“If we cannot trust ourselves as a culture to adapt to the ideas that we do not like,” said author Salman Rushdie at the Congress Library in 2023, “then our ideas also lose their value, because they become authoritarian.”
This is a concept that many Americans have long taken for granted. In America, unlike a large part of the world, free exchange of ideas has been a norm. It is made for uncomfortable and tense clashes between Americans with extremely different opinions from the world, has only aggravated in recent years thanks to social media. But even more, America is a place where people can reliably access a wide range of views if they wish.
It’s as it should be.
However, Rushdie himself experienced the fact that everyone does not value freedom of expression, freedom of expression and freedom of thought.
Three years ago, a religious fanatic tried to assassinate Rushdie in New York. Assassin’s attempt followed the Fatwa of 1989 by the head of Iranian at the time, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling the murder of Rushdie for the crime of writing a novel, “the Satanic verses”.
Indeed, fanatics have actually attacked bookstores across the West, including in Berkeley, in response to controversy, with explosives and Molotov cocktails.
Rushdie, for his part, courageously continued his life and continued to publish books, continued to make public appearances and continued to express his mind.
Consequently, it is not surprising that Claremont McKenna College announced that Rushdie would be the school opening speaker in 2026.
Rushdie knows one or two about the importance of ideas, their examination and their free exchange.
Unfortunately, some spokesperson supposed for the Islamic community have taken the attack on the planned address of Rushdie.
They cite, like a base for their complaint, an interview he made last year during which he said that he had been supporting a Palestinian state for a long time and that any normal person would be shocked by what is happening in Gaza but that “if there was a Palestinian state now, it would be managed by Hamas and that we would have a Taliban type state.
Horror, a nuanced version of a complicated conflict.
Rushdie is not perfect, no one is, but he is perfectly logical as a lecturer at the start. If people want to complain, very well, but no legitimate institution in its good direction should cancel an invitation to Salman Rushdie.
What he has to say is worth hearing.
California Daily Newspapers
