Salman Rushdie, from Outsider to “Knight Bachelor”

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Salman Rushdie got knighted over the weekend: he’s now Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie.

Predictably, government officials in Pakistan and Iran have come out against honouring the “blaspheming” “apostate” Rushdie. It’s a brand of foaming at the mouth that we’re all too familiar with at this point; in a sense, the hostile fundamentalist reaction validates the strong secularist stance that Rushdie has taken since his reemergence from Fatwa-induced semi-seclusion in 1998. (If these people are burning your effigy, you must be doing something right.)

But actually, there’s another issue I wanted to mention that isn’t getting talked about much in the coverage of Rushdie’s knighthood, which is the fact that Rushdie wasn’t always a “safe” figure for British government officials. In the early 1980s in particular, and throughout the Margaret Thatcher era, Rushdie was known mainly as a critic of the British establishment, not a member. The main issue for Rushdie then was British racism, and he did not mince words in condemning it as well as the people who tolerated it.

This morning I was briefly looking over some of Rushdie’s essays from the 1980s. Some of the strongest work exoriated the policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and indicted the pervasiveness of “institutionalized racism” in British society. Two essays in particular stand out, “The New Empire Within Britain,” and “Home Front.” Both are published in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991. (Another great essay from that collection is “Outside the Whale” — required reading, though on a slightly different topic. And see this NYT review of the collection as a whole from 1991.)Here is a long quote from “The New Empire Within Britain” (1982):

[L]et me quote from Margaret Thatcher’s speech at Cheltneham on the third of July, her famous victory address: ‘We have learned something about ourselves, a lesson we desperately need to learn. When we started out, there were the waverers and the fainthears . . . The people who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did . . . that we could never again be what we were. Ther were those who would not admit it . . . but–in their heart of hearts–they too had their secret fears that it was true: that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well, they were wrong.’

There are several interesting aspects to this speech. Remember that it was made by a triumphant Prime Minister at the peak of her popuolarity; a Prime Minister who could claim with complete credibility to be speaking for an overwhelming majority of the elctorate, and who, as even her detractors must admit, has a considerable gift for assessing the national mood. Now if such a leader at such a time felt able to invoke the spirit of imperialism, it was because she knew how central that spirit is to the self-image of white Britons of all classes. I say white Britons because it’s clear that Mrs Thatcher wasn’t addressing the two million or so blacks, who don’t feel quite like that about the Empire. So even her use of the word ‘we’ was an act of racial exclusion, like her other well-known speech about the fear of being ‘swamped’ by immigrants. With such leaders, it’s not surprising that the British are slow to learn the real lessons of their past.

Let me repeat what I said at the beginning: Britain isn’t Nazi Germany. The British Empire isn’t the Third Reich. But in Germany, after the fall of Hitler, heroic attempts were made by many people to purify German though and the German language of the pollution of Nazism. Such acts of cleansing are occasionally necessary in every society. But British thought, British society, has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism. It’s still there, breeding lice and vermin, waiting for unscrupulous people to exploit it for their own ends. (Read the whole thing)

That was Rushdie in 1982: “British society has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism.” And it’s by no means the only strong statement he makes about racism and imperialism in “The New Empire Within Britain”; he also goes after the legal system, the police, and the clearly racist quotas the British had enacted in the immigration policy to reduce the number of black and brown immigrants coming to Britain from former colonies.

If we compare Rushdie in 1982 to Rushdie today, it’s clear that the man has changed quite a bit — but it also has to be acknowledged that British society has itself been transformed, perhaps even more radically. Organizations like the National Front are nowhere near as influential as they were in the early 1980s, and a decade of the Labour Party and Tony Blair have changed the political picture for good. But more than anything, what seems different is the way racialized difference (Blacks and Asians vs. the white majority) has been displaced by the religious difference as the most contentious issue of the day. One you move the debate from race to religion, the parameters for who gets seen as an “outsider” and who becomes an “insider” look quite different.

326 thoughts on “Salman Rushdie, from Outsider to “Knight Bachelor””

  1. but you also must understand, that in Islam, disrespecting the prophet is one of the worst things you can do against Islam

    and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called ‘freedom of speech’.

  2. Beyond the fact that such things make the newspapers, it’s hard to see how Rushdie’s becoming a Knight Bachelor matters. Such orders have been given out will-nilly for a long time, like honorary degrees. Rushdie shared this year’s slate with Joe Cocker, who got an OBE. Joe Cocker, the voice behind the execrable “You Are So Beautiful” and “Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong.”

    When Sanjeev Bhaskar (The Kumars at No. 42) got his OBE last year, he said he was going to do with it what any good British Asian would do–sell it on Ebay.

  3. and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called ‘freedom of speech’.

    i think it is diff. in countries not the USofA. they “respect” but don’t “worship” it. the riots over the play which offended sikhs in england a few years back shows that it isn’t a muslim issue. some of the people interviewed said straight out that “free speech has limits.” it is just the william donohue/catholic league mentality, and it is normative world wide. free speech on principle is an aberration.

  4. 29% of indians are sikh? speaking of “duh.”

    My “duh” was more aimed at the “Indian migration is diverse… In contrast Pakistan and Bangladesh.” It was more of a “of course migration from Pakistan/Bangladesh” is not going to be religiously diverse! Wasn’t trying to “duh” you, just the UK Census.

    I think Sikhs are largely “overrepresented” because: 1. Of their high numbers in the military (and consequent preference in early migration schemes) 2. Partition and its demographic fallout resulting in a large number of Sikhs leaving Punjab in general. Another large group who left were Bengalis (Hindus and Muslims) who were divided by the E. Pakistan/India partition — for immigration purposes they are classified as Indians, not Pakistanis in most UK records. 3. Time effects from being one of the “first migrant” communities vis-a-vis reunification, etc.

    But also, when looking at early Indian migration (Partition onwards), the numbers are comparatively skewed, i.e. they generally reflect the religious diversity of the areas from which people were emigrating. This also explains why things have skewed in other directions over time. You see the Muslim immigrant pop overtake the Hindu pop as % of (desi) migrants to the UK around the mid-1970s, and you see another big bump in the Muslim population during the (Bangladeshi) war of independence. You also see a bump in the number of Hindus migrating when Idi Amin kicks desis out of Uganda. I really think geopolitical circumstances had a lot to do with the skewed numbers of people petitioning for immigration.

  6. http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003354.html

    Sewa Singh Mandha, the chairman of the Council of Sikh Gurdwaras, said of the theatre: “They keep saying the playwright has the right to her imagination but these imaginations could harm a community. This play will not help race relations in the city.”

    and of course, it brought the races and religions together:

    But the play itself came under fire from Birmingham’s Roman Catholic Archbishop, who described it as offensive to all faiths.

    In a statement, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols said: “In recent weeks the Sikh community has acted in a reasonable and measured way in representing their deep concerns to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

    “I regret that the Repertory Theatre, in the interests of the common good, has not been more responsive. Such a deliberate, even if fictional, violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred places of every religion.”

  7. ACD # 34 /noo york

    Personally, I felt the Bharat Ratna was devalued the minute politicans started awarding it to other politicians ( see the list after 1990 to see the increase in quantity awarded) Rajiv Gandhi was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1991

  8. .You also see a bump in the number of Hindus migrating when Idi Amin kicks desis out of Uganda.

    well, my impression was that an enormous number of the gujaratis (though not majority) in uganda were ismailis. in zimbabwe and south africa the gujarati merchant class is muslim, in tanzania and kenya it is hindu. re: bangladeshi immigrants, 92% is an under representation of hindus non-trivially. the low bound in bangladesh for hindus today is 10%, but say in 1980 it would be 15%. and there are regional biases. southwest bangladesh has many more hindus than northeast bangladesh (sylhet) from what i recall. the immigrant stream is not necessarily representative at all as you note with indians. most arab immigrants to the USA until the past decade were christian. most iranians in LA are jewish.

  9. Turkmen Gate: What was that?

    See Alleged role during Emergency. His bias against Muslims is quite well known. Unfortunately, there aren’t many credible accounts of his wild ways. To be fair, he wasn’t on the Hussain Jr., Chouchesku Jr. level, but that’s not saying much.

    Anyone who can read Marathi should definitely check out Sattandh (trans. – Blinded by Power).

    Compared to him, Rajiv Gandhi was a saint.

  11. I have no love for Indira Gandhi. She was an enemy of individual liberty. But she attacked a Sikh holy place that was already tainted by the presence of armed Sikh rebels. People of all religions – regardless of your cause, if you take up arms and do not want your holy places attacked, then stay the hell away from such places.

    Prasad, please let’s not get into an argument about 1984 or Sikh nationalism or whatnot. I seriously doubt people would make the same arguments if Harmandar Sahib was swapped with “The Vatican.” The example noo york brought up was unuseful, and I would honestly like to avoid another conversation that devolves into “Sikhs were asking for it.”

    i assume the east african refugees get classified as “indian.”

    They did, and many were redirected to India, regardless of whether or not they were Indian (that is, many had been born in Uganda, did not speak a single Indian language, identified as African/Ugandan, and were sent to Delhi anyway). Sometimes folks distinguish by calling people “black African” to indicate people who are not of desi origin. It’s a mess. A lot of the refugee population identifies as African and bristles at the current language of pan-African and Africanist organizations in the UK, which very blatantly exclude Ugandan desis in their definition of “African.”

    As far as Sikhs vs. Mirpuri Muslims, I don’t know enough to say. Most of the Sikhs I’ve met in the UK are from Lahore or doaba. That may mean nothing whatsoever since it’s strictly anecdotal.

  12. well, my impression was that an enormous number of the gujaratis (though not majority) in uganda were ismailis.

    Yes, but many of the Gujaratis who made it to the UK were Hindu. I have no idea what the religious split was (Hindu/Muslim) pre-1972, unfortunately. That would also be a really interesting comparison.

  13. Shouldn’t he be Sir Ahmed? No, seriously. Do you get to choose which of your names gets used after the “Sir”? If so, could that name be your last name, which may be your “name of christening” as in V V S Laxman?

    Sorry to thread-jack : Camille, I have a question on Dharavi. Could you let me know your email address or send me an email? Thanks.

  14. Prasad, please let’s not get into an argument about 1984 or Sikh nationalism or whatnot. I seriously doubt people would make the same arguments if Harmandar Sahib was swapped with “The Vatican.” The example noo york brought up was unuseful, and I would honestly like to avoid another conversation that devolves into “Sikhs were asking for it.”

    Camille, if you read the rest of what I said, you can see clearly that it has nothing to do with “Sikhs asking for it”. And yes, if Donald Wildmon and his merry loons taked up armed refuge at the Vatican and they are in a conflict with the state, yes, it becomes a target. Obviously, you want to be patient to flush them out. Like I said, I do not condone what Indira G did, but it was not such a huge thing for me because the militants made the initial mistake of using a holy place to hide. And considering I find the Sikh massacre after her death one of the most unpardonable crimes in modern Indian history and advocated vigilante action against the ministers, one could hardly interpret the tone of my comment as “the sikhs asked for it”

  15. well, my impression was that an enormous number of the gujaratis (though not majority) in uganda were ismailis.

    did not a substantial number of these ismailis migrate to canada?

  16. noo york

    Your comparison of Salman Rushdie to Indira Gandhi is quite bizarre.

    In what sense can Salman Rushdie be compared to an indian politician, a prime minister no less! famous for her ruthlessness and cunning? Someone who, in addition to a few positive achievements, will always be linked to first pandering to sikh extremists and then using extreme force to attack the golden temple. And I haven’t even gotten to her use of “license raj” to enslave indians economically or to her political heirs participation in the violence against innocent sikhs.

    If you are a “moderate”, I am the Rani of Jhansi.

  17. and muslims must understand that other people have that concept called ‘freedom of speech’.

    and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are…common sense people. lets try it.

  18. Manju, “he (Rushdie) looks like Jack Nicholson…” THAT’S WHO I keep thinking of when I see his picture. Been happening for years, and I just couldn’t place the resemblance. Thanks. btw, you’re right. Turning it down would have been a good career move.

  19. and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are…common sense people. lets try it.

    ahh…the mu$lim right to blow up anyone they want that looks at them funny.

  21. btw, I read once Rushdie is of Iranian descent, which may be why he doesn’t look especially desi.

  22. i diddnt say i condone this, i am just saying that is what happens when people expect the Muslim world to just “be down” with the concept of free speech, it is too foreign to most of them, but yea, thanks for attempting to insult me and Islam, go you!

  23. and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are…common sense people. lets try it.

    hmm….interesting that you think a proportional response to speech (as disrepectful or racist as it sometimes may be) is violence and fatality. you know what else is everywhere, noo york – laws. and the vast majority of countries and their laws will not be willing to defend a muslim’s ‘right’ to kill someone in these circumstances. muslims committing violence in a country that recognizes free speech = bad news for the those muslims. common sense – go figure.

  24. Prasad, I understand. I apologize, I didn’t mean to insinuate that you were arguing that “Sikhs were asking for it.” It’s just that, in the past on SM, conversations re: Indira Gandhi, 1984, and the bombing of Harmandar Sahib have quickly devolved into just that argument. It seems that just bringing up the topic has opened the doors for trolls who move towards a vehement anti-Sikh conversation very very quickly on this site. I was just trying to avoid that fallout, particularly since many of us seem to agree that noo york’s example is not analogous to the case of Salman Rushdie.

    If so, could that name be your last name, which may be your “name of christening” as in V V S Laxman?

    I believe that proper etiquette requires that you are addressed by your first name. In this case, he may be “Sir Salman” because that’s the name he goes by, but it’s still a “first name” if that makes sense. “Sir Rushdie,” by comparison, would be inappropriate. Actually, because knights bachelor are not a part of the orders of chivalry, I think even allowing them to go by “Sir” is a courtesy — they are not entitled to use that phrase by virtue of their membership alone.

  25. noo york, you bring up a good point. and it is a good argument for why western nations should severely limit immigrations from muslim countries. at least if you believe that the ability to critique religion is an essential part of individual liberty.

    p.s. people have expressed surprise and concern for me because i criticize islam on a regular basis on my weblogs. people close to me are worried about a nutso seeking me out. the probability is very low, but it is probably there. the fact that i am from a muslim cultural background doesn’t help, and most threatening emails bring that issue up.

  27. also, speaking of offense. when i was an outspoken atheist as an undergraduate some muslims i met expressed offense at my existence 😉 e.g., being an atheist from a muslim background is simply not acceptable (we know what the accepted penalty for apostates in islam is), and caused emotional discomfort in people i would meet from muslim countries. i think some of the same is at work with salman rushdie, and some were very explicit about this. his existence is not optimal (being an atheist), but his criticism/analysis of islam simply was over the line.

  28. razib, ur a deuche, have a nice day.

    i may not agree with your opinion, but i will defend your right to have one!

  31. even if it entails blowing you up? 🙂

    you’re the lawyer. when is it clear and present danger?

  33. Razib, I think it brave of you to say that Western Countries should limit immigration from muslim countries. I just want to let you know that I back you 100% there.

  34. I’m not surprised by “moderate” “noo york”‘s comments. Recently I came across a news item that “Ghazi Ilam din” (who killed a blasphemer in the 1920s) was defended by Jinnah and Iqbal called him a “shaheed”.

    And I have been told that Jinnah and Iqbal are “moderate secularists”. 🙂

  35. Razib, I think it brave of you to say that Western Countries should limit immigration from muslim countries. I just want to let you know that I back you 100% there.

    why is that brave? is that an insult to the prophet?

    “the prophet said that it is incumbent upon the kuffar that they should submit themselves to open borders so that the ummah shall sweep all before them” 😉

  36. Western Countries should limit immigration from muslim countries

    Does this include limiting immigration from India?

  37. Does this include limiting immigration from India?

    not in the world where razib-is-god (ie, the instrumentalist rationale isn’t to elminate muslims coming in period, but reduce the large numbers).

  39. Noo York, thank you for your explanation regarding us kaffirs slavishly taking up English and the “white man’s magic”(i.e. science) as the basis for the divergence in achievement. But I don’t understand this completely because as we all know Avicenna is the founder of modern allopathic medicine. As such, why don’t madrassas in Pakistani Punjab produce more submissions in the Lancet or JAMA ? Punjabi/Urdu to English translators are fairly easy to come by.

  40. are you a fan of Robert Spencer at all?

    we agree on some points. i’m not a fan of his “scholarship” 😉 we have some differences in our premises.

  41. and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked, because freedom of speech is not in every country, but muslims are…common sense people. lets try it.

    Noo york has a point, freedom of speech is no excuse to taunt one of the most revered figures in Islam. It doesn’t give you the right to insult something that people has had as a part of their lives for soo long its just ‘common sense’.

    But again, The Ayatollah’s fatwa is pretty much paramount to attempted murder, There is a way to lodge a protest and murder or torture is not one of them. I’ve seen my fair share of people making fun of hindu idols through cartoons or jimi hendrix ganja smoking posters, but i’m not going to condone their assasination. If a muslim body had lodged an official protest with the British government and argue their point of view in a politically viable manner that would be acceptable.

  42. Noo york has a point, freedom of speech is no excuse to taunt one of the most revered figures in Islam. It doesn’t give you the right to insult something that people has had as a part of their lives for soo long its just ‘common sense’.

    correct on one, it isn’t an excuse, but wrong on two, it does give you the right. what some revere others find abominable. there’s no shame in that, and no need for an excuse (just as muslims find hindu idols abominable, they are entitled to their opinion and like take umbrage if hindus offered their hurt feelings as a reason why they must cease declaring their superiority to the ‘idolaters’).

    .If a muslim body had lodged an official protest with the British government and argue their point of view in a politically viable manner that would be acceptable.

    that’s an interesting case. some of them considered it, but the blasphemy laws applied to christianity (and i think judaism?) only at the time. but another issue is that those most offended are also the ones least likely to care or respect kuffar legal channels.

  43. are you a fan of Robert Spencer at all?

    we agree on some points. i’m not a fan of his “scholarship” 😉 we have some differences in our premises.

    Razib is being too kind to Robert Spencer. Everybody agrees with everybody on some points.

  44. I’m not surprised by “moderate” “noo york”‘s comments. Recently I came across a news item that “Ghazi Ilam din” (who killed a blasphemer in the 1920s) was defended by Jinnah and Iqbal called him a “shaheed”. And I have been told that Jinnah and Iqbal are “moderate secularists”. 🙂

    Thanks for bringing this up Ponniyan Selvan. It’s become fashionable these days to say there is no danger of fundamentalists coming to power in Pakistan via elections as “moderate” or “secular” parties have always taken the majority of the electorate. But they conveniently neglect to define what a moderate or secularist is in the Pakistani context where all major parties stand by the “right” of Muslims to demand their own state wherever they are in the numerical majority.

  45. we agree on some points. i’m not a fan of his “scholarship” 😉 we have some differences in our premises.

    sems like he should make some attempt to sound as if he’s one of those people ‘searching’ for ‘moderate’ muslims to carry his torch but it doesn’t seem, from his online work, that he’s really into ‘big-tent’ anti-jihadism and more into convincing people that he is indeed doing serious (peer-reviewable) scholarship.

  46. Rushdie’s books suck ass, they are really terrible. like that Orhan Pamuk clown, or James Joyce – difficult for the sake of it. He doesn’t deserve any award. And of course western countries should limit immigration, especially from low IQ parts of the world.

  47. he’s a dip and knighthood is a stupid dippy high-stakes game of dungeons and dragons. so let the new commander of the british empire go defend his queen in iraq.

  48. Books should offer thrilling plots and emotional depth. Satire is the the lowest form of writing, the last refuge of the scoundrel.

  49. Rushdie’s books suck ass, they are really terrible. like that Orhan Pamuk clown, or James Joyce – difficult for the sake of it. He doesn’t deserve any award. And of course western countries should limit immigration, especially from low IQ parts of the world.

    what, like “Cuchulkhan-stan”?

    how exactly do they, to use your most eloquent description, “suck ass”?

    was it the over-use of colloquial terminology or did run-on prose style annoy you?

    we’re all dying to know how the world got it so wrong!

  50. at this point i would like to restate my constant point on this site. the majority of the people on it are anti-muslim, anti-pakistani. if you guys think i am crazy, just read the comments. amardeep, you guys are so quick to delete comments of people who say anything anti-hindu or pakistani, and yet people like Razib, open anti-Islamic are allowed to roam free on this site…i think it is pathetic, and before you all start linking funny little websites in response to my comments, how about instead of being dicks, you actually realize what i am saying is very true…the fact that this man, salman rushdie, committed blasphemy, and is being given one of the world’s highest honors, is rediculous…and for you people to act all suprised that the Muslim world is angry, just shows how ignorant you are about reality…p.s. dont you guys have jobs? it seems like you comment at least twice an hour on this site…i am officially boycotting this site, as well as telling my friends to do the same, it serves not the south-asian community, but the hindu indian community…