A 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered the killing of novelist Salman Rushdie for his allegedly blasphemous novel “The Satanic Verses.” In 1998, Iran ended support of it. Libertarians soon condemned the cultures that forced Rushdie into hiding. They have since condemned the weak-kneed support offered to freethinkers worldwide when threatened by fundamentalists.
Oxford-educated British polemicist, Christopher Hitchens was born Christian, but disavowed religion during his student days. Later, he earned fame—and notoriety—by aiming his journalistic and literary irreverence at otherwise popular public figures including Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger. Hitchens eventually emigrated to America, where he spent his most high-profile years.
In his essay, Hitchens defends artistic and journalistic critique. He deplores self-censorship that allows fundamentalists a foothold in this war, born of a dubious multiculturalism. He counsels against bowing to such fundamentalist bullies.
To Hitchens, nothing’s more offensive than fearful self-censorship. It undermines intellectuals who are introspective about Islam and patronizes mobs as Islam’s “authentic representatives.” He warns that future fundamentalists may use nukes, not fatwas.
Hitchens again misrepresents Rushdie as a pioneer: an Indian writing in English. The literary world has long celebrated Indians writing in English, such as Mulk Raj Anand, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Anita Desai, Dom Moraes, and Khushwant Singh. Although prizes aren’t the only measure of merit, V.S. Naipaul, of Indian origin, did win the Booker Prize (the leading literary award for best work of fiction published in the UK or Ireland) in 1971.
Definitions of Blasphemy
Thankfully, Hitchens’s conclusions soon move to firmer ground. As he says, it is Rushdie’s plight that first warned that a “civil war in the Muslim world, between those who believed in jihad and Shari’a and those who did not, was coming to our streets.”Along comes Rushdie’s novel, implying that any book, even the Koran, is fair game in literary criticism or fictional adaptation. Naturally, it provoked conflict between fanatics and reasonable people about what was ironic and literal, and experimental and dogmatic.
Hitchens censures those who stayed aloof believing it wasn’t their fight, or that Rushdie got what he deserved; they wouldn’t have, if they’d read his largely harmless novel. Even if Rushdie had suspected that a lone passage might offend—and published anyway—Hitchens is adamant. He maintains that it’s not for writers to appease the faithful. If offended, they’re “entitled to … all forms of protest.” Except violence.
Emboldened, bigots have since violently targeted others, putting the civilized world on the defensive: “Every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal.”
Is Nothing Sacred?
On limits to critique, Hitchens overstates again, “No, nothing is sacred.” That claim grants limitless freedom to creators (of literature, journalism, or art) over consumers (readers or audiences). It needs care and clarification. Hitchens uses neither.Yes, Rushdie used his freedom responsibly. Hitchens cites other victims of censorship, or self-censorship, including writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, playwrights, musicians, and journalists. But Hitchens forgets that the right to free expression is a derived or conditional, and not absolute, right. Not everyone is responsible. Some are merely provocative, others perverse.
When creators are perverse, it’s up to society to draw a line. If society doesn’t act in a timely way, offenses fester—they don’t disappear. Consider works that are gratuitously pornographic, or celebrate addiction, sadism, and suicide, or are excessively defamatory or destroy privacy. Consider bare-breasted women activists who undermine their dignity to sensationalize their message, or others who desecrate art and architecture to express their feminism, climate alarmism, anti-racism or anti-Semitism.
Of course, hypersensitive moralists needn’t read, watch, or listen to what they suspect is offensive. In the 20th century, this warning may have been simple. In the 21st century’s digital age of fake news and disinformation, it’s simplistic. Think of text, images, audio or videoclips that are available to everyone. An unlawfully defamatory social media post could be reposted across 100 countries within 10 minutes. A weblink can be sent out with inappropriate images of children. A rumor-ridden page, poster, or book can be printed that radicalizes race, religion, or nationality. Artificial Intelligence sources can publish what a few humans merely joked about privately.
Personal Truth
In his other writings, Hitchens went after sacred cows, usually justifiably, but not always creditably. Still, he did try, as journalists must, to speak truth to power. Unfortunately, it wasn’t unfailingly the truth; sometimes it was just his truth.Hitchens wrote a nearly 350-page book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.” He often misunderstood religion, on the one hand, and reason and scientific inquiry, on the other, as mutually exclusive and antagonistic. In his lectures, Hitchens decries all religion, conflating religious totalitarianism and fanaticism, with religion per se.
If Islamic leaders, or all Muslims, had wanted Rushdie dead, he would’ve been killed the same year that the fatwa was issued. That Rushdie was alive and well at the time Hitchen wrote his essay should have clued him in to the fact that the problem lay not with faith per se but with fanaticism.
