Religious fanatism is, no doubt, a mental illness. Throughout history the damage caused by these fanatics for humanity is beyond words. The most recent example for it is attack of world renowned author Salman Rushdie, 75.
Rushdie was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution near Lake Erie in western New York last Friday (August 12) when the attack took place. The topic was on how United States can be a safe haven for exiled writers and other artists who are under the threat of persecution. The moderator was Henry Reese, the co-founder of a Pittsburgh nonprofit, City of Asylum, which is a residency program for exiled writers.
Likely to lose an eye
Rushdie was stabbed once in the neck and once in the abdomen apart from assault. Fortunately, immediately after the attack, a doctor who was amongst the audience rushed to assist him with first aids, and then he was transported by helicopter to a local hospital.
There, he underwent a surgery and then put on a ventilator. As of now (two days after the incident), he has been taken off the ventilator and “the road to recovery has begun,” according to his agent Andrew Wylie. “The injuries are severe, but his condition is headed in the right direction,” Wylie, said in a statement to The Washington Post, adding that the recovery process would be lengthy. However, as Rushdie suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, he was likely to lose the injured eye.
Rushdie’s son Zafar released a statement on Twitter confirming that his father was taken off the ventilator and was “able to say a few words.”
“Though his life threatening injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact,” Zafar Rushdie wrote.
Eyewitness accounts
According to The Guradian, the assailant ran “at lightning speed” towards the writer and attacked him with his fists and a knife until he was overpowered by several people. Rushdie was ready to be interviewed by Henry Reese who was on stage along with the author, and Reese also suffered a head injury, though he was released from the hospital after treatment.
Bill Vasu, 72, who attended the event, said that he had seen the man rush over to Rushdie and started attacking him. “I could just see his fists sort of pounding on Salman,” he said.
Rita Landman, an endocrinologist who was in the audience, walked on stage to offer assistance after the talk. She said that Rushdie had multiple stab wounds, including one to the right side of his neck, and that there was a pool of blood under his body. But she said he appeared to be alive and was not receiving CPR.
'People were saying, ‘He has a pulse, he has a pulse he has a pulse,' Landman said.
Elisabeth Healey, 75, another in the audience said, “There was just one attacker. He was dressed in black. He had a loose black garment on. He ran with lightning speed over to him.”
Security laps
Some witnesses pointed out at the laps of security at the institute:
“It was very frightening and it gave me a pit in my stomach,” said Jane Bulette, 68, who has been coming for more than a decade. “How could they not have blocked off the stairs to the stage?”
“There was a huge security lapse,” said Bulette’s husband, John, 85, who witnessed the attack. “That somebody could get that close without any intervention was frightening.”
Kyle Doershuk, 20, was working as an usher at the amphitheater at the time of the attack. He said to the media that he was about 15 feet away from the assailant as he began to rush the stage with a knife, after dropping a backpack. By the time Doershuk understood something was going wrong, the attack had begun.
Doershuk said security at the institution is lax and that there did not appear to be any additional measures in place for Rushdie’s visit.
“It’s very open; it’s very accessible; it’s a very relaxed environment,” he said. “In my opinion something like this was just waiting to happen.”
Another eyewitness, Anita Ayerbe, 57, said she had seen the attacker on the grounds of the institution on Thursday afternoon near the amphitheater, and that he was able to access the stage easily.
“The amphitheatre is a soft target,” Ayerbe said. “There was no obvious security at the venue and he ran up unimpeded. The cops were not the first ones on stage.”
However, according to the New York Governor Kathy Hochul, it was a trooper assigned to the event who took the suspect into custody.
Who is the attacker?
Officials have identified the attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. He was arraigned on Saturday (August 13) and charged with attempted murder and assault. Major Eugene J. Staniszewski of the New York State Police said at a news conference on Friday afternoon (Aug. 12) that there was no indication of the motive. He said that the police were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the local sheriff’s office to try to determine it, and that investigators were in the process of obtaining search warrants for a backpack and electronic devices that were found at the institution.
As reported by the Washington Post, during an address at the Chautauqua Institute on Sunday afternoon, New York Governor Kathy Hochul suggested that both Rushdie’s attacker and the suspect in the shooting at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo in May that left 10 dead were radicalised online.
Hochul added that Government leaders both abroad and in the United States should also be held accountable for using language that can incite violence. “I will use every tool at my disposal, including my voice, to call out this radicalisation that’s going on,” Hochul said.
Hochul also added that “details will come” as the investigation moves forward. “We will find out the motivation, confirm what it is,” Hochul said. “We have our suspicions about what it is, so there is an investigative path that will continue.”
Why did it happen?
Though still not determined the exact reasons behind the attack, it is not difficult to figure out its roots. It is definitely connected to the fatwa, a religious edict, issued by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on February 14, 1989 over his 1988 book ‘The Satanic Verses.’ The book was a fictionalised part of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, so considered blasphemous by some Muslims. This became the reason for the fatwa that called for Salman Rushdie’s murder.
After the fatwa, Rushdie apologised halfheartedly, which he later regretted, but was rejected by Iran. During his life in hiding, Rushdie remained largely under British police protection, at a fortified safe house with a security gate and a porch with a double door. The house was equipped with bulletproof glass, security cameras, fortified walls, lodging for six police officers and “bombproof net curtains.” He lived in London for some 10 years, and his wife at the time, the novelist Marianne Wiggins, said in the first few months, the couple had moved 56 times, once every three days - They soon separated, under strain from the tense life they lived.
However, even before the fatwa, the book was banned in a number of countries, including India, Bangladesh, Sudan and Sri Lanka. Many died in protests against its publication, including 12 people in a riot in Bombay in February 1989 and six more in another riot in Islamabad. Books were burned.
Reaction intensified after the publication of the book in the United States that same month, even as more countries banned it. There were attacks on bookstores and threats to many more.
In July 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, the novel’s Japanese translator, was stabbed to death and its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was badly wounded. In October 1993, William Nygaard, the novel’s Norwegian publisher, was shot three times outside his home in Oslo and seriously injured.
The Iranian Government publicly backed the fatwa for 10 years.
However, in 1998 Iran’s president, Mohammad Khatami, said Iran no longer supported the killing. But the fatwa remained in place, reportedly with a bounty attached from an Iranian religious foundation of some US$3.3 million as of 2012. The same year, Rushdie also published a memoir, “Joseph Anton,” about his life under the fatwa - The title came from the pseudonym he used while in hiding, taken from the first names of Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.
In September 1995, he attended his first publicly scheduled appearance, at a London panel discussion called “Writers and the State.”
“The term ‘coming out’ has gone through some unusual metamorphoses,” a smiling and relaxed Rushdie said. “Thank you for attending this little coming-out party.”
At the time, Rushdie was never without heavily armed bodyguards.
Still, as Sarah Lyall of the Times reported, “he travels, eats in restaurants, appears at bookstores and is a regular fixture at London’s smartest literary parties.”
In 2000, Rushdie appeared as a writer in a music video for the U2 song “The Ground Beneath Her Feet.” In a scene at a book party in the 2001 film “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” Rushdie appeared as himself, playfully sending up his reputation as an intimidating intellectual. More recently, he had a cameo in a 2017 episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” advising Larry David about how to handle the fatwa placed on him after David’s character, appearing on television to promote a musical he wrote based on Rushdie’s life, mocked the ayatollah.
In 2019, he spoke at a private club in Manhattan to promote his novel, “Quichotte.” Security at the event was relaxed, and Rushdie mingled with guests freely and had dinner with members of the club afterward. In an interview last year, he was casual and easygoing as he spoke about literature from his Manhattan home, adopting the air of someone who had long ago re-entered society and reveled in being a man about town. Asked about the longstanding call for his death he answered simply, “Oh, I have to live my life.”
Condolences Just after the breaking news of Rushdie, authors, publishers and Government officials around the world have expressed their shock over the attack. Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, which promotes free expression, said that “we can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”
“Just hours before the attack, on Friday morning, Salman had emailed me to help with placements for Ukrainian writers in need of safe refuge from the grave perils they face,” she said in a statement published on the organisation’s website. “Salman Rushdie has been targeted for his words for decades but has never flinched nor faltered. He has devoted tireless energy to assisting others who are vulnerable and menaced.”
Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and other works, issued a statement about Rushdie: “This appalling attack on my dear friend Salman represents an assault on freedom of thought and speech. These are the freedoms that underpin all our rights and liberties. Salman has been an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world. He is a fiery and generous spirit, a man of immense talent and courage, and he will not be deterred.”
The current president of PEN America, Ayad Akhtar, a novelist and playwright, commented on the attack, calling the author “a tireless advocate for imperiled writers, for unfettered intellectual and creative exchange, and one of the last half-century’s great champions of freedom of expression.”
He said in a statement: “It is hard to find words to express the emotions occasioned by today’s shocking attack on Salman Rushdie. As a former President of our organisation, Salman means so much to us.
“But it is in his own truly seminal, challenging body of work that Salman has stood most powerfully for the values of PEN America — work that has questioned founding myths and expanded the world’s imaginative possibilities, at great cost to himself.”
He also added: “On a more personal note, as a writer whose own work is fundamentally shaped by an early encounter with The Satanic Verses, it is particularly horrifying to me that the nightmare set in motion by the fatwa in 1989 is still with us. We are thinking of Salman today across the PEN America community, and praying for his recovery.”
The author Neil Gaiman wrote on Twitter that he was “shocked and distressed” about the attack.
“He’s a good man and a brilliant one and I hope he’s okay,” he said.
Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner, said he was horrified by the incident.
He tweeted: “I’m utterly horrified by the cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie. I pray for his recovery. He is an essential voice and cannot be silenced.”
Sergio Ramírez, one of Nicaragua’s most famous writers, also condemned the attack.
“The criminal attack on Salman Rushdie is an aggression against all literature. Fanaticism will never prevail over the power of literary creation. My most profound solidarity goes out to him,” tweeted the Cervantes Prize winning author.
William Nygaard, the Norwegian publisher who was shot in 1993 after publishing Rushdie’s worker said the author has paid a “high price”. “He is a leading author who has meant so much to literature, and he had found a good life in the United States,” he said.
Among the politicians, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said in a Twitter post that he was “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a right we should never cease to defend. Right now my thoughts are with his loved ones. We are all hoping he is okay.”
Tony Blair, the former UK Prime Minister, said: “My thoughts are with Salman and all his family. A horrible and utterly unjustified attack on someone exercising their right to speak, to write and to be true to their convictions in their life and in their art.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York also spoke out on social media, calling the attack “shocking and appalling.”
“It is an attack on freedom of speech and thought, which are two bedrock values of our country and of the Chautauqua Institution,” Schumer wrote. “I hope Rushdie quickly and fully recovers and the perpetrator experiences full accountability and justice.”
A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights group, said he was concerned that people might rush to blame Muslims or Islam for the stabbing before the attacker’s identity or motive were known.
“American Muslims, like all Americans, condemn any violence targeting anyone in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper. “That goes without saying. We will have to monitor the situation and see what facts come to light.”
Hatred reactions
Though there is overwhelming grief over the Rushdie attack, there are also hatred comments on it. Iran has not officially commented on the attack against the author, but supporters of the Government took to social media to praise the stabbing as the Ayatollah’s fatwa finally materialising in action. Some said they wished for him to die. Some warned that a similar fate awaits other enemies of the Islamic Republic. Celebrated Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling also underwent such social media death threats: “You are next.”
A quote from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current Iranian leader, was widely shared on social media in which he said the fatwa against Rushdie was “fired like a bullet that won’t rest until it hits its target.” “This deserves congratulation: God willing, we will celebrate Salman Rushdie going to hell soon,” Keyvan Saedy, a conservative Iranian pundit, said on Twitter.
Hossein Saremi, a conservative social media activist, wrote on Twitter that the attacker was part of “Islam’s soldiers without borders.” “Revenge may be delayed, but it will inevitably happen,” Saremi wrote.
Several accounts affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards on the application telegram also openly boasted about the attack. One called Syria News published a post saying: “The order was carried out at a place they never thought about. It’s not important if he doesn’t die; it’s important that they understand the battle is not over.”
A senior adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, wrote on Twitter that he will not shed tears for a writer “who spouts endless hatred and contempt for Muslims and Islam.”
When assessing all these comments, it is evident that still the world is at its primitive state – barbarism. As Nobel Prize winning Portuguese author José Saramago said in a Paris Review interview, “if we are cruel, how can we continue to say that we are rational beings?” Even though we are capable of all the skills better than animals, as he said, “it is not enough to stop us from doing all the negative and cruel things in which we engage”.