{"id":13919,"date":"2022-08-13T10:41:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-13T08:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=13919"},"modified":"2023-09-26T22:39:50","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T20:39:50","slug":"salman-rushdie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=13919","title":{"rendered":"Salman Rushdie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

That, after all these years, this price-tag, bounty, or, if you will, fatwa<\/a>, hanging over Salman Rushdie<\/a> has been acted upon, is truly devastating. Yesterday, Rushdie was attacked and stabbed multiple times during an event at the Chautauqua Institution<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>, 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<\/em><\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any offerings of condolence would be trite and unheard, but there are issues here I want to write about further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday 14 August:<\/strong><\/em> 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 <\/em>site this morning an excellent Observer<\/em> piece<\/a> by Kenan Malik that explores some of the concerns I mentioned above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Salman Rushdie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[362,361],"class_list":["post-13919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-2","tag-partition-of-india","tag-salman-rushdie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13919"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16899,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13919\/revisions\/16899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}