It has been fun watching the censorious, authoritarian and Islamophilic Left tie itself into knots defending the freedom of speech it otherwise despises in the wake of the stabbing of Salman Rushdie. This New Yorker piece is a good example. Adam Gopnik asserts that “Rushdie should have been equally invulnerable to persecution had he written an actual anti-Muslim—or an anti-Christian—diatribe,” but goes out of his way several times to assure us that he actually meant no insult to Islam, that The Satanic Verses isn’t “an anti-Muslim invective,” and that Rushdie is actually as Islamophilic as any Leftist intellectual is supposed to be these days.
The import of all this is clear. Gopnik is not saying that those who do write “anti-Muslim invectives” should not be allowed to publish, or that they should be subjected to violence. I don’t know of any such books, anyway; mine are only characterized as such by those who have not read them and would never dare to do so. But the thrust of what Gopnik is saying is that the authors of such invectives should be safe, but that they will never be celebrated in the New Yorker. Gopnik can only make Salman Rushdie palatable to his far-Left audience by showing that Rushdie did not insult Islam and in fact holds it in high regard. Otherwise, he would only have ever been mentioned in the New Yorker in the course of some condemnation of “Islamophobia.”
If, however, Rushdie had produced a sacrilegious anti-Christian invective, the New Yorker would have no trouble hailing and lauding him, even in the absence of any threats or assassination attempt.
“Salman Rushdie and the Power of Words,” by Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, August 13, 2022:
The terrorist assault on Salman Rushdie on Friday morning, in western New York, was triply horrific to contemplate….
Second, it was horrific in the madness of its meaning and a reminder of the power of religious fanaticism to move people. Authorities did not immediately release a motive for the attack, but the dark apprehension is that the terrorist who assaulted Rushdie was a radicalized Islamic militant of American upbringing—like John Updike’s imaginary terrorist in the novel “Terrorist,” apparently one raised in New Jersey—who was executing a fatwa first decreed by Ayatollah Khomeini, in 1989, upon the publication of Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses.” The evil absurdity of the death sentence pronounced on Rushdie for having written a book actually more exploratory than sacrilegious—in no sense an anti-Muslim invective, but a kind of magical-realist meditation on themes from the Quran—was always obvious. (Of course, Rushdie should have been equally invulnerable to persecution had he written an actual anti-Muslim—or an anti-Christian—diatribe, but, as it happens, he hadn’t.)…
Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a figure involved in the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, announced on Twitter that he “won’t be shedding tears for a writer who spouts endless hatred & contempt for Muslims & Islam.”
Of course, Rushdie did no such thing….
(We met when we walked through the great 1992 Matisse show at moma together, at the height of the threat, and he was full of delight in each painting as it passed, with a nice, fully developed if slightly ironic sense of how much Matisse had drawn on Islamic civilization, on Persian ornaments and North African textiles, for his inspiration.)…
Efforts will be made, are bound to be made, to somehow equalize or level the acts of Rushdie and his tormentors and would-be executioners—to imply that though somehow the insult to Islam might have been misunderstood or overstated, still one has to see the insult from the point of view of the insulted. This is a doubly despicable viewpoint, not only because there was no actual insult offered but also because the right to be insulting about other people’s religions—or their absence of one—is a fundamental right, part of the inheritance of the human spirit. Without that right of open discourse, intellectual life devolves into mere cruelty and power seeking….
The idea—which has sprung to dangerous new life in America as much on the progressive as on the theocratic side of the argument—that words are equal to actions reflects the most primitive form of word magic, and has the same relation to the actual philosophy of language that astrology has to astronomy. Sticks and stones really can break bones….
mortimer says
Did Rushdie ever say that he is ‘Islamophilic’ or such in any way he is? No, but Rushdie has demanded the right to offend, the right for writers to express ideas that others do not like.
Salman Rushdie has said that freedom of expression is the RIGHT TO OFFEND. And Gopnik disagrees with that. Gopnik is a party line kind of guy. He endorses LEFTTHINK.
Adam Gopnik, thus, is not defending Salman Rushdie’s freedom of expression. He is merely defending the LEFTISTS’ freedom of expression. He believes that you should have the freedom to express to express EVERYTING that ADAM GOPNIK agrees with. And Gopnik believes you should never offend Muslims too much either … because that’s the current Leftist party line … Muslims are allies in the struggle against European tradition… and Gopnik would never deviate from Leftist CORRECTTHINK … because that would offend the Leftists.
So Gopnik’s real message is to follow the Leftist party line. We should not offend the Islamists (because they are protected allies) and even more we should not offend the Leftists.
Leftism after all is very intolerant, because they alone possess the truth and virtue, but Leftists like Gopnik don’t see their own intolerance of dissent in the mirror.
Gopnik really doesn’t believe in dissent or the value of dissent. It stands in the way of implementing the Leftist revolution.
mortimer says
correction: or SUGGEST in any way he is?
mortimer says
What is most INADEQUATE about Gopnik’s remarks is that he hasn’t done the necessary homework to understand the Islamic framework for ‘blaphemy’. Nor does Gopnik realize that Islam is an HONOR/SHAME culture.
Next, Gopnik has no idea about the Islamic definition of ‘slander’. If I say (accurately and from confirmed reports from all of his family members) that ‘ABDOOL SNORES IN HIS SLEEP EVERY NIGHT’, then Islamic law says I have slandered ABDOOL and I should be punished. Gopnik doesn’t even know that.
So it is useless to point out to Leftists like him that ‘ISLAMOPHOBIA’ is not even a concern in Islam. An ‘insult’ to a Muslim (or to Islam) may in fact 100% accurate in every particular, but if the Muslim (or the mullah) does not like it, it is IMPERMISSIBLE (haram).
Western people generally have NO IDEA WHATSOEVER about the concept of HARAM (impermissible). Muslims have a duty to suppress whatever is ‘HARAM’. Gopnik doesn’t even know that either.
So Gopnik just lazily uses Leftism’s GROUPTHINK terminology: ‘Islamophobia’ … which is from Leftism’s VICTIMHOOD theory, rather than from Sharia law’s codified “LEGISLATION”.
It’s Sharia law and only Sharia law that counts to a Muslim. Everything else is a secondary matter (even the Koran). Sharia law is the playbook of Islam.
Gopnik doesn’t even know that either.
mortimer says
Robert Spencer has done a SUPERB job of explaining what Gopnik is up to here. Gopnik is reducing a complex alien culture to terms Leftists understand, so that the Leftists will not have to go outside the party line.
According to Leftism, Muslims are protected ‘VICTIMS’ and the INTERSECTIONALITY (formerly ‘solidarity’) of the Leftist victimhood club requires the Muslims ALWAYS be protected in a ‘safe space’ from any criticism.
So Gopnik must deny that Rushdie wanted to offend Muslims. However, Rushdie GREW UP IN A MUSLIM ENVIRONMENT and he therefore knew EXACTLY WHAT HE WAS DOING.
Rushdie knew 100% that his writing would offend Muslims, BUT HE WROTE IT ANYWAY. That is another thing that Gopnik doesn’t get in his eagerness to make Rushdie a part of the Leftist party line.
Rushdie may be a bit ‘leftish’, but he is ahead of the Leftists’ obsession with victimhood, identity politics.
In a direct contradiction of Leftism, Rushdie doesn’t think Muslims are ‘victims’ of Islamophobia. He thinks that Islam is the chief victimizer.
It is undeniable that after 270 million dead bodies resulting from jihad that Islam is one history’s greatest victimizers.
Gopnik doesn’t even get that either.
somehistory says
He may not be all that some expect, but he has made some true statements. That to speak is not the same as to strike with a sword; and that one should be free to make expressions even if it offends another.
If he doesn’t understand the book…perhaps rushdie mislead him about it when they spoke…that can be chalked up to the fact that the gobbledygook of the original “satanic verses,” the unholy book mozlums worship, is full of nonsense and demonic filth, commands to murder and rape their way through life and across the entire earth.
to murder someone for making that point, is wrong, as it would be if a Christian took it upon himself to murder someone who lied about Jesus. Words matter; but unless someone believes them and acts on them, no bones are broken. And further discussion might set matters right.
Of course, mozlums never see it that way. Murder is in their manual; and discussion …not so much..
SKA says
There is NO WAY that “Satanic Verses” can be understand except as a complete satire denouncing Muhammad and the movement he launched. Every person, every place and every event in the book corresponds to specific persons, places and events in the history of Islam e.g “Makhund” = Muhammad, city of Jahiliya [Ignorance] = City of Medina “the Illuminated,” the book’s “Satanic Verses” = the actual Satanic verses so embarrassing to Muslims. Moreover the author goes overboard in sarcasm and ridicule of Islam. Eg He even describes the wives of Makhund as being prostitutes. Only the most obtuse and indoctrinated leftist could read the book as anything other than a savage attack on Islam. Let them make this experiment: approach any committed literate Muslim with Rushdie’s book in hand to explain to him why it is not really about Islam at all. Of course if anyone really urged them to such an attempt he would become an accessory to whatever harm to life and limb the leftist would suffer.
bill says
Unlike most people I have read Rusdie’s book and some of his others too, and one is barely able to detect anything anti Islam in it. Of course Muslims will believe anything their mullahs tell them. They also believe in demons and evil spirits
Carol the 1st says
One can have nothing against full chamber pots, but should a guide deliver one to some such unlidded container then who but a noseless one could fail to detect a really offensive smell?
That is what ails muslims – a whiff of their faulty humanity unlidded for all to see and smell. Quel dommage!
There’s not necessarily anything malicious in suggesting the whole lot be dumped. It is our God-given right to clear the air. If not, then what’s the point of such a god?