20 Quotes About Hate and the Power of Words
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On February 14, 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to the death of British writer Salman Rushdie and called on Muslims around the world to carry out the sentence. The reason was the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which Iranian religious authorities considered offensive to Muslims. Rushdie lived for 13 years under the protection of the British authorities until they received guarantees from Iran for the writer’s safety, after which the protection was removed. However, 20 years later, on August 12, 2022, during a speech in the United States, Rushdie was attacked by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps supporter and stabbed about 15 times. Rushdie survived, but it took a long time to recover and became blind in one eye. On the 35th anniversary of the fatwa, we re-read Rushdie’s interviews and lectures and found out how he lived for decades in an atmosphere of hatred and how his views on insults, prohibitions and the power of words changed.
1
For many, I have ceased to be a person. I became a problem, a source of worry, a “business.” What is my separate life worth? Despair whispers to me: “Not much.” But I refuse to give in to despair.
1991
2
Some people are paralyzed by the awareness of mortality, others simply live with it. Since the fatwa was handed down to me, many people I cared about have died, all around my age. From lung cancer, from AIDS, from something else. And I realized that the fatwa is not important, death can strike at any moment.
1996
3
I learned the hard way that as soon as you allow someone to impose their description of reality on you (and such descriptions have been thrown at me from security consultants, governments, journalists, archbishops, friends, enemies, mullahs), you consider it already died.
1991
4
Sometimes I think that one day Muslims will be ashamed of the actions of today’s Muslims and they will look at the “Rushdie affair” as something wild, much like the West now looks at the burning of martyrs. And one day they may even agree that freedom of thought means precisely freedom from religious control, freedom from accusations of blasphemy.
1991
5
The debate over The Satanic Verses was essentially a debate about who owns the grand Islamic narrative and how it should belong to everyone. That even if my novel were a failure, the attempt to rewrite history is important in itself, and if I fail, someone else will succeed. Because those who do not have the power to rewrite the narrative that defines their lives are absolutely powerless, since they are deprived of the ability to create new meanings.
1991
6
I’ve been worried about God lately. It’s as if he attacked the world – destroying cities, destroying territories. He seems to be in a bad mood. I think it has something to do with the quality of people who express their love for him. Look at them carefully – well, if I were God, I would also want to destroy something.
2005
7
The idea of sacredness is one of the most conservative ideas in any culture because it tends to turn all other ideas – doubt, progress, change – into crimes.
1990
8
A person who chooses violence in the name of his religion is not a representative of that religion, but a conductor of violence who must be treated accordingly.
2023
9
How effectively religion erects totems and how willingly we are ready to kill in their name! And the more often we do it, the less feelings it makes us feel and the easier it is to do it again.
2002
10
The fundamentalist believes that we don’t believe in anything. That he has absolute values, while we are mired in sybaritism and compromise. To prove him wrong, we must agree on common values: kissing in public, bacon sandwiches, modern fashion, literature, generosity, water, equal distribution of resources, freedom of thought, love. This is our weapon. We will win not by war, but by life without fear for our values.
2001
eleven
We have always tended to distinguish ourselves from others by what we love: the place we consider home, family, friends… But now hatred turned out to be the defining feature. I am what I hate. And if I don’t hate anything, who am I then?
2013
12
I’ve often wondered what an inoffensive political cartoon should look like. What is a respectful caricature anyway? The form itself requires disrespect. So if we’re going to live in a world where there is satire and caricature, we just have to accept it as the price of freedom.
2012
13
Dictators have always been afraid of poets. This is very strange – they don’t have armies. I think dictators are frightened by alternative pictures of the world. Authoritarianism imposes its image on reality, writers offer theirs – and when they do not suit the authorities, it tries to silence the writers.
2023
14
No one has the right to not be offended. At least, I have not come across a single declaration where this right was recorded. If you are offended, that is your problem; many things generally offend many people. If you read a 600-page novel and claim to be offended by it, well, what can I say: you’ve done a tremendous amount of work to become offended.
2012
15
The moment someone says, “I believe in free speech, but…” I stop listening. They say, I believe in freedom of speech, but people should be able to behave. I believe in freedom of speech, but we shouldn’t upset anyone. I believe in freedom of speech, but let’s not go too far. The point is that the second you restrict free speech, it is no longer free speech.
2015
16
I find it disturbing to see publishers watering down books by Roald Dahl or Ian Fleming. Attempts to make James Bond politically correct are ridiculous and must be resisted. Books belong to their time, and if you find it difficult to accept what is written, do not read. Take another book, but don’t adjust yesterday’s texts to today’s standards.
2023
17
I quite agree that fiction is a matter of life and death. Look at the history of literature, what happened in the USSR, what is happening in China, in Africa, throughout the Muslim world. Fiction has always been treated this way. It matters, and writers have often suffered from it.
2001
18
There are things that words cannot do. For example, they cannot stop wars.
2023
19
I try not to overestimate the power of literature. The only thing writers can do—and what they do—is try to express the incredible pain that so many people are feeling right now and bring attention to it.
2023
20
I always thought that my books were more interesting than my life. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem to agree.
2023
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