Sir Salman Rushdie...

[Cartwrightia]

I was just reading the BBC news about the furore that Queen Elizabeth II bestowing a knighthood upon the author Salman Rushdie.

The backstory: Salman Rushdie was originally from India, but came to Britain and began to write bestselling novels.  His fourth book, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, portrayed the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him, I'm sure) in a supposedly blasphemous light, and as such Iran issued a Fatah on him, essentially a rule permitting/encouraging Muslims to kill him.

Now, the Queen has knighted him for "services to literature".  This has provoked outcry in Pakistan and Iran.  The Queen cannot choose who she knights in the Order of the British Empire, the order of chivalry into which Rushdie has been knighted.  As a constitutional monarch, Parliament "recommends" people and she has no choice but to "agree".

What I particularly love about is this. The knighthood has been debated in the Pakistani parliament and the Iranian sham version of the same.  The First Deputy Speaker of the Iranian parliament made a speech condemning the action.  Pakistan's minister for religious affairs made a speech claiming that this justifies suicide attacks against the United Kingdom.

At the end of his speech, the Iranian First Deputy speaker said this:

The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important

Please, permit me to ROFL.

a) No she doesn't, she's told who to knight,
b) Maybe she should, since you imbeciles have been debating it, briefing against it and making speeches about it.  Iran could only dream about other nations giving a toss about which of its citizens it deemed worthy of special praise, but Britain knights one bestselling author and it is brought up in the  legislature of other countries.

You just gotta laugh.

PS: To all my fellow native English speakers, I hope you noticed that was a Minister of our "ally", Pakistan, saying that one country celebrating its freedom of speech by knighting an author was enough to justify suicide attacks.  God bless the War on Terror, eh?

[PoD Gunner]

Well, I am not familiar with the subject, but, based on what I know about the context, the information you posted and considering the present serious problems the world faces I'd think that the British should have avoided this or known better. This is a subject that needs more time in order to be debated internationally in a rational manner and I presume that the reaction of Muslim states had been foreseeable. So yeah, ROFL, but also >_>. The British monarchy still is a symbol, especially in former English colonies, so, to be honest, the reaction does not make me wonder.

[Talmann]

* Talmann laughs at topic

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but do you think they might've done this on purpose? What did Parliament "Recommend" him for? Also, I laugh at the Iranian First Deputy Speaker for his words. Obviously they shouldn't be making such a big deal of this if bestowing titles was not "deemed important".

[Anniane]

Firstly, by "Fatah", perhaps you mean "Fatwa"?

And indeed, the rhetoric from Iran seems somewhat funny, in the same way their response to the movie 300 was funny. But to grant Rushdie such a symbolic title does touch a rather sensitive spot among some of the Islamic world (i.e. those who agree with the fatwa against him). I don't believe this was primarily motivated by a goal of antagonizing Iran or something of that sort, because Rushdie has made significant contributions to literature, I suppose.

[Tatar]

Iranians are radical.I am Muslim too, but I don't think Salman Rushdie must die.

[Allama]

My personal theory: the governments on both sides of this little ruckus have their heads up their asses.

That is all.

[Delfos]

heard about this in euronews, I've got one opinion about each side and 1 general opinion on the matter.

1st, knighting people in the 21st century? Will the queen give him a light-saber some day?

2nd, haven't they learn we value freedom of speech of any kind? Better satanic books than neo-nazi. But what's their problem? I would rather see them throwing tomatoes to the catholic pope than public protests about some wicked writer.

3rd, a general opinion, we already did things that offended people, but we are all different and most of us love to free speech the most stupid things we can think of (specially tabloids), we realised we should be careful, but people can't have the right to publish their believes or things that can interest the public, either false or true, don't people have the right to know info about things, even satanic? It's a good thing they eradicate this things like satanic believes, don't 'free countries' censor movies and video-games? But throwing in public protests makes us think, they think that they rule the earth.

Weird that the Islamic understand Marlyn Mason better than most of his American public, have they protested against Mason? Mason is not at all satanic as far as i know, or at least his message isn't.

[Varkour]

1st, knighting people in the 21st century? Will the queen give him a light-saber some day?

That would be really cool.

[Khablan]

My personal theory: the governments on both sides of this little ruckus have their heads up their asses.

I'll second that.

[LLANYDERN]

I reckon as Blair is off now into the wild blue yonder he's just decided to mess with Brown's head.....

They've had an argument about the EU

He's knighted salmen rushdie

I think he's doing the prime minister equivalent of stealing office furniture when you know your going to be sacked.

Any minute he's going to declare war on Belgium or something just to piss Brown off

Iran is more democratic than most of the Arab/Islamic world (I'd say its better the Pakistan) in that they have elections that are reasonably fair (admittedly you have limited choices but still) and other religions and ethnicity's are reasonably safe and they don't have a coop every other week like turkey and Pakistan seem to do so of all of them I'd rather live there myself

[Solnath]

...they have elections that are reasonably fair (admittedly you have limited choices but still)...

Sounds vaguely familiar.

[Sovereign Dixie]

Who Britain knights is Britain's business, the major winner in all of this though is Rushdie, who will laugh all the way to the bank with the larger royalty checks this publicity will bring him.

[Khablan]

Precisely.

[Allama]

Who Britain knights is Britain's business, the major winner in all of this though is Rushdie, who will laugh all the way to the bank with the larger royalty checks this publicity will bring him.

Wise words from a wise man.

[Myroria]

1. Islam is still a peaceful religion. The Iranians are radical, but don't let their actions fool you into thinking all Muslims are like that.

2. Some random author gets knighted and is discussed all about the world, and a genius like Syd Barrett dies and the world goes about their lives as usual? What a sad society we live in.