Most people seemed to have had a similar reaction when they heard the news that writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed more than 10 times at a literary event in New York state on Friday night (August 12). He was motivated by a 33-year-old fatwa (edict) calling for his murder. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offered him a $3 million bounty for Rushdie’s death shortly after the novel’s publication. devil’s poem (1988), where geopolitics and culture intersected in a unique moment. Decades later, it may still have led to his hospitalization, where he could lose the function of just one arm, as well as his eyes and kidneys.
But others saw an opportunity. Even before Rushdie was discharged from the hospital, his attack was used as an argument against “culture cancellation” and awakening, and became a weapon in the free speech culture wars debate, making him once again a symbol of the global cultural debate. These arguments have been compared to Dave Chapelle and JK Rowling, who claim these figures are similarly threatened about their views. Some even recall Chris Rock being slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars (i.e., the man who was “physically attacked on stage for being offended by something someone said”).
It’s easy for anyone with a sense of reality and proportion to think these comparisons are ridiculous and laughable. But these arguments are not only breathtakingly earnest, they are also brusquely touted by columnists for their own benefit and vulgarly using Rushdie as a political pawn in dark moments of personal crisis. It’s a potentially dangerous method.
In many of the articles in the last few days, columnists were keen to cast the young activist as the villain of the moment. With their legendary crackdown language and obsession with public figures without a platform, some argue that language equates to violence. (It’s worth noting that Rushdie, in an interview with a German magazine, just two weeks ago praised the activism of that generation. stern). They focus specifically on transgender rights activists, and draw parallels between Rowling’s online reactions to gender-critical views and Rushdie’s experience of Islam as contemporary parallels. Many point out that Rowling received death threats this weekend after he tweeted about the attack as he made this debate (although it wasn’t from a trans activist, but another radical Islamist was from someone).
This comparison is not only inelegant, it completely undermines the severity of the Rushdie case. Has Rushdie been ‘cancelled’ by Iran’s former supreme leader? Can you really compare being formally and proudly offered an assassination bounty by the country’s leader to being repeatedly ridiculed on Twitter? I’m not saying that threats against someone like Rowling should be dismissed. In fact, we need to do more to reduce the casualness with which threats of violence can take place online (no serious stuff). But Internet comments, even the most serious ones, need no explanation to equate with literal fatwas issued by the ayatollahs.
“A death threat against Rushdie is exactly the same as a death threat against Rowling or Rowling. [Julie] Vindel [another gender-critical feminist]said Ewan McColm, Scotsman Sunday (August 14th). He went public less than 48 hours after the attack, so it’s hard to understand what happened to Rushdie and how such a discussion is genuinely concerning. It is even more difficult to understand the value of reducing fatwas issued by rogue states to the same level as the threat of one-off violence.
But what’s really so damn disbelieving about the debate going on at this moment is the personal context. They appear to be in direct conflict with what Rushdie has long sought. Guardian Last May, Rushdie said he wanted his work to be separate from the fatwa. I’m the one writing in my room. By reducing Rushdie to a crudely interpreted version of his ideas—entities that fit existing arguments and beliefs—his person and his work are flattened into a culture war debate. His attacks are deployed to score cheap points rather than being used solely for serious reflection or debate.
Content from partners
There have already been reports of how the sting rekindled interest in the fatwa. Among hundreds of similar posts, Conservative Social His media activist Hossein Salemi wrote in a tweet that was deleted for violating Twitter’s rules: Rushdie has been under constant threats of violence for almost half of his life. Not being able to tell the difference between this and a slap at the Oscars only adds to the harm.
[See also: Salman Rushdie shows us that free speech is life itself]
