Salman Rushdie should be long dead

In 1988 Salman Rushdie wrote a novel called 'The Satanic verses'.

A reasonable rundown of the author and his work is available on Wikipedia, here

en.wikipedia.org...


Many claimed the book was calculated to offend Muslims. Irrespective of whether this was the case, it did exactly that. After a global (Muslim) outcry against Rushdie and this publication, the Ayatollah Khomeini (Iran) issued a fatwa against him, which it was claimed put his life in jeopardy.
There was a bounty on his head of 75,000 Pounds.
He was hounded, and lived a secretive, hidden and reclusive life for many years

Despite this, Rushdie has led a prosperous life, receiving literary awards and even a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth!

The cost? aside from drawing the enmity of all Muslim states?

"In Britain, the subsequent hate campaign helped to politicise and radicalise a generation of young British Muslims. The taxpayer is believed to have spent more than £10 million protecting Rushdie."

Source
www.timesonline.co.uk...

This from a country that will not negotiate or pay ransome to protect its own citizens?

news.bbc.co.uk...

So wtf is it about this Indian born, Cambridge educated scribbler that makes him worth 10 million plus of the taxpayers hard earned?

Old school tie? MI5? Illuminati?

Hmmm....

I'm all for free speech, but if you say what you think and upset someone so bad they want to kill you, well, tough, why the hell should I have to pay to protect you?
Rushdie should have been thrown to the wolves he baited, not cosseted and protected by the UK.
As a result every Brit was made a little more vulnerable, a more lightly a target for extremists. Who knows how much this incident contributed to Muslim attitudes to the west?

Ok, the story may be a bit long in the tooth now, the Fatwa has been called off and the dust has settled.

Just bear in mind that if you are a British citizen, and you are taken hostage, your government STILL will not negotiate for your release, or pay a ransom to release you - unless you have the right connections, perhaps?

There is a difference of course.

if any government paid a single penny ransom for someone, then desperate people around the globe would be snatching up people from that government left and right...get rich quick scheme.

however, if a person, nation, or anything else wanted to kill someone from your country because of what they said, then that should also be discouraged. part of the concept of paying taxes is that the government has got your back should anyone do anything stupid...if its person to person, the local police protect you, if its a nation wanting to off you, then you got the military to cover your butt.

throw em too the wolves is not a answer and as a taxpayer, if I found my government simply decided not to protect someone because they opened their mouth, I would venture to say its time to either stop paying taxes, or time for a revolution.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Though I appreciate what your saying, I feel there is more to this than meets the eye, and I bet the establishment wouldn't step in to protect just anyone in these circumstances, let alone give them a knighthood.

Id like to know why he is regarded as so special, because as a taxpayer, I resent paying a penny to protect him, and I notice that his nation of birth wouldnt, either

www.outlookindia.com...

and actually seemed to think he was being taken advantage of in the uk!

sify.com...

Theres a reason he was protected, and we havn't been given it yet

reply to post by Icerider

I'm all for free speech, but if you say what you think and upset someone so bad they want to kill you, well, tough

How offensive! Delete this thread or I'll kill you! Not really of course, just being a bit facetious. But I echo what Saturn said, the two issues (Rushdie and hostages) are too different to compare.

Though I appreciate what your saying, I feel there is more to this than meets the eye, and I bet the establishment wouldn't step in to protect just anyone in these circumstances

What about Maxine Carr or James Bulger's killers? Both are protected from lynch mobs by the state and I'm sure they don't have the right connections and the govt certainly doesn't have any PR motive for protecting them.

Originally posted by Icerider
I bet the establishment wouldn't step in to protect just anyone in these circumstances,

Thats where your mistaken...the western nations especially must protect everyone to the same degree.

I dont know this person, his work, etc...and sure, he might have some great ties with powerful people, but as a whole, the governments existance as a concept is simply the organization that protects people from other people, be it individuals or countrys.

how they do things in other nations...who knows, and who cares...but places like the UK, USA, France, Germany, etc...all these places of the wild west will fight to their dying breath for even the most "worthless" citizen...its their job.

This isn't an ideal..this is simply a fact, and if there ever is a story that shows differently, prepare for unholy hell to play out in the media and by the people...if you simply cant trust your government to at least try and protect you from foreigners, then there is no reason to keep them in government.

Hmm, well, both maxine carr and the bulger case are different issues too, and both are contentious.
Although I wouldn't necessarily agree, a great many people would have liked to seen them lynched.

my point is more that, if a hundred dual nationals upset Islam, do we spend 100 million to protect them? What about a thousand?

Too many people in Britain struggling to make a living for that kind of thing, is my thinking.

Viz your, 'I dont agree, Im going to kill you'
Well, point taken, there's nothing to stop you exercising that, because I bet if I went to the police and told them I was under threat, they wouldn't spend 10 million to protect me, would they?

So whats the difference?

Originally posted by Icerider
my point is more that, if a hundred dual nationals upset Islam, do we spend 100 million to protect them? What about a thousand?

The west upsets Islam purely by existing

reply to post by Icerider

my point is more that, if a hundred dual nationals upset Islam, do we spend 100 million to protect them? What about a thousand?

If they have British citizenship then yes otherwise the implication is that you and I can't ever upset anyone who threatens the use of force.

Well, point taken, there's nothing to stop you exercising that, because I bet if I went to the police and told them I was under threat, they wouldn't spend 10 million to protect me, would they?

If it was a serious threat and that is how much it would cost (and they couldn't just arrest me) then yes they would.

With regards to Carr et al I don't see the difference, you were claiming that the government would not do the same thing for people who did not share Rushdie's connections; the two cases I cited demonstrate that this is not true. In fact it would have been in the government's interest, from a PR standpoint, to have not protected them but they are required to.

I don't get why you think it would be otherwise, do you know of anyone who has had such a threat and not been protected by the state?

If you think that the UK gov would help you outside the UK you live in a dream world.. I know I have been there and they are corrupt, deceitfull lying turds.
You cannot trust them at all, wether inside or out. They have their agenda and all it is about is keeping them in power and making as much from as many for so few.. there are good reasons why there has been no revolution(s) lately, one is apathy. It is a state of affairs that must change. The Bulger case and others were high profile cases, and some form of law must be upheld otherwise the public would have lynched them. TV is a great medium for keeping people at home, or cheap beer to keep them drunk, or drugs to keep the worries away..

Originally posted by Old warrior
there are good reasons why there has been no revolution(s) lately,

And the main reason is people see no need to change! Despite what you may want, the vast majority do not want change

It is a state of affairs that must change.

Why? Because you want it to?

reply to post by Mike_A


Rushdie was firstly an Indian national. Surely dual citizenship should be a privilege, not a shield to hide behind?

Much the same is the bill for protecting Blair, when hes flying around making his 200 grand speeches.

As for protection, well, you could have asked Fiona Pilkington

www.dailymail.co.uk...

But of course shes dead.

The only reason this case was high profile was because her daughter was disabled - how much protection did they receive? How many others are there?

who was protecting Lee Harris?

www.dailymail.co.uk...

There's plenty of these cases, if you look, but we dont have the resources to police the streets, do we?

Sorry, but we should never have protected Rusdie.

Insult islam - you will get killed.
Insult judaism, you are an "anti-semit" and you can have serious problems with the law in all Western countries.
Insult Christianity - you will be promoted, printed, you will be praised. Whoever says that it is not nice to insult Christians, will be ridiculed.

There is not one single country in the world where Christians are at home, safe. China, India and "Democratic West" are against Christians, aggressively. Not to mention muslim countries and Israel, which are by default one religion countries with little tolerance for other religions.

Being Christian is a very hard task, getting harder and harder these days.

reply to post by Old warrior

The Bulger case and others were high profile cases, and some form of law must be upheld otherwise the public would have lynched them.

Exactly, that's the point. Rushdie was protected because if he wasn't then he would have been lynched.


reply to post by Icerider


British citizenship is British citizenship, if he has it then he has the all the rights that go with it.

Pilkington and Lee are two very different cases; the former did not have her life threatened nor was there any cause to believe that this might be the case, she killed herself. As tragic as that may be and as much as the police can be criticised, hurling insults and eggs is not and should not be put on the same level as the threat of death.

Similarly there was no specific threat against Mr Lee either, where there was in the case of Rushdie and those that I mentioned. The threat of death was only known a few minutes before he was ambushed, what could the police have done at this point and how is it analogous to Salman Rushdie?

The logical conclusion of what you are saying is that no one can criticise anyone or anything that has the capacity to present a serious threat. Freedom of expression would be doomed.

reply to post by herbivore


LoL

The worst of it is, Rushdie is a muslim!

He is a very intelligent and literate author, and his insult to Islam was no accident.

For this I do not care, but the fact that he then hides behind the British law, and the British taxpayer, for protection.

An Islamic heretic hiding behind a christian state, at our expense!

Mod Edit - Please do not evade the automatic censors

..... muslim extremists and sharia law

Rushdie make money and it's good for him

[edit on 15-2-2010 by angelx666]

[edit on 16/2/10 by neformore]

reply to post by Mike_A


The way I read your argument is this...

I have the right, in exercising my freedom of speech, to approach the members of a street gang that 'run' my local housing estate, and to criticise them in any way I see fit.
Further, I should then be able to hide behind the police to prevent them from attacking me and fullfilling what could be very real threats on my person.
Whats more, I should be able to rely on the police to protect me 24/7 until such time as that threat no longer exists.

I think that's about right?

Freedom of speech is a fine thing, but it at what cost?

As Ive said, Rushdie isn't naive, and his upsetting of Islam was no accident. Push comes to shove, I would say that it did his literary career a great deal of good, much as the ban on spycatcher did for Peter Wright - except we didnt have to pay to protect him (I think the prosecution cost 125 grand) though)

I think we got 'played'

I was nearly killed for having coffee in a bookstore that sold "The Satanic Verses." What right do religious maniacs have to kill innocent people because they have no sense of humor? The religious idiots, I mean.

reply to post by DJW001


Exactly my point - why go stirring up a wasps nest in the first place.
unfortunately religion is everywhere, and ALL religions have extremists - why aggravate them?

[edit on 15-2-2010 by Icerider]

reply to post by Icerider

I think that's about right?

Yes.

But what exactly is your argument? Are you saying that nobody should be protected if they anger a large group or just Rushdie?

I don’t see how either is compatible with the idea that people should be free to say what they like.

Freedom of speech is a fine thing, but it at what cost?

Any, because the cost of losing it will always be far worse.

why go stirring up a wasps nest in the first place.
unfortunately religion is everywhere, and ALL religions have extremists - why aggravate them?

Because that is how you expose them for what they are, that is how you change their views and that is how you get rid of them. More than that why shouldn’t people be allowed to do that? If it’s fine for a violent group to insult others why should a peaceful group be barred from doing the same only because they don’t threaten violence?

How can you not see that the effect of what you seem to want would be to afford protection to only those views that have the threat of violence to back them up.

What right did Khomenei have to issue a death sentence? None. Rushdie committed no crime. Muslims were not offended by the book... they were ORDERED to be offended by the book... by a man who was the self-styled leader of an heretical branch of Islam. Since he was also the head of state, the order was political. The British government acted appropriately in protecting the life of an innocent man from an illegal act from a hostile foreign government.