Salman Rushdie's It has been banned in most of the islamic world as well as 'secular' India and South Africa. In France Satanic Verses.
liberal. Jordanian writer Fadia a Faqir, also hanned in Egypt, com- plained recently in the Timer Literary Supplement against the timidation in alsmost all of the is- lamic world'. On the other side, a Saudi Arabian group has declared Some moderate muslims who still feel that Rushdie's novel has produced the opposite of the effect the author desired, and has served instead to rising tide of censorship and in- jihad (holy war) against have no time for mullahs or fun- London demonstrators - helping the censors of the ultra-right. "modernism' itself. damentalists from the novel which the mullahs But there is no doubt that the campaign against the book is to some extent politically inspired. In India the elections are due within one year, and Rajiv Gandhi knows demonstrations which brought deaths and bundreds of injuries were led by opponents of the new regime of Benazir Bhutto, "Was it " genuine protest?" she asked, "or was it rather a protest by those people who lost the clection, or those people (who benefited from the importance of 100 million mus- lim votes. In Pakistan, the find objectionable. Scholars from the Al Azhar mosque in Egypt, viewed as the world's leading centre of islamic teaching for the majority Sunni Khomeini's right to order a death The reason for the whole furore is that muslims believe the book to Rushdie' snovelis named after two Koran after the capture of Mecca disputed sentence, saying the edict con- be an insult to their very religion. prophet Mohammed removed from the by his followers, believing that the being passed against Mr which the travenes islamic law. have muslims, Rushdie. verses "delayed' its appearance; but in the countries where it is available, despite (or because of the cam- Now the European Community has withdrawn its diplomats from For the last couple of months, or another in Britain there have and Italy. publishers have paign for it to be banned or Iran because of the call from spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini and other Iranian leaders for muslims to slay Salman almost every weekend in one town been organised demonstrations boycotted, its sales are soaring.
strengthen the hand of the fun- The whole affair has triggered a wider debate: who defines what is damentalists among ordinary mus The terma can quickly change. Not long ago, when Pakistan die- tator Zia ul Haq carried out bar- haric punishments against hundreds of his countrymen and women - for no greater crine than voicing political opinions or plauded him or kept quiet. Where werc the protests of the likes of Hashem El Essawy against Zia's lamic Code - the mullahs ap- protesting against Zia's new Is islarnic and what is un-islamic? lims, martial law], to try to destabilise the process of democracy? The dying order always likes to give a muxlims, but also in the need for A political motive is also a fac- tor in the Iranian stance, not only in Khomeini's bid to take the leadership of the world's 1 billion his regime in find a'new extemal enemy on which to focus domestic discontent in the aftermath of the At the same time diere should be no dnubt that muslim feelings are genuinely hurt. Islam has not un- dergone any reformation or ex- few kicks belore it goes to rest'. disastrous war with Tray. Mohammed may have done this to verses had been inspired by Satan masquerading as the Angel implication is that not God may not be the author of the Koran, For the followers of other religions and non believers all this may not make much sense: but for Muslims it is an intolerable insult, because for them the Koran. syllable for syllable, word for The loudest objection against Rushdie's novel is to pages 363.4. deceive the people of Mecca. Worse, it impliesthat Mohammed, word, is the word of God. Gahriel. The Bolton and Bradford the book was "blasphemous" Satanic Verses. In publicly burned, to attract public according to one of the This served to horrify milbons of poopic in Britain and non-islamic countries, rocalling the book-burning of Nazi Ger- five demonstrators were shot dead hy police in Pakistan's capital, Is- lamabad, whien a huge demonstra- bon led by mullahs tried to atlack the American Centre in protest against the planned publication of Satanic Verses in the USA. Not supposedly 12 February the attention'. against many- On
barbarism or against the beatings and torture carried out by fun- damentalist Jumait-e-Islam louts writers bad the courage to make a fim exposing the treatment of women in Zia's Islumic Republic muslims in this country claiming that the (now salely dead) Zia had Only after some artists and were there belated sercanis by *sophisticated, enlightened By then the climate had changed, and any ascociation with Zia's SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 13 March 1989 only exploited ihe name of islam. against their opponents? of Enlightenment Doubts about the origin and teachings of the Koran are forbidden. The prophel Mohammed, however disguised with fictional names (as in Satanic verser), his family, and his onginal companion are seen as beyond The problem is not restricted lo Rushdie's book. The works of one of Egypt's greatest, Nobel Prize- winning novelists. Neguih Mah- country: and Egypt is relatively fouz, ure hanned in his own • Age perienced reproach. which describes the prophet's revelations as 'sprouting rules deeply a believer should sleep to they leared that sodomy and the In another sequence, prostinutes in a brothel are given the names of about every damn thing from how which sexual positions had received divine sanction, so that proved, whereas the forbidden postures included all those in the prophet's nine wives, There is in all a 12-point list of extracts missionary posion were ap which the woman was on top. one of the demonstrators bad seen. never mind read, the book: indeed ordinary muslims are not allowed to read any book that has been However, the islumnic world is Society for the Promotion of ganisation which started and has led the campaign against Satanic declared blasphemous - only religious scholars have this divided on its response. Hashem El Ensawy, chair of the lulamic Religious Tolerance, (the or- privilege. Page 2
Manifesto, or the holy books of all the main religions- each of which contains passages which followers of other religions find offensive? If taken to its conclusion, almost every book would include at least one short statement and book- walls to carry objections to books thie ludicrous suggestion were shops would need to crect new dreadful regime had bocome a Under Zia's Islamic Code it war declared that the evidence of two Women, even in a rape case, would be equal to that of one man. The religious leaders who formulated this code were quite indifferent to the insult and misery it must have caused millions of muslim women liahility. Yesterday's islam be- came 'un-islamic" overnight!
WE FIGHT FOR DEMDE demonstration against Bangladesh dictator Ershad during Muslim demonstrators fighting for democracy: London his February visit to Britain. The banner translated into English reads Who is a bloodsucker? - Ershad'. Socialists must defend Salman Rushdie: but by no means all his would-be defenders are socialists or progressive. Robert Maxwell, Iranians that tall Iranians, except Ahmad Shuja for example, in a signed editorial in the Sunday Mirror (February 19) urged the British govemment, among other things, to tell the proven enemies of Ayatollah With friends' like Robert Max- well, Salman doesn't need Khomeini, will be sent home.' Muslim leaders, including the Islamic Society for 'Religious Tolerance*, who now shed tears for the hurt caused by Rushdie's religious leaders, declared non- book would do well to dwell on the feelings of the Bahais in Iran and the Ahmadis in Pakistan, who are The Ahmadis worship the same God as other muslims, regard the Koran as their holy book, say prayers like other muslims - but were, under pressure from constant targets of abuse vilification from the mullahs. throughnut the world.
Jean Reilly Page 3 Other motions debsted at the ment, which was motivated with tion despite the fact, pointed out by some speakers, that the Belfast shipyard is a bastion of loyalism andthat the jobs and skills held by Protestant workers there are held proposer, delegates agreed to "defend their rights as workers not All in all the conference was a solidation and development of the historie decision in 1986 to drop In 1986 Sinn Fein agreed the need to develop a political programme to addres the needs of the working class on both sides of the border, In 1989 they are some way along the road of developing that programme. Just as important, they have agreed, at least in principle, that the way to carry our that programme requires involvement in a united-front ind anti-imperialist Ard-Fheir included a motion op- privatisation programme of the British govem- an explicit refercace to Harland & Wolfe. Delegates: voted over- whelmingly in favour of the mo- at the expense of Catholic workers. In the words of the non-confentious and low-key af fair Then Ard Fheis and the pre- vious one have simply been a con- the policy of abstentionism from their privileges as loyalists. the Low key Ard-Fheis of its active nervico units, the mes. sage from the Ard-Fheis was Both Adams and Mc- Guinness riterated the support of Sinn Fein for the military struggle They spoke with regret of the deaths and casualties among non- combatants and congratulated the IRA for taking responsibility for nuch tragedies and for taking steps to try to prevent them happening aguin. They stressed that thene measures were not taken in order to profect Sinn Fein's electoral support but on the basic moral grounds that killing civilians in MeGuinness made the point that the republican movement was Guinness also made the point that, to this day, neither the British army nor the British govemment have ever accepted responsibility for the deaths of fourteen civilinns gunned down by the army in Fheis was on the question of the declaration against violence Placing all the responsibility for ment, delegates adopted a motion directing the And Chomhairle not to allow any British-inspired oath and for the volunteers who curry there to fight oppression not to be- The other key issue of the And- which is now demanded from anyone standing in local elections. violence on the British govern- or pledge to prevent Sinn Fein rep- resenting its electorale in local Derry on Bloody Sunday, 1972. come the now oppressors, out that struggle. READING PRESS reports of held in Dublin at the end of the Sinn Fein Ard-Fheis (an- nual conference) which was January, would have lead you assembled for the sole purpose of hearing Gerry Adams tear In fact it was a much more The main debate was around a section, which was put by the Ard Chomhairie (the executive com mitlec). The teanlution called on Sinn Fein to adopt in principle the perialist mass movement.* und to accept that such a movement reiterated the need for Sinn Fein to programme and to work in united note of dissent came from one or two speakers who expressed fears