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?

Macron has said this
twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1558220516720353286?t=CP7U6uBCRDIViHB2aqxWvg&s=19

Hoping for the best but trying not to check news again as some of the messages are so upsetting.

One comment stood out to me: All Because Salman Rushdie Wrote a Book.

The priority is obviously now to save his life, but all because he dared to express his views.

Quite frankly, violence towards those you disagree with is now absolutely ridiculous.

As my granny said: “you can’t go around attacking/killing people you disagree with”.
Idealistic and unrealistic?
Yes, unfortunately.

As I said last night the fall out will be big from this attack and straight away I knew it would be weaponised by Tories to bash the left. That’s the subtext to Boris’ free speech agenda’ quote. Let’s be real about this. What does he care about Salman Rushdie, an urbane Manhattanite these days?

This attempted murder (by someone we know nothing about yet) in America is not down to the current Labour Party, FFS.

Yes I wish the current Labour Leader would condemn it; but he’s on holiday. And I haven’t forgotten that while Boris Johnson has very recently been on holiday (and was previously pissing about flying Air Force jets at taxpayers expense and partying), he’s said and done fuck all about the looming economic and humanitarian crisis facing the UK that he has personally presided over, apart from to say he’s leaving it all up to his two candidates for unelected party leader to have a think about in September. Yet again, an appalling dereliction of prime ministerial duty. if British people are left to starve and freeze this winter that will kill hundreds and buckle the NHS.

The Tories have got zero credibility on the extremism issue, as much as they will try to gain capital from it. Freedom of speech is absolutely not their sole property. The Conservatives, who have only started to try to use it in the last 5 minutes as part of their new ‘war on woke’

This attempted murder (by someone we know nothing about yet) in America is not down to the current Labour Party, FFS.

Who said that it was?

But the fact is that the Left - like the fields of the Arts, the media, publishing, academia, etc. - has internalised the belief and response that seemed to us so shocking in 1989, that words that cause offense should never be uttered and if they are, then a response on the spectrum from censorship to outright violence is entirely appropriate.

That is why they are not condemning this attack. It's not about sitting on the fence. On this issue they are not on the fence.

Coal "But ‘being careful’ about what we say is capitulation"

I meant on MN, not in real life. Everyone who knows me, knows who I am.

I don't wish to curb free speech. Two separate threads might be handy - one for the artist's work, and one for the politics.

I like how quietly passionate he is about fiction. I'm always drawn to the softly spoken though. I missed a chance to hear him speak because I couldn't face the journey. But I have enjoyed watching stuff online over the years.

Fair dues, I see that Kim Leadbetter has tweeted about it. It's a shame, though, that she's had nothing to say to date about the teacher from her Batley constituency who is still in hiding.

I’d be interested to know what posters think the Tory government did in the 1980s to help Rushdie when his life was threatened? And what the Tory government were previously doing to try to unseat extremism (of all kinds- among UK-based religious groups, armed sectarianism in NI, extremist rights wing BNP etc) in the
UK while they were in power in the 1980s? Not enough, that’s for sure! Domestic terrorism was a major blight on UK society in that era. In his own case, Rushdie had to go into hiding for ten years. He had to move to America to live a free life.

IIRC the ‘free speech’ agenda was completely owned by the Lib Dems as a minor opposition party in the 1990s and 00s, until their party fell off the political map after their short 2010 coalition government with the Tories. Until very recently, freedom of speech has been seen as yesterday’s issue by ALL the parties. The Tories just don’t have any laurels whatsoever to rest on over this issue. We still have blasphemy laws in Northern Ireland, whereas England and Wales abolished them in 2008, so where’s the freedom of speech in Northern Ireland that Boris says he is always so keen to defend?

humanists.uk/campaigns/successful-campaigns/abolition-of-blasphemy-laws/

There are religious extremists (and would-be attackers on that basis) in different religions and obviously including in Islam but no government has had a good enough handle on what to do about it.

That’s why the political fall out will be big from e because it’s yet again pointing to an extremely complex and probably intractable religious extremism and male violence problem, which clearly has a very complicated relationship with actual ‘freedom of speech’ on both sides of the religious and secular divide.

The New York Times has a live feed on this attack on Rushdie where you can see the celebratory quotes from men high up in the religious hierarchy in Iran. But quite obviously if people who follow religions and the few at the top who run religions, always held the same views, Rushdie would have been attacked and killed decades ago. Yet he’s been out as the US a media reports, with no security living a public life there for years.

I really hope that Rushdie survives and wish him and the interviewer injured alongside him well. Blasphemy isn’t a crime (or shouldn’t be, in a genuinely free society).

I’d be interested to know what posters think the Tory government did in the 1980s to help Rushdie when his life was threatened?

They gave him round the clock police protection. Rushdie moved to the states in 2000

Yes, the police protection was really important. But the Tory government’s responsibility surely goes beyond keeping one person safe by taking them out of circulation for however many years. I wonder what cultural change did the Conservative government make, what links did they strengthen, to try to protect freedom of speech and individual safety from religious extremism- in general? Not just as a result of the Rushdie fatwa? I just don’t think they have a brilliant record on freedom of speech to point to here.

"The New York Times has a live feed on this attack on Rushdie where you can see the celebratory quotes from men high up in the religious hierarchy in Iran"

I knew they were lower than a toilet but urgh.

I'm old enough to remember when there were publications worth respecting!

The Guardian has a background piece on the ongoing threats to Rushdie over the years.
amp.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/12/tsunami-outrage-salman-rushdie-satanic-verses

Well to be fair, very many more comments condemning this attack and the extremist thinking behind it too are quoted by the NYT as well. I don’t think a newspaper having a live feed on reactions on an important cultural issue (as highlighted by this attack) is a bad thing in itself.

Not just based on religion; ideological and racist, sexist, etc. bullying, too often escalating to threats and violence, is a widespread problem and unfortunately all political parties have played a part in fostering that, or at least not actively and effectively combatting it.

Look at this cretin, for example, weaponising the attack on Rushdie as a way to promote misogyny and rape culture: https://twitter.com/AlexGodofsky/status/1558154983509528580

Aged, isn’t that a sarcastic tweet? I read it that way. I could be wrong.

I think there are some profoundly disturbing parallels to be drawn with the JKR issue and total lack of free speech debate.

The incessant claims of victimhood by misogynistic violent bullies is right out of the same playbook.

awaits second deletion and MN fatwa😁

He's a hero. Hope he recovers quickly.

I agree there are very disturbing parallels to be drawn about free speech Salman Rushdie's quote about being offended has never been more apt. If you dislike what someone has to say, use reasoned argument to put your case, sadly a lost art nowadays.

I read The Satanic Verses in about 1991, it was my boyfriend at the time's copy. I remember not reading it in public. I can't comment on the "blasphemy", but there was a certain Immam in exile who was represented very satirically. I'm sure that personal issue also had something to do with the fatwa too.

Latest I've seen is that he is conscious and alert.

Why has the man who attacked Rushdie been charged with second degree attempted murder, and not first degree?

How on earth can he possibly be pleading not guilty, with so many witnesses? On what possible basis? That his intention wasn’t to kill - when it clearly was?

Predictable, he'll go for not guilty by reason of insanity.

I don't know US law and first and second degree.

I would that he would have pleaded not guilty to ensure a trial for more publicity or to give some imagined justification. You just get sentenced if you plead guilty.

Can't sleep (heat) but just saw this BBC News notification:-

Author Salman Rushdie has been taken off a ventilator and is able to talk again, a day after being stabbed.

Thanks, thank goodness for that. Hope he can make a good recovery.

That really is good news. Hoping for a continued and good recovery

That's fantastic. And lovely to have a bit of good news