South Park, Fatwas, And Freedom Of Speech (cont.)
South Park, Fatwas, And Freedom Of Speech (cont.)
By
Ken Eliasberg
It is important to continue with the case of Salman Rushdie and the Satanic Verses. Why? Certainly not because it was a great book; it wasn’t. What is important is to note not just the intensity of the reaction of Muslim extremists — their murderous rage — but the period of time over which it has endured. Rushdie has been under protective custody for the entire 21-year period since the fatwa was issued (the issuing Ayatollah having long since gone on to his great reward — query, does an Ayatollah get more than the customarily alloted 72 virgins?). And to show that the intensity has not diminished to any serious extent, Rushdie’s being Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (for “services to literature” for the body of his work, not for the Verses) only served to stir up this boiling pot of rage, eliciting protests and demonstrations once again in various sectors of the Muslim world. And these protests were not just aimed at Rushdie; they were aimed at England as well for conferring such a distinction on this blasphemer. And, as previously noted, Rushdie was born a Muslim and, while not “really religious,” in an attempt to calm the murderous passions of his would be assassins, in 1990 “he issued a statement in which he claimed he had renewed his Muslim faith, had repudiated the attacks on Islam in his novel and was committed to working for better understanding of the religion across the world.” However, Rushdie later said that he was only ‘pretending,’ a very poor course of action, in my opinion — not that a genuine offering might have placated those who wished to do him harm (no, to do him in), but certainly a retraction could only be calculated to further inflame them (the quoted material is from wikipedia). I don’t know his current religious status, if he has one.
And the book, I understand (I have not read it, only glanced through it and read various accounts of its content) was not aimed at holding the Prophet up to contempt or ridicule; it just took enough liberties with what appears to besufficiently sacrosanct to certain members of the Muslim communityto get its author on some Islamist “hit list” - where he seems to have remained for lo these many years.
Then there was the case of Theo Van Gogh, who, by producing the movie Submission (a depiction of the subordinate status of women in the Muslim world)
failed to be quite as fortunate as Rushdie — he actually managed to get himself killed. While riding his bicycle in what used to be the peaceful streets of tolerant (to a fault) Holland, he was accosted by some Muslim youth, shot, had his throat slit (while trying to bargain with his unreceptive assassin), and finally, lest anyone not get the message, this somewhat overheated “youth” (code for young Islamists who go on the rampage in Europe) pinned a message to his chest in which the reason for the deed was offered up, thereby informing others who might be so short sighted as to follow in Van Gogh’s path. And, by the way, this bit of unpleasantness was referenced in the note sent to the South Park creators.
The next major assault on free speech (understand that I am only hitting the highlights in these columns, leaving out honor killings, sexual mutilation, and the routine verbal attacks on Jews (apes and pigs) and Christians that appear in Mosques, schools, and Arab media throughout the world) occurred in 2005 when Danish cartoonists took the unfortunate liberty of poking fun at the Prophet in a series of cartoons in their newspaper Jyllands-Posten; this touched off a nuclear reaction (speaking verbally here) throughout the Muslim world, leading to the deaths of well over 100 people and spurred on by numerous Imams (Muslim holy men), greatly aggravating the situation (who ever heard of holy men provoking murderous rage; somehow holy and inciting to violence has always — at least up to now - seemed like a bit of an oxymoron to me). In any event, they made their point, intimidating most publications not to follow suit, and in an appalling act of journalistic cowardice, cloaked in saccharine notes of sensitivity to Islamic feelings — a courtesy not extended to the sensibilities of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., etc. — the journalistic media, for the most part, caved.
There were, however, notable exceptions, demonstrating that there are some journalists with the courage to support our right to free speech. Unfortunately, Yale University, that bastion of truth and scholarship, was not among them. Its University Press “decided to expunge reproductions of the cartoons along with all other images of Muhammad from a scholarly book entitled The Cartoons that Shook the World by professor Jytte Klausen. News of the decision sparked criticism from some prominent Yale alumni as well from the American Association of University Professors. Yale defended its rationale by saying it feared inciting violence if the images were published.” Flemming Rose, the cultural editor who commissioned the cartoons, has described Yale’s action as “[giving] in to intimidation