See Salman, Say Something

A Gawker reader spotted novelist Salman Rushdie on the 6 train. One commenter asked, "Does an award-winning, socially critical novelist not deserve a seat? And you call this civilization..." Not to mention a novelist with a fatwa! Back in 2000, the Observer reported on Rushdie's man-about-town ways, and one book agent bitterly said, "I was so pissed to be in the restaurant with him. I'm going to be mad, and dead... We can't enjoy our meal. We don't want to die because of his fatwa. It's so passive-aggressive toward people in Manhattan. We have enough trouble here." Rushdie has always liked NYC—his first public appearance post-fatwa was at Columbia in 1991.

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By Jen Chung in News on October 16, 2008 4:04 PM

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Clarice City

Salman looks really cute in that picture.

str1cken

Oh, my anti-Islamic and anti-Christian friends, can't we find common ground in the idea that religious fundamentalists of every stripe are cuckoo and dangerous?

In other news, book agent in the restaurant? Holy blame the victim, batman!

Spiny

Unfortunately for your argument, The Edge, Salman Rushdie never had his head lopped off or his body dragged through a street, and he never got blown up in a shopping district. He did, however, have his life made much harder by the intolerance of a religious group.

Just like a lot of people I know -- including Muslims, and also Jews, atheists, gay men and lesbians, people who are perceived as being gay men and lesbians but are not, unmarried mothers, would-be unmarried mothers, and yours truly, who was snubbed and openly criticized in high school by the overwhelmingly Baptist student body for being a non-Christian -- have had their lives made more difficult by members of another religious group.

Some so-called Muslims have strapped bombs to children and blown up people in shopping districts. Some so-called Christians have abducted gay men, savagely beaten them, broken their bones, and dragged them behind vehicles, leaving them for dead. What's the difference? Violence is violence, depravity is depravity, hate is hate, and intolerance is intolerance, whether that intolerance emerges in acts of violence or in threats and verbal abuse.

None of it should be tolerated by people of any religious faith (or lack thereof) who consider themselves accepting of human difference.

The Edge

#6- So you're going to compare shit that happened hundreds of years ago to shit that still goes on today?

Yeah, the west still does fucked up shit, but lopping heads on video, burning and dragging bodies through streets, and sending kids with bombs strapped on them so they can blow themselves up in the middle of shopping districts isn't exactly "tolerance".