We have just passed the 30th anniversary of the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. It would go on to become one of the most famous novels of the 20th century thanks in large part to what happened six months following its publication: Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie and anyone involved in publishing his work. Rushdie and his ‘editors and publishers’ are ‘condemned to death’, said Khomeini on 14 February 1989.
What is extraordinary 30 years after this allegedly blasphemous book first appeared, and close to 30 years after Khomeini issued his medieval decree, is that Khomeini has won. He is the moral victor in this despicable affair. His backward outlook carries more weight these days than the decent liberalism of secular intellectuals and literary figures like Rushdie.
No, the Ayatollah’s foul call for the murder of Rushdie was not successful, and we must all remain grateful for that. But his belief that certain words and thoughts are unacceptable, unutterable, unbearable, and that anyone who holds them must be punished, is now the dominant outlook of our times. And not only in the Islamic Republic of Iran but here in Britain too, and across much of the West. [Spiked] Read more
