In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
atheism christianity edward-said humility london palestine religion rushdie
What do you most value in your friends?Their continued existence.
death friends friendship life proust-questionnaire rushdie
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
rationality rushdie writing
When the telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved
atheism bastille bullying censorship demagogy dictatorship enlightenment fascism fatwa first-amendment free-speech friendship funny george-hw-bush hate humor individualism intimidation iran irony khomeini literature principles religion rushdie satanic-verses stupidity theocracy tso-love united-states united-states-constitution washington-post
