It was twenty years ago today. Kenan Malik explains "How the West was lost for free speech" in The Australian, September 26 (thanks to JE):
TWENTY years ago today, Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses. Four years in the making and supported by a then almost unheard of advance of $850,000 from his publisher, Penguin, Rushdie had hoped the work would cement his reputation as the most important British novelist of his generation. The book certainly set the world alight, though not quite in the way it was meant to.[...]
Thanks to the fatwa, the Rushdie affair became the most important free speech controversy of modern times. It also became a watershed in our attitudes to freedom of expression. Rushdie's critics lost the battle; The Satanic Verses continues to be published. But they won the war. The argument at the heart of the anti-Rushdie case - that it is morally unacceptable to cause offence to other cultures - is now widely accepted.
In 1989, even a fatwa could not stop the continued publication of The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was forced into hiding for almost a decade. Translators and publishers were killed, bookshops were bombed and Penguin staff had to wear bomb-proof vests. Yet Penguin never wavered in its commitment to Rushdie's novel.
Today, all it takes for a publisher to run for cover is a letter from an outraged academic. US publisher Random House recently torpedoed the publication of a novel that it had bought for $US100,000 ($119,000) for fear of setting off another Rushdie affair. Written by journalist Sherry Jones, The Jewel of Medina is a racy historical novel about Aisha, Mohammed's youngest wife. Random House had sent galley proofs to writers and scholars, hoping for endorsements. One of those on the list, Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at University of Texas, condemned the book as offensive. Random House immediately pulled the book.
In the 20 years between the publication of The Satanic Verses and the withdrawal of The Jewel of Medina, the fatwa, in effect, has become internalised. Not only do publishers drop books deemed offensive but theatres savage plays, opera houses cut productions, art galleries censor shows, all in the name of cultural sensitivity.
"You would think twice if you were honest," said Ramin Gray, associate director at London's Royal Court Theatre when asked if he would put on a play critical of Islam.
"You'd have to take the play on its individual merits, but given the time we're in, it's very hard because you'd worry that if you cause offence then the whole enterprise would become buried in a sea of controversy. It does make you tread carefully."...
Dark times. Read it all.
Missing from this article is the observation that the reticence to cause offense is selective. Only certain types of groups are privileged with this type of protection against hurt feelings - the ones who respond with violence. It is a bitter irony that we take so much care to not offend Muslims with accusations of violence out of fear that they will be violent. We have become cowards.
The freedom from offense is indeed selective.
Write a similar novel about Jesus and Mary Magdalene and any attempts at protest will not only be waved off, they will be condemned as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech.
We can't let the "radical Christians" destroy our separation of church and state.
Freedom of speech once meant the freedom TO offend.
Let's all get up and thank the LIBERALS who have brought this plague of political correctness upon us. It's hard to see what is correct about any of it, politically or otherwise. Nevertheless, we must all get up and thank (?) those who gave us this so-called gift.
Applause, applause, applause!!!
Free speech is a very effective tool to keep Non Muslims informed about the truth about Islam and Islams grand plan for their destruction...
Has anyone noticed their is no real free speech in Muslim dominated countries?...And what is the reason for that?...
Muslims do not want the truth about Islam to get out ....not in their countries and not in yours...
The true liberals of today are not the same as the old liberals of the past. Todays liberal adores freedom for him or herself while denying or denigrating the freedom of others. Each year they become less and less tolerant of other peoples freedom and go all out to convert and indoctrinate as many people as they can to their line of thinking. Their entire focus is on this track and they do not consider any idea that would in any way contradict their indoctrinated positions they hold dear. They have closed minds.
As a result, they will not accept any idea which is contrary to their own ideas. They cannot see any fear when they look at the situation with Islam. They will not connect the dots on Islam because this will contradict their own deeply indoctrinated positions on multicultural diversity, race, poverty, religion, success, and other aspects of their beliefs.
They cannot connect the dots to see that Islam is a desease that is overtaking the West. If they connect the dots, they will screw up their mind so badly as to ruin their life. If they connect the dots they would have to admit that they have been wrong, very wrong. Their ego will not allow this.
This is why I believe that Europe is finished and I sincerely hope this liberal madness has not spread to the USA so bad that we will see the same fate.
If we lose the freedoms of speech and press, we're done for as a Western civilization.
The sad truth is that the majority of Americans don't have a clue as to what's quietly going on.
What does the West stand for? Does it even stand up? Or are we content with sitting down while all of what are ancestors fought for is quietly taken from us?
"Do not go gently into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
- Dylan Thomas
What does the West stand for? Does it even stand up? Or are we content with sitting down while all of what our ancestors fought for is quietly taken from us?
"Do not go gently into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
- Dylan Thomas
Posted by: tanstaafl at September 26, 2008 9:16 AM
Sorry
"You would think twice if you were honest," said Ramin Gray, associate director at London's Royal Court Theatre when asked if he would put on a play critical of Islam.
Yes, think twice...The reluctance to insult or offend another culture or religion is not based on
conscience...it is based on fear...of retaliation and attack.
The bully has your number. His terror tactics are working.
The bully needs to be put out of business...
What kufirs need to think twice about is how did these bullies get in here to begin with, and how can we get them out.
One way is to support the Tancredo bills, aimed at stopping sharia...These are bully wrenches.
If passed they will throw a wrench into the gears of Islamic hegemony in the US...CAIR will really howl over that one...
This is why I believe that Europe is finished and I sincerely hope this liberal madness has not spread to the USA so bad that we will see the same fate.
Posted by: Spot on
But we will. It's a cancer. Maybe it's slower growing here in the US but it's growing nonetheless.
Liberals don't see Islam as a threat. they see Muslims as oppressed. Liberals run our education system, from the ground up. They overwhelm the universities. Political correctness on college campuses is an abomination but it's defended even by students. The same students who brought us the counterculture are now running the colleges.
The American PEOPLE give more to the needy around the world than anyone anywhere but liberals can only point to our government. Any aid that doesn't come from government doesn't count.
Look to the Democratic Party and you see the future of America. Anyone who doesn't vote for a Democrat is either stupid, a racist or both.
Liberty must be defended or it will be lost. Europe grew tired of the fight. It bought the one world argument. Many Americans have, too. Global telecommunications make it hard not to. First we made the world one great trade and immigration bazaar. Now, we're set to erase all boundaries on the political side. The UNDHR says that no country has the right to deny access to anyone seeking to enter. Human migration must be enabled. The nation-state will be rendered obsolete, if both parties have their way. Europe is but the first example of this policy in action. It isn't likely to be the last.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
- Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
-John Adams (1735 - 1826)
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
-Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 479 (1928)
Let's not forget that king george has expressed support in principle for fatwas R us, inc., and rejected our natural rights, 220 years of American constitutional law, American values & tradition of even longer standing, and our Founding Fathers, when he said the following in regard to the moToon affair in 2006:
"[W]e we believe in a free press. We also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/02/20060208-1.html
"if you cause offence then the whole enterprise would become buried in a sea of controversy"
This is the mindset of a neutered creature, not somebody who walks upright. How sad, how very pathetic!
The internalization didn't take in my case - I still enjoy insulting other cultures. Especially islam and muslims.
In fact, I enjoy it more, today, than twenty years ago.
Not to worry. Our 'high-functioning' President will go away 20 January, next.
One apparent bright spot amongst the general gloom is a piece in the Guardian in which the jihadi scribbler Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB tells us of his conversion to free speech and how he was wrong to condemn Salman Rushdie.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/26/islam.religion
On closer inspection this late change of heart seems to be related to the realization that the weapon of censorship could easily be turned against Muslims and their toxic tracts.
By the way, does anyone know why 'hate speech' is never uttered, but always 'spewed'?
Geert Wilders on Glenn Beck
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7680040576326915151&ei=LLncSN3DAYeuiAKEhomgCw&q=Geert+Wilders+Glenn+Beck%27s&vt=lf
Religion is an idea. Ideas have no rights. People have rights. People have a right to express support for ideas or to express disdain for ideas without fear of violence. It says so in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which all civilized people agree:
People have rights. Ideas have no rights. Books have no rights. Images and sounds have no rights. People may denigrate, criticize, shred, burn, defecate upon, place on altars of worship, or offer up supplication to inanimate embodiments of ideas, with full impunity of natural law. In the absence of such rights we live in tyranny. And under the yoke of tyranny We the People have the right to visit violent annihilation upon those who would enslave us. And we will, as surely as we have.
It should be noted that another publisher has picked up Jewel of Medina and that Amazon.com is accepting pre-orders. The awful thing is supposed to be available in mid-October. (That's just my personal opinion based on brief excerpts I've read. This isn't anywhere near the caliber of Salman Rushdie.)
This all goes to show that our elite culture is in the hands of people who value their scurity and comfort over all other considerations. They stand up as brave defenders of free thought only to a religion that teaches its adherents to forgive and they are utterly craven a***e-kissers before one that celebrates vengeance.
It should be noted that another publisher has picked up Jewel of Medina and that Amazon.com is accepting pre-orders. The awful thing is supposed to be available in mid-October. (That's just my personal opinion based on brief excerpts I've read. This isn't anywhere near the caliber of Salman Rushdie.)
Posted by: Karl Pov at September 26, 2008 11:48 AM
That would be my thought as well. However, as bad as this book is, canceling your plans to publish it is cowardly and craven. Let the market decide. However, with this precedent, a good book on Mohammed might suffer the same fate.
"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
-John Adams (1735 - 1826)
Posted by: PMK
Those who are opposed to liberating the mind contradict themselves. Once our fundamental constitutional freedom of speech is lost, those who speak against it abrogate their right to free speech. Therefore, the Liberal Left with its multiculturalist agenda to oppose free speech have abrogated their rights to it, so they should remain mute, or ignored on principle. They then are only left the right to remain silent.
Freedom of speech is non-negotiable, but a fundamental right of free men and women. Muslim capacity to understand this is severely handicapped by their total-belief-system’s ‘submission’ to the enslavement of the mind that is Islam. John Adams understood this, as did the other Founding Fathers of our free nation. Muslims therefore only have the right to remain silent. No more fatwas. Islamic jihadists must remain silent on the issue of free speech, or they contradict themselves, having abrogated their right to it. They must be ignored on principle, since freedom of speech is beyond their concern.
The American visitors to this site should not confuse the craven cowardice of the British government with the attitude of the British people as a whole. A British publisher is going to publish the 'Jewel of Medina' in spite of the obvious risks. This is Britain at its best.
Talk is cheap; I wait to hear what action the American people are going to take to defend their liberties.
LondonBorn&Bred,
Three hurrahs for the British publisher. There is no fire in our bellies for freedom that was not carried from across the sea. I just pray that on both sides of the sea that it shall not go out.
With 30 years of study on the subject, the author is considered an expert on the subject. While otherwise not choosing to read novels of the Jackie Collins type, many people such as myself, may be interesting in reading it for the supposed historical accuracy. This is a good example of why idiots like Denise Spellberg should learn to keep their mouths shut. Her attempt to quash the book's publication will now make the book a best seller.
There's provision for talkback to the article, on the 'Australian' newspaper online. Go on over and provide some informed comment.
If death threats and arson attacks are going to occur even after they have capitulated to the demands, Random House and the book's author have no reason not to just leak the entire book onto the Internet. It would contribute to the undermining of those who are trying to silence them while giving them plausible deniability. Even if these people understood that someone involved at Random House or the author leaked the book, the fact that they brought it on themselves by not actually giving them a reason to "behave" would be glaringly obvious.
It is one thing to cave into threats to avert danger - not a wise thing but an understandable thing. But when threats are not contingent on anything then the threatened has no reason or excuse to cave into such threats. If someone was stalking you and claimed that if you did not do as they said they would kill you, then you did everything they said and they still tried to kill you, continuing to do as they say would be pointless.
Spain got bombed by Islamic terrorists after they elected a government that pulled out of Iraq as they had demanded. If capitulation brings no advantage, why capitulate?
Just a note to add; the new publisher's house just got firebombed and they arrested three islamists in the act. I sure hope this doesn't make him fearful and drop his ideals and drop the publication as the rest of the cowards have. Give me Liberty of Give me Death, we're there now, its that serious! I'm for WAR NOW, before it goes any farther. islam is the danger, islam must be dealt with! What happened to cutting the threat out at the root, islam?