Arise, Sir Salman!
Priyamvada Gopal has an insightful perspective on Sir Salman.
Is America a shining example of a multi-party political system and accountable government? Rushdie's list of 'what matters' pays pious lip service to 'a more equitable distribution of resources' while stressing 'kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches and cutting-edge fashion' priorities rather specifc to upper-class metropolitan glitterati. (Could cutting-edge fashion be connected to an inequitable distribution of the world's resources, one wonders?). The Muslim diaspora, Rushdie then opines, have values that are at odds 'with the Christian, Hindu, non-believing or Jewish cultures among which they live'.
Had Rushdie not compromised himself so severely, it would be easier for us to acknowledge the continuing relevance of some of what he says. He has rightly called for a fast-growing version of 'a self-exculpatory paranoid Islam' which blames 'outsiders' for all the ills of Muslim societies to be examined and resisted. He has also called for the 'restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal', a call he might have extended more widely and forcefully to the driving forces in American politics today. Trouble is, what he once undertook in the name of shared human values and goals, he now identifies largely with the West, using culture-specific, parochial terms like 'The Enlightenment' and 'Reformation' to call for change in non-Western contexts and cultures.
Rushdie and his allies in the West need to return to a more wide-ranging critical engagement with the present and with the cultures outside the West which shaped him as a young writer. Equally, so-called representatives of Islam who find only books and images--not poverty, intra-faith violence, shame killings and dictatorial regimes--a source of offense need to stop being such willing puppets for every provocateur, real or imagined, who comes their way. Until this happens, the only winner will be those who espouse the specious but self-fulfilling prophecy of the 'clash of civilisations'.
Is America a shining example of a multi-party political system and accountable government? Rushdie's list of 'what matters' pays pious lip service to 'a more equitable distribution of resources' while stressing 'kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches and cutting-edge fashion' priorities rather specifc to upper-class metropolitan glitterati. (Could cutting-edge fashion be connected to an inequitable distribution of the world's resources, one wonders?). The Muslim diaspora, Rushdie then opines, have values that are at odds 'with the Christian, Hindu, non-believing or Jewish cultures among which they live'.
Had Rushdie not compromised himself so severely, it would be easier for us to acknowledge the continuing relevance of some of what he says. He has rightly called for a fast-growing version of 'a self-exculpatory paranoid Islam' which blames 'outsiders' for all the ills of Muslim societies to be examined and resisted. He has also called for the 'restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal', a call he might have extended more widely and forcefully to the driving forces in American politics today. Trouble is, what he once undertook in the name of shared human values and goals, he now identifies largely with the West, using culture-specific, parochial terms like 'The Enlightenment' and 'Reformation' to call for change in non-Western contexts and cultures.
Rushdie and his allies in the West need to return to a more wide-ranging critical engagement with the present and with the cultures outside the West which shaped him as a young writer. Equally, so-called representatives of Islam who find only books and images--not poverty, intra-faith violence, shame killings and dictatorial regimes--a source of offense need to stop being such willing puppets for every provocateur, real or imagined, who comes their way. Until this happens, the only winner will be those who espouse the specious but self-fulfilling prophecy of the 'clash of civilisations'.
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