Good For Him
Salman Rushdie has not allowed his personal friendships to get in the way of a good argument after criticising two novelist colleagues (Peter Carey and Michael Ondaatje) for boycotting a freedom-of-speech award for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Now sadly, the murdered cartoonists and writers and Charlie Hebdo are not here to speak for themselves, otherwise they would say, I'm sure, that their attacks on religion were aimed at those who use organised religion for political ends, as a means of controlling other human beings and imposing man-made rules while claiming to act in God's name.
So I take my hat off to Salman Rushdie, good for him!
Top writers are cowards, says Rushdie
The author lambasted writers refusing to attend an event at which Charlie Hebdo was to be honoured - Getty Images
By Jack Malvern - The Times
Sir Salman Rushdie has labelled a pair of novelist friends as cowards after they boycotted a freedom-of-speech award for the French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The Booker Prize-winning author described Peter Carey and Michael Ondaatje as “pussies” for pulling out of a gala event in the US.
The pair were among a group of six writers who questioned whether a publication that brazenly offended Muslims should be awarded the annual Freedom of Expression Courage award by PEN, an association that promotes free speech, on May 5 in New York.
Charlie Hebdolost eight journalists in an attack by Islamic extremist gunmen on January 7. Rushdie, who went into hiding for more than a decade after being sentenced to death by Ayatollah Khomeini for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, said that writers should support free speech even if they disagreed with Charlie Hebdo’s content.
Writing on Twitter, he made a reference to Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an Author. “The award will be given. PEN is holding firm. Just 6 pussies. Six Authors in Search of a bit of Character.”
Carey acknowledged that the murders were a “hideous crime” but queried PEN’s wish to champion Charlie Hebdo.
“Was it a freedom-of-speech issue for PEN America to be self-righteous about?” he asked when approached by TheNew York Times.
“All this is complicated by PEN’s seeming blindness to the cultural arrogance of the French nation, which does not recognise its moral obligation to a large and disempowered segment of their population.”
Carey said that he told PEN’s American president: “I did not wish to have my name, without my knowledge or prior approval, publicly linked to a political position I did not hold.”
Carey, who is Australian, echoed comments made by Garry Trudeau, the American cartoonist responsible for the Doonesbury comic strip, that Charlie Hebdo had crossed a line. The cartoonist said: “By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech.”
Rushdie said that he regretted his friends’ stance. “If PEN as a free speech organisation can’t defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organisation is not worth the name.
“What I would say to both Peter and Michael and the others is, I hope nobody ever comes after them.”
Carey and Ondaatje were joined by Francine Prose, the American author who received the PEN translation prize in 1988, the Nigerian-American Teju Cole, Taiye Selasi, who wrote Ghana Must Go, and the American novelist Rachel Kushner in withdrawing from the event.
Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, said that Carey and Ondaatje appeared to be confused between the principle of free speech and endorsing the message of Charlie Hebdo. “The big mistake that these writers make is that they are essentially withdrawing their support from the principle of freedom of expression. If freedom of expression means anything, then it’s supporting work that you don’t like. It’s very disappointing because we need that solidarity.”
She said that the award was for the courage shown by Charlie Hebdo’s staff not only for publishing material that some would find offensive but also for “deciding to continue to publish when they must have been on their knees”.
Ms Glanville said that Rushdie knew all too well the risks of causing offence. “It’s highly understandable that Salman Rushdie supports this in the way that he does. When he was in hiding after writing The Satanic Verses he was attacked by writers including John le Carré and Roald Dahl.”
Carey has won the Booker Prize twice, for True History of the Kelly Gang and Oscar and Lucinda, while Ondaatje has won the award for The English Patient.
