NCF Director Peter Whittle: Whether or not one rates Rushdie is utterly beside the point

Following the reports of the disgusting statements made by members of Pakistan's government on the knighting of Salman Rushdie (read more here), there was a depressingly flaccid discussion on Newsnight last night, during which the fundamental issues at stake - the need to protect western freedom of speech and artistic freedom - were barely broached. The Labour peer Lord Ahmed displayed an astounding stupidity in suggesting that while the likes of J K Rowling should be celebrated for basically being nice and spreading 'harmony', Rushdie should not because he had been 'divisive.' The only non-Muslim on the panel, the Labour MP Anne Cryer, brought on presumably to give an opposing view, was unequal to the task, her line being that while she didn't care about honours herself, and hadn't read any of Rushdie's books, she didn't think we should take orders from the Pakistan government, thus missing the point entirely that there was a UK Labour peer there in the studio who was essentially supporting what it had said.

Whether or not one rates Rushdie is utterly beside the point. Many of us find some of the statements and speeches made by Harold Pinter pretty loathsome and divisive too, but none of us are for a moment suggesting that he should be silenced. The fact is that this is a question of standing up for the basic values of our civilisation, and should be treated deadly seriously. Unfortunately, when The Satanic Verses was published back in 1989, it was not. Then, the reaction of much of the British establishment to scenes of demonstrations and book-burning was utterly craven. Not one person who called for Rushdie to be killed - and there were many - was prosecuted for incitement to murder. Lord Dacre, the historian, went so far to say that he 'would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring Mr Rushdie's manners, were to waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them.' The Labour MP Keith Vaz led a demonstration through the streets of Leicester at which banners were carried depicting the author as a dog.

Many have since concluded that this affair was a high water-mark in the internal assault on our culture. Islamic extremists realised at this point that the will of the British state to defend its values on these matters was weak, and so could be pushed further and further, which is exactly what has happened. But there is perhaps one useful aspect to this latest episode, which should be highly instructive for those who still cling to the view that extremism is born of British foreign policy and the Iraq war: how do you achieve peaceful co-existence with a culture which sees the mere giving of an honour to a prominent writer as a valid excuse for mass murder?