Salman Rushdie
We wholeheartedly condemn the vicious attack on the author Salman Rushdie. The controversial author was assaulted by an audience member while giving a talk at a Chautauqua Institution panel in western New York. The assaulter stabbed Rushdie numerous times, and Rushdie is now battling for his life. We hope that Rushdie makes as full a recovery as possible.
There are no circumstances in which such an attack is justified.
Media, quoting law enforcement authorities, are reporting that the assaulter is influenced by the ideology of the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran. Exactly who or what is behind this attack is not yet fully clear and verifiable, and people should not rush to judgment. At the same time, it is important to understand that the Islamic Republic of Iran put out a “fatwa”—a decree—calling for Rushdie's death for supposed “blasphemy” against Islam, in his satirical novel The Satanic Verses, published in 1989. Such calls by any government—as well as any prosecution or persecution whatsoever for any supposed “blasphemy” against any religion by people or forces outside of government—must, again, have no place in any society and must be condemned by all people.
The fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran—an illegitimate regime run by fascist Islamic fundamentalist clergy—has now welcomed this attack is both disgusting and, in its own perverse way, fitting for a reactionary state which is now torturing hundreds of political prisoners in its prisons for the “crimes” of speaking and writing against the regime, or defending those who do.
While it is true that the United States does much more damage on a world scale than such Islamic fundamentalist fanatics, in and out of government, there is nothing whatsoever about these regimes or movements that is truly “anti-imperialist” and any force or individual with even a shred of principle must oppose them.