Salman Rushdie: The Antithesis to Moral Cowardice

“Leading by example, Rushdie refuses to be intimidated into silence.”

No public figure alive today personifies the concept of freedom of speech quite like Salman Rushdie. This past Friday, the acclaimed author was stabbed multiple times while on stage exercising this fundamental liberal right in Chautauqua, New York. This was unequivocally an assault on free speech and, by extension, freedom itself. It serves as a reminder that an open society must defend its values.

A good place to start would be to insist that words never justify violence. But today we often hear that words are violence—literally. Thus, responding to words with violence becomes a matter of self-defense. Not only does this blur an important distinction in civil discourse; it also plays right into the hands of Muslim fanatics who believe that Rushdie deserves to die for writing a book they deem offensive.

Following the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988, Rushdie was forced into hiding due to credible threats on his life, most notably Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa, which called for his murder and the death of anyone involved in the publication of the book. The novel’s Norwegian publisher was shot and seriously wounded, and its Japanese translator was stabbed to death.

Although the fatwa was never formally rescinded, Rushdie emerged from hiding years ago. A staunch believer in—and defender of—free speech, he put his life on the line by appearing in public. He even mocked his murderous persecutors in an episode of the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm. Playing himself, Rushdie instructs main protagonist Larry David (also playing himself) in the fatwa lifestyle, which, apparently, includes perks like “fatwa sex.”