Rushdie is a bad, second rate writer. He's just one of those churning book machines like Paulo Chuello, and testifies to the utter degradation and fall of everything good, descent and valuable in the human race. A journalist - he testifies to the fact that today anything goes, people today read things that they are ideologically close to. They also did that before our time but at least there was a space for good things to bloom and flourish. There hasn't been a really good book in print since the 1950s.

Didn't they once sell knighthoods for 100,000 pounds or so once? I surely hope the they do bring the title back up to glory and stop giving them to druggies with talent etc. Rushdie earned his, Elton John doesn't even write his own songs.

"The sad thing is that this vocal minority attack moderate Muslims like Yusuf Islam who preach tolerance, acceptance, peace and understanding."

Whu?!?!?

"Under Islamic Law, the ruling regarding blasphemy is quite clear; the person found guilty of it must be put to death. Only under certain circumstances can repentance be accepted.... The fact is that as far as the application of Islamic Law and the implementation of full Islamic way of life in Britain is concerned, Muslims realize that there is very little chance of that happening in the near future. But that shouldn't stop us from trying to improve the situation and presenting the Islamic viewpoint wherever and whenever possible. That is the duty of every Muslim..."

-Yosuf Islam, in response to the publication of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses"

He is no more "moderate", or sane, than you are, gwaan.

"By giving the knighthood to Rushdie they have provided fuel to the hardliners at the same time as alienating the moderates."

No, By giving him knighthood, they have done WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT TO. Its not their fucking fault people fail to take criticism.

YOU are the intolerant one here, you fail to accept other peoples opinions, You fail if you think that opinions critical of islam are racist, intolerant or offensive , Islam is a mind-virus, a brainwashing indoctrination cult. Your failure to see this despite all your "open studies", is only a testament to the fact. You can see it in scientology's Suppressive Persons/fair game policy , or Jehovas Witnesses excommunication policies, Or Christian burning of heretics , surely if you saw a convert TO islam from these religions undergoing processes like these, you would see it, Islam condones murdering anyone who leaves the cult, Its happening in countries where islam is the order of the day. Once again, you'll conjure up some shit about "real islam" but to me, real Islam is the Islam that is real. The islam that doesnt issue fatwas against people who stone small girls to death, The islam that doesnt indict and punish the countless crimes done in the name of Islam, name of the Prophet, I can only speculate as to why the fuck not, but I think its pretty obvious that when you do stone young women who have been raped, (Or rape them in order to be allowed to stone them) it doesnt exactly contradict the scripture, does it?* Which is why these crimes are given a nice little free pass, while the crime of writing an honest book, or drawing a bearded dead man with a bomb for a hat, sparks fatwas, death threats, riots and condemnations from every layer of the islamic world.

*It may well be that alot of imams etc (including you) do resent these crimes as much as I do, but simply do not show outrage because you know the consequences, When Norwegian born Kadra, for instance, vaguely suggested that some of the views on women in the Quran should be re-interpreted, she was consequently given a good beating by 8 brave muslim men who defended the dead winged-horse-flying victim and his supernatural friend in the skies.

I'm sorry, but your lack of self-perception with regards to islam is frightening and borderlining insanity.

Rushdie's knighthood was at best undeserved and at worst a stupid mistake. For a start, apart from 'Midnight Children', the man's contribution to literature has been small - love or hate 'The Satanic Verses' it is not a great work of literature! Furthermore it is a work which caused great offense to many Muslims. By giving the knighthood to Rushdie they have provided fuel to the hardliners at the same time as alienating the moderates.

Condell is right to point out that some Muslims and Islamic Organisations - including the Muslim Council of Britain - are always the first to point the finger of blame at the West and scream about Islamophobia, without ever condemning hatred and intolerance in the Islamic world. Condell is also right to distinguish between moderate peaceful Muslims and extremists (a distinction which he later forgets when he attacks all Muslims as irrational idiots). But it is the failure to make this distinction which is instilling a very real and a very dangerous phobia of everything Islamic in the hearts and minds of many people in the West.

It is very easy to poke fun at the idea of Islamophobia when you are not subject to the hostile actions which such a phobia has produced. And let me be clear what I mean by hostile actions. I'm not talking about the verbal abuse and threats of violence which many peaceful Muslims - including myself - have been subject to. Nor am I referring to the aggressive media reports - particularly in America - which seek to tar all Muslims with the same brush. I'm talking about an irrational fear of the whole Islamic world and the Islamic peoples - not just the extremists - which created popular support for America and Britain's aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East and the wider Islamic world - including the blind and unobjective support of Israeli aggression against Palestine and Lebanon. I'm talking about a fear of everything Islamic which has been behind America's continued support for tyrannical secular dictatorships throughout the Islamic world - simply because the main opposition parties in those countries happen to be Islamic. I'm talking about the fear which leads to support for reactionary domestic terrorism legislation which erodes essential civil liberties which we have held dear for centuries.

If Condell was just condeming extremists I would support him. But his simplistic rants against Islam - which, even when they distinguish between extremists and moderates, always end by abusing all Muslims (and religious people in general) as irrational fools who aspire to a creed of hate - just help to engender an irrational fear of everything Islamic. The irrational Islamophobia which Condell himself suffers from and likes to teach others just creates more hatred, more misunderstanding, and more unobjective support for misguided foreign policy.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Richard-Rubenstein-Understanding-Islamophobia

The truth about the Rushdie affair: http://www.videosift.com/video/Salman-Rushdie-Apostasy-and-Khomeinis-Fatwah

It is very hard for a non-Muslim to understand why this book is considered so offensive by Muslims. I shall try my best to explain.

The vast majority of Muslims have no problem with interrogating and criticising many of the negative elements apparent in the modern manifestation of Islam. In fact, that is something that a lot of us do anyway. Rushdie's work follows the narrative of the sacred texts of Islam almost exactly. What Muslims took offense to was Rushdie's deliberate attempt to rewrite the entirety of Muhammad's life in an abusive and obscene manner. For example, in his novel Rushdie refers to Muhammad as Mahound - a term coined in the Middle Ages in Christendom to describe the Prophet as a devil. Furthermore, he describes Muhammad's wives as prostitutes and whores, and implies that the mosque in Medina was little more than a brothel. For Muslims, the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and his wives, is a paradigm for Muslim behaviour and identity. That is why so many Muslims took personal offense at Rushdie's words.

All that being said, the reaction by some Muslims to the publication of the Satanic Verses was completely over the top and wrong - both from an objective and an Islamic perspective. If they had ignored the book it would have never received the attention it did. One of the sad things about the response to the book was that voices of moderation were completely drowned out. Many Muslims were caught between the intolerant and hateful rhetoric of the Ayatollah, and a response from the secular press and media which not only tarred all Muslims with the same brush - as intolerant, hateful, bigots - but which also seemed to contain strong elements of cultural racism. However, in 1989, at the height of the Rushdie affair, the great British Muslim - Zaki Badawi - called on Muslims to spurn the book but spare the man, and declared that he would not hesitate to offer the novelist sanctuary in his own home. In this spirit I will not upvote this - but I will not downvote it either.

Being an atheist I sympathize, but censorship isn't the answer. I'm not threatened by this type of theatrics, maybe a little creeped out but that's okay. If anything I suspect that it does more harm to religion than good.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
- Noam Chomsky

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
- Salman Rushdie

Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.
- Colin Powell

Of course I'd be free to fall over laughing aswell

Jeeezus!! Where are all the Python fans??? Is there a convention or something???? ALLAH!, they even use a bouncing-ball to follow along...here's yer last chance to learn all the words! (Hmmmm, doesn't have that roll-off-the-tongue when you use the muslims' goddamn god's name in vain!)--Oh shit, I better find out what ol' Sal Rushdie does about gettin' groceries!!!

Well Yusuf Islam certainly did support the fatwa against Rushdie, but are you really saying that fact justifies his being on a terrorist watchlist?

Well, the man who wrote "Peace Train" also converted to Islam and supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie (and then tried to sleaze out of having said that when it got him bad publicity). Life's a funny thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-cat.html?_r=1&oref=login An article quoting Yusuf Islam on just what he'd like to see happen to Rushdie, and how he'd help (from the Evil Korporate Media/Librul MSM, I'm afraid).