free speech
18 Feb 2009
The Power Of Description
Looking back from a distance of 20 years, the furore over Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses was a precursor to later controversies over Islam and free speech, writes Shakira Hussein
These days, Muslims are always under pressure, whether explicit or implicit, to demonstrate that they are not fire-breathing religious fanatics. So, this might help to boost my credentials as a "trustworthy Muslim": I once came face to face with Salman Rushdie and utterly failed to strangle him to death with my bare hands.
Rushdie was still in hiding at the time, but you don't exactly need to monitor MI5 communications to figure out that when a London bookstore advertises an event to celebrate the "Booker of Bookers" and the place is swarming with cops for 48 hours beforehand — that well, they probably aren't there to protect Penelope Fitzgerald.
I was working as a live-in help on Kensington High Street at the time, so when I noticed the security lockdown around Waterstone's, I disguised myself as an innocent young booklover, and bought a ticket.
I'm sure that both Rushdie and the Ayatollah Khomeini would be horrified to hear me say it, but reading Rushdie's novels as a teenager is a large part of the reason why I now identify as Muslim. At 14, I adored his books with what you could call an almost religious fervour. I carried Midnight's Children in my schoolbag at all times and wrote about it for every possible English assignment — including one on science fiction.
I was captivated, of course, by Rushdie's dazzling prose, but beyond this, he gave words to the experience of plurality and multiplicity, and to the way people "leak into one another", like flavours in chutney. Rushdie explored the possibilities of hybridity, and growing up as a hybrid myself, in a Queensland country town where hybridity was seen as untrustworthy, his writing helped me to make sense of the world.
I still find myself remembering images from Rushdie's writing as I try to come to terms with the times that we live in. In considering the representations of Muslims in public discourse, I think of the scene in The Satanic Verses where a group of black and Asian migrants find themselves mysteriously transmogrified into beasts: a goat, a half-man half-tiger manticore, a snake. The manticore explains these terms, "They describe us. That's all. They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct".
These days, Rushdie himself exercises a certain power of description over Muslims, and I don't always agree with the pictures he constructs. Muslims in our post 9/11 world are being described by all sorts of people, and it is becoming more and more difficult to resist succumbing to the pictures constructed. One of the more benign examples of this is the way that people who were once labelled "Asians" or "Pakis" or "Lebs" are now described first and foremost as Muslims — and we are indeed being transformed by that act of description. As others identify us as Muslims, so we come to identify ourselves.
Looking back from a distance of 20 years, the furore over The Satanic Verses was a precursor to later events. Most obviously, it was the first in a series of controversies over "free speech" in which Islam has been seen to represent medieval intolerance, with the West representing the Enlightenment. From the Danish cartoons and the murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands, to a high profile religious vilification case here in Australia in which the Islamic Council of Victoria sued a Christian organisation, Catch the Fire Ministries, under newly introduced legislation, the debates feel like Groundhog Day, even if the characters and locations vary.
As if to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie fatwa, a series of such skirmishes have broken out over the past fortnight.
The far rightwing Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who has referred to Islam as "the ideology of a retarded culture", was refused entry to the United Kingdom on the grounds that his opinions "threaten community harmony and therefore public safety". His calls for "free speech" were somewhat undermined by his demands that the Koran be banned.
Still in the UK, Johann Hari wrote an opinion piece about Islam for The Independent under the headline "Why Should I Respect These Oppressive Religions?". When the article was republished by an Indian newspaper, violent demonstrations broke out in Kolkatta and the editor was arrested for "hurting the religious feelings of Muslims".
And a new play by Richard Bean at Britain's National Theatre entitled England People Very Nice attracted criticism for being "racist and offensive" in its depiction of the spectrum of immigrants who have settled in the East End over the centuries.
The battlelines appear to have been drawn between "Western" free speech and Muslim religious repression — yet there is no consensus among either Muslims or Westerners as to where the boundaries of free speech should lie. Do they extend as far as libel? Hate speech? Incitement? Falsely shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre?
For myself, I'm prepared to extend the boundaries at least as far as The Satanic Verses — hence my failure even to attempt a headline-grabbing assassination over wine and cheese in Waterstone's. Instead, I asked for Rushdie's autograph and told him how much I loved his books. The expression on his face was more or less the same as the one he later used during his cameo role in Bridget Jones' Diary, when Bridget asked him the way to the toilet. He didn't seem frightened at all. Maybe he had faith in his bodyguards — or maybe, unlikely as it seems, I bear a closer resemblance to Renee Zellweger than I do to a hit-woman from a Khomeini-inspired assassination squad.
These days, as I watch the way that the "power of description" is wielded over Muslims, I feel more and more like one of the monsters from The Satanic Verses.
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So that’s whom you resemble under the veil Shakira
Stunt double for Brigid Jones. ha ha ha!
After what you say, I want to read the ‘Satanic Verses’ now.
But really Shakira is’nt that the great thing about being an Aussie?
You can stand back and look at yourself and see your alter ego as other Aussie’s see oneself.
The bit about being defined by the stereotype, classic.
After all those years of thinking that being Jewish was just another entry on the form that you fill in when going to a school, hospital, etc. I realize that the reaction, "Oh so that’s what a Jew looks like… You been fishing lately, using your nose for a fishing rod?
"My boss is a Jew, yeah, are’nt they all".
Things people say either knowing or not knowing one is Jewish.
It does do a bit of behaviour modification after a while.
I think it is great that there are those about who are trying to get more dialogue going between all three major religions in Australia.
Particularly amongst the young, who are the leaders of tomorrow.
"People leaking into each other"…If that’s what Rushdie is all about, then he should be taught in schools.
Salam, shalom, peace, sister
A truly refreshing piece of reading and a great antidote to all the rubbish we see from tabloid scribblers masquerading as commentators on Islamic matters.
For myself, I find Rushdie’s prose slightly dense. But I always persevere with his texts and invariably emerge richer as a result.
I commend you for failing to act on the fatwa. But I’m sorry to hear you did not protest volubly, and possibly violently, against the wine and cheese. In my experience of London book signings, these are uniquely and universally foul.
Shakira I’m very impressed that you actually took the opportunity to meet the illustrious Salmon Rushdie. I too like arel find his prose quite intricate and heavy going, however he is a master of the written word and his highly imaginative and descriptive passages invoke the eternal power of past mythologies, as he reinterprets and regurgitates these ancient ideas for modern times.
However, the problem you seem to be pondering over is our Western need for ‘freedom of speech’ especially when it concerns the criticism of religious texts.
Believe it or not this is one of the reasons Christianity arose from a repressive Jewish Orthodoxy in Roman times and it is this oppressive Orthodoxy which plagues Islam now, as most of the ideas and religious dogma arose from early Judaism.
Since those times many writers have written criticisms and critiques of both Judaism and Christianity, but why none from Islam?
If books can be banned for inciting violence against a particular group of people - in Islam’s case - non Muslims - then there is a real reason for banning the rote learning (without critical examination) of the Koran in Western culture.
Perhaps Muslims would then at least start reading the Koran with a critical 21st century mind, putting non-Muslims a little more at ease with the extremist ideas against infidels as expressed in the Koran.
I feel like this article was just getting started… and i was enjoying it and then it was over….
I thought you were going to say soemthing about more about your comment that Rushdie’s work helped you decide identify as a Muslim. It reminded me of something a friend of mine in Beirut said once about being of "Shia cultural extraction".. but an athiest and an advocate of many "western" freedoms.
Don’t get me wrong… I agree with everything I’ve read I just like to assume that so would the majority of australian’s who bothered to think about it… I just felt like there were more places to go with this… did the editors give u too short a limit? peace
once again a fabulous piece shakira although i admire your ability to read rushdie…not for any fear of Godly thunderbolts striking you dead on the spot…but for sheer perseverance at his dense and flowery prose! Alas i am not a fan.
I appreciated your analogy of the monsters but I am too young to really remember a time when Muslims were ever allowed to be anything other than wholly and solely ‘Muslims’ no matter their practice, preference, ethnicity, culture, dress, appearance, name, family, location etc etc etc. I’d like to imagine a future where the power of description is not so powerful. In the meantime please keep on reminding us, as you do so well, that the world is a complicated place and Muslims (like everyone else) don’t fit into neat boxes. peace
Hijab burning (in Norway), on International Women’s Day 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWLs57qplpw