(Controversial author Salman Rushdie, who endured a life-threatening knife attack on August 12, 2022, made his first public appearance months later at the PEN America Literary Gala in May 2023. This article focuses on the speech he delivered at that event.)
Thanks to radical Islam, Salman Rushdie needs no introduction. His level of fame is so immense that most writers would need a Nobel Prize to achieve even a quarter of his recognition. Books become bestseller when it is read by people who generally don’t read, and Rushdie stands out, perhaps uniquely since Stephen Hawking, for having a book become a bestseller without being widely read. Ironically, Rushdie is more famous amongst those who those who would never purchase or read his work, and they all want to kill him.
Rushdie wrote his most famous literary work “Midnight’s Children,” published in 1981, which earned him acclaim primarily within literary circles. However, it was his highly controversial 1988 book, “The Satanic Verses,” that propelled him to global fame, especially among the illiterate, religiously fanatic populations of the Islamic world. There’s a clear distinction between a well-known writer and a controversial one: famous writers are recognized mainly by their peers and readers, while controversial writers gain notoriety far beyond that sphere. This distinction is likely why some artists intentionally court controversy. Yet, for Rushdie, this controversy was an unasked-for, eternal boon—and ironically, his bane.
So, imagine in his first public appearance at PEN America Literary Gala in May 2023 a few months later the near-fatal knife attack on August 12, 2022, at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, one of the world’s most celebrated writers – a master of words – who after 35 years of being hounded by radical Islam delivered a seemingly banal message: “terrorism must not terrorise us, violence must not deter us.” He then added the Marxist adage, “La Lutte Continue (The Struggle Continues).”
For an imaginative writer and a ‘hardline atheist,’ he just termed the fatal knife-attack, driven by what’s widely considered an ideology of revenge, as something as general and amorphous as a ‘terrorist attack’ and repeated rhetoric that sounded more like a statement by a beauty pageant winner. Salman Rushdie praised his friend Henry Reese, who tackled Hadi Matar and others, but said nothing about the attacker or the radical religious beliefs often linked to such events.
Only postmodernists might similarly use such a mundane term, given their controversial view that even teachers and mothers are terrorists because they “terrorize” kids daily.
Islamic radicalism, much like Rushdie, requires no introduction. It has long been a global force of death and destruction since its inception, seeing a resurgence in the 1990s. Similar to communism, Islamic terrorism is a distinct form of terrorism; it’s far more specific than the broad term “terrorism” generally implies.
Thus, for those unaware of Rushdie’s harrowing past—a demographic that likely includes many millennials and Gen Z today—his seemingly innocuous declaration, “terrorism must not terrorise us, violence must not deter us,” rings hollow. It utterly fails to convey the reality of the Fatwā, the Islamic death sentence that put a $3 million bounty on his head for writing “The Satanic Verses” over three decades ago, plunging him into twenty years of fear and concealment. It’s astonishing that Rushdie, the author of “Joseph Anton: A Memoir,” a 632-page chronicle of his life in hiding, would so casually dismiss the very force that shaped it: Islamic terrorism. This silence neglects the £5 million annually the UK government poured into his protection for nine years, the Swedish Socialist Group’s formal plea for his safety in other nations, the shocking murder of Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, and the brutal attacks on others connected to his work, including the shooting of Norwegian publisher William Nygaard and the fiery assault on Turkish translator Aziz Nesin.
Hadi wasn’t just any killer. His actions stemmed from an ideology that drove him to seek revenge 35 years after “The Satanic Verses” was written. To carry out his attack, Matar traveled 400 miles from Fairview, New Jersey, to the Chautauqua Institution in New York, even obtaining an advance pass to the event. Despite being born in California, Hadi remained deeply connected to his parents’ origins: they had emigrated from Yaroun, a village in southern Lebanon known for its strong support of Hezbollah and the Iranian government.
Born into a Muslim family, briefly converting to Islam after writing “The Satanic Verses,” and spending decades in hiding from a bounty hunter driven by the islamic edict “Gustakh-E-Rasool Ki Ek Hi Saza, Sar Tan Se Juda” (meaning “Only one punishment for insulting the prophet, decapitation”), Rushdie is uniquely positioned. He’s arguably the only literary figure who truly understands Islam and is qualified to speak on them. Especially, as an Indian-born Muslim writer deeply versed in history, he should have recalled Mahashe Rajpal’s fate: Rajpal published the satire “Rangeela Rasool” (Colourful Prophet) in 1924. After surviving multiple assassination attempts, Rajpal was finally murdered in 1929 by 20-year-old Muslim carpenter Ilm-ud-din.
And how did he forget T.J. Joseph, a teacher in Kerala whose hand was chopped by Islamic extremists for allegedly insulting Islam in an exam paper. And the recent incident of the decapitation of Kamlesh Tiwari, four years after he made a derogatory comment about the Prophet. His assailants, Farid-ud-din Shaikh and Ashfak Shaikh, traveled 1350 km from Surat, Gujarat, to Lucknow, disguised in Hindu attire, to carry out the killing.
Seemingly unconcerned by these grim realities, Rushdie instead focused on the “first-world problem” of book bans in the US. He specifically cited Florida’s school board removing “The Bluest Eye” this January, following a parent’s complaint about its “explicit descriptions of illegal activities.” It feels pointless to fret over book bans in the age of Amazon and the internet, where physical or electronic copies of virtually any book are readily available.
This shift in focus—mentioning Florida and Republicans rather than the murders of writers and teachers in India—appears to be an appeal to left-liberal sensibilities. To address the latter directly would unquestionably alienate the left-liberal and Marxist groups that exert considerable influence over intellectual discourse and event sponsorship, as demonstrated by the widespread university support for Hamas and Palestine.
Rushdie is known for his sharp wit and innuendos and can always be heard making jokes. At the PEN America Literary Gala acceptance speech, for instance, he joked about why Jacqueline Susann, the author of Valley of the Dolls, refused to shake hands with Philip Roth, alluding to Roth’s controversial book Portnoy’s Complaint. He’d also previously joked about the annual February 14th letters from Iran, which inform him the country hasn’t forgotten its vow to kill him, and which he jokingly refers to as “my unfunny Valentine.” Yet, in this context, his light-heartedness about Islamic radicals felt misplaced. He dismissed their threats, stating, “It’s reached the point where it’s a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat.” This perspective is only possible because others were spending millions to protect him; he never would have survived, let alone joked, if left to his own devices.
Salman Rushdie has consistently underestimated the danger posed by radical Islam. A telling example comes from 2017. In the office of Emmanuel Macron in France—a country still reeling from the Charlie Hebdo bombing, the murders of its staff, and the decapitation of secondary school teacher Samuel Paty—Rushdie was asked why he had so little protection. He simply joked, “I’m not the martyr type, I’m just a writer. Why would anyone hold such a big grudge against a writer?” Did he truly believe his later claim in an interview that the novel wasn’t “an anti-religious novel” but rather “an attempt to write about migration, its stresses and transformations”? Could he have been so naive as to suggest that “a religion whose leaders behaved in this way could probably use a little criticism”?
No one who has commented critically on that Prophet has survived. The sole exception is Indian politician Nupur Sharma, who immediately went into hiding after repeating a common remark about the Prophet during a TV debate. She can never again appear in public without risking the same fate Rushdie endured.
Given this, Salman Rushdie stands as a singular survivor. It would have been not only appropriate but crucial for him to speak out against this brutal, unspoken censorship of free speech.
Yet, he chose silence.
Written By – Bholenath Vishwakarma
Bholenath Vishwakarma is an environmental engineering and policy expert with a passion for literature and storytelling. He has published articles on literature, urban planning, and social issues in prominent national magazines and newspapers. His debut short story collection, set in the Columbia University campus and New York, is awaiting publication.
Note: The opinions in the article are those of the author alone and do not reflect the Editorial Line of ForPol.
