming that Pakistan is on the road to tyranny, and to the BBC accurately broadcasting the interview. What seems intended to be the evidence against this isn't. Luke argues that most Pakistanis do not have a say in their government, this is hardly evidence against a descent into Tyranny. Nor is the fact that Pakistan has gotten support form the theocracy in Saudi Arabia.
What an appeasing joke.
She writes:
"Rushdie told the World Service that "the most frightening change" that he saw in Pakistan was that the mass of the people seemed to have given up on the "very moderate" religious beliefs that they used to hold."
And that was bad because:
" Pakistan has been largely in the military's grip and on (Sunni) Saudi Arabia's pay roll for the last 35 years"
Notice, she doesn't deny that Pakistan is losing its moderates.
Its not their fault, poor babies. they've been manipulated.
Its the same line of reasoning that muslim extremists use when they accuse a women who got raped of manipulating the man in question. This is an infantalization of muslim people. Catriona is guilty of the worst sort of western condescension.
And who gets to determine what is true or not? Oh, who am I kidding, the all knowing Catriona Luke does. She writes online, don't you know.
Most of this post is harmlessly inane drivel, but I'm not sure you've considered the implications of nominating yourself as arbiter of all things true and untrue. Think about the working hours.