All Because Salman Rushdie Wrote a Book
An unapologetic defense of free speech: “To him [Rushdie], the right to speak your mind, about anything, is universal…some [are] defending him unreservedly while others [are] arguing that perhaps his perceived insult of Islam was a mistake and a needless provocation on his part. This morning’s violence cuts through this debate, silences it…”
“Writers represent the part of our culture that engages with humanity through ideas… It’s a realm we should not just preserve but defend.... We should all hope that Rushdie survive… we need him to keep reminding us of the worst of what can happen—the violence that can happen—to someone who has used nothing more than his words.”
Related:
Some Lives Matter More: Why haven't U.S. elites rallied to the cause of Salman Rushdie as they did for Jamal Khashoggi? (The Scroll, 9/7/22)
I once wanted to burn ‘The Satanic Verses.’ Now I weep for Salman Rushdie. (Washington Post, 8/16/22)—by FA Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Writers Gather to Read Salman Rushdie and Support Free Speech (NYT, 8/20/22)
The Stabbing of Salman Rushdie Renews Free Speech Debates: After the attack, writers and world leaders hailed Rushdie as a symbol of free expression. But the battle lines around his novel “The Satanic Verses” were never cleanly drawn. (NYT, 8/15/22)
The New York Times’s strange Rushdie silence (Spectator World, 8/16/22)
Rushdie’s Moral Heroism (Quillette, 8/14/22)
Salman Rushdie’s Stabbing Shows the Danger of Conflating Words With ‘Violence’ (The Daily Beast, 8/13/22) by Greg Lukianoff
The best response to Salman Rushdie’s stabbing: The illiterate cannot be allowed to dictate the rules of literature. (Spectator World, 8/12/22) by FAIR Advisor Douglas Murray
