The death threats against the left-winger
Salman Rushdie in 1989
were in retrospect the start of the modern international jihad
against all of us.
Salman Rushdie was
the "canary in the coalmine" of the modern global jihad.
Salman Rushdie reads from "The Satanic Verses".
This is a witty, highly intelligent and profound attack on the
absurd origins of all religions.
Every religious person should listen to this and think about it.
From here.
The Salman Rushdie affair, 1989 to date
- The foreign tyrants of Iran threaten a British citizen with death
for criticising their violent superstitious beliefs.
A fatwa of one's own
by Mark Steyn
recalls, during the Rushdie fatwa of 1989,
the pathetic response of such as:
Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury (1980-91):
""I well understand the devout Muslims' reaction, wounded by what they hold most dear and would themselves die for"
(surely, "kill for").
Roy Hattersley.
Gerald Kaufman.
Life peer
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre
shamefully said:
"I wonder how Salman Rushdie is faring these days under the benevolent protection of British law and British police, about whom he has been so rude. Not too comfortably I hope ... I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring his manners, should waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them. If that should cause him thereafter to control his pen, society would benefit and literature would not suffer.".
What the jihad is about:
"If tomorrow the Israel/Palestine issue was resolved to the total happiness of all parties, it would not diminish the amount of terrorism coming out of al-Qa'ida by one jot. It's not what they're after.
...
What they want is to change the nature of human life on earth into the image of the Taliban. If you want the whole earth to look like Taliban Afghanistan, then you're on the same side as them. If you don't want that, you're not.
They do not represent the quest for human justice.
That, I think, is one of the great mistakes of the left.
...
Go away and die - that's all bin Laden wants you to do.
It's not just about Iraq, it's about ham sandwiches and kissing in public places
and sex with girls you're not married to.
...
It's about life."
He is angry at his fellow leftists:
"so much of the left always seems to fall for fascist bastards
pretending to be speaking on behalf of the masses.
They've done it before with communism in its various forms,
and here's another bunch of fascist bastards claiming to be speaking for the downtrodden masses,
and they're falling for it again."
"Rushdie has looked down the barrel of Islamism, smelt its cordite, and survived.
So he is perpetually being asked - how do we lift the collective fatwa on our transport systems,
our nightclubs, our cities? How do we scrape meaning from his misery?
"When people ask me how the West should adapt to Muslim sensitivities,
I always say - the question is the wrong way round.
The West should go on being itself.
There is nothing wrong with the things that for hundreds of years have been acceptable
- satire, irreverence, ridicule, even quite rude commentary
...
One of the things that have made me live my entire life in these countries is because I love the way people live here.""
Rushdie is knighted, June 2007.
The "Islamic street" seethes with threats of violence.
Whining Islamist extremists in Pakistan complain about the knighthood,
and threaten violence.
A Pakistani Minister says:
"Every religion should be respected. I demand the British government immediately withdraw the title as it is creating religious hatred."
Ed Brayton replies, defending the Enlightenment:
"Nonsense. If your religion says that you have the right to kill anyone who criticizes your religion - fuck your religion."
Andrew Marr has a simple reply:
If Pakistan is so angry, give back our aid, 20 June 2007
- "If Pakistan is so offended, however, there is a dignified way to deal with the problem.
Last year, Tony Blair went to Lahore to praise its "enlightened moderation" and to announce a rise in our aid budget to Pakistan from £236 million to £480 million. If this is tainted money, it can presumably be returned."
An even better idea would be for Britain to withdraw the aid,
in protest at the threats from Pakistan.
Oliver Kamm:
"The proper response to those who find themselves offended by the expression of ideas is: 'That's tough. You'll live. Get over it.'"
Kamm also makes a very important point:
"I was appalled to see ... remarks by the British High Commissioner in Pakistan ... The honour was not, the High Commissioner said, an insult to Islam, for we respect Islam.
The first part of that answer was correct but strictly irrelevant. The second was improper. I take fierce exception to (I am - if you will - offended by) a British diplomat's speaking on behalf of my country and my government in taking a position on matters of religion.
I do not respect Islam (or any religious faith).
All I will insist upon as a matter of right for Muslims (or Christians, Jews and Seventh-Day Adventists) is religious liberty. Beyond that, they have no claim. They are not entitled to my respect.
As a mere lobby group, they have no right to be listened to, let alone taken seriously, on matters of public policy."
My thoughts exactly.
I tolerate all religions.
I respect none.
But then, Oliver Kamm and I believe in the Enlightenment.
And of course, instead of responding with logic and reason,
and evidence that their imaginary being "Allah" actually exists,
angry Muslims respond with violence.
Oh right, that's really going to convince me that Allah exists.
The worst that Rushdie or any other heretic could say about Islam
isn't remotely as bad as what the Islamists say about it.
The Islamists are saying Islam is a religion of sick random violence and hatred.
That's the message they are sending to an unfriendly world.
And the world is listening, and believing it.
See
his comments
(New York Times, May 23, 1989)
clearly supporting the fatwa.
Then see his
weasel words
to try to get out of the controversy:
"Under Islamic Law, the ruling regarding blasphemy is quite clear;
the person found guilty of it must be put to death.",
but then he says Muslims in Britain must obey British law.
(In other words, he supports the death penalty
for blasphemy in Islamic countries.)
Further weasel words in 2003
claim he was talking in the abstract, and
neglect to mention
his
explicit comments
such as:
"I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like.
...
I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is".
Cat Stevens on the genocidal dictator
Saddam Hussein:
"during the Persian Gulf war" [1991] "he spoke sympathetically of his "Muslim brother,"
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein"
Cat Stevens
defends (in Islamic states) the killing of women for adultery:
"Yusuf, who is an active member of the Supreme Council of British Muslims, claims that these reports have been greatly overplayed. 'The law on adultery states that you need four live witnesses to the actual event.' Therefore, he points out, these women must have confessed."
Cat Stevens
says that the British citizen
Salman Rushdie should be extradited to
some Islamic tyranny such as Iran for punishment (i.e. death)
for writing a book offending Stevens' imaginary friend "Allah"
(who does not exist).
This obnoxious man
says that no free British citizen
should be allowed under law
to criticise or ridicule his
ancient, made-up tribal religion:
"Look at it rationally. It's not the breaking of one law, it's the thin end of the wedge whereby
all that is held sanctimonious can be demolished."
The
controversy
about whether he supported Hamas.
The anti-jihad
Robert Spencer
surprisingly defends him
- saying that
many donors to Islamic charities do not know where their money goes.
Cat Stevens' hostility to
freedom of speech:
"To safeguard the peace and security of the multi-religious society,
Islam wisely prohibits the vilification of what people hold sacred,
in order that people do not vilify or mock God the Almighty in return."
Cat Stevens on
the death penalty for blasphemy:
"When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that
- like both the Torah and the Gospel - the Qur'an considers it, without repentance,
as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you're looking for them.
However, the application of such Biblical and Qur'anic injunctions
is not to be outside of due process of law,
in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole."
In other words, in a majority Muslim country
it is alright to execute people for blasphemy.
Bruce Bawer
is disgusted that this man is singing at the
Nobel "Peace" Prize concert in Dec 2006.
Cat Stevens on TV, 1989.
Geoffrey Robertson: "You don't think that this man deserves to die?"
Cat Stevens: "Who, Salman Rushdie?"
Geoffrey Robertson: "Yes."
Cat Stevens: "Yes, yes."
Geoffrey Robertson: "And do you have a duty to be his executioner?"
Cat Stevens: "No, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act - perhaps, yes."
Geoffrey Robertson: "Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam?
Would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy
[of Salman Rushdie]
was going to be burnt?"
Cat Stevens: "I would have hoped that it would be the real thing."
Also here
and here.
Since 1995.
