2008 Woodie Awards
Open the Universe a Little More
Michael Bernstein
Issue date: 12/6/04 Section: Opinion
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Salman Rushdie's November 11 lecture featured quite a few of his own ideas on pushing the envelope, censorship, freedom of expression, and politics. But the impetus for his talk was not the fatwa issued against him. It was a dog, a dog from a Saul Bellow novel. One of Bellow's characters imagines that the dog barks because it is protesting the unpleasantness of being a dog: "For god's sake, open the universe a little more!" For Rushdie, this is the very essence of literature: opening the world. And we open the world by going beyond the edge of what is already accepted and pushing out against those imposed borders. The literary ideal is to create an ever-expanding set of accepted notions, fostered and nurtured through a certain kind of literature.
Obviously, the problem with pushing forward is that everyone else is pushing back, impeding expansion to a grander frontier. Rushdie knows this, and has termed it the eternal war, the Battle for Intellectual Freedom. "Life isn't normal," said Rushdie. "It's extremely strange." The real world is no longer so realistic. There are strange growths (which Rushdie unabashedly suggested we may call them "Bushes") attaching themselves to the world and corrupting it in ever worse ways.
This is precisely why Rushdie values freedom of expression so heavily. Societies in which rules are imposed to dictate what can and cannot be written are a barred jail cell constraining thought.
A number of years ago, Rushdie met a man who admitted to having organized protests against The Satanic Verses. "I recently read the book, finally, and I don't see what the fuss was all about," the man told Rushdie. With candor, Rushdie replied "Yes, [expletive], but YOU were the fuss...."
Rushdie's choice of language, not so much in what he said to the man but rather in how he retold the story to his audience, embodied the very lesson he was imparting to the audience at Lamport Auditorium. And for those who were offended by Rushdie's repetition of an expletive on stage, you're missing the point: it's about freedom of expression.
Part and parcel of a storyteller's obligation to their audience, whether in a book or onstage, is honesty, the relating of authorial limitless at whatever costs. For Rushdie to have censored himself would have been for him to water down the impact of the story. So he left the word in, and anyone who thinks it was inappropriate has not grasped the main idea of Rushdie's earlier comments.
Suppose Rushdie had left the word out. We'd never have known what we were missing, true, but neither would we ever hear the real truth of what happened. The omission of even one word, especially to comply with unspoken and at-most implied "rules" for public speaking in an environment such as Yeshiva University, is an example of self-censorship. Rushdie is campaigning against censorship by outside forces; we cannot say he should censor himself! There is no reasonable way to complain about this man's exercising the very right for which he is fighting.
Rushdie also told us of a letter he received from a Muslim woman while he was in hiding. She wrote: "Imagine someone you love has been kidnapped by terrorists and people come through the door to save them... the first person through the door gets most of the bullets. But after that, the door is knocked down and the rest of the rescuers can do their job." She thanked him for kicking down the doors, pushing the limits of acceptability.
Those of us who remember the midrash about Amalek being the first ones to grit their teeth and jump in the boiling bath of Bnai Yisrael, opening the door for other nations to viciously attack, will immediately identify with this idea. The innovator always gets the credit.
What was wonderful about Rushdie was that he did not think he had done anything innovative or edgy. He pointed out that people seemed to be angry at him for a book that he didn't actually write, and one that most of the angry people hadn't read. He cited this as another way in which the world was unreal; they were attacking someone who was not really him (saying things about his views that were untrue), for writing a book he had not really written (saying The Satanic Verses advanced ideas it didn't).
The once great cultural centers of Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, and Cairo are no longer. Rushdie lamented that these formerly intellectually open and progressive cities are now economically and culturally devastated, largely due to the Saudi chokehold on much of the Middle East's economy. He then pointed out that, contrary to what Mr. Bush's administration and the American official policy would have you believe, the House of Saud is not a friend of the United State in any way; that once the Sauds took control of the oil revenue in Arabia, they used their new power to spread their poisonous ideas; that maybe the first thing to be done (and certainly something must be done) about the Sauds' true actions and feelings is that we should acknowledge that fact; that the Sauds will never realistically act in the interest of America unless they get something out of it.
Perhaps the larger issue Rushdie was pushing, related to the general reduction in the public's willingness to express themselves in recent years. He threw in asides about FOX, ClearChannel, etc. as examples, showing himself to be in opposition to the radical right. He reprised this intellectual environment as an unrealistic reality, mentioning the strangeness of America being "Dixie-chicked" into semi silence by the ogres in the government and the media. Ironically, the ones with the most expression are attempting to limit freedom of expression by the masses. On the issue of religious radicalism, Rushdie argued, America has as much as the Arab world. He finished strong, saying that America is being attacked by two religious radicalisms... one from the outside (presumably referring to jihad) and one from the inside (presumably referring to the heavily Christian politics of the extreme right). What's more, both of these radically-religious movements need to be defeated.
He couldn't be more right. Consider the ideal of democracy- NOT equal representation for all, but equal rights for all. True, Christianity is the dominant religion in America. Does that mean that the Christian background of politicians should factor so heavily into law- and decision-making? It is a jihad against liberalism that the religious right in America is fighting.
A final note: you mustn't think I'm attacking Christians only; I merely used them as an example since Rushdie was referring to our Christian President and government. This constraining of free expression is present in the more radical forms of Islam and of Judaism (and of Zionism) as well. When was the last time you saw The Jewish Press publish a letter asking the readers to try and see the Middle East issue from the perspective of the average Palestinian citizen? Don't be so naïve as to think none of that type has ever been submitted. Mr. Bush said he decided to invade Iraq after consulting his "higher Father," i.e. Jesus. How much more blatant can one be in showing one's true colors?! I'm sure many supporters of Israel will see what's been said here as pitifully misguided, as they see Bush as a man who will fight for Israel, and against terrorism. The political science majors out there, however, will be sure to realize that ANY American President will (and should) put the concerns of America before those of America's allies. That would be true no matter who was President. The problem is exacerbated when we have a president like Bush, who also places his religious views above the concerns of America's allies.
Michael Bernstein is a freshman at Yeshiva College
Read Zev Nagel's analysis of Rushdie's visit.
Obviously, the problem with pushing forward is that everyone else is pushing back, impeding expansion to a grander frontier. Rushdie knows this, and has termed it the eternal war, the Battle for Intellectual Freedom. "Life isn't normal," said Rushdie. "It's extremely strange." The real world is no longer so realistic. There are strange growths (which Rushdie unabashedly suggested we may call them "Bushes") attaching themselves to the world and corrupting it in ever worse ways.
This is precisely why Rushdie values freedom of expression so heavily. Societies in which rules are imposed to dictate what can and cannot be written are a barred jail cell constraining thought.
A number of years ago, Rushdie met a man who admitted to having organized protests against The Satanic Verses. "I recently read the book, finally, and I don't see what the fuss was all about," the man told Rushdie. With candor, Rushdie replied "Yes, [expletive], but YOU were the fuss...."
Rushdie's choice of language, not so much in what he said to the man but rather in how he retold the story to his audience, embodied the very lesson he was imparting to the audience at Lamport Auditorium. And for those who were offended by Rushdie's repetition of an expletive on stage, you're missing the point: it's about freedom of expression.
Part and parcel of a storyteller's obligation to their audience, whether in a book or onstage, is honesty, the relating of authorial limitless at whatever costs. For Rushdie to have censored himself would have been for him to water down the impact of the story. So he left the word in, and anyone who thinks it was inappropriate has not grasped the main idea of Rushdie's earlier comments.
Suppose Rushdie had left the word out. We'd never have known what we were missing, true, but neither would we ever hear the real truth of what happened. The omission of even one word, especially to comply with unspoken and at-most implied "rules" for public speaking in an environment such as Yeshiva University, is an example of self-censorship. Rushdie is campaigning against censorship by outside forces; we cannot say he should censor himself! There is no reasonable way to complain about this man's exercising the very right for which he is fighting.
Rushdie also told us of a letter he received from a Muslim woman while he was in hiding. She wrote: "Imagine someone you love has been kidnapped by terrorists and people come through the door to save them... the first person through the door gets most of the bullets. But after that, the door is knocked down and the rest of the rescuers can do their job." She thanked him for kicking down the doors, pushing the limits of acceptability.
Those of us who remember the midrash about Amalek being the first ones to grit their teeth and jump in the boiling bath of Bnai Yisrael, opening the door for other nations to viciously attack, will immediately identify with this idea. The innovator always gets the credit.
What was wonderful about Rushdie was that he did not think he had done anything innovative or edgy. He pointed out that people seemed to be angry at him for a book that he didn't actually write, and one that most of the angry people hadn't read. He cited this as another way in which the world was unreal; they were attacking someone who was not really him (saying things about his views that were untrue), for writing a book he had not really written (saying The Satanic Verses advanced ideas it didn't).
The once great cultural centers of Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, and Cairo are no longer. Rushdie lamented that these formerly intellectually open and progressive cities are now economically and culturally devastated, largely due to the Saudi chokehold on much of the Middle East's economy. He then pointed out that, contrary to what Mr. Bush's administration and the American official policy would have you believe, the House of Saud is not a friend of the United State in any way; that once the Sauds took control of the oil revenue in Arabia, they used their new power to spread their poisonous ideas; that maybe the first thing to be done (and certainly something must be done) about the Sauds' true actions and feelings is that we should acknowledge that fact; that the Sauds will never realistically act in the interest of America unless they get something out of it.
Perhaps the larger issue Rushdie was pushing, related to the general reduction in the public's willingness to express themselves in recent years. He threw in asides about FOX, ClearChannel, etc. as examples, showing himself to be in opposition to the radical right. He reprised this intellectual environment as an unrealistic reality, mentioning the strangeness of America being "Dixie-chicked" into semi silence by the ogres in the government and the media. Ironically, the ones with the most expression are attempting to limit freedom of expression by the masses. On the issue of religious radicalism, Rushdie argued, America has as much as the Arab world. He finished strong, saying that America is being attacked by two religious radicalisms... one from the outside (presumably referring to jihad) and one from the inside (presumably referring to the heavily Christian politics of the extreme right). What's more, both of these radically-religious movements need to be defeated.
He couldn't be more right. Consider the ideal of democracy- NOT equal representation for all, but equal rights for all. True, Christianity is the dominant religion in America. Does that mean that the Christian background of politicians should factor so heavily into law- and decision-making? It is a jihad against liberalism that the religious right in America is fighting.
A final note: you mustn't think I'm attacking Christians only; I merely used them as an example since Rushdie was referring to our Christian President and government. This constraining of free expression is present in the more radical forms of Islam and of Judaism (and of Zionism) as well. When was the last time you saw The Jewish Press publish a letter asking the readers to try and see the Middle East issue from the perspective of the average Palestinian citizen? Don't be so naïve as to think none of that type has ever been submitted. Mr. Bush said he decided to invade Iraq after consulting his "higher Father," i.e. Jesus. How much more blatant can one be in showing one's true colors?! I'm sure many supporters of Israel will see what's been said here as pitifully misguided, as they see Bush as a man who will fight for Israel, and against terrorism. The political science majors out there, however, will be sure to realize that ANY American President will (and should) put the concerns of America before those of America's allies. That would be true no matter who was President. The problem is exacerbated when we have a president like Bush, who also places his religious views above the concerns of America's allies.
Michael Bernstein is a freshman at Yeshiva College
Read Zev Nagel's analysis of Rushdie's visit.