Book review: From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy

Published on Friday 3 April 2009 16:34

FROM FATWA TO JIHAD: THE RUSHDIE AFFAIR AND ITS LEGACY Kenan Malik Atlantic Books, £16.99

THIS year is the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Velvet Revolution and the ends of the Ceausescu regime in Romania and the Zhikov regime in Bulgaria.

At the time, 1989 seemed, in the now infamous words of the neo-con Francis Fukuyama, to be "the end of history". It is also the 20th anniversary of the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against the novelist Salman Rushdie. In the light of two wars in Iraq and terrorist atrocities in New York, Bali, Madrid and London, it might be argued that the Rushdie Affair was actually the precursor for a wholly new kind of historical narrative: the so-called "clash of civilisations". Kenan Malik's study of the Rushdie Affair and its consequences is an admirable piece of reportage, charting the rise of "radical Islam" and the erosion of freedom of speech.

Malik argues that opportunism, not theology, was the motivating factor in the Iranian cleric's call for the murder of the magic realist novelist. Khomeini's call was a piece of PR genius: suddenly he spoke for, and defended the rights of, all Muslims, trumping the Saudis and outflanking the Iraqis. It is chilling to read the words of the chair of the Bradford Council of Mosques: "Salman Rushdie has been good for us Muslims."

Betrayed by the left, attacked by the right and alienated from the regressive traditional values of their parents, a minority found themselves disenfranchised to the point of violence. Malik discusses a friend, Hassan, who had been a Trotskyist, dope-smoker and Arsenal fan, now co-ordinating anti-Rushdie campaigns and claiming there was a "need to defend our dignity as Muslims". Hassan, it seems, had tried to embrace secularism. But "being like" the white English didn't mean that the white English liked him. The furore over The Satanic Verses was a chance to assert an identity. Coupled to this was the insidious way in which "multiculturalism" actively encouraged individuals to define themselves by ethnicity.

After Rushdie, the scandal over Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and Random House's decision not to publish Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel Of Medina shows, Malik claims, the extent to which the Islamic radicals lost the battle and won the war. Fear of giving offence can lead to turning a blind eye to abuses of human rights, whatever the religion of the perpetrator. When Tony Blair said that he was "not the person to go into the Muslim community" – as if there were just one – "and explain to them that this extreme view is not the true face of Islam", he was effectively saying there was an intellectual no-go area for a democratically elected leader.

Subtle and intelligent though this book is, I can't help regretting Malik didn't deal with some of the wider issues. Rushdie's career after The Satanic Verses is barely mentioned – and his latest novel is a terrible example of bland multiculturalism. The racism of the 80s was more than just National Front thugs: Rushdie's own publishers also published the Koran as a "classic", but with all the suras re-ordered (imagine a version of the Bible beginning with Romans and ending with Hosea).

There are now many good books on Islamic history, politics, art, science and theology, and many memoirs written by authors with Islamic backgrounds: back then, the "other" really was unknown. When I first read The Satanic Verses, as a first-year student at university, I had no knowledge of what hajj or Avicenna or jihad might actually mean. That, at least, has changed for the better.