Islam vs. the Western World: off-topic posts from a Religion thread
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He's a household name the world over, thanks to the fatwa. People who would never even consider reading postmodern literature know his name.
But that doesn't affect the merit of his writing, which was esteemed amongst the kinds of people who read postmodern literature long before the fatwa.
So all this proves is that the fatwa was vastly counterproductive, if the aim was to reduce exposure to Rushdie's ideas.
On the other hand, if the aim was to intimidate intellectuals and critics the world over, as part of a political scheme to acquire power via oppression, then it seems to have worked as planned.
Who gives a rats patootie about Khomeini.
Rushdie attacked religious bigotry and was threatened to be killed by the same people who upheld that religious bigotry.
Simple really.
What does that have anything to do with anything?
Yup. But he writes things from a different perspective, more post modern. I like some of them, like Faulkner and Marquez [especially Marquez] but Bellow and Rushdie are not my cup of tea.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The fatwa was motivated by a critical portrayal of Ayatollah Khomeini during his time in exile in London. The now-infamous whorehouse scenes were added as inflammatory window dressing, since "making a political leader look like a douchebag" doesn't quite have the same ring as "Blasphemy!!"
And, again, if you'd actually read the book, you'd know that no religious figures are portrayed as whores.
He means where the prostitutes assume the identities of the prophets wives. The prophets wives are given the position of mothers in the Islamic world. To intimate that they were prostitutes in any way is a grievous insult.
True, it hurt their feelings, so they pulled out their knives... Kill 'em! Kill 'em! Kill 'em!
It has everything to do with the content of his books.
So how would you know what he is writing about?
If you had digged through The nations video arrchives, you would actually see pastors calling for the death and destruction of Palestine and Muslims.
It doesnt keep shifting. It is still about the laws that affect us in everyday life. Quite how "Paying charity" can somehow condition me more than "Pay taxes" is the problem here. If anyone keeps shifting the ground, it is you.
The keyword: relative. Relatively equivelant.
Actually they are. Everytime someone writes something anti-Islamic and someone denounces that, we get the hole hoopla about Freedom of Speech.
As did the vast majority of Muslims.
This is coming from someone who hasnt even read the book, yet is able to tell me what it was about.
Not really since no one really cares what he is up to anymore.
If I mock 9/11, I shouldnt expect to be welcomed back to NYC. Or the USA for that matter. Fact of the matter is that there are loads of books and movies and games banned in the Western world, yet no one seems to care. Oh but, wait! There wasnt a threat to the author! Thats not the point, is it? Leaving aside the fact that the fatwa, which means nothing, has been denounced time and time again by Muslims all over thw world, the whole point of the Rushdie affair is the attack on Freedom of Speech. That counts, whether someone is physically threatened or their work is banned. Or are we just taking names when there is a price on the head of people? In that case, how many governments have been overthrown by the US because they didnt like the political leaders? Its BS and you know it. But then again, Clueless...
The fatwa came after many riots, IIRC..
I doubt the Ayatollah actually even read the book, though I think he gave the fatwa because he was caricatured in the book.
I read bits of Midnights Children, but it bored me to bits. Same for Shalimar. I have Haroun and the sea of stories because it was recommended to me. I did flip through the SV but his writing style is too esoteric for me. I hate books that follow several parallel stories at the same time.
I doubt the Ayatollah actually even read the book, though I think he gave the fatwa because he was caricatured in the book.
I read bits of Midnights Children, but it bored me to bits. Same for Shalimar. I have Haroun and the sea of stories because it was recommended to me. I did flip through the SV but his writing style is too esoteric for me. I hate books that follow several parallel stories at the same time.
Not at all. The reaction to his book was most severe among the people he wrote the book about. The ones between worlds, displaced and disenfranchised, frustrated and angry.
The fact that much of his immediate family are Muslims suggests that villifying Muslims, or Islam, in general, is an unlikely agenda for him to be pursuing.
Faulkner was a modernist, not a postmodernist.
And you owe DeLillo and Wallace at least a mention, if you want to impress me with your knowledge of the genre. And even then, you won't have mentioned its single most defining author...
Another clueless post. Its like saying that the death threats to Zhang Ya werent a result of what she wrote and said, but because of Buddhisms reaction to them
Because lapsed Muslims never go on rants?
You think so? I thought Sound and Fury categorised as post modernist.
Never heard of them
Roald Dahl?
Yes I know. That's how I know that the actual wives of the prophet weren't portrayed as whores.
Portraying whores who use religious psuedonyms is not the same as portraying actual religious figures as whores. This is born out in the reasons for the offense, which have nothing to do with profaning religious figures, and everything to do with insecurities over the relationship between religion and sexuality. Conservative religions are uniformly sexually repressive, and this induces serious insecurities in adherents, which are all too easy to direct against external "enemies."
I.e., it's not that the whores have religious names, but that they adopt said names because it increases business amongst their Muslim clientele. This suggestion is far too much for conservative religious people to handle.