Rushdie's coffin in Tehran
It's not going to happen, but that is only evidence that British elites -- and American elites -- aren't thinking as clearly as Rushdie is on this issue.
He also says that the Mumbai jihad attacks were an act of war by Pakistan, which is true as well.
"Pak behind Mumbai attack: Rushdie," from the Times of India, January 3 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
LONDON: India-born author Salman Rushdie blames Pakistan for the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes and has asked Britain to warn the country that "as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid".The author of "Satanic Verses" told The Times in an interview: "There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war. The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things."
He said Britain has been too complacent about the rise of extremism. "We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?"
There doesn't seem to be any number at all that will be sufficient to wake up some people.
At a personal level, Rushdie said he felt horrified watching the strikes on Mumbai, the city of his birth and one of the three cities after London and New York he loves."Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel
'Midnight's Children' consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did."Referring to the fatwa against him following the publication of "Satanic Verses", he said it was "merely the prologue in a very long novel that is becoming ever more terrifying. The West should have realised the fatwa was just the beginning of a new era".
Quite so. But there is so much that the West still doesn't realize.
Britain should do many things. It should for starters stop all flights to and from Pakistan. It should cancel the immigration of 5k Pakistani Halal butchers and their families. It should do many things but it won't. It doesn't want to upset their Saudi Masters.
I did not realize years ago that Rushdie is an incredibly brave international hero. He is speaking for all of us. Long live Rushdie.
"Two of the characters in my novel
'Midnight's Children' consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did."
-- from the interview with Salman Rushdie
My, my. "As so many of us did" in "the Palace." So many of us, that is, if we could afford the tariff, which might apply to 1% of 1% of the indigenous population of Mumbai.
There is that old joke: "I can't remember the name of the hotel. I can't remember the name of the girl. But the wine was Chambertin."
Were Rushdie to retell it, it would go thus: "I can't remember the name of the girl. I can't even remember the name of the wine. But the hotel -- ah, that was the Palace!"
Ah the privileged rich elite Brahmins of India. You can count on them for such grossly insensitive comments like 'as so many of us did'.
His Bombay excludes the majority of the population.
"the privileged rich elite Brahmins..."
-- from a posting just above, perhaps prompted by, and misinterpreting, my remarks at 9:43
1) Rushdie is not and could not be a Brahmin. He was born a Muslim.
2) It is a mistake to assume that all Brahmins are "rich" or that the words "privileged" and "elite," if endowed with the same meaning as they would be in the non-Hindu context, are most apposite. Brahmins have their assigned role, and they are certainly highest on the list of scheduled classes, but that doesn't make them "privileged" and "rich" as we understand that term. For more, I'd recommend "Homo Hierarchicus" by Louis Dumont.
3) My remarks at 9:43 were directed at one person and one person only -- Salman Rushdie -- for his self-satisfied remark about how some of his characters in "Midnight's Children" consummated their love affairs as "so many of us" did, at The Palace in Mumbai. The fact that Rushdie, who will leave no trace in world literature, has come around on Islam is, I suppose, something to note and to applaud and even to exploit, but whenever I see someone placed on a pedestal -- don't get too close to any idol, for the gold dust will come off in your hands -- I feel the urge to knock them right off.
Doesn't everyone?
Hugh
Ain't no one here idolizing Salman Rushdie.
RS
The author of "Satanic Verses" told The Times in an interview: "There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war. The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things." - from the article above.
It's about time more politicians started openly saying that same thing about Saudi Arabia. Every time I hear Bush, or any of those Hannity-style TV talking heads, say "Saudi Arabia is our ally", it sounds like "Hilter and Stalin were very good friends of our country and of our other (real and few) allies."
RS
The Rushdie who once equated Thatcher's Britain to Hitler's Germany? That Rushdie?
Elitist snob he definitely was and is (although as Hugh pointed out, he's not a Brahmin, since he was never a Hindu). When the fatwa was issued against him by Khomenei in 1987, he responded by embracing Islam (which he had previously discarded), as opposed to far valorous people both before and since. He certainly is nowhere in the same league as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, Ibn Warraq, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, et al.
When will we ever learn to let the moslem countries give aid to their own?
We have roads in the US that are in need of repair..now the "smart guys" want to impose a tax on our gasoline usage. Wouldn't the money we throw away in Egypt, Pakistan, etc. be better used on our own country's infrastructure?
I repeat:
Ain't no one here idolizing Salman Rushdie.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
We're already giving aid to pakistan via the generous welfare payments to a large percentage of those who are culturally enriching us in the UK.
I think we're getting a little off topic here, I, personally, am inclined to think kindly of anyone who gets a fatwa thrown at them by the nut jobs in charge of Islam.
Salman Rushdie's point echoes what the participants of this blog know. That the jihad will be a long and costly struggle in order for freedom to endure. We must unite the rest of the world to recognize this danger and join together to fight it. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.
Rushdie may not be a Brahmin but he most certainly would identify and mix with that caste ( in his case the scholars and intellectuals) rather than an illiterate Shudra. From a Kshatriya's, Vaishya's or Shudra's point of view...not to mention the Dalits (Untouchables), Brahmins and their peers, like Rushdie, are privileged and elite because they are educated and enjoy social advantages that lower castes are deprived of.
Wow! We're talking about Mumbai, not a remote village in Bihar. What's with all the 'Shudra, Dalit' stuff? Salman Rushdie has made some sensible statements. The only funny thing he said was w.r.t. "As so many of us did" in "the Palace." - how exactly did we start off the Dalit-Brahmin crap??
Bangalorean: It may be off topic but it doesn't stop apologists of the Indian caste system like yourself crawling out of the woodwork.
A Brahmin in India once castigated me for taking a lower caste individual seriously as a human being saying that he had no mind. The fact is that the system there gave him no opportunity to develop one.
This site focusses on defeating Islamic totalitarianism and its injustices. But injustice and bigotry is quite at home in Hindu India too. Unless you have removed yourself from that brutal inequity, it's just another case of the pot calling the kettle black.
johndoe:
And probably you have some kind of telepathic technique that made you figure out that I'm an 'apologist of the caste system', who's come 'crawling out of the woodwork'.
I'd say you are the bigot here, to assume that all Hindus in this day and age are part of the injustice and bigotry. Too bad your telepathic powers didn't tell you that my girlfriend is from a 'lower caste'.
Like I said, this is Mumbai, 2009 we're talking about, not some shithole in Bihar or UP. (I don't think I need to elaborate, since you seem to be familiar with India).
Bangalorean: Thanks for the tip on how prejudice- free Mumbai is these days but something tells me that you won't find many Brahmins or other higher castes living in the slums of your beloved city. This is a can of worms and perhaps best not discussed on this thread. Sorry I started it.
johndoe:
Right, this thread is not the place for this discussion.
But one thing before signing off - Mumbai is not 'prejudice-free' in terms of the caste system. To be honest no place in India is completely 'Sanitized' yet. But big cities generally don't have the time for such nonsense. If you don't leave your old caste-baggage behind, you really can't do business in Mumbai.
I thought that 'Shalimar the Clown' was a really good book and I like Rushdie for his unwavering support for Talima Nasrin.
It really speaks to the ineptitude and agenda-pushing of the MSM that we had Deepak Chopra all over the place and not Rushdie, an actual Indian, from Mumbai no less, and an ex-Muslim. No, we had new-agey, Hinduism-exploiting, all-American Deepak Chopra, even on O'Reilly.
At least he's up and said it: terror-enabling countries, such as Pakistan, should not receive 'aid'.
(translation: END THE JIZYA!!)
Rushdie's eminently sensible remarks were printed in the 'Times of India'.
It will be interesting to see whether they will be reported anywhere else...for example, whether the BRITISH press will report them. After all, he lives in Britain, and said those words in London.
They *ought* to be reported in the UK as well as in India.
Indeed, they should be reported across the Commonwealth.
Deepak Chopra is punk and an asshole. Why would they even interview him on the subject of Islamic Jihad and the attacks on Mumbai?
They guy talks BS air fairy crap that has many people fooled. On top of that this idiot is a Mohammedan appeaser.