That, after all these years, this price-tag, bounty, or, if you will, fatwa, hanging over Salman Rushdie has been acted upon, is truly devastating. Yesterday, Rushdie was attacked and stabbed multiple times during an event at the Chautauqua Institution, a venerable arts and education venue, in western New York State. His personal fate remains in the balance, and that of a writer’s right – even duty – to contribute to public debate, something that Rushdie vehemently pleaded for in his literature and presence – irrespective of duress – over many years, likewise.
The focus has, of course, immediately turned to this, so-called fatwa edict from over three decades ago. But, I am just as concerned about the wider pervasiveness of intolerance, to the point of hate, in our discourse; one that has become almost inextricable from the free exchange of ideas and opinion, and the tradition of respectful debate.
And these concerns have, in recent years, moved way beyond fanatical religious or political animosities, and are very much in the middle of society – with very much main stream disputes about gender, language, food – you name it and I could probably come up with a recent example. For some – even most – these very often social media driven shitstorms – to use a very un-Deutsch but nevertheless Deutsch expression – are fleeting; sometimes though they fester and take on a much darker tenor… And, it has to be said, tensions are being created and stretched at all ends of the political and pseudo-political spectrum.
For me, the despicable attack against Rushdie has led to a confluence of ideas – some of which I have been occupied with of late anyway. Beyond, those omnipresent contemporary preoccupations just mentioned, another is the 75th anniversary of the partition of India, and how informed I was of the birth of the modern state of India and the legacy of the colonial state that preceded it, and in a wonderfully literary way, by Rushdie’s magnificent novel, Midnight’s Children. More so than by some non-fictional accounts I have read, and certainly more than by more strident renderings that have veered increasingly towards an unreflected post-colonial rhetoric that can have not good societal repercussions.
Any offerings of condolence would be trite and unheard, but there are issues here I want to write about further.
Sunday 14 August: Though suffering from horrific wounds, Salman Rushdie’s condition in a Pennsylvania hospital is reported – and from reliable sources – to have stabilized somewhat. One can only hope that to be so, and a good recovery possible. On The Guardian site this morning an excellent Observer piece by Kenan Malik that explores some of the concerns I mentioned above.