New in PJ Media:
Little has been heard from the renowned and notorious novelist Salman Rushdie since Aug. 12, 2022, the day that he was stabbed 15 times and severely injured while onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. But now he has given his first interview since the attack, and it has become clear that even now, six months after he was viciously attacked and fully 34 years after the fatwa against him was first issued, the Western world would still prefer to ignore and deny why exactly he has been targeted and what the implications of this targeting are. In light of the fact that Rushdie is the most famous victim of Islamic blasphemy laws in the entire world, this willful ignorance is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable.
Rushdie has lost the use of his right eye, and one of his hands was severely injured. Asked how he was doing, Rushdie replied wryly, “Well, you know, I’ve been better.” Then he added, “But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad. As you can see, the big injuries are healed, essentially. I have feeling in my thumb and index finger and in the bottom half of the palm. I’m doing a lot of hand therapy, and I’m told that I’m doing very well.” He said that he could not type “very well, because of the lack of feeling in the fingertips of these fingers.” Nonetheless, he is still working: “I just write more slowly. But I’m getting there.”
On the darker side, the stabbing was, understandably enough, traumatizing: “There have been nightmares—not exactly the incident, but just frightening. Those seem to be diminishing. I’m fine. I’m able to get up and walk around. When I say I’m fine, I mean, there’s bits of my body that need constant checkups. It was a colossal attack.”
It was indeed, and it has been perfectly clear why Rushdie was attacked from the very moment it happened. The motive for an attack on Salman Rushdie has been clear since Feb. 14, 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini wrote:
In the name of Allah… I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. Whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, Allah willing, Meanwhile, if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions.
May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.
There is more. Read the rest here.
Daniel Bielak says
“…this willful ignorance is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable.”
It’s inexcusable, but I think it’s not inexplicable. The current Western excusing of, and collusion with, Islam is based on Western anti-Jewish bigotry, and is patronizing.
Western anti-Jewish bigotry is ancient and deeply engrained and has included the following false beliefs: “The Jews killed the son of God. The Jews are powerful and evil, The Jews poison the wells of Christians. The Jews kill Christian children and eat their blood.”
Currently, many Western people subconsciously or consciously hold the following false beliefs: “The Jews are selfish and clannish; The Jews control the mass-media; The Jews control the banks of Western countries; The Jews control the government of the most powerful country in the world—USA; The Jews are persecuting ‘the Palestinians;’ The most powerful country in the world—The USA—is supporting the Jews persecute ‘the Palestinians;’ The Jews are powerful. ‘The Palestinians’ are weak. ‘The Palestinians’ are Muslim; The most powerful country in the world—the USA—persecutes Muslims in the Middle East to steal their oil and to protect the Jews. Therefore Muslims are victims.”
It really is that simple. It’s the bigotry and similar narrative that, in the 1930’s, enabled the Western collusion with Nazi Germany, and which enabled World War II and the Holocaust. (The widespread Western belief in the false narrative of: “The persecuted maligned Germans,” and “the powerful warmongering Jews”)
Daniel Bielak says
I wrote:
“the following false beliefs:…‘The Palestinians’ are Muslim…”
Clarification:
Most ‘Palestinians’ (‘Palestinian’ Arabs) are, in fact, Muslim.
mg says
“… but I think it’s not inexplicable. The current Western excusing of, and collusion with, Islam is based on Western anti-Jewish bigotry, and is patronizing.”
There is some relation but it is tangential at most. Rushdie is from kashmiri muslims and his long literary history has nothing to do with anything except the brute ugly reality and history of blasphemy and sharia laws of Islam. The west is surrendering it’s religious laws in favor of ignoring Islamic laws that it would find abhorrent and unacceptable if it still had it’s own laws in place. Now it’s finding it’s leftist lines of diversity, equity as the excuse to make everyone either a victim or oppressor. Except of course Muslims who insist they are victims and never oppressors- and demand that that be the only case. That is the real bottom line. The ancient atavism of hatred of Jews does have it’s tangential role always somewhere down the line, where hatred is used, but here, its not the keystone- the leftist progressive meme is the reason that the writers and publishers who you’d think would swell the ranks and loudly proclaim the horror of what has been done to Rushdie and continue to holler it and speak of it…. but… there is mostly silence. They fear death, they fear being canceled, they fear all that because they’ve brought into the progressive memes that now have metastasized into the monstrosity that it is- and in this case, it’s siding with tyrants who say you cannot say anything about what they say lest you be murdered.