You're dodging.
Intentions behind literary themes? So a novel is a kind of code, a disguise to fool someone - Rushdie set out to disguise his real intentions, and all that literary work and invention and inspiration was a side effort?
From whom?
Gee, I don't know. I guess Western intellectual traditions just make no sense in this context.
I don't expect you or any of his other supporters to understand why the reaction was the way it was. Somehow, it seems, his strongest supporters are those who haven't even read the book, yet put him on the highest of pedastals. To understand the reaction to Rushdies book, you have to go back in time, to the time of Colonialism and Western Imperialism. When the British took over various Eastern countries, they had state sponsored priests and missionaries go out in the world and try and convert people to Christianity. Poor people could have food, but they'd have to listen to the Bible being read out loud. Sick people could get treatment, but the best was reserved for Christian hospitals. And ofcourse, there was that smug arrogance and downright racist attitude of the Westerners towards the indigenous population. That thinking, that somehow they were superior and had to bring civilization to these people through, amonst other things, Christianity has never been forgotten. A lot of people converted, but the biggest stumbling block for this proved to be the Muslims. They just wouldn't convert in such large numbers.
Enter, the Orientalists. They took it upon themselves, some with the help and under instructions of the Church, to villify Islam and historical Muslims and the Prophet. So they went ahead and wrote and published their books, which were printed in large numbers and then used in those countries to attack Muslims and try get Muslims to convert. This, together with the racist attitudes of the Colonialists, was never really accepted. Looking back at their "arguments" they were the same that Rushdie used, yet there werent riots or death threats or murders. Rushdie plagiarizied all of their arguments. The effect that these books and priests attacking Islam on the street in large crowds had was that some Muslims started to think they were right and demanded reforms of Islam, by taking away all the core concepts and rules of Islam. However, there was a backlash, the colonial and racist aspects and realities, together with these attacks on their religion and culture, meant that instead of converting in large numbers, Muslims became more conservative and went back to core Islam.
At the start of the 20th century, Muslims had rebutted and debunked all of these arguments and Christianity wasn't a powerhouse anymore in those countries. The colonial times had come to an end, almost. There were still a handful of Orientalists between that period and Rushdie, but there were still no riots and or death threats or murders. Then Rushdie came along with his "fiction". Fact of the matter is that Rushdie, ever since Grimus, has been attacking Muslims, Islam, Pakistan and other countries, yet there were no riots and or death treats regarding Grimus and Midnights Children, even though he mocked and ridiculed Islam and Muslims and Pakistanis excessively. His obsession with sex meant that when his parents moved to Pakistan he couldn't satisfy his urges as easily so he took his frustrations out on the Muslims. Saying that a city that locks its women up has lots of whores because the men have urges is just one of those examples.
He has used and mocked the style of writing in the Quran, specifically Surah Al-Rahman, adding his own style of vulgarity and profanity and ridiculing the rewards of Heaven in Islam. Rushdie never could hide his love for British Rule of India and made sure he stuck that in his writings. His ridicule of Divine Revelation in Midnights Children by mocking the revelations given to the Prophet and other Prophets, and then comparing himself to these Prophets. But his biggest love was ridiculing the Prophet of Islam by telling his story, modifying it and mocking it. In Shame, you had his constant attacks on Pakistanis and Pakistani Government. And then the culmination of his work in The Satanic Verses, where he took everything Orientalists and people supporting Western and Christian Imperialism before him had said, twisted it so that it fitted his vulgar and profane style and tried to hide it under the guise of "fiction". Fact of the matter is that no Westerner or someone who isn't familar with Islam can comprehend what Rushdie is writing about. All they see is a fiction novel that's full of mystical sounding names, places and events. Yet Rushdie went to great lengths to attack some of the most noble Muslims in history, from Salman Farsi to Bilal and the Prophet and his Wives. Calling the Prophet of Islam Mahound, an ugly name used by the Crusaders to villify the Prophet, and saying that the Prophet knew he was lying, he knew there was no God, but because he had started this legend, he had to keep at it. Twisting the times the Muslims had to defend themselves from certain extermination by the Meccans, by ridiculing the Battle of the Ditch and Salman Farsi.
In fact, his portrayal of Salman Farsi is one his great attacks. Farsi was seen as one of the noblest companions of the Prophet, a slave of a Jew, someone who had shown such goodness and nobility the Prophet stated that Farsi was now a member of his family. But to Rushdie, he was a drunk who knew all the dirty family secrets. Rushdie talks through Farsi by ridiculing and attacking the women of Islam, and the wives of the Prophet, way before he talks about that brothel. And ofcourse, the brothel is the icing on the cake for his treatment of Islamic women and the Prophets wives. But he doesn't stop there, no, he has to take some more cracks at the Prophet by talking about revelations giving him "permission to fuck as many women as he liked". Then he has Aisha say how convenient that God helps him whenever he needs God. He then connects this to his twisted story of Aisha being an adultress and God coming to help her. And ofcourse, one of the most offensive things he writes relates to the Prophets death, by the Prophet accepting that the Satanic Verses were real and one of those godesses coming to him in his last moments. He cant even leave the Prophets death alone.
But ofcourse, the Western media took small events of book burning and repeated them over and over. There have been 7 cases of books being burned by Westernes since, 8 if you count the the libraries in Iraq being destroyed because of bombings and subsequent events, yet how many have made the news or been shown over and over? Regarding blasphemy in the West, the UK repealed its blasphemy laws in 2008. Visions of Ecstasy, a film, was banned due to blasphemy in, wait for it.....1989!
So what was the difference between accepted blasphemy and not accepted blasphemy? Well, The Satanic Verses was the culmination of Rushdies anti-Islamic work, while Visions of Ecstacy was about Saint Teresa of Ávila and Jesus. You do the math. Other examples where books that cause offence were delayed include the biography of John Curry, whose family objected and the book was delayed. But then again, the blasphemy laws were very onesided. According to Geoffrey Robertson in the Times in 1989:
The Government's rejection of demands to extend the blasphemy law to non-Christian religions pre-empts the policy arguments to be made to the Divisional Court when it reviews a magistrate's refusal to issue a summons against the publisher and author of The Satanic Verses...
Rushdie's own eagerly awaited evidence would be inadmissible. In 1979 the House of Lords decided, by a 3-2 majority, that an alleged blasphemer's intentions are irrelevant. Only the consequence matters. That a writer could be convicted of a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine and imprisonment without being able to speak in his own defence would surely be unacceptable to thinking Muslims. The recognized literary merits of the book would weigh most against its propensity to provoke. But literary merit is no defence to a blasphemous libel charge. The defence would strive in vain to call the kind of literary luminaries who testified to the merit of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Many might speak as character witnesses for the author and publishers. But they could not utter a word in defence of the book.
The trial would be, in Patten's words, ``decisive and damaging'' litigation. But his response does not then promise to end the legitimate grievance that Muslims and adherents to other (or no) religions still have: the religious discrimination of preserving a law protecting only Christian beliefs.
The blasphemy law's basic defect is that it is so uncertain in scope that nobody can establish in advance whether a publication would constitute an offence. The crime hinges on a finding by a particular jury that material is unacceptably ``scurrilous'', ``abusive'' or ``insulting'' in relation to the Christian religion. What purpose does this law serve? The web of prohibitions on obscenity and indecency in the media protect sacred subjects from pornographic representation; the Public Order Act punishes the use of threatening, insulting or abusive words or writing that might provoke a breach of the peace; and several laws specifically punish anyone who disturbs religious devotions...
Patten piously tells Muslim leaders: ``The Christian faith no longer relies on the law of blasphemy, preferring to recognize that the strength of their own belief is the best armour against mockers and blasphemers.'' But he ignores the tendency that the law will give some to believe they can enforce a conventional Christian presentation of sacred themes in the arts hence demands to prosecute Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ. That alone may remind the Government that it cannot refute the Muslim case for extending the blasphemy law without undertaking to abolish it.
Interesting stuff from a QC. And then ofcourse, there is Rushdie, somehow claiming to have converted, or reverted, back to Islam, and then some time later saying he faked it. There is also no argument that Rushdies books are not pure "fiction" as he himself readily admitted during various interviews about the book. Roald Dahl said it best when he called Rushdie an opportunistic liar. After all, this was the man who said he prefers glorious failure to modest succes. And then, we get people, his most ardent defenders, who haven't even read the book and who know nothing about Pakistani histoy, subcontinent culture, Islamic history and culture, yet will defend him to the hilt. How ridiculous is that.
They deifiy him as some great icon of the freedom of speech. My question to them would be how they can reconcile this with Rushdie getting a play cancelled because he was offended by it
Yes, that's right, Rushdie got a play cancelled. The play by Brian Wright was to deal with his death due to the fatwa, but Rushdie flipped and called Clark and left a message on his machine shotuing at him how he could ever have thought this play would be acceptable to Rushdie. That Rushdie would do whatever he could to get this play from being performed. Then Clark got a letter from Rushdies agent saying that Clark had to legally notify him when the play was to be performed so he could take legal action. Clark, not wanting to get into a legal tangle, decided to cancel the play. Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is the icon of freedom of speech, who was too offended by a play and got it cancelled.
Before Rushdies book was going to be published, the publishers asked a group of religious experts whether they should publish the book. All of the religious expers, Christian and Jewish, said this book should not be published, it was dangerous. I believe it was an agent of the publishers from their Indian offices who said this book should not be published in its current form because it was lethal. He was paid around a million in advance royalties. A million in advanced royalties for a book of fiction. And yet, the publishers went ahead and published it, knowing full well what the reaction would be.
The thing with the Rushdie affair is that its not just Rushdie, it was a constant attack on eastern culture and religion ever since Western Imperialism and colonial times. The wars, the subjugation, the slavery, the racism, the imposition of Christianity by the state through subtle means, the eradication of Eastern history and culture, the overall smugness and feeling of superiority portrayed by the West, the mass murders, the suppression, and then ofcourse, the Orientalists. None of Rushdies arguments against Islam are new, but the way he took his attacks against Islam and Pakistanis and other over the top and betrayed a group that saw him as one of its greatest writers resulted in the reaction we saw. And as Roald Dahl and others said: Rushdie is an opportunistic liar who cannot claim to have written fiction and know nothing about how people would react. No one here is saying the fatwa was right, in fact, the Ayatollah had no authority to pronounce that fatwa, and no one here supports any killings. But the portrayal of the incident by the Western media aggrevated the situation. Add on top of that that other incidents werent as widely reported like, for example, the controvery surrounding The Moors Last Sigh which offended a group of Hindus, who had previously lauded Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, and who burned and destroyed his books and threatened everyone who dared to sell that book, and all you do is aggrevate the situation more and more.
Rushdie is an opportunistc liar with delusions of grandeur. His obsession with sex and profanity is only rivalled by his egotistical displays like jeering the winners when he didnt win a prize for one of his books. Everytime there is a threat of him being forgotten, he announces himself in public and makes sure he has the attention. He is an attentionwhore. And yes, most Westerners are not aware of what he is trying to disguise as fiction so to them, it's all fiction.
