Fresh demonstrations have broken out in Pakistan
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Posted on 06/20/2007 2:57:21 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Salman Rushdie's knighthood has provoked protests around the Islamic world and a diplomatic row. So how was the decision made, and why did no-one appear to consider the consequences?
"Ahmed Salman Rushdie - author, for services to literature" - this simple entry in the Queen's birthday honours follows several years of deliberations, form-filling, lobbying and secretive committee meetings.
The lengthy process involved makes it all the more surprising to critics that little consideration was given to a likely backlash.
Fresh demonstrations have broken out in Pakistan
The Queen's birthday honours are aimed at rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom.
Anyone can nominate an individual for an award and, although the people doing the nominating are supposed to remain anonymous, in Sir Salman's case it looks as if his cheerleaders were the English branch of Pen, an international writers' group.
'Literary giant'
Pen will not confirm officially whether or not it signed his nomination papers. But it has backed the Booker-prize winning author since 1989 when Iran's spiritual late leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him, calling for his execution.
His book, The Satanic Verses, was seen as so offensive to Muslims that he was forced into hiding, under threat of death.
The latest controversy over his knighthood appears to have shocked the people involved in nominating and selecting him.
If the senior officers of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were not able to use their knowledge of the Islamic world to consider the likely ramifications of this decision, then I'm extremely concerned 
Stewart Jackson MP
Jonathan Heawood, director of the English branch of Pen, said: "We have argued for a long time that Salman Rushdie should be recognised by the government as a giant of world literature.
"I've been struggling for a form of words that does not sound naive but we were taken aback, everyone was taken aback, by the scale of the reaction.
"I gather the honours committee themselves were taken aback. The decision to award the knighthood was entirely in the hands of the honours committee and the government."
He added: "We don't regret it. We will continue to support Salman Rushdie as we support over 1,000 writers around the world who have been persecuted as a result of their writing."
Nomination forms are sent to the Cabinet Office, which passes them on to the relevant sub-committee. In Sir Salman's case, this was the arts and media committee chaired by multi-millionaire banker and philanthropist Lord Rothschild.
THE PEOPLE WHO DECIDE ARTS HONOURS
Lord Rothschild, banker and philanthropist
Jenny Abramsky, BBC director of radio and music
Ben Okri, novelist and poet
John Gross, author and critic
Andreas Whittam Smith, former Independent editor
Committee member Andreas Whittam Smith says the arts committee was concerned only with literary merit and that other considerations were the responsibility of the main committee.
The main committee, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, includes the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office. It decides which names are put forward for final approval to the prime minister and the Queen.
A spokeswoman at the Foreign Office confirmed the permanent secretary had been at the meeting, adding: "This was never going to be an uncontroversial decision but the award was for literary achievement.
"It was not intended to be an offence to Islam or the prophet Mohammed."
She said she did not think the controversy would affect the UK's relationship with Pakistan or Malaysia, with whom, she said, Britain continued to enjoy a good relationship.
Books 'rubbish'
Conservative MP Stewart Jackson, chairman of the all-party group on Pakistan, said: "Salman Rushdie was subjected to one of the most famous death sentences in the 20th Century.
Source: Cabinet Office
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE HONOURS CANDIDATE
What makes the person worthy?
Have they gone the extra mile?
Have they changed things for the better?
Do they carry the respect of their peers?
Have they achieved against the odds?
Do they stand out above others in the field?
"If the senior officers of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office were not able to use their knowledge of the Islamic world to consider the likely ramifications of this decision, then I'm extremely concerned."
He believes the decision will exacerbate tensions with the Pakistani government at a time when it is struggling to deal with political uncertainty and terrorism.
His objections to Sir Salman's knighthood do not stop there.
"He has been a critic of the UK, a country whose taxpayers have paid for the protection he required from the fatwa. He's only semi-resident in this country and his books are rubbish, tedious and without literary merit.
"There's no question that we can rescind the award, it would make us look weak and it's not for Britain to kow-tow to extremists but perhaps it would be appropriate for Salman Rushdie to make the decision not to accept this award," said Mr Jackson.
That seems unlikely given Sir Salman's initial reaction that was he "thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour".
He does, however, have time to reconsider since he is unlikely to be formally presented with the award by the Queen until the end of the year.
Salman Rushdie's controversial career
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Sir Salman, who has been accused of insulting Islam, was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours. His knighthood has been condemned by Pakistan's parliament and Iran said it demonstrated "Islamophobia" among British officials. Sir Salman was catapulted to literary fame with his magic realist novel Midnight's Children in 1981. The son of a successful businessman, he was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai in 1947. He was educated in England at Rugby School and studied history at Cambridge University. Booker prize Following an advertising career in London, he became a full-time writer.
His first novel, Grimus, was published in 1975 but was generally ignored by the book-buying public and literary establishment. But his second work - Midnight's Children - won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was awarded the Booker of Bookers in 1993 after being judged the best novel to have won the prize during its 25-year history. Sir Salman, 60, is renowned as a purveyor of story as political statement. Death sentence He takes history and fictionalises it, with imaginative brilliance, and much of his work is set in his native India and Pakistan. His fourth book - The Satanic Verses - describes a cosmic battle between good and evil and combines fantasy, philosophy and farce. It was immediately condemned by the Islamic world because of its perceived blasphemous depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. It was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities and in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's spiritual leader, issued a fatwa, ordering Sir Salman's execution. In 1998, the Iranian government said it would no longer support the fatwa, but some groups have said it is irrevocable.
Despite living as a virtual prisoner, with full police protection, Sir Salman continued to write and produced several novels and essays during his confinement. He returned to public life in 1999 and even appeared in the hit movie Bridget Jones's Diary. Since he returned to public life, he has not shied away from controversy. A devout secularist, he backed Commons Leader Jack Straw over comments in 2006 on Muslim women and veils. Sir Salman said veils "suck" as they were a symbol of the "limitation of women". He also weighed into the furore surrounding the Danish cartoons, which satirised the Prophet Muhammad, warning against Islamic "totalitarianism". The author married for the fourth time when he wed Indian actress Padma Lakshmi, in Manhattan in 2004. Of his knighthood for services to literature, Rushdie said: "I am thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour, and am very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way."
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This is a perfect excuse for the English Intifada to begin.
The wimps seem to be falling all over themselves trying to explain their decision.
What a bunch of dhimmis. I cannot believe William Wallace lost to them.
That is the only one of his works I have read, and that was nearly 20 years ago. From what I recall it is worthy of high praise. From what I can tell about Satanic Verses, the thing he got wrong is that the Koran is made up entirely of Satanic Verses.
I gave “The Satanic Verses” my best shot. I really did.
I found it impenetrable.
However, I’m high-church Episcopalian and of a representational (as opposed to abstract) turn of mind. I found “Ulysses” equally opaque.
....and the main problem is....
what??? ...not enough goat/meterorite-worshippers. :)
He took on the Islamic world, I'd say he's got it in spades.
Of course, Britain must always get the permission of any assorted Muslim entities around the world before taking a (figurative) crap.
Agreed. Midnight’s Children, his first book, is an awesome read. The rest, however ... well, not so much.
very disturbing that a Conservative MP would make such statements.
‘What a bunch of dhimmis. I cannot believe William Wallace lost to them.’
Just about everybody lost to us apart from the British colonists in a certain north american teriitory. ;-)
Tell me, what has your country done lately to anger the muslim hoardes this much, or are they too dhimmified to speak up?
‘Of course, Britain must always get the permission of any assorted Muslim entities around the world before taking a (figurative) crap.’
Yeah? I don’t see your head of state going out of his way to upset muslims like this award has? But then you’ve got a lot more muslims in America than we have in England, so i guess it takes your president longer to ask their permission. . . .
Another Ex-Muslim Author under threats:
************************
Caught up in a row over her Dutch citizenship, she resigned from parliament in May and said she would leave the Netherlands. Her troubles began when Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said she should be stripped of her passport because of falsifications in her asylum application when she came to the Netherlands in 1992. But after the decision sparked uproar, Ms Verdonk made a major U-turn and said Ms Hirsi Ali could keep her Dutch citizenship after all. It will not be enough to keep the 36-year-old in the country, however. She has been offered a job at a Washington-based conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, starting in September. Death threats As one of the Netherlands' most prominent politicians, the swiftness of Ms Hirsi Ali's fall took observers by surprise. She rose to international attention in 2004 as the writer of a controversial film on violence against Muslim women, Submission, after her collaborator, filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered by a radical Islamist.
The latest furore erupted after a television documentary highlighted lies she had told about her name, age and how she had reached the Netherlands when she applied for asylum 14 years ago. Ms Hirsi Ali had admitted the falsifications in several media interviews since 2002 and also informed her party, the liberal-conservative VVD, before standing for parliament in 2003. But where the documentary seems to have hit her reputation hardest is in interviewing members of her family who contested her claim that she was fleeing a forced marriage when she arrived in the Netherlands aged 22. The MP has previously explained not giving her real name, Ayaan Hirsi Magan, and saying she was born in 1967, not 1969, because she was afraid her family would find her. She also told officials she had come directly from Somalia, rather than via Kenya and Germany, thus accelerating her claim for asylum. Ms Verdonk said in May that the falsifications made her application for citizenship, granted in 1997, invalid. But a month later, Ms Verdonk wrote to the Dutch parliament saying she had found a loophole which made it legitimate for Ms Hirsi Ali to have used her grandfather's name in her asylum claim. Outspoken views Speaking to the BBC, Ms Hirsi Ali said that despite having lived in many countries, it was "extremely important" to her to be a Dutch citizen.
"I define citizenship as declaring political allegiance to the community you belong [to] - and that for me is Holland," she told BBC World Service. She said she had been "very open" about her asylum application when she was asked to stand for parliament and had been reassured by her party that her candidature was acceptable. Dutch commentator Perro de Jong, of Radio Netherlands, said the uproar over Ms Hirsi Ali's status had been fuelled by recent debate over asylum and immigration in the Netherlands. And he suggested that while the VVD benefited from the publicity Ms Hirsi Ali attracted, some within the party found it difficult to accept her outspoken views. "You could argue that everyone liked her as a token... but maybe they weren't willing, because she was a woman and an immigrant, to accept her as an intellectual force - someone with her own agenda who would speak out," he said.
She may expect a warmer welcome in the US, where Time magazine has named her one of the most influential thinkers of our time. |
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH AYAAN HIRSI ALI
*******************************EXCERPT************************
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech.
**********************************************
SPIEGEL:
Hirsi Ali, you have called the Prophet Muhammad a tyrant and a pervert. Theo van Gogh, the director of your film "Submission," which is critical of Islam, was murdered by Islamists. You yourself are under police protection. Can you understand how the Danish cartoonists feel at this point?
Hirsi Ali: "The cartoons should be displayed everywhere."
SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?
Hirsi Ali: There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is precisely because they have criticized religion, the political establishment and society. Totalitarian Islamic regimes are in a deep crisis. Globalization means that they're exposed to considerable change, and they also fear the reformist forces developing among émigrés in the West. They'll use threatening gestures against the West, and the success they achieve with their threats, to intimidate these people.
Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it's already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don't notice how much abuse we're taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch.
For what it’s worth, I thought Midnight’s Children was an excellent novel. I tend to agree that the rest of it is fashionable junk.
But it’s no worse junk than the typical novels that win the Booker Prize year after year.
I find it extremely disturbing that the Brits would let a bunch of Pakistani fanatics stir them up like this, or make them regret what they’ve done. What, do they have to consult the Pakistanis now every time they do anything?
Especially disturbing is the reaction of a Conservative MP, Stewart Jackson, “chairman of the all-party group on Pakistan.” The Conservatives since Maggie Thatcher are nothing but a bunch of wimps, in some ways even more dismal than the Labour Party.
The Labour Party under Tony Blair has been destroying England, and his successor as PM will be even worse. But what do the Conservatives have to offer as an alternative? Nothing.
i read verses way back when... and i STILL don't see what all the fatwa is about!!!
Leni
That sounds like a veiled threat.
On the other hand, I have yet to hear of any riots or deaths related to this knighthood. Given that, this may be a step in the right direction. We should use the same “camel nose in the tent” approach on them that they are using on us. We just keep poking them and poking them, but always just below their “riot threshold” (whatever that may be). The more they keep trying to “sensitize” us, the more we keep trying to “desensitize” them.
Consequences? Clearly the Honours Committee has more spine than does this writer, and at least some MPs.
Stewart Jackson sounds like a stand-in for our Harry Reid.
That sounds pretty naive.
Your struggle wasn't successful.
I've noticed the same. "Conservative" doesn't mean much if you have no moral center. It just means "I'll have what he's having", but a slightly smaller portion. A little less, a little later, with a bit of hand-wringing out of respect for old sensibilities, a caboose on Labour's train.
Sorry, Stew, you're living in the past.
Kow-towing is one of the costs of decadence. The Chinese will be glad to explain it to you. They hope you see the humor.
You are far too parochial...the same critique could be leveled at any of the bozos here in the US or anywhere as well.
Feel better now?
Not to get off topic, but his wife is hot.
I recently read Ayaan’s book “Infidel”It was very moving.
Rushdie: “veils suck.” This servant of literature really has a way with words.
Not surprising that QEII did this. This is a good sign that the west has just about “had it”.
Congratuations to Salman Rushie for telling the truth about Islam,Koran, Allah, and Muhammed which come from the very depths of HELL.
Islime is at war with us and we are pissing in our pants!
For a good article on islime go to:
yourarmstoisrael.org
select “a must read”
pull up “article 29/The Final end Time Beast”
print and save for future reference.
Reply to post #27
Rich folks know how to live.
You’re right. I should have been more specific. I apologize.
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