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We blame the Rushdie attack on Muslim fanatics, but we shouldn’t ignore
our own complicity
Yesterday morning, it was reported that Salman Rushdie — who had been
attacked at a literary event on free speech in America— was unable to
speak. Many fanatical Muslims will take this as a sign from God. This,
after all, was their intention: to censor those who criticise their
religion. The assailant kept trying to attack Rushdie even after he was
restrained, according to witnesses. “It took like five men to pull him
away and he was still stabbing,” one said.
A fatwa was imposed on Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic
Verses, a beautifully written novel that was, in my view, tame in its
supposed mockery of Islam. To Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, however, the
book was blasphemous. After a bounty was put on his head, Rushdie lived
under British protection while his book was burnt on the streets and
craven politicians such as the former Labour MP Keith Vaz spoke out in
protest. Cat Stevens — the singer now known as Yusuf — said in a speech
to students in London that said “he must be killed”, although he later
claimed he had not called for Rushdie’s death.
Yet while Rushdie survived this hostility, others did not. Hitoshi
Igarashi, his Japanese translator, was stabbed to death. Ettore
Capriolo, his Italian translator, was also stabbed, and William Nygaard,
his Norwegian publisher, was shot and critically injured. Mustafa
Mahmoud Mazeh perished while preparing explosives designed to kill the
British novelist. A shrine in Tehran for Mazeh says: “The first martyr
to die on a mission to kill Salman Rushdie.”
But while we look at all this with anger, while we condemn the religious
fundamentalists, while we pray for Rushdie himself, let us also
acknowledge something closer to home. Many of the comments on the
Rushdie affair over the past 24 hours have pointed out that for many
years he has been living quite freely, that the fatwa had been revoked
by Iran (although the bounty remains) and that society has moved on from
the dark days of book-burning, even if lone attackers remain a threat.
I would suggest that this is delusional, a fantasy conjured up by
western liberals to distract from a more sinister truth: over 30 years
they have worked as the de facto accomplices of the ayatollah, assisting
in the task of dismantling free speech, sending fear through those who
dare to criticise or ridicule religion or anything else. Rushdie, in
this sense, is not — and never was — a historical affair but a live
scandal running through the veins of British life, not to mention other
western societies.
As I read about the attack on Rushdie, my mind turned to Louis Smith,
another high-profile Briton from an ethnic minority; a gymnast who won
three Olympic medals before going on to a TV career. A few years ago, he
and his friend Luke Carson, a fellow gymnast, were frolicking around,
singing (as they often did together) when Carson lay down on a mat and
shouted “Allahu akbar” while Smith laughed. It was a bit of a giggle,
nothing nasty, scarcely satirical. But the video, as you have probably
guessed, leaked.
In the following days, liberal commentators were united in outrage. None
saw this as two kids harmlessly mocking religion. None saw it as a
trivial episode of ridicule of the kind that has always existed in
liberal societies. None stated that no citizen, religious or otherwise,
has a right or even a reasonable expectation to not be offended.
Instead, they called for Smith to be banned — and he was, for two
months, by British Gymnastics. He was accused of Islamophobia, racism,
you name it. He appeared to have broken a chilling clause in UK Sport’s
athlete’s contract: “Athletes may be ineligible for funding if they are
derogatory about a person’s disability, gender, pregnancy or maternity,
race, sexuality, marital status, beliefs or age.” I was astonished when
I read this clause for it didn’t just prohibit mockery of protected
characteristics, but all beliefs, of whatever kind. It meant that
British athletes were prohibited from criticising Scientology, astrology
or even Nazism. Under such a decree, Billie Jean King would have been
banned in five minutes flat and Muhammad Ali even quicker. This wasn’t a
contract; it was a gagging order. And yet this was the clause that UK
Sport deemed necessary to “protect” its reputation
But this isn’t the half of it. I interviewed Smith a few months later,
and he still looked shell-shocked. Death threats had started almost
immediately: “We are going to find you, and kill you.” “You are going to
get it.” One posted a video on social media: “I am going to splash acid
in your face.” Scarcely any of this was reported in the media. In the
week of our interview, he had received the message: “We are going to
cave your face in.” Smith was forced to take out 24-hour protection, a
hired heavy at his side at all times, even while he slept.
Yet the truly chilling aspect of this affair — which also went largely
unreported — is that Smith couldn’t earn a living after his “crime”.
Sponsors and broadcasters turned their backs on him. Progressives didn’t
want to know. His income vanished and he struggled to pay his mortgage.
To be clear: this punishment beating was perpetrated on Smith not by
fanatics, not by knife-wielding fundamentalists, but the monolithic
liberal ideology that will not tolerate opinions (or even jokes) that
breach their antiliberal creed.
It was the same creed that defended those who hounded into hiding a
teacher at a school in Batley, West Yorkshire, last year for showing his
class a religious cartoon. It is the same creed that equates criticism
of the myriad excesses of the Muslim Brotherhood with Islamophobia. And
it is the same creed, to broaden the perspective, that connives in the
cancellation and intimidation of anyone who engages in wrongthink on
trans rights, climate change or the demolition of statues.
I pray — metaphorically — for Rushdie. He is a great and courageous
Briton. But I also pray for the West. We like to think we have free
speech but we lack even its pale imitation. Smith found work again only
by issuing abject, almost pitiful apologies, bending the knee to liberal
dogma, just as Galileo once prostrated himself before the Inquisition.
Is it any wonder that myriad surveys reveal that people throughout the
West desist from speaking out on sensitive issues, out of fear of the
consequences?
This is the destination at which the liberal world has arrived — through
stealth and increment, through a million little retreats, through the
acquiescence of those who should know better. For initially noble
motives related to the fear of giving offence to minority groups, we
have committed the most grievous offence on our way of life. “I
disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
say it” was the view attributed to Voltaire by his most famous
biographer. We must resurrect its spirit, reclaim its beauty. For today,
with Rushdie hooked up to a ventilator, we continue to sleepwalk towards
disaster.
Matthew Syed