Iran condemns Britain over Rushdie knighthood

Iran condemns Britain over Rushdie knighthood
Says award is an insult to Islam

Iran accused Britain yesterday of insulting Islamic values by knighting Salman Rushdie, whose novel "The Satanic Verses" prompted the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa death warrant against him.

So, Britain finally gets a spine when it comes to Islam... now, apply it to the schools please.

The thread I posted this in died pretty soon after I responded, so you may not have seen it. Basically I was questioning your assumption that British schools refused to teach anything about the Holocaust from fear of offending Muslims.

The only possible explanation I can think of is the story that one single school in a predominately Muslim area chose not to include the Holocaust as an essay topic at GCSE level (14-16 year old). Please bear in mind that schools throughout the UK get to choose which specific modules they teach for the exam. I did World Powers in the 20th Century for my GCSE - my friend at a different school did Tudors & Stuarts (British Middle Ages) and got exactly the same qualification.

In this case it was decided that it wasn't reasonable to set a question that would count towards their final grade if it contradicted what they had been taught at home and in the mosque. Not when there were plenty of other topics that could be selected that would not anger the community, disrupt classes, and which would allow pupils to get the qualifications their intelligence deserved.

In the same way schools in the Bible Belt would probably protest if pupils had to sit an exam where the only acceptable responses involved reference to evolution.

It was nothing to do with cowardice. It was an isolated educational decision.

In fact, here is Snopes on the subject. I can't seem to cut & paste from there but it basically confirms what I wrote above - there was only ONE case, ONE school that removed Holocaust teaching from its history curriculum.

The Satanic Verses is a great book.

It's title is misleading in the same way that the Grateful Dead would appear to be a hard rock band (the skeletons, etc.) ...

Even if Rushdie did write a good book, and that the subject matter put his life at risk, I don't quite get the relevance of bestowing him a knighthood. But then the whole honours programme can leave you scratching your head wondering in too many instances...

If I were a British subject, you fuckers would totally knight me. :)

Cyclefrance;356562 wrote:

Even if Rushdie did write a good book, and that the subject matter put his life at risk, I don't quite get the relevance of bestowing him a knighthood. But then the whole honours programme can leave you scratching your head wondering in too many instances...

CF - he's been knighted for his lifetime contribution to literature - don't fall into the trap of believing a furore nearly 20 years ago is the reason for his knighthood. Although I agree with you it seems random sometimes. I'd far rather see Sir Ian Hislop :)

[Not CF]Crikey me - it wasn't even the same Government, unless the Iranians believe the Queen has held a grudge against Islam all this time and has finally revealed her Islamophobia in a topical and dazzling display.

sycamore;356568 wrote:

If I were a British subject, you fuckers would totally knight me. :)

Because once a knight's enough?

Ahh, they only knighted him because he appeared on the Colbert Report and they didn't want to seem like they were behind the times.

Sundae Girl;356577 wrote:

Because once a knight's enough?

There is no such thing as too much Sycamore. :)

This is a Fuck You over the whole kidnapping their soldiers deal.
A good one too, smart.

There are a lot of other people who've been knighted for contribution to the arts. Sir Elton John for one. The list is long.

Knighthoods aren't very special really.

You'd be better off with an Order of Australia. ;)

Once and for all, British schools are not pandering to Moslem sensibilities in their teaching. One school, in which a teacher felt unable to tackle a contentious issue was used as an example of how not to approach the teaching of history. It was mentioned in a report which was penned to offer schools best practice advice on History teaching: included within that report were examples of potential pitfalls and potential solutions, along with examples of good practice and examples of poor practice.

Sundae Girl;356490 wrote:

The thread I posted this in died pretty soon after I responded, so you may not have seen it. Basically I was questioning your assumption that British schools refused to teach anything about the Holocaust from fear of offending Muslims.

thats pretty dumb, it's funny how everyone assumes all Muslims hate Jews and vice versa. The only instance of real turmoil is the whole Palestine / Isreal cluster-fuck and thats over land not religion.

rkzenrage;356588 wrote:

This is a Fuck You over the whole kidnapping their soldiers deal.
A good one too, smart.

if they wanted to be smart about it they would have issued the fuck you to iran and it's 65 million people directly and not the Islamic world and it's 1.3 billion followers.

This has nothing to do with any kidnapped soldiers.

Salman Rushdi is a highly respected writer. He has been honoured for his services to writing and culture. The honours list often includes such literary figures.

What would be entirely unacceptable, would be if we debarred someone who is considered to be a literary giant, from receiving such an honour on the grounds that his books offended a faith.

I'd be the first to admit that there is a problem in this country with Islamophobia......but this is nothing to do with that.

Apparently, some folks in Pakistan are none too happy with Rushdie's knighthood as well...from the BBC: The UK's envoy to Pakistan has expressed "deep concern" over comments by a Pakistani minister about Sir Salman Rushdie's knighthood.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz ul-Haq had said the honour meant a risk of suicide attacks because Muslims believed Sir Salman had insulted Islam.

But High Commissioner Robert Brinkley said it was untrue that the knighthood was intended to insult Islam.

Sir Salman's book The Satanic Verses in 1989 sparked protests around the world.

Salman Rushdie is the author of eight novels and four works of non-fiction, most recently, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002. In 1993 Midnight's Children was judged to be the 'Booker of Bookers', the best novel to have won the Booker Prize in its first 25 years, and he was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European literature. The Moor's Last Sigh won him the Whitbread Prize in 1995, and the European Union's Aristeion Literary Prize in 1996. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commandeur des Artes et des Lettres.

There really is rather more to Salman Rushdie, than 'blasphemy'.

These Islamofascist quibblers should shut the hell up and take it like men, not hyenas.

DanaC;356780 wrote:

There really is rather more to Salman Rushdie, than 'blasphemy'.

I'm sure there was more to Hitler than just "killing Jews" too, but Volkswagen commemorating him on Holocaust Remembrance Day probably wouldn't be too wise.

Okay. So you have now officially Godwined the thread.
But for the record:

The Satanic Verses is a fantasy about two actors from India traveling on an airplane. After a terrorist bomb blows up the airplane, they fall to Earth and survive. The controversial parts of the book center on just two chapters.

One of the Indian actors apparently is losing his mind. He dreams about God revealing his will to the Prophet Muhammad, who passes on the sacred words to humanity through the Koran, the holy book of Islam. But the novel refers to Muhammad by an insulting name used by Christians in the Middle Ages. As part of the dream sequence, a scribe called "Salman" writes down God's commands that are coming from the lips of Muhammad. The scribe, however, decides to play a trick by changing some of the divine words. Since Muslims hold the Koran as the revealed word of God, they deplored Rushdie for ridiculing it.

The title of the book refers to an old legend retold by Rushdie. According to the legend, some of the Koran's original verses originated with Satan, and Muhammad later deleted them. By repeating this legend, Rushdie offended Muslims by associating the holy Koran with the work of Satan.

One part of the novel probably outraged Muslims the most. It describes people mocking and imitating Muhammad's 12 wives. Muslims revere Muhammad's wives as the "mothers of all believers."

You may already have known this (it's generally understood in Britain but Salman Rushdie is a naturalised Brit, so we may have paid more attention to the details nearly 20 years ago when it was published). I'm willing to accept it upset people. It didn't kill them though.

Originally Posted by DanaC
There really is rather more to Salman Rushdie, than 'blasphemy'.

I'm sure there was more to Hitler than just "killing Jews" too, but Volkswagen commemorating him on Holocaust Remembrance Day probably wouldn't be too wise.

I think you just blew my mind.

The problem is not that Rushdie wote offensive material. The problem is that lots of people took offense at what Rushdie wrote.

Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejaz ul-Haq had said the honour meant a risk of suicide attacks because Muslims believed Sir Salman had insulted Islam.

That's what I would expect from craven scumbags.

DanaC;356831 wrote:

I think you just blew my mind.

The problem is not that Rushdie wote offensive material. The problem is that lots of people took offense at what Rushdie wrote.

yea 1.3 billion people. maybe it's not offensive to you but the majority see's it that way.

How about, just don't read it if you don't like it?

That'd be the ideal situation...but look at how up-in-arms people here get over some religious issues. As weird as this may sound, perhaps some folks have too much faith.

How about, when you post a completely incorrect statement about something and are corrected three times you acknowledge it?

Sundae Girl;356935 wrote:

How about, when you post a completely incorrect statement about something and are corrected three times you acknowledge it?

who me?

Rexmons;356938 wrote:

who me?

Sorry. I was referring to RK posting twice re British schools refusing to teach about the Holocaust.

yea 1.3 billion people. maybe it's not offensive to you but the majority see's it that way.

The world's population exceeds 6.5 billion. How does 1.5 billion constitute a majority?

And how can it be argued that the majority of Muslims were actually against it?

DanaC;356831 wrote:

I think you just blew my mind.

The problem is not that Rushdie wote offensive material. The problem is that lots of people took offense at what Rushdie wrote.

The problem is that he did not write offensive material.
People who choose to believe in fairy tales do not have a right not to have those tales altered, mocked, looked at in a different light, etc.

Writing those things are not offensive to those who believe something different than what is written, they just believe something different, not what that person wrote. They are separate.
Simple.
Nothing offensive.

If there was proof that the story was true, then one could argue that someone was altering history, etc, but that is a silly argument and I don't even know why I brought it up.. true..LOL!

And it spreads:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Outrage mounted in the Muslim world Wednesday over Britain's knighthood for Salman Rushdie, with protests spreading to Malaysia and a top Pakistani cleric calling for the novelist to be killed.
...
In Islamabad, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of two brothers who runs the hardline Red Mosque, backed comments by Pakistan's religious affairs minister that the knighthood justified suicide attacks by Muslims.

"Salman Rushdie deserves to be killed and anyone who has the power must kill him," Ghazi said in a statement. He added that if the Pakistani government cooperated "we will make arrangements to murder... Rushdie here."

Around 300 female Islamists wearing all-covering burqas and waving flags and placards blocked the road outside the Pakistani parliament.

"He is not a famous writer, why has he been given such a rare title? This is really a move against Muslims," said Samia Raheel Qazi, an MP and head of the women's wing of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party.

Another 300 people torched an effigy of Rushdie in the southern city of Karachi, while hundreds more burned British flags and dummies of the writer in the central city of Multan.

The funny part of this article is at the end:

...the committee that recommended Rushdie for the honour did not discuss possible political ramifications and never imagined it would provoke Muslim anger.

It also said that the writers' organisation that led the lobbying for him to be knighted had originally hoped the honour would lead to better relations between Britain and Asia.

Emphasis mine. The calculus of political correctness is getting more and more difficult, eh?

More difficult and like a disease, more difficult to cure.

rkzenrage;356484 wrote:

Iran condemns Britain over Rushdie knighthood
Says award is an insult to Islam

So, Britain finally gets a spine when it comes to Islam... now, apply it to the schools please.

Great, they need to call in the charge' and tell him to go back to Iran and go fuck themselves. Since their so called Revolution in 1979 they have proved themselves to be nothing more than misguided zealous idiots.

Sundae Girl;356942 wrote:

Sorry. I was referring to RK posting twice re British schools refusing to teach about the Holocaust.

Did it happen?

Ugh, Britian should have known they would have gotten a reaction but it wasn't a dirty move and they were completely justified in it.

Hopefully this just dies off, these types of arguments never go anywhere but bad quickly.

I would fully support bombing their one and only gas refinery. Send it to the shitter.

Did it happen?

One teacher, in one unnamed school felt uncomfortable about tackling what she considered to be a contentious topic. It was referred to in a paper about teaching history, and in particular about teaching potentially contentious topics and how to best promote historical debate amongst pupils. To in any way characterise that as 'British schools' not teaching the holocaust, is disingenuous.....and lo and behold the 'story' was 'broken' by a right wing tabloid with an axe to grind.

So.....no it didn't happen. British schools weren't and aren't refusing to teach the holocaust.

i think the world would be a better place if everyone just watched family guy:

[youtube]noznyMaVEs8[/youtube]

TheMercenary;357396 wrote:

I would fully support bombing their one and only gas refinery. Send it to the shitter.

Wait, I thought we weren't supposed to intervene in foreign affairs?