Katha Pollitt’s words here recall something I used to repeat many years ago: that those who accused me of “Islamophobia” were the real “Islamophobes,” as they assume that to oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women is to “hate Muslims,” as if all Muslims supported jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women. It’s refreshing to see this, especially coming from a Leftist.
“The Left Has a Responsibility to Side With Salman Rushdie,” by Katha Pollitt, The Nation, August 17, 2022:
I had many disagreements with my old colleague Christopher Hitchens, but how I wish he were here today. As you surely know, more than 30 years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie for supposedly blaspheming Muhammad in his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie is in intensive care after being stabbed repeatedly by a 24-year-old native of New Jersey. How Christopher would lay into anyone today who hints that the novelist made his bed by offending Muslim religious strictures. In 1989 and after, there were plenty of these, among them John Le Carré, John Berger, Liberal Democrats doyenne Shirley Williams, Roald Dahl, and Germaine Greer.
On Twitter the talk (of course) is all of Islamophobia—Rushdie is an Islamophobe, Christopher was an Islamophobe, and so were the 12 staffers of Charlie Hebdo slain in 2015 by a pair of jihadis who took offense at their magazine’s cartoons. Two hundred and forty two writers, some of them friends of mine, took issue with PEN when it gave Charlie a Courage Award. But the root of “phobia” means fear—so aren’t the real Islamophobes those who caution that exercising one’s free speech even in a novel will set off the ayatollahs and the book burners and the assassins?
If anything, Rushdie was the one respectful of Muslims: After nine years in hiding, he’s led an increasingly normal public life because he didn’t think even one of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims would try to kill him. The real Islamophobes are the people like Jimmy Carter, who was seen bothsidesing it in The New York Times just after the fatwa was announced: “It is our duty to condemn the threat of murder, to protect the author’s life and to honor Western rights of publication and distribution. At the same time, we should be sensitive to the concern and anger that prevails even among the more moderate Moslems.” So in other words, we should have rights but not use them. It would hurt feelings even among the “more moderate Moslems.” And as that “more” suggests, they may not be so moderate after all, so don’t push them. #BeKind!…
martin fidal says
I got banned for saying similar stuff as this ! The world is a funny place
Wellington says
Perhaps some Muslims don’t support jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women but they adhere to a belief system, however nominally, that does. Conclusion: No willing adult Muslim can be exculpated, though degrees of wrongdoing in this regard do exist. However, wrong is wrong and being a Muslim is wrong.
somehistory says
Yes!
somehistory says
“anger that prevails ”
definition of “prevails.”: of course, it firstly means “victorious”…but this part fits:molzums
“be widespread in a particular area at a particular time; be current:”
mozlums are angry…and they like to show their anger and they will without even being given an excuse or *reason.*
We all have the freedom to speak…given by man’s Creator, and expressed in the Constitution as a “right.”
Those who are not mozlum, should freely express the Truths about the death cult, the murders of children through rape and mutilation, the murders of young girls and women who don’t wish to be ‘married” to a sleaze chosen by their male relatives, or choose not to wear the hideous clothing, or to go do a job, or date a nice infidel who loves them….
The “fear” and “terror” comes from mozlums who wish to make us all kowtow to them and their fake ‘god’ and fake ‘prophet’ and respect their unholy book of demonic filth.
“moderate” mozlums, pshaw.
Wellington says
Yes!
Westman says
Islam was designed to elevate alpha males to military leadership in partnership with religious clerics, reduce females to subservience, and use the males to expand territory and wealth through aggression and collection of booty. Impossible, unverified, rewards are offered for martyrdom.
That Islam, in some locations, finds itself temporarily limited by world powers or strongmen in no way changes the doctrine of expansion, conquest, and control – it is merely delayed, waiting for opportunity.
Most Muslims living in France and Germany are peaceful. Would that be true if their Muslim Clerics called for insurrection? Where is the assurance from Islam’s clerics that the quranic demand for supremacy will never be attempted by force in these nations?
The author is right, liberals now understand that Islam takes conquest and revenge for anything it perceives to be a offense. The Left cries, “islamophobia!”, at the brave, because they are afraid.
James Lincoln says
Westman says,
“The Left cries, “islamophobia!”, at the brave, because they are afraid.”
Yes.
Or…
They are totally ignorant regarding islam.