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October 17, 2024 - 5:30pm
Salman Rushdie has claimed today that it would be more dangerous to publish The Satanic Verses in today’s cultural climate than in 1988.
The initial publication of his famous novel resulted in a fatwa from Iran calling for the British author’s execution. His Japanese translator was murdered in 1991, while several other figures associated with the book’s publication were attacked in the following years. Most recently, in 2022, an assailant stabbed Rushdie multiple times, blinding him in one eye.
During today’s speech at Vanderbilt University’s Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville, Rushdie — who was appearing remotely — said social media and changing attitudes about censorship among young people make the current climate more hostile to free speech. While he believed the publication process would have been similar now, he said the consequences of publication would be more grave.
“There’s no doubt [publishing the book today] would have been more dangerous, because the speed with which information spreads now and the rapidity with which a large number of people can be motivated into a kind of mob response, that’s infinitely greater now,” Rushdie said, explaining that propaganda against his work in the late Eighties was disseminated by fax.
The novelist argued that, while libertarian attitudes toward speech still have currency, there’s also a growing contingent who believe “if you are offended by something, you have the right to get it stopped.” He discussed his exit from social media, comparing X to “a room full of people you don’t want to be in a room with”, and said the expectation on young writers to stay active on social media forces them to contend with strong pressure to avoid certain subjects.
On the recent resurgence of religious practice, Rushdie expressed concern that “we have to refight battles that we thought we won,” referencing evangelical Christianity in the US and radical Islam globally. “History goes in circles, cycles spiralling downwards at the moment,” he said. The same is true of free speech, he claimed, citing bans in the US targeting LGBTQ-themed books in school libraries. “The First Amendment covers our right to read, not just our right to speak,” he said. “And schools, universities, libraries are exactly the place where you should come across ideas that you have previously come across, and even ideas that you might not agree with.”
Rushdie also discussed the illiberal culture within academia, explaining that the students he encounters at New York University, where he is a writer in residence, are generally willing to engage in civil discourse, and proponents of cancel culture are merely loud, overrepresented voices. “We should listen to the silent people,” the author suggested. “Many people studying at universities are perfectly reasonable and don’t like things being shut down and banned and canceled. And if you scratch a little deeper, you might find that they have strong opinions about that.”
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SubscribeFree speech doesn’t mean you can say or write anything no matter how offensive, not to most reasonable people anyway. Satanic verses clearly went too far and there is some very questionable and offensive content in it.
He’s not an advocate of free speech, he’s an idiot, none of this needed to happen.
I hope you won’t get a single thumbs up. Free speech means that people like you, who mistake their “reasonable”-ness with limits to be placed on other people’s rights to express themselves, have no power to silence others, particularly not in the name of a religion, by murdering the speaker.
I do think, by the way, that you went too far, yet I wish you a happy and prosperous life.
You’ve twisted what I wrote into an entirely new narrative, well done.
There are limits to free speech whether you like it or not and that includes religious intolerance, which Rushdie’s material infringes upon.
At some point when he was writing Satanic Verses he must have thought to himself ‘this is going to upset some people’, but he carried on anyway and the result was that he ruined his own life and many others.
In the name of what? Free speech?
More like his own ego.
That’s such a reductive argument. Supposing someone thought that your original comment offended them? Would you support their ‘right’ to shut you down? If not, you owe yourself (not anyone else) an explanation of why not.
Give this some further serious thought. The fact that yes, it did have consequences for his life, and others, has a corollary: what would be the point of saying or writing anything that had no consequences? That’s the point of speech and language. Offence is entirely in the ego of the offended.
Maybe so. Yet if you know you are going to offend that person, or indeed a whole religion for no obvious benefit, then why do it?
Rushdie produced this fiction knowing full well it was going to cause a big fuss and perhaps considered that worthwhile and a benefit to the title.
There is no grand moral high ground to the suggestion he has the right to offend people just for the sake of doing so.
It’s the height of stupidity.
Thousands of writers over hundreds (thousands?) of years have criticized religions, sometimes viciously. The people offended have every right to express their displeasure—whether in speech or written—and present their arguments. However, the offended do not have the right to kill. Simple.
If you haven’t got the wit,wealth,nous,connections,ability to escape the murderous intentions of those you’ve knowingly offended them tough luck sucker. Rushdie had the wit and connections to evade the enemies he had created and the right sort of connections to be able to raid our (UK) Treasury to pay for his protection. He owes us.
What did Hillary say? Because it was there. If religion can’t stand those who don’t choose it then it isn’t very beneficial. Maybe they should have a stronger faith.
Why are atheists “don’t bleeve in nuffink me,s’all made up innit” way more judgmental,exclusionary and punishment enforcing than persons of faith.ls it just that you are more discriminating in your choice of company and thus exclude from your personal associates any of low sexual morality and bad character. It is good to exercise discrimination and exclude persons of bad character from our lives, prejudice against bad living is good and natural. Gosh,what have I just said – PREJUDICE and DISCRIMINATION are good. But that’s the high standards by which atheists live.
No it’s not.
How is it not entirely in the ego of the offended? Perhaps in the eyes of a certain God the Charlie Hebdo cartoons would be offensive, but wouldn’t that be up to God to enact retribution, since he is all-powerful?
He’s a Great Writer don’t ya know
And he’s an atheist by the sound of it. Thus he is a superior being. In his own estimation and his ass kissers.
Well,you’ve persuaded me. Today I’m going to get the bus down to Stapleton Rd in Bristol. I’m going to walk all down oneside and all up the other side shouting .”,n***a” as I go,it’s my right of free speech. I’ll send you my legal bill and my hospital.bill.
Don’t wear a kippa there, if you’re a man, or a miniskirt if you’re a woman. Cover your hair to be on the safe side. Do not provoke. Accept the limits.
“Satanic Verses clearly went too far,” Robbie K. says. Same with Charlie Hebdo. So these people who think things went too far, will dictate the limits of free speech, and that is acceptable.
Very encouraging. Gives me hope I won’t be put to death in my dotage because I said the censored thing in the wrong company.
Just never give an interview to The Grauniad and you should be ok. The inquisition has nothing on the pursed ass leftists.
Hilarious. An article about free speech and the comments disappear because some muppet couldn’t deal with a debate about free speech.
I’m done here.
Live long and prosper.
What evidence do you have that someone deleted/flagged your comment?
I’ve never been a great fan of SR, but when it comes to standing strong for his convictions he contrasts well with our lilly-livered politicians. Successive governments have appeased Iran, issued meaningless condemnations and done precisely nothing, no matter what vile crimes Iran has committed.
Rushdie has discernment to a highly polished degree. He can write in a few words what many think but do not have the ability nor bravery to openly say. Long may Salman Rushdie live, and may he chase the virgin-promised neanderthals to hell.
Well I’ve got no sympathy for the b*****d. His book acted like a blue touch paper. If it wasn’t his book it would have been something else. It’s all very well to say “no one has a right NOT to be offended” but it’s also true that everything has consequences,so if you do something accept it may trigger something else. Put a kettle on the hob it boils.
Indeed. Gandhi was assassinated by a religious fanatic who didn’t agree with him. The writer Anna Politkovskaya also, found shot to death on Putin’s birthday.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, sent to the Gulag. No sympathy for those b…….ds.
Are evangelical Christians the same order of threat as radical Islam? Are LGTBQ-themed books banned from libraries more often than Tom Sawyer? Are they banned very much at all?