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The Importance of Being Earnest About Salman Rushdie*

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The Importance of Being Earnest About Salman Rushdie* THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST ABOUT SALMAN RUSHDIE* BY SADIK J. AL-AZM Damascus Part One: Comparisons There is plenty more to The Satanic Verses and the Rushdie affair than a mere succes de scandale. The least that one can say on this score is that we have had a very vivid demonstration of the fact that creative fiction matters politically and that books which make a dif- ference with the wide public can still be written and published. Therefore, assuming a dismissive attitude towards the novel and the furor it provoked is ill-considered, especially at a time when cultural chauvinism, conservative parochialism and narcissistic particularism seem to have the upper hand in many places. That such an attitude proved alarmingly widespread in American academic circles and among U.S. intellectuals, I learned from per- sonal experience while lecturing, discussing and debating at various American institutions of higher learning throughout the last academic year (1988-1989). Thus, in commenting critically on such phenomena as Rushdie's indifferent defenders, undiscriminating critics and dismissive detractors in the West, I shall try to keep an eye on the revealing, the symptomatic and the unsaid in what passed as the Rushdie affair, debate and polemics. * A condensed version of this article was given as a talk at Princeton University (Near Eastern Studies Department) in December, 1989. I shall use the following abbreviations to refer to Rushdie's works: (SV) The Satanic Verses,Viking, Lon- don, 1988; (MC) Midnight's Children, Picador London, 1982; (S) Shame, Picador, London, 1984; (J) The Jaguar Smile: A NicaraguanJourney, Penguin Books, New York, 1987. I would like to express my gratitude to the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris for kindly giving me access to their files on the Rushdie affair in September 1989. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:41:52PM via free access 2 It was certainly revealing to me that hardly any of the Western intellectuals who rallied to the defense of Salman Rushdie- individually and collectively-came anywhere near regarding him as a Muslim dissident who bears some family resemblances to the celebrated literary-critical dissidents of the Communist countries so enthusiastically adopted by the West and so heartily defended by its intelligentsia. We all know by now that two members of Sweden's Nobel Prize awarding Academy of Letters took the unprecedented step of resigning their life-long membership in that august body on account of the Academy's refusal to come out fully in support of Rushdie the author. A simple comparison of the Academy's stand on the Rushdie affair with its highly publicized support of and prizes to dissident authors from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is sufficient to drive the message home. My impression is that Rushdie has been defended by the con- cerned segment of the Western intelligentsia, formalistically, legalistically, detachedly and at arm's length. I did not sense in any of their apologies that quality of warmth, commitment and genuine concern that usually informs their adoption and defense of the creative writers and critical thinkers of the Communist countries. Perhaps the political unconscious looms here much larger than one would have initially suspected. Perhaps the deep-seated and silent assumption in the West remains that Muslims are simply not worthy of serious dissidents, do not deserve them, and are ultimately incapable of producing them; for, in the final analysis, it is the theocracy of the Ayatollahs that becomes them. No wonder, then, if a Muslim's exercise in satirical courage and laughter should pass mostly unsung for what it is. To complete the picture, add to that the objective alliance between (a) the well synchronized anti- Rushdie coalition formed by assertive reactionary and conservative forces in the West, and (b) Khomeini's deadly condemnation of the novel and its author. Following are a few partners to that alliance: In the United States, Cardinal O'Connor of New York (the most important and influential Roman Catholic Prelate in the country) censured The Satanic Verses without any reference to the mortal 1 threats surrounding its author. In the Vatican, L'Osservatore ' The New York Times, February 19, 1989. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:41:52PM via free access 3 Romano denounced the novel for blasphemy but made no specific mention of Khomeini's death sentence against Rushdie.2 In Britain, the famous jurist Lord Shawcross blamed Rushdie for abusing the freedom "which he shares with all of us",3 while another Lord accused him of something like treachery "at a time when attempts to mend bridges with certain Muslim countries (i.e., Iran) have been at so sensitive a stage" .4 In Israel, the chief Rabbi of Ashkenazi Jews, Avraham Shapira, called for a ban on the publication of The Satanic Verses in Israel. 5 On another Jewish front, the chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Com- monwealth, Immanuel Jakobovitz, called for British legislation to prohibit the publication of any material "likely to inflame, through obscene defamation, the feelings or beliefs of any sections of society".6 The restrictive message of the Ayatollah's 'objective' allies came through loud and clear: Religion is not to be criticized, satirized, lampooned and/or destabilized in these 'perilous' times. Thus, The New York Times reported the following item concerning the Rushdie case: "The Catholic bishops' conference has made no public comment on the case. Neither has any agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second largest denomination, or of the United Methodist church or of the 7 Presbyterian Church (USA)".' As expected, Moral Majority leader, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, was no better. It was no less revealing to me that none of the participants in the extended and passionate debates on the Rushdie affair came anywhere near dealing with him as a possible Muslim Rabelais, a possible Muslim Voltaire and/or a possible Muslim James Joyce settling overdue accounts with his church; i.e., with his erstwhile former religious conscience and consciousness. True, I did see in the literature a few fleeting references to Rabelais, Voltaire and Joyce, but these had to do with style rather than substance, with aesthetics rather than historical significance. This is why I was 2 The New York Times, March 7, 1989. 3 The New York Times, March 10, 1989. 4 Ibid. 5 The New York Times, March 7, 1989. 6 The New York Times, March 10, 1989. 7 The New York Times, February 26, 1989. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:41:52PM via free access 4 pleased to learn from The Daily Telegraph interview last August with Marianne Wiggin (Rushdie's wife and at the time still in hiding with him) that both of them had been reading 18th century works 8 and in particular Voltaire, Diderot and Thomas Pained I find these comparisons very inviting, partly on account of their inherent interest, and partly as a reminder and reply to those intellectuals who took the shortest of routes to an all too easy con- science by dismissing the Rushdie affair with appeals to such cliches as "he knew what he was doing", "he has only himself to blame" and "he had it coming to him".9 Did not Rabelais, Voltaire and Joyce know what they were doing? Is not Rushdie breaking new critical ground in Muslim cultural and historical consciousness? If so, then, are not adverse reactions to be expected? Or are Muslim societies and cultures supposed to remain where they have always been? If Louis Althusser can take pride in praising Spinoza's phi- losophy for "terrifying its time" by providing "one of the greatest lessons in heresy the world has seen", then I see no reason why we cannot take pride in praising Rushdie's novel also for "terrifying its time" by providing "one of the greatest lessons in heresy that the Muslim World has seen". In his own day, Rabelais terrified and entertained his time by producing in Pantagruel a profane, shocking, irreverent and subver- sive absolute best-seller. In later editions, he pushed his iconoclasm to the limit by bluntly affirming (with much glee) that his book "sold more copies in two months than there will be Bibles in nine years". We know that Rabelais' novel was condemned by estab- lished religion as sacrilegious, blasphemous and obscene, while Rabelais himself was judged an apostate. He managed narrowly to escape the stake more than once, either by hiding or by relying on the intervention of very powerful patrons and admirers in both state and church, a privilege obviously denied to Rushdie. In the fiction of Rabelais and Rushdie, we find a fabulous satire of contemporary life meant to shock, bewilder and awaken, while 8 InternationalHerald Tribune, August 4, 1989. 9 For example see the elitist reaction of S. Namanul Haq (tutor in the History of Science at Harvard University) published under the title: "Salman Rushdie, Blame Yourself"; in The New York Times, February 23, 1989. Also John Le Carre's "A Book Not Worth the Bloodshed" in The Guardian,January 15, 1990. Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 06:41:52PM via free access 5 at the same time formulating beneath its exaggerations, ironies, parodies, and criticisms very important truths about their respec- tive ages and societies. In Gargantua and Pantagruel, the description of the origins, birth, education, activities, adventures and travels of the two giants, energized by the chief currents of the Renaissance experience, provides the narrative frame of Rabelais' masterpiece. Similarly, the description of the origins, birth, education, activities, transformations, travels and adventures of Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta, energized by the Indian-Muslim experience of the modern world with all its aspirations, dreams, failures, illusions, wounds, humiliations, disappointments and calamities, provides the narrative frame for The Satanic Verses.
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