June 18, 2007
Salman Rushdie, from Outsider to "Knight Bachelor"Literature
Salman Rushdie got knighted over the weekend: he’s now Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie.
Predictably, government officials in Pakistan and Iran have come out against honouring the “blaspheming” “apostate” Rushdie. It’s a brand of foaming at the mouth that we’re all too familiar with at this point; in a sense, the hostile fundamentalist reaction validates the strong secularist stance that Rushdie has taken since his reemergence from Fatwa-induced semi-seclusion in 1998. (If these people are burning your effigy, you must be doing something right.)
But actually, there’s another issue I wanted to mention that isn’t getting talked about much in the coverage of Rushdie’s knighthood, which is the fact that Rushdie wasn’t always a “safe” figure for British government officials. In the early 1980s in particular, and throughout the Margaret Thatcher era, Rushdie was known mainly as a critic of the British establishment, not a member. The main issue for Rushdie then was British racism, and he did not mince words in condemning it as well as the people who tolerated it.
This morning I was briefly looking over some of Rushdie’s essays from the 1980s. Some of the strongest work exoriated the policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and indicted the pervasiveness of “institutionalized racism” in British society. Two essays in particular stand out, “The New Empire Within Britain,” and “Home Front.” Both are published in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991. (Another great essay from that collection is “Outside the Whale” — required reading, though on a slightly different topic. And see this NYT review of the collection as a whole from 1991.)
Here is a long quote from “The New Empire Within Britain” (1982):
[L]et me quote from Margaret Thatcher’s speech at Cheltneham on the third of July, her famous victory address: ‘We have learned something about ourselves, a lesson we desperately need to learn. When we started out, there were the waverers and the fainthears … The people who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did … that we could never again be what we were. Ther were those who would not admit it … but—in their heart of hearts—they too had their secret fears that it was true: that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well, they were wrong.’
There are several interesting aspects to this speech. Remember that it was made by a triumphant Prime Minister at the peak of her popuolarity; a Prime Minister who could claim with complete credibility to be speaking for an overwhelming majority of the elctorate, and who, as even her detractors must admit, has a considerable gift for assessing the national mood. Now if such a leader at such a time felt able to invoke the spirit of imperialism, it was because she knew how central that spirit is to the self-image of white Britons of all classes. I say white Britons because it’s clear that Mrs Thatcher wasn’t addressing the two million or so blacks, who don’t feel quite like that about the Empire. So even her use of the word ‘we’ was an act of racial exclusion, like her other well-known speech about the fear of being ‘swamped’ by immigrants. With such leaders, it’s not surprising that the British are slow to learn the real lessons of their past.
Let me repeat what I said at the beginning: Britain isn’t Nazi Germany. The British Empire isn’t the Third Reich. But in Germany, after the fall of Hitler, heroic attempts were made by many people to purify German though and the German language of the pollution of Nazism. Such acts of cleansing are occasionally necessary in every society. But British thought, British society, has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism. It’s still there, breeding lice and vermin, waiting for unscrupulous people to exploit it for their own ends. (Read the whole thing)
That was Rushdie in 1982: “British society has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism.” And it’s by no means the only strong statement he makes about racism and imperialism in “The New Empire Within Britain”; he also goes after the legal system, the police, and the clearly racist quotas the British had enacted in the immigration policy to reduce the number of black and brown immigrants coming to Britain from former colonies.
If we compare Rushdie in 1982 to Rushdie today, it’s clear that the man has changed quite a bit — but it also has to be acknowledged that British society has itself been transformed, perhaps even more radically. Organizations like the National Front are nowhere near as influential as they were in the early 1980s, and a decade of the Labour Party and Tony Blair have changed the political picture for good. But more than anything, what seems different is the way racialized difference (Blacks and Asians vs. the white majority) has been displaced by the religious difference as the most contentious issue of the day. One you move the debate from race to religion, the parameters for who gets seen as an “outsider” and who becomes an “insider” look quite different.
amardeep on June 18, 2007 11:35 AM in Literature · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
to this i can attest at great length. i did my masters, in london, in the study of empires. my professor/advisor was a man whose entire family had been entrenched in imperial governance - he himself had been born in singapore at a time when his father was a high-placed official in the administration there. so he saw firsthand how the fall of the empire affected the british higher-ups both professionally and personally. although the BE was only one of the several empires we studied, you could see in him this whistfulness for all types of empire. i felt, in many ways, his teachings were somewhat skewed because of that, since it marred his objectiveness. and my fellow british classmates had a really difficult time in admitting that, yes, empire did have severe drawbacks. and it's not just the academics/upper class - i once gave a homeless man a meal and his version of thanks was, 'the sun never set on the british empire' - WTF?
I have been recommending this work for some time now, but apropos ak's comment above this article traces some of the reasons why certain elites are instinctively attracted to colonialism (with its attendant "missions"):
Vivek Chibber, "The Good Empire?"
of course this merely speaks to only one aspect of the post...
So true, "you move the debate from race to religion, the parameters for who gets seen as an “outsider” and who becomes an “insider” look quite different".
England is at a crucial point - from an Anthropological prespective. Social change and how different groups intermingle within that change is quite interesting. What is also interesting is the various government policy - to deal with the rising extermism within UK. To add to that - race relations - although now based on religious differences.
I doubt the core group of outsiders has changed. Before, they were outsiders because of their skin colour now b/c of religion.
I keep thinking that there is a history lesson - unfolding - right there, right now - something North Americans can learn in terms of race relations, religious tolerance and social cohesion, particularly in light of Irag and Afghanistan. One only has to look at sikh extermism in Canada to see that if issues of difference are not resolved - we could very well be the next UK.
There is a gap between the rhetoric needed to win an election and the way in which the economy is actually transformed. No doubt, Thatcher talked of white power. But, in reality, Thatcher actually cut the jobs of several white workers. Finally, the business establishment has welcomed nonwhite money and nonwhite enterpreneurship.
As to religious difference replacing racialized difference: Well, any kind of difference is seized upon by politicians who need to generate rhetoric. If one kind of difference disappears, another kind develops.
A similar kind of thing happened in India, too. Many an Indian politician made a career out of Hindi's hotly-argued role as India's national language. But with the advent of coalition-style politics, north Indian and south Indian politicians could no longer affort to argue about Hindi. Instead, they siezed upon (i) religious differences and (ii) caste differences to generate rhetoric.
I like Rushdie for his somewhat centrist views on Kashmir. Whereas Arundhati Roy spoke of an Indian occupation of Kashmir, Rushdie feels that nobody's hands are clean, and nobody can take the high moral ground.
Great post as always, Amardeep.
I have never lived in the UK but my gut feeling is exactly what you say towards the end. Britain seems to have changed quite a bit. In the 80s they were still a lot more influential in the world. In the last 20 odd years their influence - politically, economically, culturally, etc has diminished a lot and that probably has sunk in as far as the British psyche is concerned. Thus if they still think they can be an imperialist nation, they would be deluding themselves and I would be surprised if a lot of the British thought so. Plus over the years immigration (both permanent and short term workers) and the gradual acceptance that Britain is a more mixed society than the people in the 80s would have liked to believe has probably helped too. Red Snapper could give a lot more insight into this I guess.
actually they still have influence, only they changed their name to Al-Muhajiroun. ever since the jaguar smile, rushdie has become more of a free-thinker and there's been predictable grumblings, and not just from the likes of Anjem Choudary and his ilk, of him being a brown sahib for a while now. i wonder if rushdie's ascension will be a unifying moment for the brits, or one that highlights their differences.
Amardeep, very nice post. I haven't checked out all the links, but I'm going to. The really interesting, and empathetic, and courageous thing about Rushdie's 1980s eloquence on British race relations is that he himself, as he once conceded, was spared the worst of the indignities that were visited on his co-ethnics. He is quite light-skinned, and can pass. That he could nevertheless empathize so completely with those who were of a 'darker hue' speaks very highly of him, in my book.
But I can't help noting that his first three wives were ethnically white, and although he has had a homecoming of sorts with Padma Lakshmi, he is now definitely speaking as an 'insider' in the discourse over the racialized identity of religion (as it is being framed).
When Britons think of a Muslim, they now think mainly - or only - of a brown person. And to a considerable extent, they also think of brown persons as being largely Muslim. So it is the label for the Other that is changing, not the otherization itself. Hating someone for being a racialized Other ('Paki') versus a relgious Other ('Muslim') is much the same in its impact, and the conflation of categories has gone far enough that British Hindus and Sikhs (to whom 'Paki' was also applied) no longer want to be seen as 'Asians' alongside British Muslims. So it is a little disconcerting that in such an atmosphere, he is not being more alert to these developments and therefore more nuanced in his rhetoric.
It is rather hard for me to take Rushdie seriously, when he very openly supported the 2003 U.S invasion of Iraq in his writings.
Amardeep, thanks very much for this post. I did my undergrad thesis on a similar topic, and the changes that are happening in "Black" identity -- now and over the past 15 years -- are just fascinating. I think the British antiracist movement is really at a cross-roads -- it's either going to be breathing its last crippled breath, or it will have to learn how to strategize and reorganize its foundational assumptions. Particularly given the rise of affinity (read: nationalist) organizations that use either origin (e.g. many of the Africanist orgs) or religion as both a rallying point and as a source of difference. I guess another crucial factor is that the face of the "Visible Ethnic Minority" in Britain is changing dramatically.
I disagree politically with Salman Rushdie on a number of things, but his outspoken criticism of the institutional nature of British racism was, at its time, incredible and desperately needed. I wonder how his fellow critics who have rejected knighthood and the OBE feel, however? I'm curious as to how he decided to go through with this given the very incisive derisions of the OBE vis-a-vis formerly colonized people recently.
Oh, also a great read, although hard to get a hold of, is The Empire Strikes Back (ed. Paul Gilroy, et al.). There are just some really tremendous and fascinating essays about the deeper elements of antiracism in the 70s, including the political economy underlying race legislation and racism in the UK.
But more than anything, what seems different is the way racialized difference (Blacks and Asians vs. the white majority) has been displaced by the religious difference as the most contentious issue of the day.
I guess the question I would ask is whether this is really a good change. The parameters of the debate are altered by a shift from focusing on race to focusing on religion, but if anything, religious differences tend to be greater flashpoints for discrimination, violence, etc.
With respect to Rushdie specifically, I wonder whether he's benefiting not so much from the changes in British society, but from his isolation from the Muslim world. That is, when the Muslim world began to see Rushdie as an "other", he became more sympathetic for non-Muslim society in Britain, and therefore more acceptable.
"It is rather hard for me to take Rushdie seriously, when he very openly supported the 2003 U.S invasion of Iraq in his writings."
This was a surprise to me. In a radio interview with NPR, Rushdie predicted that if the US invaded Iraq, it would be mired there for a long time. What I took way from that interview was that he did not find the invasion practical. Are you sure that he openly supported it? Perhaps he supported the invasion idealogically, but rejected it on practical grounds?
"That is, when the Muslim world began to see Rushdie as an "other", he became more sympathetic for non-Muslim society in Britain, and therefore more acceptable."
Good comment
Hating someone for being a racialized Other ('Paki') versus a relgious Other ('Muslim') is much the same in its impact, and the conflation of categories has gone far enough that British Hindus and Sikhs (to whom 'Paki' was also applied) no longer want to be seen as 'Asians' alongside British Muslims.
well, let's not just pin the blame on whites for conflating brown with islam, ergo non-muslim browns want to disassociate from the term "asian." clearly there's some first order reasons that indian origin (sikh, hindu and muslim) asians would want to take a step back from excessive identification with the pakistani subculture in the united kingdom as it is developing.
That is, when the Muslim world began to see Rushdie as an "other", he became more sympathetic for non-Muslim society in Britain, and therefore more acceptable.
let's be explicit: he had a price on his head. translators of his books were killed. i don't think it is easy to imagine for any of us what sort of 'radicalizing' effect that sort of change in one's life situation might induce. i was in rural bangladesh visiting relatives when the rushdie affair broke and was called on to translate tracts which claimed that the satanic verses indulged in orgiastic and perverted depictions of muhammad and his wives (who in the pamphlet i saw were claimed to be prostituted by muhammad in the satanic verses)(.
Chachaji, that's an interesting distinction, though I do tend to think think that religion as a voluntary form of difference makes it an imperfect replacement for race, which is inscribed on the body. The racialization of religious difference probably does happen at times, but these days it seems like much of the debate about religious minority status hinges around symbolic rights -- such as the debate that ensued following Jack Straw's comments on the full-body Veil -- not so much institutionalized discrimination.
Cyrus, we've discussed Rushdie's famous/infamous Op-Ed from November 1, 2002 before at SM. I disagreed with him then, and I think it's maybe time for him to come out and make a new statement where he (hopefully) acknowledges what a disaster this war has turned out to be. But it needs to be noted that even in 2002, he did give a good list of reasons to worry about how the war would ultimately be executed. Even if he was wrong on this major event, I still take him quite seriously on the issues he is strongly committed to, including the need for secularism all over the world.
So you simply dismiss people who may disagree with you as "not serious"?
Me too.
Amardeep,
What a great post.
However,I am curious about the statement above. In the Western world,will a white male ever be seen as an outsider ? I mean when you consider experiences such as traveling ,airports etc
I think race will always color interaction in public places. Who do you think TSA finds more threatening : A white skin-head or a bearded brown man?
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=460&Pos=1&ColRank=1&Rank=326
"The Indian group was religiously diverse: 45 per cent of Indians were Hindu, 29 per cent Sikh and a further 13 per cent Muslim. In contrast the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups were more homogeneous, Muslims accounting for 92 per cent of each ethnic group."
Hi Camille - what I meant was that Rushdie can and does pass for non-desi, in fact, 'white', based just on skin color perception, just in general situations - he's altogether too famous now and so a very familiar face to many - but before all that, he could pass as 'white' European in a crowd, or in a store or such. It's pretty obvious if you look at him in color photographs.
It's a separate issue whether Britons made distinctions between lighter and darker skinned identifiable non-whites. I think they did, still do, but that's not what I was referring to.
Hi Camille - what I meant was that Rushdie can and does pass for non-desi, in fact, 'white', based just on skin color perception, just in general situations - he's altogether too famous now and so a very familiar face to many - but before all that, he could pass as 'white' European in a crowd, or in a store or such. It's pretty obvious if you look at him in color photographs.
i know of people who weren't familiar with him who assumed he was white from photos. e.g., "why does that dude have a weird name like that?"
QUESTION for people who know how the "British honours" system works: Is it necessarily the case that all people who are awarded the "Knight Bachelor" honor are necessarily also "Officers of the British Empire"?
If you take a look at the Queen's Birthday Honours List from the British government's website (the actual full list is at the London Gazette [PDF]), Rushdie is listed as a "Knight Bachelor," and there is a separate section for CBE, OBE, and MBE. (Christiane Amanpour's name is down on the CBE list for instance.)
The reason I ask the question is this: it's one thing to accept an award of Knight Bachelor; it's something a little difference to accept "Officer of the British Empire"!
chachaji, I guess at best I assumed he could pass as Turkish ;) But I suppose expectations/perceptions are different when you've grown up already knowing someone's (ethnic) backstory, you know?
But come on, a great deal of this is because of the actual religious makeup of each respective country! Of course the overwhelming majority of migrants from Pakistan/Bangladesh are going to be Muslim! Seems like kind of a "duh" statement, no?When I was at the Conference for the Elimination of Racism in London, folks had an entire session devoted to how the discussion of "Muslims" was the same old story (racism) in new clothes. While I generally agree with the argument presented, I think it's also interesting to see how the racialized body is represented in other terms. In many ways, I feel like this helps absolve the state of any responsibility. In the 90s, the Brit gov't itself came out with several reports showing that racism was a driving force in poverty, mistreatment, and civil unrest. Today, folks frame the conversation in terms of religion. It's much easier to write off religious views as "irreconcilable" than to write off racism, which is so blatantly (esp in the UK) a social problem. When we look at the archetype of the angry brown (young) Muslim man, do people ask the same questions they did in the 80s, i.e. why do Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslim communities have much higher rates of unemployment and worse levels of education? Why are so many "self employed," and what institutions limit their access to participation in the economy and the state? Why are VMEs so underrepresented, generally, in political and electoral bodies? It seems, to me, that many of the conditions underlying difference and disadvantage in the UK have not changed as dramatically as it seems for some.
My understanding is that "Knight Bachelor" is not the same as OBE, because OBE is one of the Orders of Chivalry, and I believe Knight Bachelor is not.
Amardeep, I'll join the chorus of accolades on your post. Very interesting commentary and links! I do have one question: for brown Asians, how different is racial and religious discrimination in practice, today? I had relatives who lived in London in the early 90s and were quite viciously abused as Pakis on multiple instances. Does that kind of thing still go on? Or has it been replaced by "discriminating" discrimination against people of some religions alone (well, Islam)? I want to emphasize that I don't mean this question in any kind of provocative fashion.
As for Poms with imperialist yearnings, I just put them down by referring to this as the British Empire. It usually works.
Here is Priyamvada Gopal's take on how Salman Rushdie evolved/changed over the years.
Camille, do you have a theory on why there is a disparity between Hindu & Muslim "Asians" in terms of education etc ? I have enough relatives who have had negative experiences in the UK to know that racism is a significant part of the problem, but I do believe there is a cultural component as well
amardeep, if indira gandhi got knighted i think the sikhs would have something to say about that too...so dont make this seem like some crazy fundamentalist issue, i as a moderate also wouldn't mind seeing rushdie slapped across the face for insulting islam...
"Camille, do you have a theory on why there is a disparity between Hindu & Muslim "Asians" in terms of education etc ?"
there isn't really a theory for this issue. It is a historical one. When the British came and ousted the Mughals from power, the Muslims resisted the British forms of Education and refused to learn the "kaffir's" English. Meanwhile, the Hindus were much faster in grabbing up the new jobs that the British had to offer and learned English. It was not till about 50-100 years after the British Raj that the Muslims let their gaurds down. This gap is what continues today in Pakistan and Bangladesh and even in India, the Muslim communities are far less educated than the Hindus.
loucie, I'm not sure, really. I don't think it's cultural factors, per se, between Hindus and Muslims. There are a lot of differences in settlement; e.g. Pakistanis are one of the most spread out ethnic groups in the UK -- they settled all over the island, whereas Hindus/Sikhs settled predominantly in London. Within London itself there are clear ethnic neighborhoods (e.g. Southall, which some would argue is becoming more and more Afghani). It'll take me some time, but there's a great page on the British Library web site that breaks down some of these "population factors" across London and across the UK more broadly.
Additionally, I have a feeling that if you look at "earlier immigrants" (i.e. Indian immigrants -- Hindu, Sikh, AND Muslim) they should all be, on average, doing better than "younger immigrants" (Pakistanis, Kurds, Bangladeshis). An element of this is of course Britain's changing immigration policies as well. There's a group that does a "National Assessment of Ethnic Minorities" every 5-10 years. While their early methodology leaves a lot to be desired (I think their sample size is altogether way too small), I personally think racial and religious discrimination have much more to do with it. Up until the 1980s, the UK was incredibly strict about the pre-existing qualifications immigrants had to have to enter from the Caribbean, South Asia, and Africa. Just as we see migration skewed towards professional and educated elites in the 1960s in the U.S., something very similar existed in the UK (with the exception of wife sponsorship -- men weren't included in the "spouse" category until the late 1970s, I think). The only thing left, all else equal, is active exclusion from the educational and economic system. We see this especially today among Bangladeshis in the UK.
Also, while Hinduism and Sikhi are clearly different from Christianity, Islam has been derogated and labeled as much more "scary." Hinduism and Sikhi are just derided (by making fun of things like the cow, Ganesh, turbans, etc.). One group is put down, the other is labeled a threat. However, if you look at violent (race-based) attacks across the 1990s, members of all VME groups (and within these groups, from all religions) were attacked regularly. They're all targets at the end of the day, but representations of Muslims in the media in the UK seem to get an added kick in the pants for being even more "deviant" from what is seen as the "norm" (i.e. white) for a Briton.
# 26 ,
Incorrect analogy.
Indira Gandhi did get the Bharat Ratna and I don't remember any Sikh protests over it.
It's ironic. British racism was such a central theme of the book that started all of this.
amardeep, if indira gandhi got knighted i think the sikhs would have something to say about that too...
India Gandhi attacked a temple that ended up killing a lot of people. Rushdie wrote a book. There is no comparison.
No comments yet on the response from the practitioners of the religion of submission regarding this event?
Also, the Indira Gandhi analogy would not hold. It's also a little logically bizarre (the leader of a free democracy pledging fealty to the ruler of another world power?).
Indira Gandhi did get the Bharat Ratna and I don't remember any Sikh protests over it.
I dont know enough about Indira Gandhi but all fair minded people should be outraged if her son Rajiv Gandhi was given an award. IMO Rajiv Gandhi was no different than Narender Modi.
oh, why didn't he turn it down. vidia i understand, but rushdie?
Camille, do you have a theory on why there is a disparity between Hindu & Muslim "Asians" in terms of education etc ?
Almost half of Pakistani immigrants to UK are from Mirpur and with extremely high levels of first cousin marriage from Pakistan, there are a still a lot of households where at least one parent was raised in a village in Pakistan.
A lot of the Bangladeshis are from Silhet which is similar to Mirpur in soms ways.
who cares about sir salmon when we already have king salmon
we have a sir mick. so what did kieth richards do? did they not offer him one? he did co-write brown suger, you know.
Indira Gandhi did get the Bharat Ratna and I don't remember any Sikh protests over it.
runa, she was given the award in 1971, about 15 years before she ordered the attacks on the golden temple, ur point is irrelevant...and yea attacking a holy site is different from what rushdie said...but you also must understand, that in Islam, disrespecting the prophet is one of the worst things you can do against Islam...it is like how in India, someone drew a picture of themselves and it was identical to the one of the Sikh Gurus, it is disrespect...period...
Don't you mean Sanjay Gandhi? Turkmen Gate, emergency, "family planning" — just a few highlights from his distinguished career.
I meant Rajiv Gandhi for his shameless behavior during the Sikh massacre on the streets of Delhi. Btw how many liberal democracies have a mass scale slaughter of minorities in their capital city.
but you also must understand, that in Islam, disrespecting the prophet is one of the worst things you can do against Islam...
Noo york, first of all, did you ever read "The Satanic Verses"? If not, you should -- you might be surprised by what Rushdie actually is trying to do. In my view he is much more critical of absolutist interpretations of Islam than he is of Islam proper.
Secondly, it's fine if you're offended by something Rushdie said about Islam (that is, presuming that you know what he actually said). But the question really is, what is your response? Do you respect and defend his right to have said it, or do you allow people like the Ayatollah Khomeini to take the law into their own hands? If you look at my postings related to other religions, including Hinduism and Sikhism, I think you'll find I've been pretty consistent as a defender of the freedom of speech, including the freedom to say offensive things.
You labeled yourself a "moderate" -- I think the real test of moderation is this: who do you want to slap more, the Ayatollah Khomeini, for writing a statement that directly led to the deaths of two innocent individuals (not to mention the thousands of innocent people killed in and after the Iranian revolution... but that's another story), or Salman Rushdie, who merely expressed a point of view in a novel? If you still say Rushdie, there's no point continuing this conversation.
But come on, a great deal of this is because of the actual religious makeup of each respective country! Of course the overwhelming majority of migrants from Pakistan/Bangladesh are going to be Muslim! Seems like kind of a "duh" statement, no?
29% of indians are sikh? speaking of "duh."
i am a moderate by Islamic standards, not the west's, so yea, conversation over.
Don't you mean Sanjay Gandhi? Turkmen Gate, emergency, "family planning" — just a few highlights from his distinguished career.
Turkmen Gate: What was that?
Of course the overwhelming majority of migrants from Pakistan/Bangladesh are going to be Muslim!
oh, and of course the migrants from these countries aren't representative. they're disproportionately from mirpur and sylhet. another "duh."
I have no love for Indira Gandhi. She was an enemy of individual liberty. But she attacked a Sikh holy place that was already tainted by the presence of armed Sikh rebels. People of all religions - regardless of your cause, if you take up arms and do not want your holy places attacked, then stay the hell away from such places.
What was worse than that was Rajiv Gandhi's government condoning a brutal massacre of many Sikhs, especially in Delhi, in the days after Indira Gandhi's assassination. It was not even a two sided thing like many Hindu Muslim conflicts. It was one sided massacre. I wonder why none of the militants of that period organized a vigilante attacks on the ministers that organized such brutalities. If they were going to be violent, why not at least be vigilante about it.
It's like these Osama Bin Laden type loons. If you ahve a problem with the Cheneys of the world, go after them, not after innocent citizens(Mind you, I do NOT condone this, but if I was a fundamentlist, then the Cheneys of the world would be my preferred target. At least I can get support in some quarters ).
c'mon. he looks like jack nicholson. plus with the fatwa he's even more of a bad boy than jack. too bad he didn't add to his badness by turning down the knighthood like sartre did to the nobel. i hear sartre groupies tripled after that. and sir mick hasn't been doing so well of late. the only way he can regain his coolness is to be found dead in a harlem tenement shot by someones husband...or wife. but i digress.
Additionally, I have a feeling that if you look at "earlier immigrants" (i.e. Indian immigrants -- Hindu, Sikh, AND Muslim) they should all be, on average, doing better than "younger immigrants" (Pakistanis, Kurds, Bangladeshis).
i assume the east african refugees get classified as "indian." if you limit muslims to just ismailis, they actually do rather well (one reason why "indian" muslims do much better than others). the main issue i have is with sikhs vs. mirpuris. did the two groups come with different skillsets? because they "look" the same in terms of skin color.
but you also must understand, that in Islam, disrespecting the prophet is one of the worst things you can do against Islam
and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called 'freedom of speech'.
Beyond the fact that such things make the newspapers, it's hard to see how Rushdie's becoming a Knight Bachelor matters. Such orders have been given out will-nilly for a long time, like honorary degrees. Rushdie shared this year's slate with Joe Cocker, who got an OBE. Joe Cocker, the voice behind the execrable "You Are So Beautiful" and "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong."
When Sanjeev Bhaskar (The Kumars at No. 42) got his OBE last year, he said he was going to do with it what any good British Asian would do--sell it on Ebay.
and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called 'freedom of speech'.
i think it is diff. in countries not the USofA. they "respect" but don't "worship" it. the riots over the play which offended sikhs in england a few years back shows that it isn't a muslim issue. some of the people interviewed said straight out that "free speech has limits." it is just the william donohue/catholic league mentality, and it is normative world wide. free speech on principle is an aberration.
I think Sikhs are largely "overrepresented" because:
1. Of their high numbers in the military (and consequent preference in early migration schemes)
2. Partition and its demographic fallout resulting in a large number of Sikhs leaving Punjab in general. Another large group who left were Bengalis (Hindus and Muslims) who were divided by the E. Pakistan/India partition -- for immigration purposes they are classified as Indians, not Pakistanis in most UK records.
3. Time effects from being one of the "first migrant" communities vis-a-vis reunification, etc.
But also, when looking at early Indian migration (Partition onwards), the numbers are comparatively skewed, i.e. they generally reflect the religious diversity of the areas from which people were emigrating. This also explains why things have skewed in other directions over time. You see the Muslim immigrant pop overtake the Hindu pop as % of (desi) migrants to the UK around the mid-1970s, and you see another big bump in the Muslim population during the (Bangladeshi) war of independence. You also see a bump in the number of Hindus migrating when Idi Amin kicks desis out of Uganda. I really think geopolitical circumstances had a lot to do with the skewed numbers of people petitioning for immigration.
free speech on principle is an aberration
sadly enough.
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003354.html
Sewa Singh Mandha, the chairman of the Council of Sikh Gurdwaras, said of the theatre: “They keep saying the playwright has the right to her imagination but these imaginations could harm a community. This play will not help race relations in the city.”
and of course, it brought the races and religions together:
But the play itself came under fire from Birmingham's Roman Catholic Archbishop, who described it as offensive to all faiths.
In a statement, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols said: "In recent weeks the Sikh community has acted in a reasonable and measured way in representing their deep concerns to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
"I regret that the Repertory Theatre, in the interests of the common good, has not been more responsive. Such a deliberate, even if fictional, violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred places of every religion."
ACD # 34 /noo york
Personally, I felt the Bharat Ratna was devalued the minute politicans started awarding it to other politicians ( see the list after 1990 to see the increase in quantity awarded)
Rajiv Gandhi was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1991
.You also see a bump in the number of Hindus migrating when Idi Amin kicks desis out of Uganda.
well, my impression was that an enormous number of the gujaratis (though not majority) in uganda were ismailis. in zimbabwe and south africa the gujarati merchant class is muslim, in tanzania and kenya it is hindu. re: bangladeshi immigrants, 92% is an under representation of hindus non-trivially. the low bound in bangladesh for hindus today is 10%, but say in 1980 it would be 15%. and there are regional biases. southwest bangladesh has many more hindus than northeast bangladesh (sylhet) from what i recall. the immigrant stream is not necessarily representative at all as you note with indians. most arab immigrants to the USA until the past decade were christian. most iranians in LA are jewish.
See Alleged role during Emergency. His bias against Muslims is quite well known. Unfortunately, there aren’t many credible accounts of his wild ways. To be fair, he wasn’t on the Hussain Jr., Chouchesku Jr. level, but that’s not saying much.
Anyone who can read Marathi should definitely check out Sattandh (trans. - Blinded by Power).
Compared to him, Rajiv Gandhi was a saint.
It's all in the eyes of the beholder, and which way the wind blows.
Laju K.
http://www.lajuk.blogspot.com
As far as Sikhs vs. Mirpuri Muslims, I don't know enough to say. Most of the Sikhs I've met in the UK are from Lahore or doaba. That may mean nothing whatsoever since it's strictly anecdotal.
Shouldn't he be Sir Ahmed? No, seriously. Do you get to choose which of your names gets used after the "Sir"? If so, could that name be your last name, which may be your "name of christening" as in V V S Laxman?
Sorry to thread-jack : Camille, I have a question on Dharavi. Could you let me know your email address or send me an email? Thanks.
did not a substantial number of these ismailis migrate to canada?
noo york
Your comparison of Salman Rushdie to Indira Gandhi is quite bizarre.
In what sense can Salman Rushdie be compared to an indian politician, a prime minister no less! famous for her ruthlessness and cunning? Someone who, in addition to a few positive achievements, will always be linked to first pandering to sikh extremists and then using extreme force to attack the golden temple. And I haven't even gotten to her use of "license raj" to enslave indians economically or to her political heirs participation in the violence against innocent sikhs.
If you are a "moderate", I am the Rani of Jhansi.
and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called 'freedom of speech'.
and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are...common sense people. lets try it.
Manju, "he (Rushdie) looks like Jack Nicholson..." THAT'S WHO I keep thinking of when I see his picture. Been happening for years, and I just couldn't place the resemblance. Thanks.
btw, you're right. Turning it down would have been a good career move.
shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are...common sense people. lets try it.
LOL. go drink your prophet's urine and chill.
btw, I read once Rushdie is of Iranian descent, which may be why he doesn't look especially desi.
i diddnt say i condone this, i am just saying that is what happens when people expect the Muslim world to just "be down" with the concept of free speech, it is too foreign to most of them, but yea, thanks for attempting to insult me and Islam, go you!
hmm....interesting that you think a proportional response to speech (as disrepectful or racist as it sometimes may be) is violence and fatality. you know what else is everywhere, noo york - laws. and the vast majority of countries and their laws will not be willing to defend a muslim's 'right' to kill someone in these circumstances. muslims committing violence in a country that recognizes free speech = bad news for the those muslims. common sense - go figure.
Prasad, I understand. I apologize, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were arguing that "Sikhs were asking for it." It's just that, in the past on SM, conversations re: Indira Gandhi, 1984, and the bombing of Harmandar Sahib have quickly devolved into just that argument. It seems that just bringing up the topic has opened the doors for trolls who move towards a vehement anti-Sikh conversation very very quickly on this site. I was just trying to avoid that fallout, particularly since many of us seem to agree that noo york's example is not analogous to the case of Salman Rushdie.
I believe that proper etiquette requires that you are addressed by your first name. In this case, he may be "Sir Salman" because that's the name he goes by, but it's still a "first name" if that makes sense. "Sir Rushdie," by comparison, would be inappropriate. Actually, because knights bachelor are not a part of the orders of chivalry, I think even allowing them to go by "Sir" is a courtesy -- they are not entitled to use that phrase by virtue of their membership alone.noo york, you bring up a good point. and it is a good argument for why western nations should severely limit immigrations from muslim countries. at least if you believe that the ability to critique religion is an essential part of individual liberty.
p.s. people have expressed surprise and concern for me because i criticize islam on a regular basis on my weblogs. people close to me are worried about a nutso seeking me out. the probability is very low, but it is probably there. the fact that i am from a muslim cultural background doesn't help, and most threatening emails bring that issue up.
razib, ur a deuche, have a nice day.
also, speaking of offense. when i was an outspoken atheist as an undergraduate some muslims i met expressed offense at my existence ;-) e.g., being an atheist from a muslim background is simply not acceptable (we know what the accepted penalty for apostates in islam is), and caused emotional discomfort in people i would meet from muslim countries. i think some of the same is at work with salman rushdie, and some were very explicit about this. his existence is not optimal (being an atheist), but his criticism/analysis of islam simply was over the line.
razib, ur a deuche, have a nice day.
i may not agree with your opinion, but i will defend your right to have one!
i may not agree with your opinion, but i will defend your right to have one!
even if it entails blowing you up? :)
Razib
even if it entails blowing you up? :)
you're the lawyer. when is it clear and present danger?
Razib
i'm not that old.
Razib, I think it brave of you to say that Western Countries should limit immigration from muslim countries. I just want to let you know that I back you 100% there.
I'm not surprised by "moderate" "noo york"'s comments. Recently I came across a news item that "Ghazi Ilam din" (who killed a blasphemer in the 1920s) was defended by Jinnah and Iqbal called him a "shaheed".
And I have been told that Jinnah and Iqbal are "moderate secularists". :-)
Razib, I think it brave of you to say that Western Countries should limit immigration from muslim countries. I just want to let you know that I back you 100% there.
why is that brave? is that an insult to the prophet?
"the prophet said that it is incumbent upon the kuffar that they should submit themselves to open borders so that the ummah shall sweep all before them" ;-)
Does this include limiting immigration from India?
Does this include limiting immigration from India?
not in the world where razib-is-god (ie, the instrumentalist rationale isn't to elminate muslims coming in period, but reduce the large numbers).
razib,
are you a fan of Robert Spencer at all?
He's come up with the same basic position as you.
Noo York, thank you for your explanation regarding us kaffirs slavishly taking up English and the "white man's magic"(i.e. science) as the basis for the divergence in achievement. But I don't understand this completely because as we all know Avicenna is the founder of modern allopathic medicine. As such, why don't madrassas in Pakistani Punjab produce more submissions in the Lancet or JAMA ? Punjabi/Urdu to English translators are fairly easy to come by.
are you a fan of Robert Spencer at all?
we agree on some points. i'm not a fan of his "scholarship" ;-) we have some differences in our premises.
Noo york has a point, freedom of speech is no excuse to taunt one of the most revered figures in Islam. It doesn't give you the right to insult something that people has had as a part of their lives for soo long its just 'common sense'.
But again, The Ayatollah's fatwa is pretty much paramount to attempted murder, There is a way to lodge a protest and murder or torture is not one of them. I've seen my fair share of people making fun of hindu idols through cartoons or jimi hendrix ganja smoking posters, but i'm not going to condone their assasination. If a muslim body had lodged an official protest with the British government and argue their point of view in a politically viable manner that would be acceptable.
Noo york has a point, freedom of speech is no excuse to taunt one of the most revered figures in Islam. It doesn't give you the right to insult something that people has had as a part of their lives for soo long its just 'common sense'.
correct on one, it isn't an excuse, but wrong on two, it does give you the right. what some revere others find abominable. there's no shame in that, and no need for an excuse (just as muslims find hindu idols abominable, they are entitled to their opinion and like take umbrage if hindus offered their hurt feelings as a reason why they must cease declaring their superiority to the 'idolaters').
.If a muslim body had lodged an official protest with the British government and argue their point of view in a politically viable manner that would be acceptable.
that's an interesting case. some of them considered it, but the blasphemy laws applied to christianity (and i think judaism?) only at the time. but another issue is that those most offended are also the ones least likely to care or respect kuffar legal channels.
are you a fan of Robert Spencer at all?
we agree on some points. i'm not a fan of his "scholarship" ;-) we have some differences in our premises.
Razib is being too kind to Robert Spencer. Everybody agrees with everybody on some points.
Thanks for bringing this up Ponniyan Selvan. It's become fashionable these days to say there is no danger of fundamentalists coming to power in Pakistan via elections as "moderate" or "secular" parties have always taken the majority of the electorate. But they conveniently neglect to define what a moderate or secularist is in the Pakistani context where all major parties stand by the "right" of Muslims to demand their own state wherever they are in the numerical majority.
sems like he should make some attempt to sound as if he's one of those people 'searching' for 'moderate' muslims to carry his torch but it doesn't seem, from his online work, that he's really into 'big-tent' anti-jihadism and more into convincing people that he is indeed doing serious (peer-reviewable) scholarship.
Rushdie's books suck ass, they are really terrible. like that Orhan Pamuk clown, or James Joyce - difficult for the sake of it. He doesn't deserve any award. And of course western countries should limit immigration, especially from low IQ parts of the world.
he's a dip and knighthood is a stupid dippy high-stakes game of dungeons and dragons. so let the new commander of the british empire go defend his queen in iraq.
Books should offer thrilling plots and emotional depth. Satire is the the lowest form of writing, the last refuge of the scoundrel.
what, like "Cuchulkhan-stan"?
how exactly do they, to use your most eloquent description, "suck ass"?
was it the over-use of colloquial terminology or did run-on prose style annoy you?
we're all dying to know how the world got it so wrong!
at this point i would like to restate my constant point on this site. the majority of the people on it are anti-muslim, anti-pakistani. if you guys think i am crazy, just read the comments. amardeep, you guys are so quick to delete comments of people who say anything anti-hindu or pakistani, and yet people like Razib, open anti-Islamic are allowed to roam free on this site...i think it is pathetic, and before you all start linking funny little websites in response to my comments, how about instead of being dicks, you actually realize what i am saying is very true...the fact that this man, salman rushdie, committed blasphemy, and is being given one of the world's highest honors, is rediculous...and for you people to act all suprised that the Muslim world is angry, just shows how ignorant you are about reality...p.s. dont you guys have jobs? it seems like you comment at least twice an hour on this site...i am officially boycotting this site, as well as telling my friends to do the same, it serves not the south-asian community, but the hindu indian community...
Interesting.... thanks for the that gem. Its only the fame of Rushdie as an author that caused this ruckus. I read a Science Fiction story selected in an anthology of 'Best SF of 2006' that was about a 'what if' scenario. The synopsis :
'Roman officer, sent to Mecca meets a man in a crowd during a speech. He stands out due to his personal aura and charisma. Man invites officer to his house to break bread and tells Roman officer about his ideas and his beliefs and his concept of society and religion. Officer recognizes the individual for the great man he will become and forsees the threat he poses to the empire. Officer sets up an ambush and murders the red haired man to ensure the empire's hold in the Middle east'
First person narration, i doubt that the Ayatollah is a member of the Science Fiction society. If he was we would have a new Fatwa.
Rushdie's books suck ass, they are really terrible. like that Orhan Pamuk clown, or James Joyce
At the risk of being labeled anti-streamofconsciousness, I think it's unfair to club Rushdie and Pamuk with Joyce. Surely Rushdie's and Pamuk's s works are more accessible than any part of Ulysses.
i am officially boycotting this site, as well as telling my friends to do the same
what a loss!!!
Oh, I thought razib was this kind of deu(ts)che.
I kind of wonder why folks don't just "wipe their hands" of you, you know? I mean, you are clearly an atheist, therefore not a Muslim, and thus not a threat to the practice of Islam, right? :)I really don't think Islam is inherently anti free speech, nor do I think it inherently promotes stupidity (i.e. the belief that it is ok and a good idea to beat someone up for saying something disparaging or something you disagree with). Perhaps we should not resort to reductionist arguments and make a distinction between Islam and the politics of countries who claim to represent Islam through their political structure? Not that I really want to engage in a protracted debate about western Enlightenment thought vs. Islam.
Noo York,
awww, the feelings are hurt.
won't you pray for us? The unsaved, heathen, haram, infidel SM regulars? Or better yet, obey the prophet by mounting an armed campaign to convert all of North America. Yippee!!! Forced conversions for EVERYONE!!!