“Ms. Hakakian…said that the heart of the Rushdie case is ‘being able to say that we, as writers, as novelists, as thinkers, can absolutely take on any issue we want in our works — and that includes Islam.’”
This you, New York Times? “The Conservative Force Behind Speeches Roiling College Campuses,” by Stephanie Saul, New York Times, May 20, 2017:
BUFFALO — “Let’s give it up for the racists that are hosting this event!” someone yelled, and the crowd roared, foot-stomping in unison, then breaking into song: Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” One member of the audience held up a sign, “Queers Against Islamaphobia.” Another unfurled a banner: “Muslims Welcome. Fascists Get Out.”
Close to 200 students kept up the noise for more than an hour in a University at Buffalo lecture hall on May 1, mostly drowning out the evening’s featured speaker, Robert Spencer, a conservative author and blogger who espouses a dark view of Islam….
When he was able to talk above the noise, Mr. Spencer cited excerpts from the Quran as evidence that the text is used as justification for violence….
Again: this you, New York Times? “To Fight Radical Islam, U.S. Wants Muslim Allies,” by Scott Shane, New York Times, August 3, 2011:
…The F.B.I. document recommended two books by Robert Spencer, an anti-Muslim blogger and author whose work was repeatedly cited in the online manifesto of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian accused of killing at least 76 people last month. Mr. Spencer, who operates the Web site Jihad Watch, has said he opposes violence and condemns Mr. Breivik’s actions….
So now the ability to criticize Islam and jihad is a crucial component of the freedom of speech? Where do I go to get my reputation back?
But of course, the New York Times doesn’t really mean that opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women is now acceptable. They’re just signaling that it may be allowed on a limited basis from people who are reliably Leftist, such as Rushdie himself, but if people who dissent from the Leftist agenda dare to criticize Islam, the Times will be out with its torches and pitchforks warning about “Islamophobia” again.
“The Stabbing of Salman Rushdie Renews Free Speech Debates,” by Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times, August 15, 2022
Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly “intolerant climate” and warning that the “free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” It was a declaration of principles Mr. Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech….
In the West, the defense of Mr. Rushdie was hardly universally robust. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in The New York Times in 1989, denounced the fatwa but charged Rushdie with “vilifying” the Prophet Muhammad and “defaming” the Quran.
“While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important,” he wrote, “we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence the added embarrassment of the Ayatollah’s irresponsibility.”…
Some who weighed in said the stakes are simply too high — and too personal. After the attack, Roya Hakakian, an Iranian American writer who in 2019 was warned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that she had been targeted by Iran, took to Twitter on Saturday to assail what she said was a lack of swift condemnation from U.S. government officials….
In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Hakakian, who came to the United States as a refugee in 1984, said that the heart of the Rushdie case is “being able to say that we, as writers, as novelists, as thinkers, can absolutely take on any issue we want in our works — and that includes Islam.”
But “nobody is saying that,” she said. Instead, “people are paying lip service to free speech.”
In his recent autobiographical novel “Homeland Elegies,” the American writer Ayad Akhtar reflects on the complex meanings of the “Satanic Verses” controversy for Muslim readers and writers, including himself.
In an email on Sunday, Mr. Akhtar, who is PEN America’s current president, said the attack on Mr. Rushdie is “a reminder that ‘harms’ of speech and the freedom of speech do not, cannot, hold equal claims on us.”
“While we may rightly acknowledge that speech can harm,” he said, “it’s in the terrible culmination of Salman’s dilemma that we see the paramount value, the absolute centrality of freedom of thought and the freedom to express that thought.”
For many, defending Mr. Rushdie and “The Satanic Verses” against his would-be assassins may be easy, Mr. Akhtar said. But the defense also “has to apply where we have less unanimity, where we are more implicated.”
“That’s what it means,” he said, “for it to be a principle.”
CogitoErgoSum says
This is the newspaper that uses the slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness.” I think by “darkness” they really mean “ignorance.” But what is the best way to drive away the darkness of ignorance? I say it is to let the truth shine. Keep the truth from shining its light and your democracy is going to die. This newspaper has been fighting against the truth and hiding the light of the truth under a bushel for years now. Maybe they are finally seeing a small spark of the truth but even that may be too bright for them. I think they are just like their hero, Old Joe Biden, and they will put their aviator sunglasses on again to keep the light out of their eyes. Besides, they think the shades makes them look cool.
mortimer says
If there is darkness, then the NYT is casting the darkness over many things the Left is doing to sabotage democracy by creating an American one-party state in which dissenters are arbitrarily detained.
The NYT is silent about the greatest breaches of justice of the DoJ and silent about the censorship perpetrated by Big Tech.
The NYT is the mouthpiece of the Democrat fascistic machine operating on behalf of the military-industrial Deep State..
CogitoErgoSum says
I have to correct myself about one thing. The slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness” comes from the Washington Post – although it can apply to the New York Times as well. Since I care about the truth, I need to admit my own mistakes. Sorry.
Bud says
I realize they are essentially the same, but doesn’t “Democracy dies in darkness” belong to Jeff Bezos’ WaPo? Your observations are spot on.
CogitoErgoSum says
Yes, it does come from The Washington Post. Again, sorry I got that wrong.
Infidel says
No, “Democracy dies in darkness” was a WaPo slogan, not NYT, although it’s easy to mistake one for the other. At any rate, I’m not interested in the NYT or WaPo or any of these ‘institutions’ coming around. In fact, in this case, I’d support jihadis on a fatwa if they decided to rage against the NYT for daring to oppose this murder. Yeah, the NYT may be right, but it’s still a long term enemy and I wouldn’t mind their staff experiencing what Charlie Hebdo did
gravenimage says
+1
Jim says
It should not be that hard to realize that even Islam should be criticized. If that was a hard conclusion to reach, they would probably be having problems in the future, even if they admit that.
Ade Fegan says
Surely just a typo !
Jon Sobieski says
They are just mad because one of their favorite pets was attacked by Islam.
mortimer says
Precisely. They consider Rushdie a fellow Leftie.
mortimer says
The Left suddenly rediscovered the ongoing plight of Sir Salman Rushdie. He is their darling, no doubt because they think he a fellow-travelling Leftist, not one of those Neanderthal conservatives whom every Leftist is groomed to hate without any shame or guilt.
The Left is giving him a fist bump while being silent on the real culprit which is discriminatory Sharia law.
There is no reference to Islam, Sharia or Muslims in the condemnation. And yet, virtually ALL Muslims are fairly comfortable with the execution of blasphemers or insulters of Islam. That is because Islam is an HONOR/SHAME culture and the only REAL VALUE in Islam is the HONOR (i.e. supremacism) of Islam which must be protected by any means, foul or fair.
In other words, Sharia law allows Muslims to perform vigilante attacks on critics of Islam.
“There is no indemnity obligatory for KILLING a non-Muslim (harbi) AT WAR with Muslims.” -Reliance of the Traveller, o4.17, p.593
gravenimage says
New York Times suddenly discovers the importance of the freedom of speech, even regarding Islam
…………………………………….
Don’t expect this to last very long.
And Roya Hakakian is Jewish–not the average Iranian.