THE OMINOUS CASE OF SALMAN RUSHDIE

Dear Deborah:

In your catalog of antisemites, I notice you didn’t address antisemitism within the Islamic world. I was thinking about this tonight because I just returned from a lecture by Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, contained Islam-related material that many Muslims believed was insulting to their religion. As I know you well remember, Ayatollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme religious authority, issued a fatwa, a religious ruling, declaring the novel blasphemous and calling on “zealous Muslims” to murder Rushdie and “all those involved in [the novel’s] publication.” Anyone killed in fulfilling this ruling would, he promised, be deemed a religious martyr. The Iranian government put a bounty on Rushdie’s head, and he was in hiding for about a decade.1

At the lecture, Rushdie spoke of his disappointment at what he felt was a lack of support from some Western intellectuals. What he said had a familiar ring. There may be no connection here to our discussion of antisemitism, but the intolerance and violence that has in recent years been exhibited by some in the Muslim world toward the West makes me wonder if there is in fact some connection. What do you think?

Yours,

Joe

Dear Joe and Abigail:

Joe, you are right. There was a big hole in my taxonomy of the antisemite. Islam has been used by extremists to rationalize the killing and maiming of people throughout the world. Attacks by Islamist extremists, which once were directed mainly at Jews in Israel and throughout the Diaspora, are now aimed at “the West” in general. In Europe, the perpetrators are both citizens who are Muslims and immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.

Various studies, including one conducted in 2017 by the University of Oslo, have shown that attacks on European Jews, particularly physical assaults, come in the main from radicalized Muslims.2 Interviews with German Muslims, including well-educated professionals, feature comments about Jews that sound as though they have come directly from the notorious antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They claim that all the major companies in the world are controlled by Jews, that Jews harvest the organs of non-Jews for their own use, and that there are 120 Jewish families who control the world. Much of this animus may be traced back to the Israel/Palestine situation, but no distinction is made between Israelis and Jews.3

Too many people in the West—including religious figures, intellectuals, politicians, and journalists—tend to come dangerously close to what can only be described as rationalizing this extremist Islamist terror. We saw this as far back as the Rushdie case and we continue to see it today.

Let’s begin with Rushdie: A religious head of state condemned a citizen of another country to death in defiance of even the loosest interpretation of international law. The practical implications were immediate. The Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses was murdered. The Italian and Norwegian translators were attacked and seriously wounded. Bookstores throughout the world that stocked the novel were bombed. Dozens of people were killed either during protests that supported the fatwa or at meetings that supported Rushdie.4

It was certainly distressing to read that there were British Muslims who publicly supported the fatwa, but I want to focus here on prominent non-Muslims throughout the world who engaged in what I categorize as “yes, but” responses: condemning the death sentence (yes, it is horrible) while at the same time trying to rationalize it (but he brought this on himself by blaspheming Islam). I do so for two reasons: (1) it gives us some insight into the response by some in the West to Islamist extremists, and (2) this type of rationalization has also become a template for the way in which many prominent individuals in the West have responded to acts of antisemitism.

The archbishop of Canterbury, assuring Muslims that he regarded an offense against other religions to be of the same magnitude as an offense against Christianity, proposed that Britain’s much-ignored blasphemy law be expanded to encompass Islam.5 Despite having not read the book and insisting that he had “no intention of doing so,” New York’s John Cardinal O’Connor declared Rushdie’s novel “insulting and insensitive to the Muslim faith.”6 Britain’s then chief rabbi, Lord Immanuel Jakobovits, stated that the book should “not have been published” and accused both Rushdie and the Ayatollah of having “abused freedom of speech, the one by provocatively offending the genuine faith of many millions of devout believers and the other by a public call to murder.” He proposed a law that would prohibit the publication of anything “likely to inflame . . . the feelings or beliefs of any section of society.”7 But it was not only religious leaders who responded this way. Former president Jimmy Carter, writing in the New York Times, declared the book a “direct insult to . . . millions of Moslems” and called upon Western leaders to “make it clear” that the police protection Rushdie was receiving did not constitute an “endorsement of an insult to the sacred beliefs of our Moslem friends.”8 Carter did not, of course, endorse the fatwa, but his comments implied that he could understand what the motivating factor for it was, which is just as unacceptable.9 Some of Rushdie’s fellow writers were also notably less than supportive. John le Carré declared that “nobody has a God-given right to insult a great religion.” He proposed that Rushdie withdraw the book. Roald Dahl called Rushdie a “dangerous opportunist” who had deliberately decided to arouse among Muslims “deep and violent feelings” as a means of pushing his “indifferent book on to the top of the bestseller list.”10 (This from the man who was famously quoted as saying, “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity; maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”11) Paul Gilroy, author of There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, whom Rushdie had once lauded as “the United Kingdom’s Cornel West” and a person intent on shedding light on racism, accused Rushdie of having created his own tragedy.12 The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper declared that he “would not shed a tear if some British Muslim, deploring his manners, should waylay him in some dark street and seek to improve them. If that should cause him thereafter to control his pen, society would benefit, and literature would not suffer.”13

There were, however, public figures who supported Rushdie. Daniel J. Boorstin, a historian and former Librarian of Congress, declared Khomeini a terrorist and called for the American government to react in “the strongest terms.” Boorstin encouraged people to buy The Satanic Verses as an act of “affirmation of the freedom of the press in America and our unwillingness to be held hostage in our own country.”14 A similar tone was adopted by the Clinton White House. In 1993, White House director of communications George Stephanopoulos declared: “We unequivocally condemn the fatwa. We do not believe this is a private matter between Mr. Rushdie and Iran. We do not believe people should be killed for writing books. We regard the fatwa as a violation of Mr. Rushdie’s basic human rights and therefore as a violation of international law.” The New York Times put it most succinctly: “So let it be said again: Murder is not an acceptable form of literary criticism.”15

So, to return to Joe’s original question, is there a connection between responses to Rushdie’s situation and responses to incidents of contemporary antisemitism? Yes, I believe there is. Jews, together with other religious and ethnic minorities, have always thrived in societies where freedom of speech and religion have been highly valued. They have blossomed in societies that welcome an array of cultures and beliefs. Khomeini’s fatwa was a religious attack on freedom of speech. He convicted Rushdie, who does not identify as a religious Muslim, of a religious crime. He insisted that non-Muslims are also bound by Islamic laws regarding blasphemy. And he gave Muslims throughout the world the authority to carry out his religious ruling that “blasphemers,” wherever they may be found, be punished.16

While most of Rushdie’s Western critics did not feel that Khomeini had the right to issue his fatwa, they also blamed Rushdie for doing something that he knew would enrage Muslims who were willing and able to express their anger in acts of violence—as if Muslims are for some reason not expected to adhere to the rules of international law when someone insults them. This is something that has a bitter ring for Jews, as it is often used to rationalize antisemitism. “Yes, antisemitic speech and violence are wrong,” one version of the argument goes, “but how can you expect Muslims to feel and to act when Israel takes actions that oppress Palestinians.” The antisemitism manifested by some—and I emphasize some—European Muslims is part of a larger problem of integration. But unless Europeans address the problem strongly, unapologetically, and without “yes, buts,” it will sink deep roots, fester, and grow. Ultimately, more than just people wearing kippot will disappear from the European landscape. “Yes, but” is the top of the slippery slope of immoral equivalencies. We’ll see in my next letter where this has inevitably led.

Fondly,

DEL