_______________THE AYATOLLAH WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS (12/04/97)

I agree with Christopher Hitchens that the intellectual class longs to express unpredictable opinions. After all, what could be more unpredictable than Hitchens' own book-length tirade declaiming the evils of Mother Teresa? However, le Carré's arguments are valuable for more reasons than their unpredictability. Hitchens sarcastically implies that le Carré and company would have been satisfied if the book had not been sold, but rather given out from "trestles in the street." Clearly le Carré would not have been satisfied, simply because the fatwa would have continued under such circumstances. The fatwa was meant to suppress the dissemination of Rushdie's writing and the promotion of its ideas. Thus, if the book were given out free from trestles in the street, the fatwa would simply change its targets from bookstores to trestle-occupiers. The fact that some Muslims wanted to suppress Rushdie's words offends Western sensibilities. However, to impose Western sensibilities on a non-Western culture -- indeed on a culture that actively fights Western influences -- is dangerous. There may be no "historic precedent" for the particulars of this fatwa, but there is historic precedent in every culture for the execution of blasphemers. Rushdie knew he was courting danger when he wrote what he did. The Ayatollah Khomeini had a long history of outrageous deeds performed in the name of anti-Westernism. Hitchens himself says the ayatollah was known to be "senile." Khomeini clearly does not strike Hitchens as a legitimate representative of the Muslim world. Legitimate or not, Khomeini was a representative and a known threat. Rushdie's teasing of such volatile people was done willfully, and now he is paying the price. Hitchens castigates William Shawcross, who wrote a book critical of Henry Kissinger, for taking sides with le Carré against Rushdie. What, asks Hitchens, would Shawcross have done if Kissinger had threatened to have him killed? I believe Shawcross would have broadcast this fact to the Western world, thus accusing a renowned Western figure, who lives within the jurisdiction of the United States and is widely considered to be a giant of the Western intellectual elite. Perhaps Shawcross would have called 911 and had Kissinger arrested. My point is, Kissinger lives in the West, is subject to Western law and espouses Western ideas of freedom of expression. The Ayatollah Khomeini never pretended to espouse Western ideas. The analogy is poor and Hitchens is usually better than that. No one besides Rushdie should have been compelled to pay Rushdie's price. Rushdie should not have allowed the book to be marketed and sold in a manner that endangered others without their consent and/or knowledge. In turn, publishers should not have agreed to endanger their employees by marketing and selling the book. Those "brave" individuals who volunteered to do so, in spite of the fatwa and probably for the sake of profit, should have made certain they were endangering ONLY themselves in the process. No co-workers, no bookstore customers, no mail-room girls. I doubt that was possible, so I am troubled that Hitchens would defend them. -- Kathleen Reilly Mr. Hitchens has done a fine job dismantling the idea that Salman Rushdie is responsible for the fatwa against him. Doubtless this is more important than presenting an unbiased account of a literary feud. Nonetheless, Hitchens might have bothered to note that le Carré's attack on Rushdie was not the first salvo, but had been preceded by Rushdie's condescending review of le Carré's most recent novel ("The Tailor of Panama"), built upon a sweeping contempt for the spy novel as a literary form. Toilers in the less respectable genres get understandably testy at sneers from the literary elite, and while le Carré's response was neither reasoned nor justified, it was hardly unprovoked. Hitchens also does not bother to mention that Rushdie's conduct since has been every bit as unbecoming as le Carré's; the whole spectacle has had all the appeal of a mud fight. -- Soren deSelby New York SALON | Dec. 9, 1997

R E C E N T L Y+| ARE WE READY FOR THE LIBRARY OF THE FUTURE? BY CATE T. CORCORAN

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