
“If PEN as a free speech organization can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name,” Mr. Rushdie said. And for once, he is right. PEN is supposed to oppose censorship and defend the freedom of speech — except, apparently, when to do so would involve “cultural intolerance” — that is, violating Sharia blasphemy laws.
“Six PEN Members Decline Gala After Award for Charlie Hebdo,” by Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times, April 26, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
The decision by PEN American Center to give its annual Freedom of Expression Courage award to the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo has prompted six writers to withdraw as literary hosts at the group’s annual gala on May 5, adding a new twist to the continuing debate over the publication’s status as a martyr for free speech.
The novelists Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi have withdrawn from the gala, at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Gerard Biard, Charlie Hebdo’s editor in chief, and Jean-Baptiste Thoret, a Charlie Hebdo staff member who arrived late for work on Jan. 7 and missed the attack by Islamic extremists that killed 12 people, are scheduled to accept the award.
In an email to PEN’s leadership on Friday, Ms. Kushner said she was withdrawing out of discomfort with what she called the magazine’s “cultural intolerance” and promotion of “a kind of forced secular view,” opinions echoed by other writers who pulled out.
Mr. Carey, in an email interview yesterday, said the award stepped beyond the group’s traditional role of protecting freedom of expression against government oppression.
“A hideous crime was committed, but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?” he wrote.
He added, “All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”…
But Mr. Solomon and Suzanne Nossel, the group’s executive director, said in a letter sent to the PEN board on Sunday morning that it was not necessary to agree with Charlie Hebdo in order to “affirm the principles” for which the magazine stands.
“There is courage in refusing the very idea of forbidden statements, an urgent brilliance in saying what you have been told not to say in order to make it sayable,” the letter said….
Some PEN members not involved with the gala agreed. The short story writer Deborah Eisenberg said via email yesterday that she had written in late March to Ms. Nossel to criticize the award.
“What I question is what PEN is hoping to convey by awarding a magazine that has become famous both for the horrible murder of staff members by Muslim extremists and for its denigrating portrayals of Muslims,” she said. “Charlie Hebdo’s symbolic significance is unclear here.”
But Salman Rushdie, a former PEN president who lived in hiding for years after a fatwa in response to his novel “The Satanic Verses,” said the issues were perfectly clear. Mr. Ondaatje and Mr. Carey were old friends of his, he said, but they are “horribly wrong.”
“If PEN as a free speech organization can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name,” Mr. Rushdie said. “What I would say to both Peter and Michael and the others is, I hope nobody ever comes after them.”
American says
Cowards and Sharia supporters. Rushdie is right. They no longer belong in PEN. Here we see a fine example of how “freedom of expression” is now evolving to “no freedom of expression”.
Marty says
“a fine example of how “freedom of expression” is now evolving to “no freedom of expression”.”
Perfectly expressed.
Useful idiots who see mohammedans as a persecuted minority are refusing to face the facts, and in
promoting the interests of those who hate us they are no better than terrorists themselves.
William Lucas Harvey Jr. says
“…PEN is supposed to oppose censorship and defend the freedom of speech — except, apparently, when to do so would involve “cultural intolerance” — that is, violating Sharia blasphemy laws…”
__________________
It seems the West is increasingly succumbing to Islam’s “Islamic Caliphate”, “Sharia Law”, and “Blasphemy Laws” (attempted Muslim imposed Penalties on the World for “daring” to expose the TRUTH about Islam), to hide the TRUTH concerning Islam and Muslims, unless the West wakes up to the TRUTH.
Especially in America under it’s apparent “Pro Islam, Pro Muslim”, “Anti America”,”Anti Constitution”, “Anti Christian”, very “Imperial” Leader and his Administration.
ALL well Documented thru the Obama Administration’s OWN Words, Actions, and Deeds.
Mirren10 says
”The novelists Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner and Taiye Selasi have withdrawn from the gala, at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. ”
Since these cowardly turncoats and lickspittles have ‘withdrawn from the gala’, time for everybody to withdraw from them.
Don’t buy their books. They are a disgrace to the name of freedom.
Joseph says
@ Mirren10 “lickspittles”
Joseph likes this one too.
Nice word, says it all.
Clay says
For there to be tolerance, doesn’t there have to be a difference of opinion? The left no longer wants tolerance. They want surrender and affirmation.
tilda says
For those who might be interested, there’s also an article about this on The Spectator website: characterises it as ‘moral cowardice’.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/alex-massie/2015/04/why-are-so-many-novelists-so-stupid/
Boston Tea Party says
And this is the fault line for the political left. You have some old leftists who are still classical liberals, and genuinely support the rights of artists to criticize all religions and philosophies, even if the powers that be try to restrict that. And on the other side, you have the modern multiculturalists—who in reality simply subscribe to a hatred of Western civilization and fetishize any ideology that stands in opposition to the traditional West. These people will champion free speech only to the degree that it aligns with their ideology–they’re fine with any denigration of or attacks on Christianity, but will rush to the defense of the non-Western Islam.
Paul says
Perhaps PEN should add IS at tne end of their name to show their support of islamic state.
The new name would certainly be apt.
Marty says
Wish I’d thought of that.
Perfect.
Angemon says
Good riddance.
There shouldn’t even be a debate in the first place. They were murdered because of what they wrote/drew, and anyone saying “maybe they shouldn’t have drawn/wrote this or that” is certainly not on the side of freedom of speech.
And exactly how was the magazine culturally intolerant? As far as I know, CH is an equality opportunity offended – they manage to offend anyone regardless of race, religion, culture or political affiliation. I doubt Ms. Kushner would have such strong feeling if CH only published cartoons/articles offensive to, for example, christians or right-wingers. In fact, I submit to you that if the killers claimed to have been acting on behalf of Christ and in the defense of Christianity no one would ever said “perhaps CH went too far”.
Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. Ms. Kushner should stick to words whose meanings aren’t completely alien to her.
Too bad their fathers didn’t pull out when they had the chance…
Yes, it was. Not the self-righteous part, but it was a freedom of speech issue – they were murdered for what they published.
More rubbish. Were the killers not French citizens and, as such, guilty of this alleged “cultural arrogance” themselves? And who is Carey to talk about moral when he’s blaming the victims and apologizing for the murderers? Besides, one of PEN International’s goals is to fight for freedom of expression. Not “fight for freedom of expression except in such and such cases”, just ” fight for freedom of expression”.
Precisely. As Voltaire put it: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Oh, for f***’s sake. I’ll let the “extremists” bit slide this time and focus on the core issue: CH was an equality opportunity offender. They managed to offend everyone regardless of race, religion, culture or political affiliation. Did christians went and killed them for offending Christianity? No. Did jews went and killed them for offending judaism? No. Did someone from the National Front went and killed them for offending Marine Le Pen? No. Did muslims went and killed them for offending islam and muhammad? Yes. So if CH denigrated everyone alike, regardless of religion, and if muslims were the only ones to take up arms and enforce their brand of “justice” with complete disregard for the laws and values of the country, who is at fault?
The analogy I think best describes what happened with CH is this:
A factory produces several kinds of bombs. Some bombs of each kind are randomly selected and go through tests to make sure they’re safe enough to be handled. One particular kind of bomb always blows up during safety testing. Now, one would think that if all bombs go through the same testing processes and only one kind of bomb constantly blows up during them then there’s something wrong with that particular kind of bomb. However, according to Mrs. Eisenberg’s “logic”, the fault would lie not on the bombs but on the safety tests, and therefore ending the tests would ensure that no more bombs would explode. It’s madness, suicidal madness.
I wonder what’s their stance on the Rushdie affair. Do they think that Rushdie brought it on himself, like CH, and that Rushdie’s Satanic Verses should be censored?
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Rushdie on this matter.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
If PEN as a free speech organization can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name.
— Salman Rushdie
Rushdie of all people must understand that the six PEN members don’t want to die. The six PEN members are unlikely to get the full-time security protection against Moslem enthusiasm that Salman got. So leave well enough alone, let the fake free speech organization continue its Kabuki unfettered by criticism that could expose it as the self-serving self-important pompous ass phony outfit that it is.
The Ummah is bigger and badder than some committee ruling on art in Communist China. And both the Ummah and the Commies are our allies, so let’s all just get along and refrain from stirring the pot against Moslems and their belief system, one of the world’s great religions, one of the three Abrahamic faiths.
mortimer says
“The Ummah is bigger and badder than some committee ruling on art in Communist China.”
Indeed, every single Muslim is a self-appointed vigilante authorized to murder blasphemers by Sharia law.
Jack Diamond says
Mr. Carey: “All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”… i.e. France keeps oppressing and insulting the “poor things” with its “arrogance” (use of this Muslim-beloved term for anything Western is revealing) and what happened to Charlie Hebdo, while “hideous” (but nothing to get self-righteous about) is ultimately understandable to Mr. Carey (author of “My Life as a Fake”). What do you expect, disrespecting Muhammad and 1.5 billion Muslims and hurting their feelings? No doubt Charlie Hebdo lacked “subtlety” for such as Michael Ondaatje in the rarified air he and these others breathe. Unfortunately, Islam has all the subtlety of a mob screaming “Allahu Akbar!” while they beat up a Jew or set a Christian on fire or smash up your museums or gang-rape your daughter but that’s nothing to get self-righteous about either. It would be arrogant to mourn for Western Civilization.
mortimer says
No PEN members would have protested awarding someone who criticized Christianity.
pdxnag says
But it is the bat shit crazy Imams that are a contender for “government” power, exclusively and worldwide all for themselves as commanded under Islam. They are not the victim and their Sharia law are thus the proper target of core free speech protections, in defense of tyrannical government.
voegelinian says
There is a logic to PC MC.
Ostensibly, it is predicated on one major factor:
1) Most Muslims Just Wanna Have a Sandwich.
And secondly,
2) We don’t want to “paint with a broad brush” and generalize from the Tiny Minority of Extremists to this vast majority of innocent Muslims.
We see, therefore, a lurking assumption:
3) There is no substantial connection between the Muslims who ostensibly are harmless, and the Muslims actually perpetrating extremist acts.
#3 and #2 are considerably strengthened by a perception that the vast majority of Muslims are a collection of Ethnic Peoples, thus pushing the enormously powerful additional buttons of White Guilt and Respect for Diversity in order to Avoid Being Racist.
Thus,
4) When anti-Islam analysts and pundits make statements or arguments that threaten #2, the PC MC person is psychologically prompted to go on the defensive. His defensiveness in his mind is immediately transferred to the noble and lofty (and self-righteous and ethically narcissistic) principle of defending the rights and dignity of untold millions of innocent Ethnic People.
Once we see that this is what is really going on, it no longer is a baffling mystery why the PC MCs so doggedly maintain their otherwise irrational position. And there’s no need to reach for a conspiracy theory about that Dastardly Leftist Cabal of Nefarious Elites to explain the sociopolitically broad and comprehensive Problem of the Problem (the main Problem being Islam; the Problem of it being the continuing Western myopia to the main Problem)..
Westman says
It’s fear, pure and simple.
The withdrawing folks love life; Islam loves death because it can only buy a decent life with oil money or take it by force from others. It’s a beduoin Warlord-developed religion so force is always its last resort.
For the jihadists, Jannah is the word, its what they heard, heard, heard, from the herd, herd, herd, a gettin’ byrd, byrd, byrd, it’s absurd, ‘surd,’ surd,’surd.
Jay Airahs says
It is a calculation
If they do not protest the award, it would be like saying that Muslims are not extra-special people who are entitled to be above the law in France against committing Murder of infidels for mocking Islam. Islam’s pig bath founder Muhammad condones such murder therefore in Leftist liberal reasoning it would be an insult to Muhammad to not side with the killers.
It is not as if a fundamentalist Christian did this.
When Muslims murder it is:
All onboard for the hypocrisy train for an apology to Islam tour in hope that they will like us more.
Seth says
The repulsive Peter Carey: writes garbage books, can’t think his way out of a paper bag.
PJG says
Long before I knew what the Leftist intellectuals were up to, when I was a young lass, I didn’t like Carey. Everyone adored him but I found him repulsive, not very bright,
and super-egotistical. My feelings about him are stronger now.
epistemology says
This Peter Carey is a nutcase, to say “A hideous crime was committed, but was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?” he wrote.
I wonder what’s what’s self-righteous about awarding a group of courageous people for their courage and the way they stood for freedom of speech.
And the other one: “All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”…
The French are in no way arrogant, they only don’t want Islamic culture in their country, as it’s totally incompatible with any Western culture. There is absolutely no moral obligation to these terrorists.
It all comes to this these six PEN members are a craven bunch of of cowards sucking up to muzzies.
But we’ve still got Salman Rushdie, a great courageous guy who writes wonderful books and never gives up.
Oceanside says
“the French nation, which does not recognize its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”
Well, they apparently have enough power to kill a lot of people for disagreeing with them. And the fact that it’s a large segment is nothing to brag about.
dumbledoresarmy says
Not to mention that that large mass of Mohammedans – the Mohammedan advance base, colony and Fifth Column or Fifth Brigade in France – comprises people who
a/ were *not* compelled to come and live in France: they or their forebears (parents, grandparents) **chose** to come to France
and
b/ are not being compelled to *stay* in France nor are they prevented from leaving (the French are not holding them captive in the same way as, say, the Soviet Union did to Jews when it refused to allow Jews to leave the USSR to go to Israel; the Muslims are free to emigrate from France anytime they like (and, frankly, the sooner the better)
and
c/ these allegedly poor persecuted powerless Muslims are driving the *Jews* – whose presence in France predates theirs – in some cases by **centuries** – out of France, by actual bloody murders and by continual harassment, bullying and murderous threats.
There have been *no* murders of Muslims, in France, by non-Muslims, that in any way compare to the Muslim murders of Jews and other non-Muslims: the bomb in the Rue des Rosiers some decades ago; the murder of Sebastien Selam, a French-Moroccan Jew, by a ‘French’-Moroccan Muslim whom he had thought his friend; the torture-murder of the Jew, Ilan Halimi, in Paris, by a gang of Muslims; the murderous rampage of Mohammed Merah who after attacking French soldiers (including a man of Algerian background whose family were apostates from Islam to Catholicism) finished off by murdering a Jewish rabbi, the rabbi’s two little boys, and an eight-year-old girl called Miriam Monsonego..in broad daylight, in a Jewish school, in Toulouse. NO little Muslim girl has ever been grabbed in her own schoolyard, in France, and blown away by a gun pressed to her head by a non-Muslim; but that is what the Muslim Mohammed Merah did to Miriam Monsonego. In France.
And the Muslims who murdered the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists also attacked a Jewish supermarket, and killed four Jews. NO Muslims have been attacked by non-Muslims, in France, in this way.
Muslims are not fleeing France in droves, which is what normally happens if a minority are being treated badly and have an open door through which they can leave; but *Jews are*…and what’s more, they are fleeing **primarily because of what the Muslims are doing to them, in France, and threatening to do**. Have our latest bunch of Useful Idiots even thought for two seconds together about those two interesting facts??
Do our six gutless and grovelling Islamophiles hold that the Muslim who as well as murdering an inoffensive Frenchwoman was also plotting to attack **churches** during the **service** – which is EXACTLY what Muslims have already done in Egypt and in Pakistan and in Iraq, where btw it is the indigenous Christians who constitute an oppressed and abused and utterly powerless minority – are justified in so doing???
Oceanside says
When did we stop talking about “freedom of speech” and switch to “freedom of expression” in this country and others?
My guess is when the Muslim Brotherhood/Organisation of Islamic Conferences/Cooperation replaced the former with the latter in UN documents.
Very bad sign. One step away from freedom of speech.
profitsbeard says
The six will be donating their bodies to KFC posthumously.
dumbledoresarmy says
looks like we have six hot contenders for “Dhimmi of the Year, International (literary division).”
Now, where is the cartoonist who will draw *them* as they deserve to be drawn…grovelling and crawling to lick the feet (or the behind?) of a wild-eyed mohammedan who is waving a bloody scimitar, whilst in the background lie the dead bodies of the murdered cartoonists and the murdered Theo Van Gogh?
epistemology says
They’re a lot more hot contenders for that post, to name only a few David Cameron and Ed Milliband in Britain, German chancellor Angela Merkel, the French judge who fined Brigitte Bardot only shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and don’t forget Obama after his Cairo speech in 2009 he’s been sucking up to muzzies ever since
dumbledoresarmy says
Two excellent essays on the subject of freedom of speech.
The first is by the Irishman Conor O’Brien, and was written in 1994, five years after the publication of the Salman Rushdie fatwa.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/islam-back-to-the-dark-ages-we-should-not-repeal-the-enlightenment-to-appease-ayatollahs-says-conor-cruise-obrien-1382946.html
“Islam: back to the Dark Ages: We should not repeal the Enlightenment to appease Ayatollahs, says Conor Cruise O’Brien”
CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN
FRIDAY 12 AUGUST 1994.
The second article features a *brilliant* anecdote about the New York ‘beat’ poet Allen Ginsberg, and how *he* reacted to the Salman Rushdie fatwa. Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner or Taiye Selasi would have *conniptions*.
It’s written by another New Yorker, one Michael Goldblatt, and was published just after the fortunately-fizzled Times Square bombing plot.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/14/the-poet-versus-the-prophet
The Poet Versus the Prophet
On standing up to totalitarian Islam
Mark Goldblatt | May 14, 2010
“I got to know the poet Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his life. Not very well, just a nodding acquaintance, but after he died I attended a memorial in his honor at the City University Graduate School.
“At that service, his personal assistant related a story about Ginsberg’s reaction to the death sentence pronounced on the novelist Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Rushdie’s “crime,” you’ll recall, was writing a provocative, perhaps even blasphemous novel inspired by the life of Muhammad called The Satanic Verses.
“Though I might be screwing up a few details, the gist of the story was as follows:
“Soon after news of the fatwa broke, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed into the back seat of a taxi in Manhattan. After a glance at the cab driver’s name, Ginsberg politely inquired if he was a Muslim.
“When the cabbie replied that he was, Ginsberg asked him what he thought about the death sentence on Rushdie. The cabbie answered that he thought that Rushdie’s book was disrespectful of Islam, and that the Ayatollah had every right to do what he had done.
“At this point, according to his assistant, Ginsberg, one of the gentlest men ever to walk the planet, flew into a rage, screaming at the cabbie as he continued to drive, “Then I shit on your religion! Do you hear me? I shit on Islam! I shit on Muhammad! Do you hear? I shit on Muhammad!”
“Ginsberg demanded that the cabbie pull over. The cabbie complied, and, without paying the fare, Ginsberg and his assistant climbed out. He was still screaming at the cabbie as the car drove off.
“I’ve had a couple of weeks now to think about Ginsberg cursing out that cabbie, and cursing out Islam and Muhammad. You see, I live in Manhattan, three blocks from Times Square.
“As near as I can determine, I was walking with a friend about thirty feet from the car bomb on May 1st right around the time it was supposed to detonate. Except for the technical incompetence of a Muslim dirtbag named Faisal Shahzad, I and my friend would likely be dead now.
“Note the phrase: “Muslim dirtbag.”
“Neither term by itself accounts for the terrorist act he attempted to perpetrate; both terms, however, are equally complicit in it. It might have been a crapshoot of nature and nurture that wrought a specimen like Shahzad, but it was Islam that inspired him, that gave his fecal stain of a life its depth and its justification. Why is that so difficult to admit?
“Let me ask the question another way: Where’s the rage?
” Why won’t anyone say in public what Ginsberg said in the back seat of that cab?
“If Islam justifies, or is understood by millions of Muslims to justify, setting off a bomb in Times Square, [and it does, Mr Goldblatt, indeed it does justify setting off bombs in Times Square and much else similar, and it *is* so understood – dda] then I shit on Islam.
“There are times for interfaith dialogue, for mutual respect and compassion.
“This isn’t one of them.
“Shahzad’s car bomb was parked in front of the offices of Viacom, the parent company of the Comedy Central, which airs the program South Park.
“Last month, the creators of South Park decided to poke fun at the Prophet Muhammad—just as they’d poked fun at Moses and Jesus many times in the past.
“Death threats followed. It’s too early to connect the Times Square bomb plot to the South Park blasphemy, but police have not ruled it out.
“If Shahzad was offended by an animated cartoon and decided to defend the Prophet’s name by killing hundreds of civilians—mothers with their babies in strollers, wide-eyed teenagers in tour groups, husbands and wives out for a night on the town—then I’ll say, along with the poet, I shit on Muhammad….”.
Righto, Peter Carey, and company: on the basis of that article, are you prepared to denounce Michael Goldblatt as an eeevil Islamophobe??
Are you prepared to call for Ginsberg to be posthumously accused, tried and condemned of the heinous sin of Islamophobia, because of what he said to a Mohammedan cabbie who had expressed approval of the ordering of a sharia “hit” upon Salman Rushdie to punish him for ‘blasphemy’??
Jack Diamond says
Howl II. “I shit on Muhammad!…” A much shorter poem.
Remember, the first “Howl” was prosecuted for obscenity by the government in 1957 and the decision (not guilty) was a landmark for protection of free speech. Ginsberg’s reaction to the Islamic form of censorship (murder) is in character. Judge Horn in his decision said: “The authors of the First Amendment knew that novel and unconventional ideas might disturb the complacent, but they chose to encourage a freedom which they believed essential if vigorous enlightenment was ever to triumph over slothful ignorance… would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemism? An author should be real in treating his subject and be allowed to express his thoughts and ideas in his own words.”
“What I would say to both Peter and Michael and the others is, I hope nobody ever comes after them.”
Fat chance of that, unless they come after them for being bored to death by their books.
Diamond Mair says
The Spineless Six MIGHT consider reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights {one presumes they can read, given that they’ve the title “authors”, though I’ve admittedly read none of their ……………….. products}, in a classroom if need be, with an instructor grounded in the Constitution.
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.”
One could posit that the First Amendment admonishes ‘the Congress’ to ensure free speech, but since, Constitutionally, all who work within the federal government derive their power
from the consent of the governed, and PEN being a non-governmental entity can do as they please, should they decide to heed the Spineless Six.
Fair enough; I suppose since presumed ‘feminists’ ignore the treatment of women under Islam, including honor killings, genital mutilation, and wrapping females in suffocating garb, PEN’s membership isn’t THAT far out of line with elitist thinking.
Semper Fi’
DM