Salman Rushdie turned 60 today. He was recently honored with knighthood for his contributions to literature.
Here’s how Muslims in Pakistan celebrated:
The Pakistan parliament yesterday called on the government to reverse the decision to award Rushdie a knighthood or face further protests from Muslim nations.
“If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Muhammad, his act is justified,” the minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul-Haq, told Pakistan’s national assembly, according to the translation from Urdu by Reuters. He urged Muslim countries to break diplomatic ties with London.
“This is an occasion for the [world's] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” said Mr ul-Haq, the son of the former Pakistan military leader, Zia ul-Haq. “If Muslims do not unite, the situation will get worse and Salman Rushdie may get a seat in the British parliament.”
His comments were reported on local news networks and provoked an angry response around the world. Effigies of the Queen and Rushdie were burned in the eastern Pakistan city of Multan as students chanted “Kill him! Kill him!”
Mr ul-Haq said his main intention had been to examine the root causes of terrorism; he denied he was encouraging suicide bombing.
So he wasn’t encouraging suicide bombings, he was just saying that if you are Muslim and deeply offended by something Salman Rushdie wrote about your god in a fictional book, then it’s okay for you go blow yourself up and kill a bunch of other people that happen to be in your vicinity.
And apparently if you are a student with a whole lifetime ahead of you, then you don’t have to kill yourself. You can kill Rushdie or at least encourage others to do so.
Organized religion is so great at uniting people and promoting hatred and violence around the globe. What would we do without it?
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