Posted by
Bert Chapman on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 9:13:21 AM
The British Government has just announced that it will knight author Salman Rushdie. Rushdie's claim to fame was the fatwa to murder him for his novel Satanic Verses issued by the late and unlamented Ayatullah Khomeini back in the late 1980s. I'm not really familar with Rushdie's works and since he's associated with leftist literary circles he's probably not real friendly to many conservative ideals. Still, anyone who earns Khomeini's wrath has at least some things going for him. Anyway, the British government's decision to designate him "Sir Salman" has gotten the Islamist yahoo movement up in arms. A Pakistani cabinet minister has expressed outrage over the purported injury this has caused to Muslim sentiment. No doubt, there will be demonstrations by various literary critics and literary deconstructionists in the Islamic world which will probably result in injuries and death.
I actually think the British government should make a broader distribution of knighthoods and other honors to those who have "offended" tender Islamist sensitivities. How about President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, British, U.S., and other coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israeli governmental, military and intelligence personnel, the Danish cartoonist(s) who drew the Mohammed cartoons, a posthumous honor to the late Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, Ayan Hirsi Ali, and any Jewish, Christian, or other religious leader who hasn't succumbed to multicultural political correctness and has publicly excoriated Islam for the blood-stained legacy it continues bequeathing to the world. Let me know if there are any other worthy candidates for knighthoods I've forgotten.