Back on Valentine’s Day in 1989 the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his famous fatwa:

The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world due to its irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The book describes a prophet of God named “Mahound” who mixes “Satanic verses with the divine” (hence the title of the novel). India banned the book on October 5; South Africa banned it on November 24; and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Qatar followed within weeks. On January 14, 1989 the novel was the subject of a book burning event in Bradford, England. On February 12, five people were shot and killed by the police during a protest in Islamabad.

On February 14, 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, calling the book “blasphemous against Islam.” As the novel also suggested that Rushdie no longer believed in Islam, Khomeini also condemned him for apostasy, which according to the Hadith is punishable by death. Khomeini indicated that it was the responsibility of all “zealous Muslims” to execute Rushdie and the publishers who were aware of its concepts:

In the name of God Almighty. There is only one God, to whom we shall all return. I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an, as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, have been sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they find them, so that no one will dare insult the Islamic sanctities. Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, God willing. In addition, anyone who has access to the author of the book, but does not possess the power to execute him, should refer him to the people so that he may be punished for his actions. May God’s blessing be on you all. Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

On February 24 1989, Khomeini offered a U.S.$ 3 million bounty for the death of Rushdie, who was then forced to live for a time under British-financed security.

The controversy split the left-wing intelligentsia. While most writers, and anyone with an ounce of compassion, rallied to Rushdie’s defense, many suggested that Rushdie deserved to have a three million dollar bounty put on his head by a religious leader. The famous spy novelist John Le Carre suggested that Rushdie should have know better.

I wrote that there is no absolute standard of free speech in any society. I wrote that tolerance does not come at the same time, and in the same form, to all religions and cultures, and that Christian society too, until very recently, defined the limits of freedom by what was sacred…

My purpose was not to justify the persecution of Rushdie, which, like any decent person, I deplore, but to sound less arrogant, less colonialist, and less self-righteous note than we were hearing from the safety of his admirers’ camp.

Others went further.

It would be good to be able to report that all British writers have rallied round Rushdie on principle, the principle of freedom of expression, but in a society still beset by class snobbery, racism and petty political squabbles that was perhaps too much to expect.

The novelist Auberon Waugh, son of Evelyn and editor of the eccentric magazine the Literary Review, has asked whether it isn’t about time the British government stopped paying for Rushdie’s protection. Lord Dacre, better known as the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, has said that Rushdie deserves whatever’s coming to him for publishing so disgraceful a book. The former singer Cat Stevens, a Moslem convert, said much the same on television. Roald Dahl, meanwhile, wrote to the Times to describe Rushdie as a “dangerous opportunist.”

What does the Satanic Verses controversy have in common with the cartoon controversy? In both cases arguments were made (from the left) that a willingness to artistically offend Muslims displayed a lack of cultural sensitivity, that it was arrogant, even colonialist. In both cases, Muslims appeared on the streets in Europe and elsewhere to protest. In both cases there were episodes of violence. And in both cases the issue caused strong divisions of the left and was used to demonize Muslims by the right.

There are important differences. Salman Rushdie is an immensely talented novelist and Satanic Verses is much better as a book than any of the Danish cartoons are as illustrations. The novel had a lot more to offer than stereotyping and mockery. Moreover, Rushdie was at least nominally a Muslim (a fact that did not work in his favor).

Yet, the two controversies have enough comparability for us to place them together. At bottom, both controversies present the left with two conflicting bedrock principles. The first is the principle of freedom of expression, which is more absolute in America than it is in Canada or Europe. And the second is the principle of cultural sensitivity.

Without bogging down this essay with an overly long depiction of what cultural sensitivity is, I’ll just characterize it as a mode of thought that places great weight on respecting how other people from other cultures feel and that eschews critiquing the validity of those feelings. It is not for Anglo-Saxons to question the reasoning behind the cartoons or Rushdie’s novel causing offense, it is enough that they do in fact cause offense. And to lament this fact, or to argue against it is to display arrogance, insensitivity, and a colonialist mindset.

Taken to its extreme, this mode of thinking can justify a three million dollar bounty on the head of another human being. But in less extreme guises it merely shrugs off such things and explains that the victim is really the perpetrator and they should have known better than to mock Islam.

Despite some of the problems with the cultural sensitivity argument, it is not without merit. And the merits are much clearer in the case of the cartoons than in the case of Salman Rushdie.

This is especially true because there are Danish laws that prohibit degrading people on account of their religion. These laws were undoubtedly drawn up to protect against anti-Semitism and they would likely have been invoked if the cartoons had been aimed at Jews. The laws were not invoked to protect Muslims.

Personally, I find the laws as offensive as the cartoons, if not more so. I have been questioning my feelings about this after reading Catnip’s Canadian take on hate speech and the observations of many of the people at European Tribune. Perhaps it is my American upbringing but I can’t countenence laws banning the printing of speech, hateful or otherwise. I understand people that feel differently, and I see merit in their arguments, but ultimately I don’t think the greater good lies with censorship and fines.

Yet, I am not Danish. And the Danes should enforce their laws equitably or they should revoke them. If they say that religion should not be mocked in the press that is their business. But Muslims expect and deserve equal treatment under the law.

Here in America, the protectors of free speech know full well that the only speech that needs protecting is speech that is controversial and offensive in some way. Most often the liberals that are most committed to free speech will find the speech they are called to defend to be odious, perhaps extremely odious. And that is the case with the Danish cartoons.

How does one defend, not Denmark’s papers, but America’s papers right to print these images without appearing to support the images? How can one defend the display of something that is deeply hurtful to people without appearing to be insensitive to and dismissive of the pain the images cause? Should we put the images on telephone polls and use them as an example of free speech?

That is one way to show solidarity with the people that have the thankless job of defending the indefensible. And in certain circumstances it might be appropriate. The reason I do not think it is appropriate in the case of the cartoons is because of the larger climate of fear and intimidation that Muslims are living with in this country post-9/11. Everyday I see right-wing articles that attack Islam and call it a violent religion. In this atmosphere I think it is prudent to find other ways to make one’s point than by doing flyers that will not only offend but may intimidate. But what should we do instead? How do we defend the right to free speech without falling into a trap?

It’s not an easy question to answer. Some people think hate speech should not be protected in the first place. Since they don’t agree with the premise that the right to print the cartoons must be protected they probably are not going to agree on a solution.

And can we successfully defend the right to print the cartoons if no one will, in fact, print them?

The one thing I am sure of is that these difficult and conflicting issues will always split the left whenever they come up. Maybe if we could respect each other’s differences we could accept that some people come down on different sides of these issues. We all mean well. None of us wants more hate speech, none of us wants to offend others and cause pain. And none of us wants an unfree press. Not really.

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