Just two weeks before Salman Rushdie was horrifically stabbed in New York, the Booker Prize-winning author said he was more concerned with the rise of ‘‘crypto-fascism’’ in the United States than the death threat hanging over him for 33 years.
Rushdie described himself as an optimist, despite living with constant threats of violence – and spending a decade in virtual hiding – after his 1988 novelThe Satanic Verses, and its depiction of the prophet Muhammed, had drawn death threats from Iran.
In 1989 a fatwa ordering Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by former leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for supposed blasphemy, and a bounty of $US3 million ($4.2 million) was put on his head.
Rushdie had to go into hiding for nearly nine years, amid widespread violence across the globe which also led to the killing of Hitoshi Igarashi, who was the Japanese translator of the book.
Although lifted by the Iranian government in 1998, the fatwa was later reaffirmed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2005.
Yet in an interview with German current affairs magazine Stern, (which was published ahead of time on August 14), the Indian-born, British author appeared to downplay the threat.
“A fatwa is a serious thing,’’ Rushdie told Raphael Geiger in his agent’s Central Park office in New York.
‘‘Luckily we didn’t have the internet back then. The Iranians had to send the fatwa to the mosques by fax. That’s all a long time ago,’’ he said.
Without a bodyguard, and having just returned from a trip to Italy at the time of the interview, Rushdie said: ‘‘Nowadays my life is very normal again’’.
He said he was inspired by the activism of young people, but what scared him now was no longer religious fanaticism, but the loss of democracy.
“Since the Supreme Court [Roe v Wade] abortion verdict I have been seriously concerned that the US won’t manage that,’’ Rushdie said.
‘‘That the problems are irreparable and the country will break apart. Today’s greatest danger facing us is this kind of crypto-fascism that we see in America and elsewhere.
“Oh, we live in scary times,’’ he added.
‘‘That’s true even though I always tell people – don’t be afraid. But the bad thing is that death threats have become more normal.’’
Who is Salman Rushdie and why does the fatwa still exist?
Rushdie, 75, was set to deliver a lecture on Friday local time at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York on the importance of the US as a haven for targeted artists when a man rushed the stage and ferociously stabbed him.
The author was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, for treatment after the attack and following hours of surgery, was put on a ventilator and was unable to speak.
He will survive, with permanent injuries to his eye, arm and liver.
‘‘Though his life-changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact,’’ Rushdie’s son Zafar wrote on Twitter after his father was taken off a ventilator.
Born in India to a Muslim family, Rushdie, the author of 13 novels and several books of non-fiction, was a distinguished writer in residence at New York University at the time he was attacked.
According to theological scholar Dr Myriam Renaud, who unpacked some of the criticisms about The Satanic Verses in a piece in 2017 said, according to some Muslims, the book contained blasphemous passages and mocked their beliefs.
The Satanic Verses, she wrote, ‘‘goes to the heart of Muslim religious beliefs when Rushdie, in dream sequences, challenges and sometimes seems to mock some of its most sensitive tenets’’.
‘‘Rushdie chooses a provocative name for Muhammad. The novel’s version of the Prophet is called Mahound – an alternative name for Muhammad sometimes used during the Middle Ages by Christians who considered him a devil.
‘‘In Rushdie’s book, Salman [a character in the novel], for example, attributes certain actual passages in the Qur’an that place men ‘in charge of women’ and give men the right to strike wives from whom they ‘fear arrogance’, to Mahound’s sexist views.
‘‘Through Mahound, Rushdie appears to cast doubt on the divine nature of the Qur’an,’’ Dr Renaud wrote.
A celebrated author with a global audience, Rushdie was front-page news in several hardline Iranian newspapers over the weekend. They poured praise on the person who attacked and seriously wounded him.
There was no official reaction in Iran to the attack on Rushdie [at the time of publishing], but the hardline Kayhan newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote: ‘‘A thousand bravos … to the brave and dutiful person who attacked the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie in New York.
‘‘The hand of the man who tore the neck of God’s enemy must be kissed’’.
Twitter suspended Mr Khamenei’s account in 2019 over a tweet that said the fatwa against Rushdie was ‘‘solid and irrevocable’’.
The Asr Iran news site on Saturday carried an often-cited quote by Mr Khamenei that said the ‘‘arrow’’ shot by Ayatollah Khomeini ‘‘will one day hit the target’’.
New York police identified the suspect as Hadi Matar, 24, from Fairview, New Jersey, who had bought a pass to the event at the Chautauqua Institution.
He pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault at a court appearance on Saturday local time, his court-appointed lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, told Reuters.
No official motive has been given for the attack.
An initial law enforcement review of Mr Matar’s social media accounts showed he was sympathetic to Shi’ite extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to NBC New York.
-with AAP
