Salman Rushdie has illuminated the hypocrisy, delusion and cravenness of the powerful, of the West’s intellectual and literary elite, even of Joe Biden. | OPINION Julie Szego
. He’s illuminated the hypocrisy, delusion and cravenness of the powerful, of the West’s intellectual and literary elite, even of Joe Biden.Biden’s moral failure is of a different kind, but it’s especially poignant at this time. In the aftermath of the knife attack on Rushdie, the US president resoundingly endorsed the “universal ideals” Rushdie and his work embody. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear,” Biden said.
Rushdie has not forgotten his fellow writers of conscience. He was assaulted while on stage at a New York literary festival for a discussion about the West being a haven for exiled writers. Ironic plot twists everywhere you look. At the time of the fatwa, plenty of people argued Rushdie had only himself to blame because his prose was so offensive; a perverted logic whereby the virulent response is taken as proof of transgression. I can almost forgive the muddled thinking back then because the Iranian fatwa was only the first sign of the Islamofascist terror to come.
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