Monday, June 25, 2007

Reaction to Rushdie's knighthood is beneath contempt

That Salman Rushdie’s “knighthood” should evoke from Islamic extremists violent reaction and “offense” is itself offensive. Free-speech is a principle upon which I shall not waver. If Islamic extremists, religious lunatics and fanatics, feel that the mere writing of a book – which the most extreme and reactionary Islamists have not read and most likely could not – justifies calls for murder and suicide bombing, I have to say that their violent opinion is beneath contempt. Their extreme, bigoted and violent views simply serve no practical role in either the judging of the literary worth of works of fiction or the rewarding of those who produce exemplary literature, such as Salman Rushdie.
It is the decision of the British who they knight - for reasons which they so choose, in this case, very good reasons indeed - and the reaction of crazed Mullahs in Tehran and in Pakistan are simply irrelevant and beneath contempt. Freedom of speech simply cannot be denigrated on account of violent religious hysteria.
As for the so-called “moderates” and “liberals” who advocate the taking of said violent views as justly put and further, worst of all, sympathize with the small factions of Islamic extremists who claim “offense” and who advocate murder, suicide bombing and violence in general, I wonder if they realize that by so doing they are legitimizing as the true voice of Muslims world over the violent extremist fringe which, in reality, a majority of Muslims reject as blasphemers and apostate lunatics. They are, in effect, legitimizing as representative of all Muslims the very extremists who put to death moderate and liberal Muslims, shame on them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's about time we got another post from you, JDHURF!! This site is still the first stop for informative, well-written views on current religious-related events.

I completely agree with you on this, and I don't see how anyone could disagree. I've never read Rushdie's work, but I support free speech, especially when the speech being protected is criticizing religious extremism, which is what I understand this author has done. The people who are up in arms over this knighthood are exactly like the extremists who see any criticism of Israeli policy as anti-Semitic.

Terrific job, as usual!! I hope we get another essay very soon, because this blog is an intelligent contribution to internet culture.

Anonymous said...
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JDHURF said...

eli:

Thank you much for the kind words. You are correct in your analogy, in both instances free speech, incidentally free speech consisting of truth, is being denigrated in order that some malign force not be justly criticized.

Thanks for stopping by and commending!