THE GUARDIAN: It's 20 years since Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie for 'insulting' Islam with his novel The Satanic Verses. The repercussions were profound - and are still being felt. Andrew Anthony traces the course of the affair, from book-burnings and firebombings to the dramatic impact it had on freedom of expression in a multicultural society
The phrase "literary London" is usually employed to nebulous effect but it accurately describes the gathering that took place at the Greek Orthodox church in Bayswater on 14 February, a clear blue St Valentine's Day, in 1989. The occasion was Bruce Chatwin's memorial service, and it was attended by a large contingent of what was and remains an exceptional generation of British or British-based writers. Among them were Martin Amis, Paul Theroux and Salman Rushdie.
According to Theroux, Chatwin's funeral "was the high watermark of that decade's creative activity". For Amis, Chatwin, a recent convert to Greek Orthodoxy, had played a last joke on his friends by subjecting them to "a religion that no one he knew could understand or respond to". If so, it was a joke destined to be overshadowed by a very different kind of theological offering that was far more of a challenge to understand or respond to. That same morning Rushdie had been informed of the fatwa issued by the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for his execution for the crime of writing a novel, The Satanic Verses.
Word of the death sentence had spread among the mourners. Thinking the fatwa was little more than the empty threat of a faraway tyrant, Theroux called out to Rushdie: "Next week we'll be back here for you!" But Khomeini's pronouncements in such matters were seldom without consequence. As far back as 1947, when merely a cleric, he had ordered the death of an Iranian education minister who within days was shot dead. And thereafter countless other political and intellectual opponents were to lose their lives on Khomeini's command. Chatwin's memorial service was to be Rushdie's last public appearance for some time.
He spent the remainder of that day searching for his son, Zafar, then he went into hiding. The headline of the London evening paper read: EXECUTE RUSHDIE, ORDERS THE AYATOLLAH. "Salman had disappeared into the world of block caps," wrote Amis. "He had vanished into the front page." In fact he had moved with a Special Branch protection team to the Lygon Arms hotel in the Cotswolds. Apparently a tabloid reporter happened to be in the next room, conducting an adulterous affair, and missed the biggest story of the year. That same evening Channel 4 broadcast a pre-recorded interview with Rushdie on The Bandung File. "It's very simple in this country," said the author, when asked about the demands that his book be withdrawn from shops. "If you don't want to read a book, you don't have to read it. It's very hard to be offended by The Satanic Verses - it requires a long period of intense reading. It's a quarter of a million words."
Four days after Rushdie received his "unfunny Valentine", he issued an apology: "I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to sincere followers of Islam." At first the apology was rejected then accepted in Iran, before Khomeini stated that even if Rushdie repented and "became the most pious man of all time" it was still incumbent on every Muslim to "employ everything he has got" to kill him. So much for the spirit of forgiveness. >>> Andrew Anthony | Sunday, January 11, 2009
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