Rushdie, Fatwa, Ayatollah 2

[This isn’t gloating over the demise of anyone but is more of a social satire kind of thing - maybe if I had emotional ties to Iran, there might be more of that personal edge but anyway . . .]

“You know what makes me most sad and disappointed about this whole Iran and Ayatollah affair?”

“I don’t know - the suffering of innocents?”

“No, no, no! What’s most disappointing is this is another Ayatollah who didn’t live to see the fatwa on Salman Rushdie successfully carried out. There was a bounty of 6 million dollars offered by the Iranian Republic back in the day for anyone succeeding in murdering Rushdie for that book he wrote, and the most recent Ayatollah said the fatwa was ongoing and unquestionable, so I’m guessing the bounty was still up for grabs. Though, come to think of it,  you’d hope the reward on offer had risen with inflation in the meantime - up to, let’s say, fifty million dollars.”

“Oh of course yeah. Everything has gone way up in price since then - 1989 was it? That six million would have been a lot of money back in the day, but not particularly now. And there might even be legal repercussions in some countries if you got caught murdering someone, so the generosity of the reward should reflect the element of danger involved in doing something like carrying out a fatwa.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, that’s what I’m saying. But beyond all that, what I’m trying to focus on, the big picture is that if you’re willing to offer, in perfectly good faith, significant amounts of your hard earned cash as a reward for the killing of someone, like say a writer, the last thing that should happen in the long run is you get killed yourself!”

“And your man the writer is still alive.”

“Exactly!”

“You could say it’s ironic.”

“Well yeah, I don’t know, maybe you could. But more than it being ironic, it’s totally unfair! It’s not what’s supposed to happen!”

“The world can be very strange.”

“And unjust!”

Salman Rushdie, Fatwa, Ayatollah, Might Is Right

I delve into day-by-day news not a whole lot and as far as currrent events in Iran I watched a little of the channel on YouTube of the UK based Iranian/British Mahyar Tousi, who like seemingly very many Iranians was very pleased with the demise of the Ayatollah, and hoped the days of that pretty regime were ending, that the thousands of protesters recently massacred there would not be in vain and so on. 

My own knowledge of things there is basically negligible to the point of non-existence, but one thing that did come to mind that I just checked up on was the fatwa issued by the head of the Iranian government, Ruhollah Khomeini, against Salman Rushdie back in 1989, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of his novel, The Satanic Verses. Details on the fatwa are taken from the relevant Wikipedia article. One possibly relevant detail is that the novel contains a derogatory treatment of the Ayatollah himself, and possibly the fatwa is more inspired as a reaction to this treatment than actually to Islam and Mohammed.

Numerous killings, bombings of bookstores and attempted killings followed the book’s publication and subsequent fatwa, including an attempt on Rushdie himself in New York at a book reading in 2022, which was celebrated by Iranian state controlled media. In 1993 in Turkey 37 people died at an attack aiming to kill Aziz Nesin, a Turkish translator of the book.

This is the basically official release from the head of Iran regarding the call to kill Rushdie:

I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur'an, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. And whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, Allah willing. Meanwhile, if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions.

Rushdie subsequently apologised for any upset he caused, but this followed from the office of the Ayatollah:

The imperialist foreign media falsely alleged that the officials of the Islamic Republic have said the sentence of death on the author of The Satanic Verses will be retracted if he repents. Imam Khomeini has said: This is denied 100%. Even if Salman Rushdie repents and become the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to Hell.

        If a non-Muslim becomes aware of Rushdie's whereabouts and has the ability to execute him quicker than Muslims, it is incumbent on Muslims to pay a reward or a fee in return for this action.

Iran then offered a reward of $6 million for the killing of Rushdie.

The stance of the Iranian regime has changed at times regarding this call to have Rushdie murdered, but the position of the Ayotallah Khameini was, as stated in 2019, that this fatwa was “solid and irrevocable.”

So this is a regime operating in total disrespect of not just ‘offenders’, but also of foreign countries’ rule of law. In these terms the Islamic Republic of Iran is by definition lawless, sees no limitations on what actions may be ‘legitimately’ carried out anywhere in the world on the ‘enemies of Islam’, and the rule of law there is irrelevant. In a sense, it is a regime in its own eyes without borders in terms of the limits of what it may call for abroad, and of course one can surmise a very dark reality for any citizens within its borders not bowing sufficiently down. 

So anyway once you’re operating within parameters that are essentially lawless or without legal constraint, I think you’ve sacrificed any right to complain about being treated as a kind of toxic international pariah and legalistically illegitimate. You’ve yourself created and signed up to a reality where might and violence is right, so what kind of argument have you got against might being right? 

Double Act

I’m delighted to report that former UK prime minister and EU hotshot Tony Blair has a new single coming out: I Wouldn’t Be Half the Politician I Am Today if It Wasn’t for Rock n Roll.

The song was co-written by Bono (not his real name) and is said to be gratifying both on the sensual and intellectual planes of being.

Below we see Tony and Bono (again not his real name) before a live audience, made up of fully paid up members of the World Economic Forum, working out the structure of the song:

Whilst here we later see them emerging from a music studio the morning after a gruelling all-night recording session, perhaps, yes, tired but evidently delighted with how things have worked out:

The more youthful appearance of the duo is due to the release of the song, though recorded many moons ago, being shelved for years because it was felt to be ‘too radical for the times.’