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Mukto Mona Condemns Angry Attacks on Salman Rushdie Mukto-Mona Moderation Team Published on June 23, 2007
The recent award of a Knighthood to
Indian born British author Salman Rushdie by Queen ELizabeth II has provoked
angry reactions from Muslim fundamentalists the world over. We have seen the
government of Iran, a country that offered a multi million dollar reward for
the author's murder and who never withdrew the fatwa (see the news report:
Rushdie death fatwa still stands, Iran says) summon the British
Ambassador to lodge a protest against this internal decision of the British
government. The reaction in Pakistan, a country where Rushdie lived before
moving to Britain has been even worse. At first, Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz ul Haq announced that suicide attacks could be justified because the
knighthood insulted the Prophet Mohammed but then withdrew his comments and
claimed that he had been misquoted when newspapers in the UK began
editorializing that Britain withdraw Pounds Sterling 480 million worth of
aid that they had earmarked for Pakistan this year. He has now offered to
visit the UK on a damage repair mission. That has not been the last word from
Pakistan, though. The Pakistani Ulema Council jumped at the opportunity to
offer the title of "Saifullah" meaning "Sword of Allah" to Osama Bin Laden
in response to the knighthood bestowed on Rushdie. While this was taking
place, Afzal Sahi, Speaker of the Punjab Province Assembly and a key
supporter of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf declared that he would
personally kill Rushdie if he set eyes on him. And, worse was to come: Azmal
Baluch, the Secretary General of the Islamabad Traders' Association has just
announced a reward for Rushdie's head and urged his fellow traders to
boycott British products. The genesis of threats against
Rushdie's life, however, did not originate in Iran or in Pakistan. The late
Rajeev Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India whose widow is regarded as
India's de facto ruler these days, first raised the Satanic Verses bogey and
banned the book in order to court extreme fundamentalists among the Indian
Muslim community. It was this cynical attempt at manipulating religious
sentiments in order to win elections that he lost eventually that spilled
across India's borders and threatened the life of an author whose book
Gandhi had certainly not bothered to read and nor had Ayatollah Khomeini,
Iran's murderous, semi-literate mullah who announced the first fatwa on
Rushdie's life. At Mukto-Mona we strongly condemn
this brutish and barbaric behavior by uneducated fanatics and criminals
against a writer of fiction. We affirm that the British government has the
right to award what titles it wishes to award to it's own citizens and offer
our congratulations if this knighthood was indeed awarded in order to cock a
snook at the fundamentalists and political manipulators of the world. There
is no room in civilized society for the kind of thuggishness that we are
witnessing in response to what is virtually a non event outside Buckingham
Palace. And we invite all freethinking people and supporters of the freedom
of expression to join us in condemning the recent actions of those who have
been advocating murder, suicide bombings etc. We hope that the authorities
in Pakistan, a nation that calls itself a moderate Islamic state, would take
actions against these religious criminals for incitement to murder. And we
also hope that the world is more aware of the nature of the regime that
rules Iran based on it's renewed viciousness against Rushdie in the past few
days. Mukto-Mona Moderation Team see our other petitions and statements
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