Rushdie Haunted by his unholy Ghosts — Page 152
152 Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi Much to Rushdie’s disappointment, he just failed to win the Booker prize for The Moor’s Last Sigh. In spite of this he received great support from his close band of followers, like Auberon Waugh, Editor of The Literary Review who said that a man who had been chased ‘from pillar to port by religious maniacs’ deserved victory (The Times, November 1995). The fact that Waugh admitted that he had not even read Rushdie’s novel just adds absurdity to the blinkered and fanatical support he still has, just to reward him in the name of freedom of speech. And Rushdie should also be prepared, if he wins the Nobel Prize, to share it with his co-conspirators, as they have been instru- mental in making him the celebrity that he is now ! But facts have borne out that this could never be expected from a being whose only purpose in life has been pure self-aggrandise- ment. And what is also very evident is the fact that Rushdie cannot digest any accusations or aspersions cast on him thus decrying his principle of freedom of speech for every writer. I will illustrate the contradiction of this very principle that Rushdie has been so assiduously waging a crusade for. W HO K I LLED T H E W R I T ER? It is quite obvious that Rushdie and his supporters in the liter- ary field have been stretching the theme of freedom of the writer to the limit and beyond. Note, for example, the statement issued by Rushdie himself on the subject : ‘Nowhere in the entire catalogue of human rights will you find the Right Not To Be Offended. If such a right existed, all of us would be silenced. Offence is not, and must never be, a reason for censor- ship in a free society. ’ (The Times, 15 February 1992). Yet, Rushdie’s reaction to a fictitious play that presupposes his death was typically selfish and devoid of the very principles that he has been crusading for since the fatwa.