Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has for years waged a proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) by aiding and abetting terrorism through terrorist outfits such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). The service continues to support this proxy war, now being carried out not just through the above mentioned groups but also through their various offshoots like The Resistance Front (TRF), People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), Jammu Kashmir Gaznavi Force (JKGF), United Liberation Front of Jammu & Kashmir (ULF-J&K) , Kashmir Tigers etc.
On the occasion of the International Youth Day on 12 August, the European Commission posted a video on Instagram showing young FEMYSO activists wearing T-shirts with their association’s logo. The organisation, which is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, was previously received by the Maltese Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, to talk about stereotypes, discrimination and hatred against young Muslims in Europe. In the same video, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, says: “Let’s be inspired by all the young people who show that you can achieve what you believe in”, before concluding: “This is the spirit of Europe’s next generation”.
A good Muslim today feels guilty for not having succeeded in establishing the Islamic State, whether by persuasion or force. This ideal, this ultimate goal is based on his pride as a Muslim. He is proud of what he is, not what he does. Instead of being what he will become, he wants to be what he has been. This blockage leads to a dichotomous attitude and, while he accepts technical modernity, he rejects its metaphysics. Thus, he lives a development without progress because he remains stuck to the sacred: the forbidden, halal, paradise, hell, the torments of the grave… For him, purity and fear prevail over the process of freedom. But because he feels guilty for not advancing the cause of Islam, which is to spread the law of Allah throughout the world, he is in constant conflict with himself.
“The Satanic Verses”, which led to Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa condemning Salman Rushdie to death, is a work of fiction. However, the incident evoked in this novel and from which its title is inspired, refers to a proven historical fact, mentioned both in the Koran and in the main books of the Sira, the chronicles of the life and words of the Prophet of Islam.
On August 8, Algerian novelist Anouar Rahmani was due to take part in the debate on freedom of expression, alongside Salman Rushdie and other persecuted artists, in Chautauqua, New York. He was in the conference room when the author of “The Satanic Verses” was stabbed. In this interview, conducted the day after the attack, he confides exclusively to Screen Watch about this painful ordeal.
Like Salman Rushdie, I think that “if I were asked to give one short sentence about religion, I would say: I am against it”! Not because the problem is religious faith itself, but because “from the beginning, men have used God to justify the unjustifiable”.
Like Salman Rushdie, I consider that “freedom of expression is the whole, the whole story”, that it “is life itself”, that “without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist”.
We must always take fundamentalists at their word. The ones they say to kill. The ones they forbid others to say. Hadi Matar, the man who tried to assassinate Salman Rushdie on 12 August, was driven by the words of death. Death is the true empire of Islamism. Salman Rushdie, on the other hand, is driven by the words of life. The dagger of the American-born Lebanese fundamentalist, admirer of Khomeini and Hezbollah, was to drive his words down his throat and into all his organs.
Two hundred intellectuals and civil society activists, as well as some thirty associations, in the Maghreb and in the North African diaspora in Europe, have made public a petition denouncing the assassination attempt against Salman Rushdie, entitled ‘’We refuse to allow the crime to be committed in our name’’.
Here is the full verbatim:
“Religious radicalism radiates a kind of ‘glamour’. Give a Kalashnikov and a black uniform to a penniless, jobless youth and suddenly you empower the one who feels vulnerable and disadvantaged.” These words are from the writer Salman Rushdie, who is between life and death at the time of writing. They reflect the immense insight this man has into his contemporaries. Threatened with death for more than 30 years, Salman Rushdie has built his work on the burning embers of an end that he did not imagine was impossible at the hand of Man.
