Sir Salman Rushdie - The Hatred Flares

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All kinds of ridiculous nonsense is being bandied about in the Muslim world today after the British government honoured one of it's most outstanding authors, winner of the "Booker of Bookers".

See, this is what infuriates me about the assumptions of religion and Islam in particular.

How dare anyone EVER be sentenced to death for writing a novel?

How DARE they? Who the HELL do they think they are?

(Wasn't sure where to post this, but I expect to get more response from muslims here (in S&R) than elsewhere. I'd like to here how moderate muslims defend this, assuming that they do at all)

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I'd guess that genuine moderate Muslims will defend it about as much as moderate Christians will defend those who chant and carry hateful signs at the funerals of Iraq war soldiers.

Not at all.

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This is the Pakistan Government's response today;

Quote:

Religious Affair Minister Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq said insults to Islam were the cause of terrorism.

"The West always wonders about the root cause of terrorism. Such actions are the root cause of it," Ejaz-ul-Haq told parliament.

"If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act is justified," he said.

"If Britain doesn't withdraw the award, all Muslim countries should break off diplomatic relations."

Are they considered an extreme muslim government?

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That's not the president or something though.

I agree with snood.

To begin with, Rushdie (who is one of my very favorite authors) is Muslim himself.

There are Muslim fanatics. Full stop. I deplore them. Full stop.

I know way too many moderate, reasonable Muslims for me to be comfortable condemning the entire religion, though.

I think this is much more about fanatics/ extremists than about Islam as a whole.

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Sam Harris might say, (and I'm inclined to agree for now) that the moderate majority act as a buffer of protection and credibility for the extreme core.

Yes, it's one minister, but he's not giving an opinion here, he is outlining his government's official position, and they are making very serious threats over this. Other countries have been even more extreme, but I chose Pakistan as representative of relatively moderate Islam.

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Right, so no response from our muslim members. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any for a while. Maybe we scared 'em away?

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Interesting (excellent) commentary here...

Arise, Sir Salman: Rushdie's knighthood reignites "Salmanophobia" at home and abroad.

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Eorl wrote:

Right, so no response from our muslim members. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen any for a while. Maybe we scared 'em away?

Perhaps they are down with a bout of salmanella

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sozobe wrote:

That's not the president or something though.

It's a minister. A secretary of state in America. Suppose the US secretary of the interior said "The root cause of anti-semitism is all those Jewish judges who want to remove crosses from of our court houses. If someone suicide-bombs a synagogue to protect the cross, that's justifiable." Would you still say, "that's not the president or something"?

To the minister's honor, though, he back-pedaled somewhat: "He later said he did not mean such attacks would be justified but was merely saying militants could use the knighthood as a justification."

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Eorl's source wrote:

"If Britain doesn't withdraw the award, all Muslim countries should break off diplomatic relations."

Oh yeah . . . that'll work.

"If you don't take that back, I'm gonna punch myself in the eye. You'll be sorry then!"

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Eorl wrote:

Sam Harris might say, (and I'm inclined to agree for now) that the moderate majority act as a buffer of protection and credibility for the extreme core.

I read that too, and at first reading it makes a lot of sense. On second reading, it sounds a lot like McCarthy's "fellow traveller" rhetoric, and the "liberal = socialist = communist" smears that we still hear from popular Republican radio hosts.

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Eorl wrote:

Other countries have been even more extreme, but I chose Pakistan as representative of relatively moderate Islam.

That is a foolish position for you to take. The military dictatorship of Musharref wants to appear to be moderate in the eyes of the western democracies, so long as it can do so without infuriating the Pakistani people. The madrassas which trained the extremists of Afghanistan are located in Pakistan. In Arabic, talib means seeker, and is used as the cognate for student. Refugees from the Afghan civil war, which has raged for over 40 years, became talib, students, in the madrassas of Pakistan. There, they became "radicalized" as both Muslim fundamentalists, and as anti-western crusaders (and when Russia invaded Afghanistan, they were seen as representatives of the industrialized west--distinctions we may make about capitalist and communist are meaningless in most of the Muslim world).

The ethnic Pathans among them moved into the tribal areas of Waziristan (the "tribal" region which lies between Afghanistan and Pakistan) and began organizing not simply a resistance movement to Afghan Marxists, and later, to the Russians, but a resistance movement which called for the establishment of an Islamic state. These students, these talib, became the Taliban.

Afghanistan is not a moderate Muslim state, it is the home of some of the most vociferous and violent Islamic extremists.

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hmmm thanks guys. Points well made. Thomas I'm particularly interested in your appraisal of Sam Harris. (I agree with him too much, which always makes me suspicious of myself)

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One British writer insults 6 million Jews, by writing books questioning the holocaust, goes to jail. Opening up a debate whether to make it a law.

Another British writer insults 1.5 Billion Muslims, by writing a book, gets a knighthood and praised through out western world.

Amazing!

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I've made my views clear here

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=98687&highlight=

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Zippo wrote:

One British writer insults 6 million Jews, by writing books questioning the holocaust, goes to jail. Opening up a debate whether to make it a law.

Another British writer insults 1.5 Billion Muslims, by writing a book, gets a knighthood and praised through out western world.

Amazing!

Cart your antisemitism off somewhere else. Rushdie is a Muslim. He didn't insult Muslims. Some, and by no means all, Muslims, decided to take offense at what he wrote. Which is far different than people who deny that the Nazis killed millions of people, including Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals and the mentally and physically disabled, along with Jews. You seriously lack perspective. You seriously need to lose your hatred of Jews. You seriously need to get a grip.

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I see Zippo hasn't got a life yet !

The differences between Salman Rushdie and David Irving are

1. That Rushdie is writing fiction as fiction whereas Irving is writing fiction as fact.
2. The "insult" in the case of Rushdie is in the minds of the illiterate who havn't got the ability to read what he said. The "insult" by Irving is to the first hand survivors of the history which Irving seeks to distort.
3. Rushdie was threatened by those with a medieval mentality and bloodlust. The fact that Irving is still with us makes it unlikely that he will taken as a serious candidate for assassination by an Israeli hit squad.

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Setanta

Quote:

Rushdie is a Muslim...

Quote:

Salman Rushdie

To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.

about.com

He is an athist.

Laughing

You just know sh!t, however, your BIG head is probably full of it. Laughing

Crazy dude think he's smart. Rolling Eyes

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Sir Salman Rushdie - The Hatred Flares

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