Twenty years ago on Valentine’s Day the British writer Salman Rushdie was placed under a death sentence by a foreign government for writing an “offensive” novel. Without any warning whatsoever, Ayatollah Khomeini, the devoutly spiritual leader of revolutionary Iran put forward a fatwa not only on the author of The Satanic Verses but on anyone who helped edit, translate, publish or distribute the book. The Ayatollah’s decision was felt around the world. Overnight a writer who had done more than most of his contemporaries to bring the glorious polyphony of Indian life into contemporary literary fiction became a hate figure for tens of millions of people who knew nothing more about him than his alleged blasphemies against Islam. The book was publicly burned in Bradford, an effigy of the author was burned during protests in London and Rushdie himself was forced to live in round-the-clock police protection, constantly looking over his shoulder for the Ayatollah’s assassins. British and American hostages who were about to be let go suddenly found their release indefinitely postponed while diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran faltered before being suspended altogether.
At the time nobody could have guessed that it would have taken a full decade for the whole affair to play itself out. Along the way there were many ironic twists in the narrative. The British establishment which Rushdie had mocked at length – one of the characters in The Satanic Verses is a prime minister named “Mrs. Torture” − turned out to be his staunchest allies during his long struggle to overturn the fatwa. Conversely, he was offered no quarter by British Muslims who in happier circumstances would probably have lionised his triumphal progress through literary London. (Rushdie’s astonishing novel Midnight’s Children not only won the prestigious Booker prize but it was subsequently chosen as the judges’ favourite on the award’s twenty-fifth anniversary and, in 2008, picked as the reading public’s favourite Booker too.) Secular liberals who leaped to Rushdie’s defence were scandalised when he publicly “re-converted” to Islam in a desperate bid to end his ordeal, and supporters of the fatwa were offended all over again when he recanted this decision shortly afterwards.
The Ayatollah’s death in June 1989 introduced a theological nicety to an already complicated situation. Nobody was certain that the fatwa of a deceased religious leader could actually be withdrawn. In September 1998 the foreign minister of Iran publicly disassociated his government from the death threat and Britain restored full diplomatic relations. Many thought the matter would end there but on the fatwa’s twentieth anniversary Iran’s state controlled news agency announced that “a group of Iranian lawmakers, political activists and analysts” still believed the fatwa “against the apostate British writer” remained irrevocable. Twenty years later, by contrast, many British Muslims, while no less offended by Rushdie’s knowingly mischievous retelling of the Prophet’s life, have concluded that the affair did more harm than good to their public image. After the September 11 attacks and other high profile cases of religious intolerance such as the murder of the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh and the death threats against the Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali – the whole episode does seem to have established the pattern of religious tensions which have been so commonplace in the early years of the new century.
Last month the UN Human Rights Council adopted a non-binding statement which condemned religious defamation. The proposal, which was promulgated by Pakistan, passed with 23 states in favour, 11 against, and with 13 abstentions. The nearly perfect split of votes on the issue is a good indication of just how divisive this issue is likely to prove. The resolution declared that religious defamation “is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom [of believers] and incitement to religious violence.” It also emphasized that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.” While there can be little doubt that this last observation is demonstrably true, the hectoring tone in which parts of the resolution dismiss the right to freedom of expression in a secular society is by itself a symptom of why so many Western societies have become sceptical of the complaints of their Muslim citizens.
Germany’s response to the resolution pointed out that the European Union does not recognize religious defamation “as a valid [concept] in a human rights discourse.” That phrase comes out of a long history of philosophy and law which emerged from the European Enlightenment, one which ought to be addressed in any discussion of religious life in secular democracies. But, as happened in the Rushdie affair, the debate is unlikely to remain on the high road for long. After 9/11 and the catastrophic errors and misjudgements of the “global war on terror” it is very likely that reasoned argument will soon be overwhelmed by hysterical responses on both sides. Already there are signs that both sides are preparing themselves for impassioned confrontations in other parts of the UN. It remains to be seen exactly how the debate will unfold but at this early stage it is hard not to conclude that even twenty years on, perhaps we are still too close to the Satanic Verses controversy to have learned anything from it.
