> A year later, Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.
> A bounty of over $3 million has also been offered for anyone who kills Rushdie.
> Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment has lingered. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.
I mean you can blame the US for many things, but if you want to blame large groups of people and institution in this case the US is not to blame. He had a fatwa over his head for 25 years. And Islamic people don't take insults of their prophet lightly, not even moderate ones. However there is only a subset, mostly young man, really willing to use violence over it.
And observers hoping to police ideas, speech and whether something is offensive, with the intention of shutting someone down. They don't call it censorship.
It's like some sort of revival of Puritanism, but without the warehousing of mentally ill people we did until the 1970s.
>And observers hoping to police ideas, speech and whether something is offensive, with the intention of shutting someone down. They don't call it censorship.
I've heard it said that "problematic" is the woke religion's equivalent to "blasphemous".
Well in the case of Rushdie this probably doesn't have anything to do with the trends you are referring to - the Damocles Sword has been hanging over his head for over 30 years now. I'm just surprised attendants of his lectures didn't have to pass through metal detectors before this incident. And I'm glad he seems to be relatively Ok...
tbf, throwing things and little or no crowd control have been around ever since pop concerts became a thing, e.g. shee the Stones at Altamont, or even the Blues Brothers "Rawhide" scene. And people getting shots during public appearances, again, was a thing even before Lincoln.
Mass shootings are definitely a new phenomenon though.
Yeah at the start of the pandemic I was itching to get back to these kind of public events... but with the way things have been going since, I don't think I will.
I think the pandemic combined with the current political climate has pushed mental health to a tipping point that I'm not comfortable with. Maybe it's confirmation bias, but I even feel like people are driving more recklessly.
Seems like this specific attack is more likely religiously motivated though. As others pointed out Rushdie has had a bounty on his head for years.
The other side isn’t any less dystopian, heading toward a world where the powerful get to enrage people and have the state police enforce “civility.”
You either have to recognize that sticks, stones, and words hurt people and police them all or recognize that insulting someone to the point where they put real literal bounties on your head is the cost of sticking your neck out there.
This shitty middle where powerful figures and those “protected but not bound” get to literally fan the flames and then use the police to keep a lid on it created a pressure cooker waiting to explode so here we are.
So sure the dude should be arrested because he caused harm but let’s not pretend that this was unexpected or indicative of anything other than what happens when you deeply insult an entire people. The fact that I think Rushdie is in the right is irrelevant.
> You either have to recognize that sticks, stones, and words hurt people and police them all or recognize that insulting someone to the point where they put real literal bounties on your head is the cost of sticking your neck out there.
No I don't. I want to police hurting people with sticks and stones, but not words. Free speech is a human right, and physically attacking other people is not.
I mean this is what I was raised to believe too but this ideology isn’t without its consequences. It denies a very natural and fundamentally human anger and breaks the feedback loop that gives consequences to people who say insulting and hateful things. It takes the “find out” out of “fuck around and find out.” Surely you must see how protecting absolutely a very specific type of harm with no resource has lead to our current political climate.
Hell, we even recognize this problem and try to find “non violent” ways to hurt people who say horrible things like getting them fired, deplatformed, boycotting them, refusing service because a right hook is off the table. The most revered and romanticized political action is a protest which is literally a threat of violence.
And this protection in real life only really extends to the powerful who get the police to insulate them from consequences where if anyone else walked into a bar and said that shit they would leave with a black eye.
I’m not religious so I can’t really understand the emotions first hand but the book is blasphemous, the Catholic Church has executed people and gone to war over less.
I’m sure this is /s but for real Iran treats this guy like the UK treats Margret Thatcher so I’m not about to stand on some high horse and be like “clearly the intense emotions and anger of 80 million people are completely invalid and irrational” and instead take a step back and realize that clearly I lack some critical knowledge and life experience that helps me empathize because nobody gets that angry for no reason.
