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What they do not forgive Salman

2022-08-14T10:39:49.026Z


Rushdie, from the insignificance of a writer, has reminded all of us who believe in a free world that a satire is worth more than a billion offended, and that the day we forget it, there will be no more laughs.


Like almost all human beings, a writer is a very fragile thing.

Even those who seem powerful, those who adorn themselves with Nobel prizes and honors of great man.

Even those who accumulate fortunes with the sales of their books.

As much as they seem giants in the eyes of those who admire them and even those who detest them, writers are such delicate beings that they only grow well in civilized and democratic climates.

They live exposed to any inclemency, they are terribly vulnerable to attacks from the powerful and they are defenseless against those who respond with violence to their words.

There are those who believe that the most difficult part of this profession is defeating the blank page, when what is terrifying is defending the written page against those who want to erase it.

Very few endure attacks without retracting,

and I don't think there are more than half a dozen people in the world capable of putting up with what Salman Rushdie has been putting up with for almost half his life.

That perennial death sentence, that certainty that there are millions of sadists who would like to collect his head without even claiming the millionaire reward that accompanies the fatwa, for the mere pleasure of cutting it.

That is basically what they do not forgive him, his resistance.

Anyone else would have looked for a compromise, a way to save his skin through apology or at least disappearance, but he even wallowed in heresy, to remove any shadow of suspicion of remorse, with an autobiographical book that reads without batting an eye,

joseph anton

.

Rushdie has not only refused civil and literary death, but has not stopped writing books, magnifying his name, coming dangerously close to the Nobel and reveling in all the worldly pleasures of Western cultural life.

He gives lectures, grants interviews and eats heartily and toasts happily at all the soirees to which he is invited.

He even has famous girlfriends who appear on television and makes cameos in television series parodying himself, as in that season of

Larry David

in which the protagonist wants to put on a Broadway production:

Fatwa, the musical

.

If something characterizes the image of Salman Rushdie, it is his laughter and his smile.

There is no photo or recording in which he appears serious.

Nothing strange in a writer who claims to be a Cervantist and who has inherited all the sarcasm of the British tradition.

His laughter resounds clean in the sky of religious assassins, who do not conceive of his persistence in joy.

Perhaps they would forgive him if he would stop laughing, if he would not militate so fanatically for the pleasure of civilization.

They would forgive him if, instead of conversing, he gave sermons;

if instead of jokes, he would preach against sin.

But there has been no way.

Rushdie, from the awareness of his fragility, from the insignificance of a writer who only has his flying words at hand, has reminded all of us who believe in a free world that a satire is worth more than a billion offended people,

and that the day we forget it, there will be no more laughter.

That is what they do not forgive him: neither those of the fatwa nor those who temper bagpipes with them.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-14

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