Salman Rushdie stabbed

[latesummervibes]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11106479/Salman-Rushdie-injured-stabbed-ahead-speech-New-York.html

This is shocking. He's had a fatwah hanging over his head for decades hasn't he?

Ironic really isn't it.

As a Muslim I have always been digusted by the fatwah on his head. I remember as a young child in the 90’s and my dad not being impressed by the men burning effigies of him. I remember him saying these men need to go and get jobs. As I have grown up I have learned these same type of men are also misogynists too. Sadly there are people today who think he deserves it and they are not the sort of Muslims I want to be associated with. As always it’s Muslims like myself that suffer consequences of this. Makes me sick that someone just did this. There is just no fucking need.

Apparently a doctor who was on the scene described the injuries as “serious but recoverable”. I so hope that is true.

This is so awful for reasons already stated. I really hope he pulls through.

If the news outlets are to be believed he's still in surgery over 6 hours later.

On the one hand, that's quite possible.

OTOH they also have to wait for his son to arrive before releasing any more info really.

I hope Salman knows, on some level, how many are rooting for him tonight.

This sort of thing really. I'm over 60, and in my experience there have always been some people who can't stomach those who disagree with them on anything. But the general idea that you can't 'agree to disagree' in a civil manner does seem to be more widespread now, and that's a very perturbing development.

Or maybe the polarisation is more evident now because of social media?

Either way, I hope of course that Rushdie and his interviewer (whom I believe was also injured) will make a full and speedy recovery.

His agent has apparently said he’s on a ventilator and cannot speak, but if you are vented you can’t talk due to it am I right? In worse news he is likely to lose an eye, has nerve damage in an arm and liver damage.

How can you hate someone so much for words?

Update

twitter.com/andrewiconnell/status/1558232263409782786

I am so angry I am crying. I hope the attacker gets what he deserves.

Get well soon Salman 💐💐

Long live freedom of speech and opinions!

will “likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed: and his liver was stabbed and damaged”, his agent says.

^^

Not good news 😔

yes, the ventilator will be to help him breathe.

Just horrific. Hoping they will both recover. The fall out from this will be big. Literary and academic circles will have to wake up a bit to more actively argue amongst themselves to protect freedom of speech, which is always under attack. This awful attempt to actually murder an author just for writing a blasphemous novel, is another whole order of magnitude of horrific though.

The details emerging are horrific.

Stabbed or punched 10-15 times. He might lose an eye, his nerves to his arm were severed and his liver damaged too.

What the actual fuck.

The event moderator is apparently recovering from minor injuries in a local hospital. He wasn't taken to a trauma center so that's a good sign.

I have vague memories of him ditching or reducing security and my parents being very alarmed. Is that just in my mind? Perhaps it's something I heard when he was knighted?

supposed to be trying to sleep so I can get up early tomorrow!

I don’t think the question was “what is the ventilator for?” (I think we all know that.)

I think the question was more “the ventilator is the reason he cannot speak at the moment, right?” To which I would say I take “he can’t speak; he’s on a vent” to be an abbreviated version of “he can’t speak because he’s in a vent”.

@HinchcliffeandMurgatroyd yes thank you, I was checking my understanding that being vented means you physically cannot talk even if you have the ability to and that his agent didn’t necessarily mean he had lost his power of speech.

It’s difficult in this heat. I can’t quite settle and I can’t apply myself to anything useful either. This is the third bad night here.

I have a copy of Rushdie’s book about the fatwa affair, but I can’t find it. I’m debating buying the audible version to listen to. It’s called Joseph Anton.

Sorry that was supposed to be a recommendation for the book. I’m a bit scattered.

I can't help thinking the venue should have had better security, and surely Mr Rushdie should have been provided with his own bodyguard whilst attending the event. After all these years for this to happen now!

I am feeling angry and upset. Midnight's Children was one of the first adult novels I read. His writing is brilliant and unique and he's a brave and decent man.

That’s what I was trying to recall

I think my parents said he dropped security voluntarily. I appreciate it must be weird having it all the time. but it’s so long ago, I might be misremembering.

He’s such a lovely speaker
so quietly passionate about so many types of creative writing

@RJnomore1 yes I agree.

@Pemba He apparently had form for complaining if too much security was laid on, so who knows whose decision it was? He has been incredibly brave for 33 years. Stubbornly, cussedly, brave really, which is what real bravery often looks like. Maybe he adjusted too well to living with the risk?

Besides, who thought the risk would come from a man from NJ, who is younger than the fatwa itself (assuming this is related to it inspired by the fatwa). Or maybe that’s just it; the risk was so diffuse. Any extremist might have decided to target him.

It's been so long. And people's instinct is to assume the threat lessens over time if there is no present danger. Unfortunately it doesn't always, as in this case.

Off to buy a copy of Midnight's Children. Any good, non twatty, freedom of speech organisations to donate to?