Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent [1 ed.] 9789048550272

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Copyright © 2019. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Paul Cliteur

Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech From Incident to Precedent

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2019. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2019. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Books by Paul Cliteur Conservatisme en cultuurrecht (1989) Humanistische filosofie (1990) Co-editor, Filosofen van het hedendaags liberalisme (1990) Inleiding in het recht (1990) Constitutionele toetsing (1991) Co-editor, Geschiedenis van het humanisme (1991) Co-editor, Filosofen van het klassieke liberalisme (1993) Co-editor, Overtuigend bewijs (1994) Onze verhouding tot de apen (1995) De filosofie van mensenrechten (1997) Co-editor, Sociale cohesie en het recht (1998) Darwin, dier en recht (2001) Moderne Papoea’s (2002) Co-editor, Rechten, plichten, deugden (2003) Co-editor, Encyclopedie van de rechtswetenschap (2003) Co-editor, Naar een Europese Grondwet (2004) Tegen de decadentie (2004) Co-author, Encyclopedie van de rechtswetenschap I (2006) Moreel Esperanto (2007) Co-author, Preambules (2009) Esperanto Moral (2009) The Secular Outlook (2010) Het monotheïstisch dilemma (2010) Co-author, In gesprek met Paul Cliteur (2012) La visione laica del mondo (2013) Co-author, Het Atheïstisch Woordenboek (2015) Co-editor, The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law (2016) Co-author, Legaliteit en legitimiteit (2016) Bardot, Fallaci, Houellebecq en Wilders (2016) Co-author, Mag God nog (2017) Co-author, Constitutional Preambles (2017) Co-editor, Cultuurmarxisme (2018) Co-author In naam van God (2018) Co-editor, Moord op Spinoza (2018)

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech From incident to precedent

Copyright © 2019. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Paul Cliteur

Amsterdam University Press

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2019. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Cover illustration: During the Muhammad Art Exhibit in 2015, two men started shooting. Photo: ANP Cover design: Coördesign Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 272 8 e-isbn 978 90 4855 027 2 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463722728 nur 697 © P. Cliteur / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owners and the authors of the book.

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Contents Introduction by Bassam Tibi 9

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Preface 11 1. The Rudi Carrell Affair in Germany Carrell v. Khomeini Khomeini’s letter to Gorbachev The Iran-Iraq War Carrell’s earlier spoofs Apologies to Iran More apologies and more controversies A new film

21 23 24 27 29 31 34 35

2. The Rudi Carrell Affair in the Netherlands A discussion between the minister and a journalist The Dutch Parliament on the Carrell Affair Carrell and other affairs The importance of humor The Carrell Affair as precedent Telephone justice The meaning of Carrell’s apology Subdued tone of conversation A new sort of religious behavior Sense of humor and human emotions Not about freedom of the press

39 40 43 45 48 49 51 53 55 57 60 61

3. The Coherence of Theoterrorism Aboutaleb: the Mayor of Rotterdam The “village idiot” of Amsterdam The theoterrorists’ profession of faith The Woolwich attack The Woolwich attack and the London bombings of 2005 The Woolwich attack and the murder of Van Gogh The theoterrorists argument analyzed Theocracy and democracy Two schools of thought The debate about the role of Islam

65 69 72 76 78 80 81 83 85 86 90

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Attacks on mosques The Netherlands, Denmark, and Great Britain

91 93

4. The Danish Cartoon Affair What are cartoons? Terrorizing the laicist state In good faith Why were the cartoons published? What did the Cartoon Affair prove? The dark sides of globalization Reactions to the cartoons Shouting fire and “senseless provocation” Can only Muslims criticize Islam? Tony Benn’s call to “respect” for religion Thomas Jefferson’s religious heterodoxy From cartoons to scholarly work: Jytte Klausen The refusal of Yale University Press to republish the cartoons Attacks and convictions

97 99 100 102 104 107 107 109 111 112 113 114 116 118 121

5. The Rushdie Affair and Charles Taylor Backing for Khomeini’s judgment in the Iranian Parliament Khamenei’s sermon on the Rushdie Affair The Islamist response Rushdie’s apology Not a clash of civilizations but of visions The secular West against the religious Rest? Rushdie’s own defense: the centrality of doubt The debate about revelation The right to express a humanist view of life “Wade through a filthy drain” The multiculturalist response of Taylor, Dummett, and others The later Taylor

123 125 127 129 131 133 135 140 143 145 148 150 153

6. The Rushdie Affair and Michael Dummett The legal and the moral Michael Dummett and the cause of anti-racism Dummett on Rushdie The tragedy of being an honorary white Whose pain? President Carter on the role of religion in brokering peace

159 161 164 166 169 171 175

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Rushdie knew what he was doing Rushdie, Nietzsche, Freud, and Spinoza Contemporary iconoclasts despised The realist response of John Berger and John Le Carré John Le Carré revisited and book burning Withdraw the book until a calmer time has come The political response and the press Some reactions by foreign states Other religious leaders Is reaching out a wise course to take?

178 180 181 183 184 187 188 190 191 194

7. Modern hostage taking 199 Hostage taking in general 201 Modern hostage taking 204 Why modern hostage taking is so effective 206 Contagious indignation 210 The Kouachi Brothers’ final declaration of loyalty 213 Coda 215 Their force or our weakness? 217 Solutions 220 References 223

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Index 247

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Introduction The world of Islam finds itself in a geo-civil war extended to the West. In this context violence is carried out in the name of God. Western opinion leaders fail to understand what is going on. Paul Cliteur is an exception. In this most valuable book he labels this phenomenon “theoterrorism”. The term not only refers to physical terror equally against non-Muslims and enlightened Muslims, it is also an assault on two of the most valuable accomplishments of Western civilization: secularity/laïcité and freedom of expression. True, terror exists in all religions, but Islamic theoterrorism is directed particularly against secular cultural modernity.

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Cliteur’s book informs us about one of the most lethal weapons of Islamic theoterrorism: the accusation of Islamophobia. In a breathtaking tour that stretches from the Rudi Carrell case to the Rushdie affair, Paul Cliteur illuminates us about the way “modern hostage taking” takes place; it is not restricted to physical capture of a person. In my dialogue with Cliteur on this book I proposed to go further and view the accusation of Islamophobia figuratively as an instrument of hostage taking. Islamist and Muslim leaders coerce Western societies and they have been successful in imposing their will. As a Muslim who admires Western values I myself witness and deplore the Western response to this kind of Islamic theoterrorism: submission and cowardliness. Theoterrorism is far more than the extremism of violence. Prof. Dr. Bassam Tibi Professor Emeritus of International Relations University of Göttingen

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Preface The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were, according to the people who perpetrated these attacks, motivated by their religion or their ideology. The later President Obama (b. 1961), for one, did not believe them. In his speech in Cairo on 4 June 2009, he called those people “violent extremists”.1 Hillary Clinton (b. 1947) repeated that stance in 2014.2 During her time as Secretary of State, Clinton said she had done everything to combat “violent extremism”. This position was in 2014 perhaps more difficult to maintain than in 2009. There were so many self-proclaimed religious groups around claiming to commit their acts in the name of religion. But Clinton remained defiant. The former First Lady also refused calling a spade a spade in one particular case: “Whether you call them ISIS or ISIL, I refuse to call them the Islamic State, because they are neither Islamic [n]or a state”, Clinton said. The tradition that denies that any relationship between religion and violence can exist, is firmly established nowadays. Is it because religious violence occurred so long ago in the Western world? Have we simply forgotten the religious wars of previous times? “Military fervor on behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing in the silent crypts of churches on their tombs”, John William Draper (1811-1882) writes in his History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874).3 Writing on the pernicious influence that religion had exerted on scientific progress, Draper thought this belonged to the past. He would have looked with surprise at some recent book titles: God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics (2011), 4 Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible and the Koran (2003),5 Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (2003),6 Making War in the Name of God (2007),7 and God is 1 www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html 2 https://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/06/politics/hillary-clinton-isis/ 3 Draper, John William, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, D. Appleton and Company, New York 1897 (1874), p. v. 4 Toft, Monica, Philpott, Daniel, Shah, Timothy Samuel, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, W.W. Norton’s Company, New York/London 2011. 5 Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jack, Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible and the Quran, Trinity Press International, Harrisburg 2003. 6 Juergensmeyer, Mark, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, Third Edition, Revised and Updated, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2003. 7 Catherwood, Christopher, Making War in the Name of God, Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Corp., New York 2007.

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Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007).8 That in the twenty-first century the “crusading knights”, or the memory thereof, were a matter of great controversy would have astonished him.9 This book is dedicated to the relationship between one of the core principles of liberal democracy, viz. freedom of speech, and one specific form of terrorist violence, viz. violence exerted by Islamist terrorism. Part of the definition of terrorism (not only Islamist terrorism but terrorism in general) is that it has a goal. In this book, I will focus on the terrorist goal to destroy one of the core principles of liberal democratic societies: the freedom of speech. The politico-religious ideology (I will focus on ideology and not on religion) analyzed in this book is referred to by several different names. Fundamentalism, extremism, radicalism – and these are only a few of the epithets that are used in the scholarly literature and political discourse on the subject. The most popular label is “extremism”. Although this term is current, I am reluctant to use it because it is too vague to be useful (there are many kinds of extremist behavior, after all). I choose “terrorism” instead because the term is used in legislation and scholarly literature. But even “terrorism” has many forms. Here I focus on religious terrorism, or what I call “theoterrorism”. Theoterrorism is the type of terrorism that legitimizes violence by referring to the commands of “God”. The theoterrorist believes and claims that the violence he exerts on the nation-state, its citizens, and its government is done “in the name of God”.10 Arguably, the theoterrorist is wrong in thinking he is a divinely appointed angel of vengeance, but I do not enter a discussion with theoterrorists, religious believers, or anyone else on whether the terrorist is right in his convictions, whether he rightly acts in the name of God. This would require an excursion into the philosophy of religion and theology that is beyond the scope of this book. I do not approach religion from a believer’s perspective, and I will not, accordingly, criticize the religious terrorist for what he thinks about his religion. My approach to religion is mainly that of a social scientist who simply analyzes what other people think. In this case, what the religious terrorist thinks. What I do, is trying to understand how his worldview is constructed. 8 Hitchens, Christopher, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Twelve, New York/ Boston 2007. 9 Bin Laden, Osama, “Declaration of Jihad against Jews and Crusaders”, in: Marvin Perry and Howard Negrin, eds., The Theory and Practice of Islamic Terrorism: An Anthology, Palgrave MacMillan, New York 2008, pp. 41-49. 10 Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God.

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Preface

13

Many people are reluctant to engage in this kind of research. They are concerned with something quite different, for instance protecting religious minorities from discrimination and the “stereotyping of their religion”. Or they have the ambition to explain why the essence or the “true nature” of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam is averse to violence. With all due respect, this type of discourse is mainly moralistic or apologetic and not scholarly, because it starts from certain premises about what reality should look like, not what it’s really like. It affects our critical judgment. A reflection on the nature of theoterrorism is important, although there are many people who feel strongly that “their religion” cannot have anything to do with violence. In the Netherlands, there is the Remonstrant Church. A liberal type of church, it totals about 5,000 members and friends, divided over more than 40 congregations. Remonstrants were the first church in the world to open marriage for same-sex couples in 1986. They also ordain women as ministers. They advertise their church with slogans such as: “My God believes in me”, “My God does not hate homosexuals”. For a proper understanding of this book, it is important to understand that this kind of orientation on God and religion is not the focus of this book. Remonstrants project positive and sympathetic views onto their God, as is their right as believers, but from a scholarly point of view this approach is dangerously misleading. As Terri Murray makes clear in Thinking Straight about Being Gay (2015) this is not the mainstream way of thinking about homosexuality within the Christian tradition.11 What I try to understand is how religion works in this world, not how I wish it would work. I fear that these well-meaning people (Remonstrants), for all their good intentions, are also mistaken from another point of view. The greatest contribution you can make to the peaceful coexistence of people of good will is to make a fair assessment of the role radical religion plays in contemporary terrorism, and not to suppress people who dare to address this issue. This requires an open and honest analysis of the material before us. It is uninhibited scholarly discussion and scientific research that are primary to my project. If you turn fact-based analyses into a taboo, the discussion will go underground (as happens in contemporary societies). Discrimination, the making of scapegoats, the development of Feindbilder – these things proliferate in a society that fails to openly address such issues. It is for this reason that I do not shy away from the use of terms like “religious terrorism”

11 Murray, T.M., Thinking Straight about Being Gay: Why It Matters if We’re Born that Way, AuthorHouse, Bloomington 2015.

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Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

or “theoterrorism”, and I defy those who think these terms cannot be used because they “discriminate” against “theos” (god) or “religion”. The term “theoterrorism” (and not the more general term “religious terrorism”) is used because I focus on the “theistic god”, that is the god of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are “the religions of the Book”, but also the religions of “God” (with a capital “g”).12 Now, let me also try to say something about the second part of the title: Freedom of Speech. I do not proclaim freedom of speech to be “absolute”. Freedom of speech or the freedom of expression is not unlimited, not even in the most tolerant countries.13 But in general, we may say that the right to read, criticize, satirize, ridicule, and mock even the most sacred symbols and icons of faith has become commonplace since the secularization process of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.14 Especially freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists (references to their names will be found profusely in the endnotes to this book), but also liberal religious believers have struggled for that right. After the Second World War, it was enshrined in many nation-states’ constitutions and in treaty law. This right is no longer uncontested.15 There are two tendencies to be discerned in the most recent developments. On the one hand, we see the religious terrorists (“theoterrorists”) trying to intimidate, threaten, and even kill authors, artists, and cartoonists like Salman Rushdie or Kurt Westergaard (or their publishers and translators). On the other hand, we see an embattled and confused political and intellectual elite that is not quite sure how to deal with this new situation. In the late summer of 2012, the world was in turmoil over a new wave of violent protests against a film on the life of Mohammed posted on YouTube by an American citizen of Egyptian descent. The American ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens (1960-2012) was killed allegedly partly in response to this satirical movie. This situation reminded us of the days when the 12 Grayling, A.C., The God Argument: The Case against Religion and for Humanism, Bloomsbury, London 2013, p. 69. 13 Nor is unlimited free speech defended by the most tolerance-loving authors, like: Hume, Mick, Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of being offensive killing Free Speech?, Willam Collins, London 2015 or Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty, 1859, With The Subjection of Women and Chapters on Socialism, Edited by Stefan Collini, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989. 14 See: Renan, Ernest, L’Avenir de la science, Présentation, chronologie, bibliographie par Annie Petit, GF-Flammarion, Paris 1995 (1890), p. 105. 15 See e.g. Hume, Trigger Warning; Valkenberg, Sebastien, Op denkles: hoe wapenen we ons tegen “Iedereen heeft zijn eigen waarheid” en andere modieuze denkbeelden, Ambo/Anthos, Amsterdam 2015; Boudry, Maarten, Illusies voor gevorderden: of waarom waarheid altijd beter is, Polis, Antwerpen 2015.

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Preface

15

British government struggled with a fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie, issued by the Islamist cleric Ayatollah Khomeini, and of the days when the Danish government had to deal with violent protests over twelve cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in 2005. Finally, in 2012, the US government was confronted with delicate policy questions on how to deal with fanatics inspired by a totally different worldview than that expressed in the American constitution. After the British, French, Danish, and Dutch authorities, the US authorities now faced the same perplexing quandaries regarding the defense of civil liberties. What to do? Should we try to appease the aggressors by invoking “respect” and “dialogue” towards each other’s convictions? But what if the other party demands no less than the reintroduction of blasphemy laws and the silencing of all criticism of religion? And this not only in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia but also in democracies like the Netherlands, the United States, France, and Great Britain. Are these negotiable options? Can we make accommodations by relinquishing our most sacred principles? Or would this send the wrong message to the theoterrorists, who will then only up the ante and demand not only a ban on cartoons, works of art, plays, and novels but also censoring historical treatises? And how to deal with Western citizens, intellectuals, artists, and newspaper editors who simply do not want to comply with the new rules of selfcensorship? What if a Koran-burning pastor invokes the First Amendment? If a novelist does not want to accommodate the demands of the pious radicals? If a publishing house is reluctant to give in to threats and continues to publish a controversial book? If the editors of Charlie Hebdo continue to publish cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed, even though on 7 January 2015 so many of their colleagues were brutally murdered?16 What if newspapers do not exercise self-censorship and publish cartoons the way they have always done? These important policy questions have loomed over us at least since the Rushdie Affair (1989) and the Cartoon Affair (2005), but now they have become more manifest; have become universal, so to speak. And they have reached the United States in the “Terry Jones Affair” (the above-mentioned Koran-burning pastor) and the “Nakoula Affair” (the Innocence of Muslims film fragment), and France in the assault on the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo.17 16 See on this: Val, Philippe, Malaise dans l’inculture, Bernard Grasset, Paris, 2015; Fourest, Caroline, Éloge du blasphème, Bernard Grasset, Paris 2015; Bougrab, Jeanette, Maudites, Albin Michel, Paris 2015. 17 Attali, Jacques et al., Nous sommes Charlie: 60 Écrivains unis pour la liberté d’expression, Les Livre de Poche, Paris 2015.

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Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

Since the riots in the Middle East and the killing of the American ambassador in Benghazi (Libya) in September 2012, reportedly caused, as said, by the publication of the trailer of the satirical f ilm Innocence of Muslims, sparking what I have called “the Nakoula Affair”, the situation has changed. Now the United States has its own “cartoon crisis” (or rather “movie crisis” or “YouTube crisis”, or whatever you want to call it). Former Egyptian President Morsi (b. 1951) of the Muslim Brotherhood strongly condemned the “provocations” in the film and urged President Obama to “put an end to such behavior”.18 But is what an Islamist means by “putting an end to such behavior” not basically the abolition of the First Amendment? And can an American President do that? Western governments do their utmost to interpret these demands in terms of “respect” and “tolerance”. Public intellectuals say, “the world doesn’t love the First Amendment”, implying that we had better stop believing in the universality of human rights. 19 “Americans need to learn that the rest of the world – and not just Muslims – see no sense in the First Amendment”, they say. 20 But why stop at the First Amendment? Is it not clear that fundamentalists also advocate punishing homosexuals? And adulterous wives? And why, following the logic implicit in those words, not simply “accept” that the Taliban wants to stone a 14-year-old girl because she advocates the right to education for females living in Pakistan or Afghanistan?21 Western political leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tried to assure violent crowds demonstrating in front of American embassies that the films posted on the internet do not reflect their country’s official view of the prophet, as Dutch prime minister Jan-Peter Balkenende (b. 1956) and former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (b. 1953) did before them. The makers of offensive cartoons, mocking movies, provocative novels, and incendiary works of art, they say, represent a highly personal view, not that of the state. This is also how Western politicians justify themselves to foreign heads of state who openly assert that if the West does not control its population (in suppressing their citizens’ use of freedom of speech for criticism of religioncriticism of religion) they 18 Lekic, Slobodan, “Egypt Protests: Mohamed Morsi Says Embassies Will Be Protected”, in: Huffpost World, 13 September 2012. 19 Posner, Eric, “The World Doesn’t Love the First Amendment”, in: Slate, 25 September 2012. 20 Ibid. 21 Yousuf, Hani, and Dumalao, Janelle, “Taliban vows to kill Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani peace activist, if she survives attack”, in: Huff Post Religion, 13 October 2012.

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Preface

17

do not control their population either (in plotting or even committing physical assaults). But does the West’s defense do the trick? In Afghanistan, the Taliban claimed that the movie satirizing the prophet was made with the permission of the US government. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denies this, but according to the radicals, she evades the issue. By using the word “permission” they mean that the First Amendment of the American constitution prohibits the government from interfering with free expression.22 Does that not, they ask, make the American government – at least partly – responsible for the atrocious attacks on their holy icons? Why don’t the US and other Western countries that condone the vilification of religious symbols change their constitutions? Why not bring their legislation in accordance with sharia law?23 Apparently, they are unwilling, are they not? If the Western countries persist in their assault on Islamic sacred symbols, Muslims are not only mandated but religiously and morally obligated to take revenge in the name of Allah, so the theoterrorists contend. This book tries to address this issue openly, as should have been done much earlier perhaps. “Military fervor on behalf of faith” has not disappeared, as Draper thought at the end of the nineteenth century. It is back on the agenda. And the experience of the past two decades has taught us that liberal democracies cannot come to a resolution of this matter by ignoring the issue or giving evasive answers. The question of how to deal with this problem, the most pervasive of our time, remains on the agenda. On 7 January 2015, during a meeting of the editors of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, two theoterrorists intruded into the building and killed those who were present: Charb, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous, Honoré, Esla Cayat, Mustapha Qurrad, Bernard Maris, Michel Renaud, Frédéric Bousseau, Franck Brinsolaro, and Ahmed Merabet.24 The assault on Charlie Hebdo was the most recent manifestation of a process that is analyzed in this book. This ignited a worldwide discussion on the meaning and significance of free speech, and in particular whether this principle is adequately protected in European nation-states. 22 Basu, Moni & Watkins, Tom, “Staff and crew of film that ridiculed Muslims say they were ‘grossly misled’”, in: CNN 13 September 2012: “In Afghanistan, the Taliban charged that the movie was made with the permission of the US government. The First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with free expression”. 23 See on this: Zee, Machteld, Choosing Sharia: Multiculturalism, Islamic fundamentalism & British Sharia Councils, Eleven, The Hague 2015; Manea, Elham, Women and Shari’a Law: the Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK, I.B. Tauris, London and New York 2016. 24 Attali, Jacques et al., Nous sommes Charlie, p. 9.

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On 11 January four million protesters raised their voices against the atrocities which had befallen Paris. Forty-three heads of state were present (which is, as Bernard-Henri Lévy astutely remarked, one-fourth of the UN) during the demonstration.25 This book claims that the assault on free speech by religious fanatics can best be interpreted as a terrorist attack. That is, as a conscious plan to intimidate writers or artists. Prima facie this statement should not be experienced in any way as special, let alone controversial. Westergaard was attacked in his home on 1 January 2010 and the perpetrator was convicted for terrorism on 3 February 2011. He had attempted not only to kill the writer but also to destroy freedom of speech as an important principle of democracy. This being the case, there is remarkably little scholarly attention for theoterrorism in relation to free speech in journals dedicated to terrorism. Most experts on terrorism are focused on the traditional grand-scale attacks of the 9/11 type. It is my hope that this book will initiate some change in this respect too.

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*** Every book is based on other books. In my case, I am much indebted to Roger Scruton’s The West and the Rest (2002),26 Bassam Tibi’s Islamism and Islam (2012), Meghnad Desai’s Rethinking Islamism (2007),27 and A.C. Grayling’s Liberty in the Age of Terror (2008).28 The most decisive influence on the thesis developed here, curiously enough, were two films directed by Shekhar Kapur: Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). It was through these two films that I learned that our time resembles sixteenth-century England when Queen Elizabeth I tried to uphold national sovereignty in a time when terrorist threats were prevalent. In the Elizabethan era the “terrorists” were the Spanish who, while threatening to invade England, already had a fifth column inside the country in the form of priests and Catholic clergy in general. 25 Lévy, Bernard-Henri, “Ce qui restera du janvier”, in: Jacques Attali et al., Nous sommes Charlie, pp. 91-96. 26 Scruton, Roger, The West and the Rest: Globalization and the terrorist Threat, Continuum, London / New York 2002. 27 Desai, Meghnad, Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror, L.B. Taurus, London/ New York 2007. 28 Grayling, A.C., Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Values, Bloomsbury, London, Berlin, New York 2009.

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19

Preface

Some of the material published in this book has been published before in anthologies, scholarly magazines, and contributions to newspapers and international conferences.29 ***

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The book has seven chapters. The first two chapters explore the so-called Rudi Carrell Affair. This affair is largely unknown outside of Germany and the Netherlands, but one of my claims in this book is that it foreshadows the Rushdie Affair of two years later. Chapter 3 gives an analytical treatment of the type of theoterrorism that manifests itself in the intimidation of writers, cartoonists, and others that incur the wrath of Islamists, to wit “theoterrorism”. Chapter 4 deals with the Danish Cartoon Affair and chapters 5 and 6 with the Rushdie Affair, particularly with the reactions to Rushdie’s predicament from important intellectuals and philosophers. Two are singled out, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor and the British philosopher Michael Dummett. The book concludes with an assessment of the situation we are in now. I call this “modern hostage taking”. Theoterrorists have managed to create a situation in which people like Rushdie or the Danish cartoonist Kurt 29 Parts of Chapter 1 and 2, on the Rudi Carrell Affair, have been published in: “The Rudi Carrell Affair and its significance for the tension between theoterrorism and religious satire”, in: Ancilla Iuris, 2013: 13, pp. 15-42. The material on the Netherlands (Chapter 3) was f irst published in: “Constitutional Principles as State Territory”, in: Iain T. Benson & Barry Bussey, eds., Religion, Liberty and the Jurisdictional Limits of the Law, LexisNexis, Toronto 2017, pp. 65-89. My criticism of Taylor and Dummett is worked out in: “Taylor and Dummett on the Rushdie Affair”, in: Journal of Religion and Society, Volume 18 (2016), pp. 1-25. Parts of Chapters 5 and 6 were published as: “Rushdie’s Critics”, in: Paul Cliteur & Tom Herrenberg, eds., The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law, Leiden University Press, Leiden 2016, pp. 137-157 and in: “Is Humanism Too Optimistic? An Analysis of Religion as Religion”, in: Andrew Copson & A.C. Grayling, eds., The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism, Wiley Blackwell, Chichester 2015, pp. 374-403. The ideas on “theoterrorism” and its biblical sources were first launched in: “A Secular Critique of Religious Ethics and Politics”, in: Phil Zuckerman & John Shook, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Secularism, Oxford Handbooks, Oxford/New York 2016, pp. 389-400, and in: Cliteur, Paul, “Biblical Stories and Religion as the Root Cause of Terrorism”, in: Mahmoud Masaeli & Rico Sneller, eds., The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge 2017, pp. 1-27, and also in: “The Challenge of Theoterrorism”, in: New English Review, May 2013, pp. 1-3. Chapter 7, on Modern hostage taking, was published in: “Modern hostage-taking: a serious problem for religious liberty today”, in: Angus Menuge, ed., Religious Liberty and the Law, Routledge, London and New York 2017, pp. 175-190.

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Westergaard are more or less kept “hostage” in their own countries. They live with severe limitations of their freedom of movement, even to such a degree that is it not exaggerated to qualify this as “modern hostage taking”. I will conclude with some recommendations to end this situation. Let me end this introduction by expressing my gratitude towards those who have played an important role in this project. I owe a great deal to the anonymous reviewers working for the journals mentioned, to my students, but also to my friends and colleagues who were prepared to read some parts of this manuscript. But the most I owe to the woman who has been a source of inspiration throughout my life and who is an important constitutional scholar in her own right.

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Paul Cliteur Leiden, September 2018

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The Rudi Carrell Affair in Germany People tend to believe that which makes them feel virtuous, not that which makes them feel bad. Anthony Browne1 Fear of the social stigma has put a premium on hypocrisy and has discouraged the open and fearless avowal of unpopular opinion. Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner2

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Contrary to what most people think, the tension between theoterrorism and free speech did not start with the Rushdie Affair, but two years earlier, in the Netherlands and in Germany.3 On New Year’s Eve (Sylvester in German), 1987, the German television broadcast some highlights from Rudi Carrell’s (1934-2006) “comedy show”4 . Carrell was a Dutch-born entertainer who became one of the most beloved show masters on German television. Successes in his home country led him to seek new challenges, and in 1965 he moved to Germany. There he mastered the German language, although he spoke it with a heavy Dutch accent for the rest of his life. The Rudi Carrell Show (1965-1972) and Rudi’s Tagesshow (1981-1987) were both huge successes. On at least one occasion, in 1987, he drew a viewership of twenty million people.5 1 Browne, Anthony, The Retreat of Reason: Political Correctness and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain, Second Edition, Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, 2006, p. 14. 2 Bradlaugh Bonner, Hypatia, Penalties Upon Opinion: Some Records of the Laws of Heresy and Blasphemy, Third Edition, revised and enlarged by F.W. Read, Watts & Co., London 1934, p. 138. 3 There is an extensive literature on the Rushdie Affair, but none of the books I have consulted has any reference to the Rudi Carrell Affair. See: Ruthven, Malise, A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the Rage of Islam, Chatto & Windus, London 1990; Pipes, Daniel, The Rushdie Affair: The Novel, the Ayatollah, and the West, Second Edition with a postscript by Koenraad Elst, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) and London (UK) 2003; Weller, Paul, A Mirror for our Times: “The Rushdie Affair” and the Future of Multiculturalism, Continuum, London, New York 2009; Malik, Kenan, From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy, Atlantic Books, London 2009; Winston, Brian, The Rushdie Fatwa and After, Palgrave, Macmillan 2014. 4 “Risque spoof on Khomeini sparks Iranian uproar”, in: Associated Press, 17 February 1987. 5 “Rudi Carrell”, in: Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

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By 1987 Carrell, born in the Dutch town of Alkmaar (famous for its cheese market),6 had been working in West Germany for twenty-three years and acquired a reputation as one of the most popular TV personalities. He was especially notorious for poking fun at German politicians using photomontage tricks,7 or, as the Germans say, “Bildwitze” (jokes with pictures): a combination of pictures, texts, and spoken commentary.8 The 1987 highlights from Rudi’s Tagesshow contained footage of Willy Brandt walking on his bare feet, Nancy Reagan falling off a podium, Pope John Paul II, Helmut Kohl, Margaret Thatcher, and other world leaders in more or less compromising situations. The Tagesshow was Carrell’s most famous program, a parody on ARD’s main evening news, the German “Tagesschau”.9 One clip was noticeably lacking from the 1987 Tagesshow highlights: a spoof broadcast earlier that year, on Sunday 15 February 1987, and watched by 20.5 million viewers.10 Here Carrell used cinematic tricks to make it appear as if women are throwing their underwear at the feet of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.11 It is my claim that with this specific television fragment the strained relationship between contemporary theoterrorism and free speech becomes prominent.12 With that silly little fragment (only fourteen seconds long) 6 He was generally considered to be a “Dutch comedian” in Germany, and perhaps he purposefully cultivated his heavy Dutch accent. See: “Tehran expels two W. Germans”, in: The Washington Post, 18 February 1987. 7 “Risque spoof on Khomeini sparks Iranian uproar”. 8 Lixfeld, Hannjost, “Witz und soziale Wirklichkeit: Bemerkungen zur interdisziplinären Witzforschung”, in: Fabula, Vol. 25, No. 3-4, September 2009, pp. 183-213, p. 185. 9 Starcevic, Nesha, “Spoof of Khomeini Causes Diplomatic Flap”, in: Associated Press, 16 February 1987. Also called a “mock news program”, see: Markham, James M., “Iran Chokes on German Joke: Lingerie heaped on Khomeini”, in: The New York Times, 19 February 1987. 10 “Tehran expels two W. Germans”. 11 See for an analysis of Carrell’s humor: Lixfeld, “Witz und soziale Wirklichkeit”, pp. 183-213. The fragment is to be found here: www.beeldengeluid.nl/en/media/7339/ diplomatieke-rel-rond-rudi-carrell-1987. 12 There were other incidents between countries in the Middle-East and the Western world in which freedom of expression was concerned. This was the case with the British/Dutch docudrama Death of a Princess (1980), broadcast in many Western countries. This was about a Saudi princess, executed together with her lover for alleged adultery. The film caused a diplomatic breach in relations between Saudi Arabia and Western countries. But there were no threats involved and, accordingly, no terrorism. See on this: Goodman, Jonathan, “The Death of a Princess Cases: Television Programming by State-Owned Public Broadcasters and Viewers’ First Amendment Rights”, in: University of Miami Law Review, Vol. 36, 1982, pp. 779-805; Paget, Derk, “Death of a Princess”, in: Aitken, Ian, ed., The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, Routledge, New York 2013 (2006), pp. 198-200.

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starts a whole new era in international politics. The “Rudi Carrell Affair” is at the root of much better-known controversies, most notably the Rushdie Affair, and from that moment onwards incidents will start to make a pattern. World leaders (Obama, Rasmussen, Blair, among many others) have struggled with the matter but none of them has brought it to a final solution. And perhaps there is no solution. But if that is the case, we might as well state openly that there is no solution and face the dilemma. That is what I hope to do in this book.

Carrell v. Khomeini

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Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) was a Shiite cleric and the supreme leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989. After a religious education he became one of the most important critics of the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944), who ruled Iran from 1929 to 1941, and of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980), who reigned over Iran from 1941-1979.13 Khomeini was first imprisoned and later exiled for his criticism of the government. While in exile, he developed his own theory of government, known as the “government of the jurist” or “mandate of the jurist” (velayat-e faqih),14 which held that the Shiite clergy should rule Iran. The central idea was that in the absence of the twelfth Imam, his authority devolved to the clergy.15 For that reason all secular government was illegitimate16 or should at least be supervised by the clergy. Under an Islamic government, there would be no need for a parliament in the Western sense of the word. Rather, some sort of assembly could “assist” the government. There is no need for a parliament because laws are 13 More secular than Khomeini’s regime, of course, but not as secular as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s modern Turkey. The Phalavis wanted to link their family to Persia’s pre-Islamic imperial legacy. See: Chesler, Phyllis, “Ban the Burqa? The Argument in Favor”, in: The Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2010, pp. 33-45, p. 35. 14 Khomeini, “Islamic Government”, in: Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Translated and annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Contemporary Islamic Thought, Persian Series 1981, pp. 27-150. 15 Kamrane, Ramine, La Fatwa contre Rushdie: une interprétation stratégique, Éditions Kimé, Paris 1997, p. 22 ff.; Yapp, Malcolm, “The hubris of the hidden imam”, in: The Independent, 22 February 1989; Amanat, Abbas, Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shi’ism, I.B. Tauris, London and New York 2009, pp. 199-221; Buchta, Wilfried, Schiiten, Heinrich Hugendubl Verlag, Kreuzlingen/ München 2004, pp. 77-81. 16 Chehabi, H.E., “Religion and Politics in Iran: How Theocratic is the Islamic Republic?”, in: Daedalus, Vol. 120, No. 3, Summer, 1991, pp. 69-91, p. 73.

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unnecessary: Islam provides all the relevant answers regarding the content of law. “If laws are needed, Islam has established them all”, Khomeini said.17 And furthermore, after establishing a government, there is no need “to sit down and draw up laws”.18 Shortly before the Shah’s flight in 1979, after his regime had collapsed, Khomeini reentered Iran and was welcomed as the new political and religious leader. His convictions can perhaps best be described as “theocratic”, in the sense that he advocated a clergy-dominated government. Although the clergy is very powerful in Iran, it does not, strictly speaking, constitute a church in the sociological sense.19 For instance, there is no strict hierarchy with centrally ordained promotion procedures. Still, the clergy is not an institution one should poke fun at. Making jokes about people with divine authority is considered to be a serious crime, comparable to making jokes about God himself. Khomeini had been politically active since the 1940s, attempting to undermine the secularist regime of the Shah and others. In 1963 he was arrested, which led to riots all around the country. In his foreign policy Khomeini was both anti-Western and anti-communist.20 In 1964 he opposed granting diplomatic immunity to American military experts in Iran. This greatly enhanced his stature as an opponent of the Shah. People admired him because he dared to speak when everybody else was cowed into silence.21 As H.E. Chehabi writes: “Khomeini’s popularity grew as the Shah’s legitimacy declined”.22 After the start of the revolution in late 1978, Khomeini began to eclipse not only secular political leaders but also his fellow clerics.

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Khomeini’s letter to Gorbachev Although Khomeini’s attitude toward the Americans was decidedly hostile, he did not seek an alliance with America’s classic foe: the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was, of course, atheistic, and atheism, like all Western ideas, was anathema to Khomeini and his acolytes.23 In denouncing communism, 17 Khomeini cited in: Chehabi, Ibid., p. 75. 18 Khomeini cited in: Chehabi, Ibid., p. 75. 19 Ibid., p. 69. 20 See on Khomeini’s Iran: Taheri, Amir, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution, Encounter Books, New York and London 2009. 21 Chehabi, Ibid., p. 72. 22 Ibid., p. 74. 23 See on the Soviet model with regard to religion: Luehrmann, Sonja, Secularism Soviet Style: Teaching Atheism and Religion in a Volga Republic, Indiana University Press, Bloomington

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and communist atheism in particular, Khomeini spoke and acted with a self-assurance that is almost unequaled in world history. I say “almost”, because the following historical example may be illuminating. This is about the Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia (1240-c. 1291). In 1280, Abulafia, prompted by a “voice”, went to Rome in order to convert Pope Nicholas III (c. 1225-1280), who was, in Joseph McCabe’s (1867-1955) estimate, “a vigorous, handsome, and very wealthy man of noble birth who loved comfort, and was the most scandalous nepotist that Rome had yet known”.24 Dante (1265-1321), born one generation later, put him in hell (Canto XIX).25 As Norman Solomon (b. 1933) relates, the pope was not amused by Abulafia’s audacity and gave orders to burn him at the stake. Fortunately, this did not occur because the pope was struck by an apoplectic fit.26 The story is interesting in this context because it raises the question: who is self-assured enough to think he can convert the pope to another creed? Apparently, there are some people who believe so strongly that they think they can. Khomeini is of the same sort. In 1989, as Daniel Pipes (b. 1949) writes in his The Rushdie Affair (2003),27 Khomeini directed a personal letter to Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931). Gorbachev is not the pope, but he is certainly a representative of a worldview that is very unlikely to have a positive attitude towards Khomeini’s religious conviction. Khomeini was undeterred. In his letter he pontificated on the failure of communism. No doubt this atheist creed would soon belong to the “museums of world political history”, and Indianapolis 2011; Froese, Paul, “Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed”, in: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 43:1 (2004), pp. 35-40; Froese, Paul, The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment on Secularization, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2008. On atheism in general: Blackford, Russell, and Schüklenk, Udo, 50 Great Myths about Atheism, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2013. 24 McCabe, Joseph, A History of the Popes, Watts & Co., London 1939, p. 367; Rosa, Peter de, Vicars of Christ, Corgi Books, London 1988, p. 230: “Some popes, like Nicholas III (1277-80), amassed a fortune”. 25 McCabe, Ibid., p. 367. The British Indian-born writer and journalist Mihir Bose writes: “In the hellish circles of Dante’s Inferno, ‘Maometto’ is placed only just above Judas and Satan himself. Dante’s vivid description of Mohammed’s punishments turns the strongest of stomachs even today, and perhaps provides a cautionary reminder of times when cruelty formed a part of Christian culture too”. See: The Daily Telegraph, 16 February 1989. This did not go unnoticed. A terrorist group, calling themselves “Guardians of the Revolution”, threatened to blow up the monument to Dante in Padua, where he died in 1321. See: Appignanesi, Lisa & Maitland, Sara, eds., The Rushdie File, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York 1990, p. 138. 26 Solomon, Norman, Judaism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000 (1996), p. 44. 27 Pipes, Daniel, The Rushdie Affair, p. 191.

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Khomeini said. Communism was destined to fail. So where should Gorbachev look for an alternative creed? Not in the West, Khomeini argued. The West was empty. Gorbachev should look to the South, to Iran and to Islam.

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I strongly urge that in breaking down the walls of Marxist fantasies you do not fall into the prison of the West and the Great Satan (…). I call upon you seriously to study and conduct research into Islam (…). I openly announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the greatest and most powerful base of the Islamic world, can easily help fill up the ideological vacuum of your system.28

Norman Solomon wrote about Abulafia: “What sort of Jew, in the thirteenth century, would consider the pope fair game for conversion? Perhaps only one who thought of himself as a prophet”.29 One may ask a similar question about Khomeini. What sort of Muslim would consider the president of an atheist empire fair game for conversion to Islam? Only one who thinks of himself as a prophet. And although the epithet “prophet” was, understandably, not likely to be used by Khomeini himself or by any other believing Muslim,30 he certainly did not lack the confidence to say that he would be the faqih who could supervise all the actions of government. Yet he was also shrewd enough to show a liberal face to the West, if necessary.31 In the West, he sometimes seemed to endorse liberal democracy, as was the case in Paris, when he tried to gain international sympathy for his anti-Shah movement. In the autumn of 1978, he told a French newspaper interviewer: “We are for a regime of total liberty. The future regime of Iran has to be one of liberty. Its only limits will be, as in any other state, the general interest of society, but also considerations of dignity”.32 Gullible Western intellectuals like Michel Foucault (1926-1984) believed him,33 just as 28 Khomeini as quoted in: Ibid., p. 192. 29 Solomon, Ibid., p. 44. 30 A revealing portrait of Khomeini’s “court” in Qom is painted by Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006) in her famous interview with the supreme commander in: Fallaci, Oriana, “Ayatollah Khomeini”, September 1979, in: Oriana Fallaci, Interviews with History and Conversations with Power, Rizzoli, New York 2011, pp. 172-262. 31 In this respect he did not differ very much from his notorious adversary Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, as appears from Fallaci’s interview with the Shah in: Fallaci, Oriana, “Mohammed Reza Pahlavi”, October 1973, in: Fallaci, Interviews with History, pp. 151-172. 32 Khomeini in Le Figaro, 15 October 1978, also in: Chehabi, Ibid., p. 76. 33 On Foucault, see: Afary, Janet & Anderson, Kevin B., Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London

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Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) had believed the Soviets a generation earlier.34 Khomeini’s announcement that he expected to create a “100 percent Islamic constitution” did not raise eyebrows; nor did his criticism of “secularism” as a Western imperialist plot to weaken Muslim societies35, or the idea that under the new constitution the judiciary was to function under the exclusive control of clerics chosen by the religious leader.36 The Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006), in her famous (and notorious) interview with Khomeini, quotes some of his other convictions: “A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep. He would commit sin. The same applies if the sheep has drunk sow’s milk; in that case, the man may not have sexual relations with a sow, either”.37 Another of Khomeini’s remarks concerns the age of marriage for girls: “If a man marries a girl who has not yet reached nine years of age and has relations with her, he must not break her hymen, or he could not continue relations with her”.38 In the West, these kinds of statements gave Khomeini the reputation of a theocratic eccentric, but in his own country, he remained highly esteemed.

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The Iran-Iraq War From 1980 to 1988 there was a devastating war between Iran and Iraq. Initially, Iraq had the upper hand (1980-1982), but when it began to lose ground it sought to negotiate peace. Iran refused, and the battle developed into a bloody stalemate. In 1988, after a number of successful Iraqi offensives, Iran agreed to a cease-fire. In 1990 a formal peace agreement was signed.39 There is one anecdote about the Iran-Iraq War that, more than any other, shaped the negative image of the totalitarian Islamist theocracy of Iran in the eyes of the West. During the war, Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The reason was that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professionally trained army. Iran had 2005; West, Patrick, “The philosopher as dangerous liar”, in: The New Statesman, 28 June 2004, pp. 24-25. 34 Burnier, Michel-Antoine, Le Testament de Sartre, Olivier Orban, Paris 1982; Lévy, BernardHenri, Le siècle de Sartre: Enquête philosophique, Grasset, Paris 2000; Sévilla, Jean, Le terrorisme intellectuel de 1945 à nos jous, Perrin, Paris 2004 (2000). 35 Chehabi, Ibid., p. 76. 36 Ibid., p. 77. 37 Fallaci, “Ayatollah Khomeini”, p. 172. See also: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/07/archives/ an-interview-with-khomeini.html 38 Ibid., p. 172. 39 “Iran-Iraq War”, in: Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.

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to rethink its strategy. What they did was recruit Iranian children, some of them no older than twelve. The children had the Taiwanese keys hung around their necks before marching in formation across enemy minefields, clearing a path with their bodies. 40 Those keys were supposed to open the gates of paradise for them. Because the mines completely obliterated the children’s bodies, proper burials were impossible. Another device was developed. The children wrapped themselves in blankets and rolled across the field. This meant that their body parts stayed together after the mine’s explosion, so the parts could be buried together. These children were called Basiji; a movement created by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, for which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (b. 1956) reportedly served as an instructor. 41 To many people in the West, these examples illustrated the lengths to which religious extremism would go in achieving its goals. Can you win a conflict with people who have so little respect for life? Is Khomeini’s child army not a fearful premonition of Osama Bin Laden’s (1957-2011) notorious expression “We love death as you love life”?42 Since the advent of religious terrorism in the West, this has become a pertinent question. 43 So it would be an understatement to say that when Carrell’s show was aired in 1987, it was a hectic time in Iran – as it was in Europe. The omission of Carrell’s spoof from the 1987 highlights was remarkable because precisely this clip was the cause of a diplomatic row between Germany and Iran, the consequences of which reverberate to the present day. The fourteen seconds of film were broadcast on the national network ARD on 15 February 1987 and, as indicated previously, on one of West Germany’s most popular programs. Original footage of Tehran celebrations marking the eighth anniversary of Khomeini’s Republic were used in combination with slapstick close-ups of women taking off their underwear and tossing it. This created the illusion that the women were in front of Khomeini, throwing their underwear at his feet. This was a severe criticism of the Iranian government, which, in 1983, 40 Küntzel, Matthias, “Ahmadinejad’s Demons”, in: The New Republic, 23 April 2006, pp. 15-23, p. 15. 41 Küntzel, Ibid., p. 15. See on his theological convictions: Shortt, Rupert, Christianophobia: A Faith under Attack, Rider, London 2012, p. 47. 42 See: Pantucci, Raffaello, “We Love Death as You Love Life”: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists, Hurst & Company, London 2015. 43 On this: Pipes, Daniel, Militant Islam Reaches America, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London 2002; Hoffman, Bruce, Inside Terrorism, Revised and Expanded Version, Columbia University Press, New York Chichester, West Sussex 2006; Guiora, Amos N., Fundamentals of Counterterrorism, Wolters Kluwer, Austin/Boston/Chicago/New York/The Netherlands 2008.

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four years after the revolution, and on Khomeini’s orders, had instituted a ban on women showing their hair and the shape of their bodies.44 To this day, the Iranian regime beats, arrests, and jails women if they are improperly garbed. They are not supposed to move around like “walking mannequins” or to be sun-tanned. 45 Carrell was not the first to lampoon Khomeini. In November 1986 Iran expelled three Italian diplomats in protest against a spoof of Khomeini on Italian state television. 46 But Carrell’s spoof made a deeper impression.

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Carrell’s earlier spoofs Carrell had made previous jokes about Khomeini. On 24 November 1979, shortly after the Iranian revolution broke out, on his program Auf laufenden Band, Carrell showed German Muslims kneeling in prayer. Carrell commented: “They are looking for Khomeini’s contact lenses”. 47 These elicited protests from the Evangelical Church in Bremen and the Islamic Ahmadiyya community in Frankfurt am Main. Carrell’s comments were denounced as “cheap jokes about Muslim believers” (“billige Witzemacherei auf Kosten der Gläubigen des Islam”). 48 This identification of criticism of a dictator with criticism of the believers in Islam in Western media is important. Somehow, the totalitarian or at least dictatorial regime of Khomeini managed to let Western media believe that criticism of Khomeini’s behavior was also criticism of Islam or Muslim believers. Carrell’s spoof of Khomeini in 1979 remained an exclusively German affair. But in February 1987 the situation was quite different. This became an international affair, in the sense that not only the whole Federal Republic of Germany was involved, but the matter would have international reverberations as well. Just seconds after Carrell’s show aired, Reinhard Schlagintweit (b. 1928), the civil servant responsible for contact with the Middle East, received a call. 49 On the phone was Mohammad Djavad Salari (b. 1951), 44 Chesler, “Ban the Burqa? The Argument in Favor”, pp. 33-45, p. 39. 45 Ibid., p. 39. See also the hilarious adventures of Oriana Fallaci, who tries to find a place to dress up in a burqa before appearing to Ayatollah Khomeini in: Fallaci, “Ayatollah Khomeini”. 46 “Iran expels two German diplomats in retaliation for TV spoof”, in: Associated Press, 17 February 1987. In 1980 Iran also managed to prevent Death of a Princess, a TV documentary hostile to the Saudis, from being shown on British TV. See: Malik, From Fatwa to Jihad, p. 3. 47 Lixfeld, “Witz und soziale Wirklichkeit”, p. 183. 48 Ibid., p. 183. 49 “Carrell-Affäre: nicht klug”, in: Der Spiegel, No. 9, 23 February 1987, pp. 25-27, p. 25.

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Iranian ambassador in Bonn since 1984. He was very angry. Was Schlagintweit aware that the “highest supervisor of all Muslims” (“das geistliche Oberhaupt aller Muslime”) had just been insulted? Not only the Iranian people’s religious feelings had been hurt, but those of Muslims “all over the world”.50 Again, this is an important shift of emphasis. Criticism of Khomeini was not only criticism of one specific dictator but an offense of a whole country. And not only an offense of a whole country, but also of its citizens. And not only of its citizens but also of the religion those citizens were supposed to share: Islam. And not only the specific fundamentalist interpretation of Islam of the Iranian theocracy but of Islam tout court. So, by a simple sleight of hand criticism of one specific dictator is criticism of one-fifth of the world population. In the Iranian culture it was “unthinkable” to mock Ayatollah Khomeini, Salari indicated.51 And, most importantly, he promised that there would be consequences, though he did not specify them. One of those consequences proved to be the closure of the Iranian consulates in West Berlin and Hamburg. Another consequence was that an Iran Air flight from Frankfurt to Tehran was delayed for six and a half hours due to an Iran Air personnel strike in protest against the show.52 Tehran had ordered the strike, as Saeed Kamyak, the airline’s operations director for West Germany, indicated. Yet another consequence of Carrell’s perceived insult was that on 18 February, Iran ordered two West German diplomats to leave the country in retaliation against Carrell’s spoof.53 Furthermore, German ambassador Armin Freitag was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and handed a “strongly worded protest note on the insulting program”.54 Also on 18 February, Iranian students staged a protest at the West German Embassy, chanting anti-US and anti-West German slogans. The students demanded an official apology from Bonn over Carrell’s spoof.55 In addition, the Goethe Cultural Institute in Tehran was closed in retaliation for the Tagesshow broadcast.56 And, last but not least, Carrell himself was threatened57 and received police protection from the German government. 50 Ibid., p. 25. 51 Ibid., p. 26. 52 “West German spoof of Khomeini sparks Iranian protests”, in: Associated Press, 17 February 1987. 53 “Tehran expels two W. Germans”; “Iran expels two German diplomats in retaliation for TV spoof”, in: Associated Press, 17 February 1987. 54 Associated Press, 17 February 1987. 55 “Iran miffed over Khomeini spoof on German TV”, in: Tampa Bay Times, 19 February 1987. 56 “Iran angered by ayatollah under undies”, in: The Globe and Mail, 21 February 1987. 57 Religious fanatics threatened with attacks (“Religiöse Fanatiker drohten mit anschlägen”). See: “Grösstes Witz-Archiv Deutschlands – Aufgewärmte Slips”, in: Der Spiegel, 27 October 1997.

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Apologies to Iran The German Foreign Ministry reacted to the whole affair in a manner that we will come across regularly in this book. It (1) expressed regret that Carrell’s show had made fun of Khomeini, and (2) stressed that the government guarantees freedom of the press and artistic expression.58 Friedrich Wilhelm Ost, the government spokesman, said on 19 February that Bonn regretted the incident. At a news conference, Mr. Ost declared: We hope that we can smooth matters out somewhat by explaining that West Germany has free television, press, and radio over which the state has no control.59

On 19 February Carrell personally called Iran’s Ambassador, Mohammed Djavad Salari, to apologize. Carrell later said:

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If my gag about Ayatollah Khomeini has created anger in Iran, I regret it very much and wish to be pardoned by the Iranian people.60

He also made a public apology on his program Tagesshow.61 So Carrell made some efforts to appease the Iranian government. Now, the question is: was this a sensible thing to do? Under the circumstances, there was, perhaps, little choice. Especially for Carrell himself, the situation was precarious, scary even. But an important question is: what were the long-term effects of this apology? And for what exactly did he have to apologize? These questions may seem trivial. Why make a big deal about an “apology”? Apologies, saying “sorry”, it seems such an innocuous thing to do. It can’t make things worse, can it? It clears the air a little and makes it possible for both parties to engage in contact with each other. On the other hand, this may be too optimistic and also misleading. Can an apology not make things worse? If that’s the case then we have to think twice before making apologies. Does it raise expectations, for instance, that the apologizing party can never meet? And if you apologize, to whom should you address yourself? 58 Associated Press, 17 February 1987; “West German spoof of Khomeini sparks Iranian protests”; “Knicker skit just too much to bear”, in: The Sydney Herald, 18 February 1987. 59 Cited in: Markham, “Iran Chokes on German Joke”. 60 Markham, “Iran Chokes on German Joke”; “Iran miffed over Khomeini spoof on German TV”. 61 “Grösstes Witz-Archiv Deutschlands – Aufgewärmte Slips”.

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Let us take a closer look at the words Carrell used in his apology. He apologized to the Iranian people. Apparently, Carrell equated the feelings of the Ayatollah with the feelings of the “Iranian people”. But are they truly the same thing? Every political leader likes to think that in his person the people as a whole are incorporated. But especially in dictatorships, this is a somewhat misleading presentation of the facts. Making apologies to a dictator may even be construed as an offense against the people he oppresses. So, although with the best intentions and mixed with a modicum of self-interest, did Carrell not reconfirm theocratic dictatorship over the Iranian people? Although it was a minority viewpoint, some voices objected to the apology. The Boston Globe was less eager to reach out to the Iranian government than the German government was. In their editorial comment the editors did not mince words:

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The Iranian people have suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of Khomeini and his henchmen. The mullahs who extract abject apologies from Germany, making it seem as though their regime were synonymous with Islam, are the same holy men who torture and rape Iranian women in their prisons. They are the ones who owe an apology to Muslims in Iran and around the world.62

This newspaper article is remarkable for several reasons. First, it speaks of “horrors” and “henchmen”. Second, a distinction is made between the regime in Iran and the Islamic religion. The regime tries to instill the notion that an insult to the regime is eo ipso an insult to Islam. But why should that be the case? One could also advance that a murderous regime cannot be “Islamic”. Third, this newspaper article draws our attention to the plight of women in Iran. It makes clear that Carrell’s choice to have women mock the regime was not only done for comic effect but to make a serious point. As we will see in my analysis of the affair, these points are certainly not self-evident. If the Boston Globe editors were right, Carrell’s spoof may have been less “tasteless” and “insignificant” than some people think. There was something important at stake here: the position of women in theocracies.63 As the 62 “Mullahs and muzzling”, in: The Boston Globe, 22 February 1987. 63 See on this: Benson, Ophelia, Stangroom, Jeremy, Does God Hate Women?, Continuum, London/New York 2009; Cliteur, Paul, “Female Critics of Islamism”, in: Feminist Theology, 2011, 19(2), pp. 154-167; Nasreen, Taslima & Fourest, Caroline, Libres de le dire: Conversations mécréantes, Flammarion, Paris 2010.

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French Iran-scholar Yann Richard (b. 1948) writes, Khomeini’s revolution was directed against: (i) the reforms of the Shah; (ii) the agrarian reforms; (iii) the civil rights which had been contributed to the Iranian women.64

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On the basis of the third point, Carrell’s spoof was not groundless. There was a definite “feminist” dimension to his spoof. Apart from that, the “right to ridicule” totalitarian theocracies was also at stake.65 Are “ridicule”, “satire”, and “mockery” also things we should protect? This is a serious question, and answering it seems necessitated by many recent events. In February 2012, Plantu (b. 1951),66 the well-known cartoonist of the French newspaper Le Monde, was prosecuted for having made a cartoon of the pope sodomizing children.67 This was at the height of the sex scandals surrounding the Catholic Church. If we take the position that the pope may not be satirized in this offensive manner, what to think of Richard Dawkins’s (b. 1941) article arguing that the pope should “stand trial” for sexual abuse committed by members of the Roman Catholic Church?68 Or of a similar plea by the legal scholar Geoffrey Robertson (b. 1946)?69 Should we take the position that only academic articles by people like Robertson deserve protection under the relevant free speech clauses? But if so, what would that mean for cartoons and political satire by stand-up comedians? Would that not end their whole business? And why must we accept that? Because violent radicals do not like satire? Should we give this up without a fight? 64 See: Richard, Yann, “L’Islam politique en Iran”, in: Politique étrangère, 2005/1, Printemps, pp. 61-72, p. 61: “les droits civiques conférés aux femmes iraniennes notamment”. 65 See on this: Dworkin, Ronald, “Foreword”, in: Ivan Hare & James Weinstein, eds., Extreme Speech and Democracy, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. v-ix; Dworkin, Ronald, “The Right to Ridicule”, in: New York Review of Books, 12 March 2006. 66 His real name is Jean Plantureux and he specializes in political satire. His work has been published in Le Monde since 1972. 67 “Plantu vervolgd wegens cartoon van paus die kind sodomiseert”, in: De Morgen, 17 February 2012. 68 Dawkins, Richard, “The pope should stand trial”, in: The Guardian, 13 April 2010. “Why is anyone surprised when Christopher Hitchens and I call for the prosecution of the pope?”, Dawkins asks, “there is a clear case to answer”. 69 Robertson, Geoffrey, “Put the pope in the dock: legal immunity cannot hold. The Vatican should feel the full weight of international law”, in: The Guardian, 2 April 2010. See also: Robertson, Geoffrey, The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse, Penguin Books, London 2012.

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What these examples make clear, is that the controversy that arose in Germany in 1987 is far from resolved. Not only Carrell, but the German television network offered apologies as well. The director of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, which put on the show, declared that they regretted that “a political-satirical attempt had been put in a religious context”.70 The director explained: “No one wanted to offend the feelings of believers”.71 Apparently, the German television adopts the view that one may satirize politics but not religion. This is an interesting position, but it is not immediately clear why this should be the case. There is a reason, perhaps, when it comes to purely spiritualistic forms of religion. Purely spiritualistic interpretations of faith, not aspiring any political power whatsoever, are harmless. But what to do with “political religion”? Should religions that aim to acquire political power not be subjected to the same rigorous criticism as political ideologies?

More apologies and more controversies

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Although apologies were offered, the Iranian ambassador to Bonn considered them to be insufficient. On Friday 20 February, Mohammed Djavad Salari declared that he wanted a formal apology from West Germany for Carrell’s television show. Friedrich Ost, the German government spokesman, said the West German government had already made it clear that it regretted the spoof. So what else was there to say? And Carrell himself had already apologized as well. Furthermore, Ost repeated that the German government has no control over the media and is therefore not responsible for what the media do. But Salari was not satisfied yet. He declared during a news conference: Our people and our government expect the West German government to take more concrete measures. An apology would make things easier.72

What “things” were referred to, was not made explicit in this reaction. In the meantime, there was more to apologize for. The Iranian ambassador also demanded apologies for a remark made by one of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s senior aides. The aide in question, Horst Teltschik (b. 1940), had said 70 The apologies were expressed by Friedrich Nowottny, the director of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk. See: Markham, “Iran Chokes on German Joke”. 71 Ibid. 72 Cited in: “Iran angered by ayatollah under undies”.

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in a magazine interview that among the historical figures he despised most were “slave-drivers like Hitler, Stalin, Khomeini”.73 What these remarks by Teltschik make clear is that there is at least reason to ask if liberal democracies should deal with dictatorships in the same way we deal with other liberal democracies. Another important question is whether the Carrell Affair teaches us something about today’s world, where the right to free speech, the right to satirize, is a much more contested issue than was the case in 1987. One year later (in 1988) Salman Rushdie published his controversial novel The Satanic Verses, and elicited a similar kind of reaction, although fiercer as the one Carrell had received from Khomeini. As Caspar Melville writes in Taking Offence (2009), referring to the publication of Rushdie’s book: This event arguably announced the arrival of a new era in global politics. Certainly, it is the point at which offending Islam became a global capital offense.74

Eighteen years later (in 2005) the Cartoon Affair occurred, and the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, like Rushdie and (to a lesser extent) Carrell before him, attracted the same violent reactions (see Chapter 3). And this Cartoon Affair was the direct result of the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist extremist (Chapter 2) in 2004. So the ramifications of that seemingly insignificant incident in 1987 seem to be wide.

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A new film In 2012 another f ilm, this time a trailer posted on the internet, caused diplomatic tension between the United States (where the film trailer had been posted on Google’s YouTube) and several countries in the Middle-East.75 A little earlier a controversial Koran burning by an American pastor caused deaths in Afghanistan. What in 1987 had seemed an “incident” now slowly 73 See: “Carrell-Affäre: nicht klug”, pp. 25-27, p. 26: “Menschenschinder wie Hitler, Stalin, Chomeini”; “Iran angered by ayatollah under undies”. 74 Melville, Caspar, Taking Offence, Seagull Books, London, New York, Calcutta 2009, p. 22. 75 Tabash, Edward, “The First Amendment provides full protection to Innocence of Muslims”, in: Free Inquiry, December 20120/January 2013, pp. 11-13; “Rushdie: The Response to ‘Innocence of Muslims’ is Ludicrous”, in: International Business Times, 29 September 2012; Makarechi, Kia, “Anna Gurij & ‘Innocence of Muslims’: Horrified Actress Writes Letter Explaining Her Role”, in: Huffpost, 17 September 2012.

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began to emerge as a pattern. Helmut Kohl (Carrell), the pope (his own lecture in Regensburg in 2006),76 Margaret Thatcher (Rushdie), Rasmussen (Westergaard), Obama (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, Terry Jones) – they all dealt with the issue. But the problem seems to be that they did not learn from each other. The leaders seemed not even to notice that they all had to deal with the same problem. And they all underestimated its significance, so it seems. In December 2012, an Egyptian court convicted, in absentia, seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and the Florida-based American pastor Terry Jones (b. 1951). They were sentenced to death on charges linked to the satirical film Innocence of Muslims. This short film, critical of Islam, written and produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was uploaded to YouTube in July 2012 and sparked riots in some parts of the world.77 Jones, well-known for his Koran burning, was apparently also involved in propagating Innocence of Muslims. Most of the defendants live in the United States and are, for understandable reasons, not inclined to go to Egypt to be present at the trial. So, in a practical sense, those cases are symbolic. Nevertheless, we may assume that these verdicts have a certain influence on theoterrorists who will see them as legitimizing the violence they perpetrate towards supposed offenders of religious law. The Egyptian and Iranian governments will, of course, claim that theoterrorists are not agents of the state, but with the courts this claim is more difficult to maintain. Egypt’s official news agency reported that the court found the defendants guilty of “harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information”.78 For these charges, the death penalty is deemed to be the appropriate sentence. Also among the convicted, apart from Terry Jones, was Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (or Mark Basseley Youssef – Nakoula operates under many pseudonyms), who was sentenced in a California court in November 2012 for matters unrelated to his film. Jones commented that the verdict shows the “true face of Islam”. He further said: “We can speak out here in America. That freedom means that we can criticize government leadership, and even religion at times. Islam is not a religion that tolerates any type of criticism”.79 76 Welzel, Knut, ed., Die Religionen und die Vernunft: Die Debatte um die Regensburger Vorlesung des Papstes, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007. 77 El Deeb, Sarah, “Terry Jones, Florida pastor, sentenced to death in Egypt over anti-Islam film along with 7 Coptic Christians”, in: HuffPost, 1 December 2012. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid.

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Another man convicted in the ruling by the Egyptian court is Morris Sadek, a Coptic Christian living in Chantilly, Virginia. He was convicted for having posted the video clip on the website. Sadek, though, denies all involvement in the creation, production, and financing of the film. Yet all the persons convicted fear consequences. Another one of the persons condemned, Fikry Zaklama, said: “Of course, I am worried about this death penalty. Who will give me guarantees that the Egyptian government will not try to kidnap me, to take me to Egypt?”80 It seems we have caught the scent of something bigger than commotion about an insignificant trifle. The central question may be framed like this: what to do when a foreign power threatens violence to one of your citizens who has done something that is not a violation of the national law (and is even protected by the nation’s most fundamental law), viz. to satirize religion and religious leaders? Is there room for compromise under these circumstances? And to what extent? Who has a role to play here? These central questions, although seemingly trivial, may prove dauntingly difficult to handle. There are, after all, some important ideas and institutions involved. National sovereignty, civil liberties, criticism of religion, the safety of citizens within the national borders – the moral, political, and strategic conundrums are legion. In 1714, the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) popularized the idea of a “monad” in his Monadology.81 A monad (from the Greek “monas” or “unit”) is an elementary individual substance that reflects the order of the world. In each monad, the universe as a whole is reflected. This image may also be used in connection with the events discussed in this book (with the Carrell Affair as the first one). Prima facie these affairs are about “incidents”, about insignificant events that have no meaning for the great political questions of our time. On further inspection however, these “incidents” prove to be about the most basic problems of political philosophy and the organization of a liberal democratic order: about national sovereignty, the protection of citizens within the territory of the state, civil rights, the protection of the democratic order against decay, and many other important issues. In an early comment on the Rushdie Affair, legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron (b. 1953) proved perfectly cognizant of 80 Ibid. 81 See: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, “Schriften zur Monadenlehre”, in: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung der Philosophie, Teil II, Übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Arthur Buchenau, (Philosophische Werke in vier Bänden, ed. Cassirer), Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1996, pp. 331-649.

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the extent of the challenge for liberal democratic states when it comes to dealing with religion. The religions of the world make rival claims about the nature and being of God and the meaning of human life. It is not possible for me to avoid criticizing the tenets of your faith without stifling my own. So mutual respect cannot possibly require us to refrain from criticism, if only because criticism of other sects is implicit already in the aff irmations of any creed.82

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But the problems that the Rushdie and Carrell affairs bring with them have not been recognized as such. World leaders have not developed a systematic and coherent approach to these problems. To my mind this is unfortunate. Only if we succeed in doing this, can there be any hope of surmounting these intricate difficulties. But for now, let us follow the chain of events that led up to a further development of the problem. The claim of this book is that the Netherlands plays an important role in this development. In that same year, 1987, the Netherlands dealt with the problem that started in Germany. And in the Netherlands, Khomeini accomplished what he did not achieve in Germany. It was a success that may have had farreaching consequences for the future, and perhaps a precedent for similar cases that surfaced afterwards. This Carrell affair, so seemingly insignificant when it arose in 1987, may have cast shadows into future.

82 Waldron, Jeremy, “Rushdie and Religion”, in: The Times Literary Supplement, 10 March 1989, pp. 248 and 260, also in: Jeremy Waldron, Liberal Rights, Collected Papers 1981-1991, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York 1993, pp. 134-143, p. 138.

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2.

The Rudi Carrell Affair in the Netherlands

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Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing the fact that they ever existed. Even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn’t American. Eisenhower 1

As may be expected, the commotion in Germany roused the interest of the Netherlands. Rudi Carrell was, after all, a famous Dutch show master. His real name was Rudolf Wijbrand Kesselaar, born in 1934 in Alkmaar. And, as said, his Dutch accent always remained clearly noticeable, even after having lived in Germany for decades. According to some, his “typical Dutch rudeness” served him well in his career in Germany. As indicated, Carrell satirized many German politicians, but also world leaders such as the pope, Margaret Thatcher, and many others. And if it was possible to lampoon leaders from Germany, the United States, and Great Britain, why not satirize a world leader from a real dictatorship; a leader whose exploits were discussed in the news media all over the world? But that turned out to be more of a problem than anyone had foreseen. As might be expected, the Dutch took great interest in the affair, and in their program “Behind the headlines”, VARA broadcasting company wanted to show the fourteen-second clip that had caused all the commotion. This is the ABC of journalism, is it not? The VARA journalists must have thought: Let people decide for themselves what they think about the spoof that has caused so much uproar in a neighboring country. It was announced that the footage would air on 23 February 1987, eight days after the German broadcast, but something unusual happened: the 1 From the remarks of the President of the United States at the Dartmouth College Commencement on June 14th, 1953. Published by the Dartmouth College Library, Hanover, New Hampshire.

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Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van den Broek (b. 1936), personally called the Dutch broadcaster. During his telephone call on 23 February, a few seconds before the network was to broadcast the program containing the contested item, the minister tried to convince the host, Paul Witteman (b. 1946), not to air the item discussed. The reporter, understandably surprised to have the Foreign Minister on the phone, took an unusual approach in this dilemma: he invited the minister to call again a few minutes later, i.e. live, and explain his reasons for asking the program to censor itself. To the surprise of many, perhaps, the minister agreed. And as a result, all the considerations about giving in to pressure from Iran (or not) were aired openly on Dutch television. Delicate discussions of what to do when faced with such tricky dilemmas, usually held behind closed doors, were now laid out for all to see.

A discussion between the minister and a journalist Here is a translated transcript of the five-minute conversation between the program’s host, Paul Witteman, and the Dutch Foreign Minister, as it was transmitted, live, on Dutch television on 23 February 1987.2 Witteman: One second ago, or ten seconds ago, we received a phone call from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans van den Broek. Good evening, Mr. Van den Broek. Van den Broek: Hello, Mr. Witteman.

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Witteman: You called us one minute before this broadcast. Van den Broek: Yes. Witteman: Why? Van den Broek: Well, because I have received clear indications that the re-airing of such a broadcast on Dutch television might have consequences for Dutch people in Tehran that I would not like to see happen. I am, of course, faced with the dilemma that I certainly don’t want to participate in any kind of pressure on public media in the Netherlands. On the other hand, it is clear, after what happened in Germany, that such a broadcast is perceived as a grave insult by the Iranian authorities and the Iranian 2

Translation Sarah Strous.

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The Rudi Carrell Affair in the Netherl ands

people. Perhaps these are things we can only understand when we learn about Iranian culture, Iranian customs, Iranian religion. And, again, these are matters to which people have very strong emotional reactions. So then my question is: do we think this is worth it? Isn’t it better to say, at a certain point, that we’d rather discuss the matter with representatives from Iran to explain what freedom of the press means to us, what the media mean to us, how this works here? These things are totally, totally different in a country like Iran. But is it worth it then? Solely to give the Dutch viewer access to something we already know had a very unfortunate effect on the relationship between Germany and Iran? And it also had very unpleasant consequences for Mr. Carrell personally, who offered a televised apology as a result. So then my serious question to you is simply this: is this worth it to us? I cannot and don’t want to forbid you to do anything on this issue. I’m just asking you to at least include these considerations in your decision-making process.

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Witteman: Don’t you think it’s a little odd for us in the Netherlands to have such consideration for the sense of humor in Iran? Van den Broek: I don’t think it’s odd at all. And in all honesty, I have to say that, had I gotten the impression that we were dealing with a program that, also from a journalistic point of view – although, of course, this for you and your editorial team to decide – should not be denied to the Dutch citizenry, then you might be right. But here we’re dealing with a show that was intended to serve as entertainment, and that has ended up as a grave insult to the Iranian people. This is how it is experienced there. So, knowing that these kinds of emotions are invoked this way, is it too much to ask for us to at least try to be careful and restrain ourselves? Don’t forget that in the Netherlands we are used to being very tolerant of one another, of our different ways of thinking and of our convictions, among other things. Witteman: You estimate, Mr. Van den Broek, if I may interrupt for a moment, that if we were to broadcast this piece of film the consequences would be severe. Or, at least, could be. Van den Broek: I cannot rule those consequences out. And I think the reaction to the German broadcast at least warrants careful consideration of this issue. Again, I’m not accustomed, also when it comes to diplomacy, to giving way to foreign pressure where our own freedom of the press is concerned. On the other hand, given the fact that these consequences have become reality in Germany, I say that we, you and me, should ask ourselves: is this worth it?

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Witteman: Very well. Mr. Van den Broek, you’ll understand that since you called one minute before the start of the show, it isn’t easy for us to omit this clip and rework the segment. Still, we’re reasonable people here at VARA, and I understand your concern. I hear you’ve been in contact with the Iranian embassy? Van den Broek: Yes. The call I got this afternoon also came rather late. After I’d had someone call you earlier, I received further information that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran had approached our ambassador there. This gave me cause to – if at the last minute, for which I apologize – give you another call myself. Witteman: Alright. What we’ll try to do is change the segment in such a way that we show only the circumstances of this whole affair, which we find very interesting and important in relation to freedom of the press, and air that at the end of the show. By now we’re starting the second item. We hope that in this manner we’re at least able to oblige you, although the discussion about freedom of the press–

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Van den Broek: Mr. Witteman, you don’t have to oblige me. That’s not the issue. I’m giving you information, on the basis of which you should take your own responsibility. Witteman: Yes yes yes. But you understand, of course, because you are an eminent person, what kind of influence a Foreign Minister expounding such a view has. No matter how much we value our freedom of the press. And sometime, perhaps in reference to this subject, I’d like to have a discussion with you about it. Van den Broek: Of course. I’d like that. Witteman: But let’s air the second item first and see what we can do about the Carrell affair. Van den Broek: Very well. Witteman: Goodbye, Mr. Van den Broek. Van den Broek: Goodbye, Mr. Witteman.

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The Dutch Parliament on the Carrell Affair On 26 February 1987 the Foreign Minister – a member of the second Lubbers cabinet, comprised of the liberal party VVD and the Christian Democrats – justified the steps he had taken before Parliament.3 During that session the minister repeated what he had said during his conversation with Witteman, and claimed that he had only pointed out to the broadcasting company what the consequences of transmitting the program could have been. He explained that he had learned from the Dutch embassy in Tehran that re-airing the clip on Dutch television would be experienced in Iran as a “profound insult to Khomeini”, 4 causing an outburst of “anger” from the “Iranian public”. The security of the people working at the embassy would not be guaranteed. Diplomatic relations could be severed. These considerations made him decide to “seek contact” with the broadcaster. The minister further claimed that he had left the decision, and the responsibility for it, up to the corporation (apparently implying that his position was that the broadcaster would be responsible for any consequences; not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Iranian government). The Dutch minister even declared that he had not experienced any “pressure from the Iranian side”. All things considered, he said, he “could understand” the position of the Iranian government.5 Parliament did not strongly criticize the minister for his telephone call to the broadcaster. The Labor Party showed “understanding” for what the minister had done. The only worry that the Labor representative voiced was that this might serve as a “precedent”. And, he asked, were there no “principles” involved (without specifying what principles)?6 The Christian Democrat representative indicated that an insignificant piece of satire should not affect the relationship “between two countries”, but he neglected to make a distinction between democracies and dictatorships.7 And he subsequently voiced a concern that was wholly 3 Before a huge commission in which all the political groups of the Dutch representative were present: the so-called Committee on Foreign Affairs (“vaste Commissie voor Buitenlandse Zaken”). See for proceedings of the meeting: “Verslag van een mondeling overleg”, in: Tweede Kamer [TK], 1986-1987, 19 700, hfdst. V, No. 79, pp. 1-3. 4 TK 1986-1987, p. 1. 5 Ibid., p. 2: “Daaraan voegde hij toe dat hij de gang van zaken niet heeft ervaren als druk van Iraanse zijde, en dat hij zich, de situatie daar in ogenschouw nemende, de houding van de Iraanse regering kon indenken”. 6 Ter Beek (PvdA), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 2. 7 Gualthérie van Weezel (CDA), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 2.

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at odds with his previous remarks, saying that “it had to be clear to the Iranian government that in the Netherlands there is freedom of the press, without any interference from the side of the government”. Apparently, this Member of Parliament did not consider a direct call from the Foreign Minister to a broadcaster to be “interference from the side of the government”. He also did not answer the question of how it could become clear to the Iranian government that the Netherlands supported free speech if threats to Germany (and the fear that the same might happen with the Netherlands) were suff icient reason for a Dutch broadcaster to change its programming. Frits Bolkestein, MP for the liberal party (then governing in coalition with the Christian Democrats), also backed the Foreign Minister, stating that the security of Dutch people abroad had to be safeguarded.8 Yet he confided that the whole affair made him feel somewhat uneasy. On the one hand, he did not consider Carrell’s spoof in good taste. On the other hand, capitulating to the anger of the Iranian people was, he thought, sending the wrong signal. He also saw a principle involved, just as the Labor MP had. And he spelled out, unlike his Labor colleague, what the nature of that principle was, viz. the freedom of speech. He feared that this affair could set a “dangerous precedent”. He called on the minister, in future cases, not to be too swift with similar interventions.9 The representative of a small Orthodox Christian faction declared that we may expect broadcasters to exert some “discipline” with regard to broadcasts that may be offensive to the feelings of others.10 Such self-discipline he did not consider to be a “limitation of the freedom of the press”. This was also the opinion of a small Liberal Democrat faction that even claimed that freedom of the press was not even an issue here.11 The only Member of Parliament who seemed to adopt a straightforward critical stance of the minister’s intervention was Andrée van Es from the socialist faction. She claimed there was certainly pressure from the Iranian 8 Bolkestein (VVD), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 2. 9 In 2008, so more than twenty years later, Hans van den Broek, now “Minister of State” (an honorary title conferred upon former politicians on the basis of great merit), called upon the government to sue the Dutch politician Geert Wilders for making an anti-Islam f ilm (viz. Fitna, ultimately not broadcast on Dutch television but on the internet). Again the former Minister of Foreign Affairs feared that Dutch citizens living abroad would be harmed as a reaction to Wilders’ f ilm. See: Koelé, Theo, “Kabinet moet Fitna verbieden”, in: De Volkskrant, 26 March 2008. So over the years Van den Broek’s position on these matters has been fairly consistent. 10 Van Dis (SGP), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 2. 11 Engwirda (D66), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 3.

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side.12 She also warned that a threat of outbursts from the Iranian people had to be seen as “blackmail”. She asked the minister what his reaction would be to the Iranian government if trouble would arise. Whether the minister ever gave a reaction to the Iranian government is unknown. In response to questions from Members of Parliament the minister repeated his stance that this was primarily a responsibility of the Dutch broadcaster, but also that the program was perceived as an insult to someone who is seen in Iran as the “highest spiritual leader”.13

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Carrell and other affairs After the German Carrell Affair, there was now also a Dutch Carrell Affair? Or was there not? Undoubtedly, the Foreign Minister (backed by most Members of Parliament on the Committee for Foreign Affairs, as we have seen) was under the impression that, by means of a skillful intervention on the part of the Foreign Minister, a Dutch Carrell Affair had been avoided. There were no kidnappings of people working at the embassy (the Jimmy Carter nightmare did not repeat itself) and no threats towards Dutch television presenters (did not Witteman himself nearly escape the fate of Rudi Carrell by operating as the presenter of a controversial clip)? All’s well that ends well.14 Let us call this the “optimistic scenario”. But there is an alternative interpretation of events (“the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings”). Let us call this the “pessimistic scenario” (or “realistic scenario”, according to those who subscribe to this position). This alternative interpretation emerges more clearly now (after the Rushdie Affair in 1989, the Cartoon Affair in 2005, the pope’s controversial lecture in Regensburg in 2006, the violence in connection with Jones’s Koran burnings in 2011, the publication of the trailer of what has become known as the “anti-Islam” film of the Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in 2012, the assault on the editorial offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on 12 Van Es (PSP), in: TK 1986-1987, p. 3. This is Andrée van Es (b. 1953), a Dutch politician, presently an alderman in Amsterdam. 13 Van den Broek, in: TK 1986-1987, p. 3. 14 As Bastiaan Rijpkema rightly stresses many of the arguments used by people who want to make concessions to terrorists are based on a sort of consequentialist or utilitarian approach. Pace all principles, if the consequences are good we’d better give in to the demands of terrorists. See: Rijpkema, Bastiaan, “Vrijheid van meningsuiting in de val tussen religieus extremisme en utilitarisme”, in: Nederlands Juristenblad (44/45), 14 December 2012, pp. 3106-3111.

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7 January 2015) than it did in 1987. We now know that what the Christian Democrat Member of Parliament (and member of the same party as the Foreign Minister) presented as an “insignificant piece of satire” and the Foreign Minister described as “piece of amusement which has worked out as a serious insult” would be followed by a serious novel (Rushdie’s book), a speech by the pope, cartoons, and several movies. Were these as “insignificant” as Rudi Carrell’s spoof? In other words, would the Foreign Minister and the Members of Parliament have adopted the same attitude if the novel of a great writer had been the focus of debate and theoterrorist threats? A novel by Willem Frederik Hermans (1921-1995) perhaps, or by Gerard Reve (1923-2006), two of the greatest Dutch novelists? Or historical research on the origins of Islam?15 Or serious art?16 How important is “art” (a film), “literature” (a novel),17 “history” (uninhibited historical research)? These questions are not so far-fetched as might at first appear. Let me try to elaborate on this with an example. As Sam Harris (b. 1967) writes in Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), the Bible contains no formal discussion of mathematics and it makes some obvious mathematical errors.

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In two places, for instance, the Good Book states that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is 3:1 (I Kings 7:23-26 and II Chronicles 4:2-5). As an approximation of the constant pi, this is not impressive. The decimal expansion of pi runs to infinity – 3.1415926535 – and modern computers now allow us to calculate it to any degree of accuracy we like. But the Egyptians and Babylonians both approximated 15 In September 2012, a screening of Tom Holland’s BBC documentary on the history of Islam was canceled on security advice after the presenter was threatened. The documentary was based on Holland’s In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World, Little, Brown, London 2012. See on the cancellation: “Channel 4 cancels Islam documentary screening after presenter on security advice after its presenter was threatened”, in: The Telegraph, 11 September 2012. 16 See on this: Boespflug, François, Caricaturer Dieu? Pouvoirs et dangers de l’image, Bayard, Paris 2006 and Boespflug, François, Le Dieu des peintres et des sculpteurs: l’Invisible incarné, Musée du Louvre Éditions, Hazan, Paris 2010, but especially the richly illustrated: Boespflug, François, Dieu et ses images: une histoire d’Éternel dans l’art, Bayard, Montrouge cedex 2011. For a popular magazine dedicated to many pieces of scandalous art, see: “Les Maîtres du scandale: littérature, peinture, photo, cinéma, théâtre”, in: BeauxArts, hors-série, Paris 2012. 17 “Le roman est l’exercice par excellence de la liberté dans le monde moderne, dont l’Iran actuel accepte la technologie tout en refusant que s’expriment les feux de la pauvre imagination humaine, souveraine, torturée de fantasmes ”, writes the Maroccan-French author Salim Jay: Jay, Salim, “L’Adam d’une bibliothèque en liberté”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie: Cent intellectuels arabes et musulmans pour la liberté d’expression, La Decouverte, Carréfour des littératures, Colibri, Paris 1993, pp. 177-178, p. 177.

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pi to a few decimal places several centuries before the oldest books of the Bible were written. The Bible offers us an approximation that is terrible even by the standards of the ancient world.18

Now suppose a foreign dictator takes offense to this “blasphemous” concept used in “secular mathematics”. And suppose he threatens mathematicians in the United States or Europe who are not willing to give up the secular mathematics that so clearly violate the word of God. Is the Dutch government prepared to protect its mathematicians? If the Dutch government’s answer is that “of course” they would protect their mathematicians, they apparently mean to discriminate between humor (which would then be unprotected or less protected by law, the constitution, and ultimately the police and the army) and mathematics (protected cultural property, viz. “science”, apparently more important than “mere humor”, let alone “cheap humor”). But between humor and mathematics, there is a range of other, harder cases to take a stance on. What, for instance, to think of good, in the sense of artistically interesting, forms of humor (e.g. Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979, compared to Basseley Nakoula’s Innocence of Muslims)? Would and should the British authorities have protected the crew of Monty Python in the same way it protected Salman Rushdie? Or is the artistic value of Life of Brian, although superior to Innocence of Muslims, still inferior to The Satanic Verses, and are the makers of “mere humor” for that reason unprotected, or less protected, cultural property? One may ask the same questions about Dutch novels. In 1963 the aforementioned Dutch novelist Gerard Reve published his controversial and, some said, blasphemous “Letter to my bank”,19 which led to a blasphemy trial (more about this case in Chapter 4). Suppose a Christian or Jewish violent theocracy abroad takes offense to the Dutch writer.20 Will the Dutch authorities ultimately defend their writers’ right to “offend, shock and disturb”?21 Or is the position of those who want to make concessions to violent believers that whatever upsets them is eo ipso beyond the pale? 18 Harris, Sam, Letter to a Christian Nation, Alfred A. Knopf, New York 2006, p. 20. 19 Reve, Gerard, “Brief aan mijn bank”, 8 August 1963, in: Gerard Reve, Verzameld werk, Deel 2, Uitgeverij L.J. Veen, Amsterdam/Antwerpen 1999, pp. 185-188. 20 To stimulate our imagination reading Margaret Atwood’s Christian dystopia might be useful. See: Atwood, Margaret, The Handmaid’s Tale, Vintage Books, London 1996 (1986). See also: Frégosi, Franck, Penser l’islam dans la laïcité, Fayard, Paris 2008, p. 33 or Houellebecq, Michel, Soumission, Flammarion, Paris 2015. 21 According to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the case Handyside v. United Kingdom of 1976, freedom of speech is also applicable to expressions that “shock,

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This last criterion for limiting free speech may have some problems of its own, but certainly not because it is too vague. This would provide us with a clear perspective, indeed, on the debates that are the subject of this book: whatever displeases the religious believers should not be said, written about, depicted, used as objects of art, etc.

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The importance of humor A second question is: Was Carrell’s spoof that insignificant? Is it really insignificant that in free and open societies high-ranking politicians (or even a prime minister) can be lampooned? Is humor really that insignificant? Or, on the contrary, is it the essence of a free society that the most powerful can be ridiculed (even in ways that are, from an artistic point of view, not always to the taste of the liberal MP who declared that Carrell’s spoof was not in good taste)? Do democracies perhaps by their nature invite public humor directed at their rulers? In The Virtues of our Vices (2012) philosopher Emrys Westacott (b. 1956) presents a list of things that people find humorous: jokes, riddles, puns, caricatures, mimicry, mime, surprises, absurdities, incongruities, insults, representations of various kinds of misfortune, transgressions, talk about sex, body parts, and toilet functions.22 As to the functions of humor, he says: – Humor gives pleasure – Humor promotes health – Humor creates and strengthens social bonds – Humor socializes – Humor reinforces a sense of community – Humor enlightens – Humor is wit-sharpening – Humor is a way of tackling difficult issues – Humor is a tool for social criticism – Humor can make us self-aware and self-critical23 disturb and offend”. See: Cherry, Matt & Brown, Roy, Speaking Freely about Religion: Religious Freedom, Defamation and Blasphemy, International Humanist and Ethical Union Policy Paper, International Humanist and Ethical Union, London 2009, p. 5. 22 Westacott, Emrys, The Virtues of Our Vices: a modest defense of gossip, rudeness, and other bad habits, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2012, p. 163. 23 Westacott, Ibid., p. 176.

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John Morreal (b. 1947) in Comic Relief (2009) distinguishes between intellectual and moral virtues fostered by humor.24 What many reflections on humor seem to underline is that it has many important functions, and certainly does not exist merely to amuse people (think of the somewhat deprecating manner the Dutch Foreign Minister spoke of Carrell’s spoof). Rudi Carrell’s satire of the religious-political leader of a modern theocracy is, of course, based on the presumption that not only political but also religious satire is a legitimate activity; something that is fiercely denied by some. Religious satire targets religious belief. It’s an ancient tradition, going back to Aristophanes, Chaucer, Erasmus, Rabelais, Molière, and Voltaire, but it has always been contested, as is illustrated by discussions by triggered Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) (it was initially banned in Ireland, Norway, and some states in the United States, as well as in some towns in Great Britain) or Bill Maher’s Religulous (2008). In Great Britain, the discussion was reopened when the Religious Hatred Bill (2006) was discussed.25 People who do not feel sympathetic towards religious satire usually emphasize that Rudi Carrell was no Aristophanes or Voltaire, which is true, but “Aristophaneses” and “Voltaires” don’t exist in a vacuum. They arise from a rich creative atmosphere in which the less talented are also allowed to hone their skills.

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The Carrell Affair as precedent The third, and most important, question we have to address is whether the Carrell Affair did indeed serve as a “precedent”. This is a recurrent theme in this book. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a “precedent” is: “An earlier event or action that is regarded as an example or guide to be considered in subsequent similar circumstances”. In law it means that a previous case or legal decision may or must be followed in subsequent similar cases. The whole idea of precedent means: Do not think that the decision you make now has relevance only for this particular case. People will base their legitimate expectations about your future behavior on what you decide in the present situation.

24 Morreall, John, Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden/ Oxford 2009, pp. 112-116. 25 See on this: Appignanesi, Lisa, ed., Free Expression is No Offence, Penguin Books, London 2005.

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The optimistic scenario that seems to have animated the minister and the majority of Members of Parliament discussing his intervention with the Dutch television is based on the premise that the Carrell Affair is an isolated event, an “incident”, not something that has any relevance for the future. Was that a realistic stance to take in 1987? And if so, is this still a realistic stance to take in 2019, speaking with the wisdom of hindsight? Did their success in the Carrell Affair not stimulate the Iranian authorities to take further steps to intimidate Western countries in similar cases?26 If we have to answer this question in the affirmative, then the results of the publicly broadcast phone call by the Foreign Minister to the Dutch television go much further than the absence of fourteen seconds of insignificant amusement from a Dutch TV program. What was established, one might argue, was a new norm; a new ethos. This is a speculative claim, certainly, but it is in harmony with everything we know about human nature, i.e. that once you give in to intimidation this does not satisfy the power that exerts the intimidation. The power that exerts the domineering influence wants more and more power. So the new norm or ethos was: a fanatically religious foreign dictator can set the TV programming in liberal countries. Now, several decades later, it does not seem a grotesque claim to say that the foreboding of the liberal MP (Bolkestein) who spoke of a “dangerous precedent” proved right. And the socialist MP (Van Es) who spoke forthrightly about “blackmail” was even more prescient. Here we have to distinguish between the German and Dutch reactions. Although it seems both reactions were more or less similar, there was a significant difference. Neither Helmut Kohl (1930-2017), chancellor of West Germany from 1982 to 1990, nor German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (1927-2016) appeared on television to apologize for freedom of the press as guaranteed in the German constitution. German civil servants were instructed to say that, because of the freedom of the press in Germany, the 26 It is true, of course, that many decades after the Iranian revolution it has not proved possible to export that revolution to other countries in the Middle-East, as Alain Gresh notes (Gresh, Alain, L’Islam, la République et le Monde, Fayard, Paris 2006, p. 100). In that sense Islamism was and is a failure. But one might also say that the regime is still in existence, which is no small accomplishment. And apart from that: there are other ways to influence other states than effectuating a revolution, as I hope to make clear in this book. In intimidating the press and the governments of states, Iranian theoterrorism was more successful than one might be inclined to acknowledge. That not responding to theoterrorist provocations can have a stimulating effect on those intimidations is a point made by Orhan Pamuk. See: Pamuk, Orhan, “Pour Rushdie”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 244-245, p. 245.

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German government had no influence on the media.27 In Germany, it was Rudi Carrell who apologized, not the government. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, it was the government who was bending over backwards to appease the Iranians. Not only did the Foreign Minister successfully persuade the press to exert self-censorship in order not to displease a dictator, but this was also the official position of the Dutch government (and supported by parliament). To understand why the actions of one minister constitute the official policy of the entire government, one has to know something about Dutch constitutional law and the structure of democratic government in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the principle of “collective ministerial responsibility” exists, implying that a minister does not act on behalf of his or her own ministry but on behalf of the government as a whole.28 So on 23 February 1987 there was not the private person Hans van den Broek calling the Dutch media, not even the Foreign Minister on behalf of his own ministry taking a stance on free speech, but the government as a whole spelling out the principles that are in play when a fundamentalist dictator is lampooned in a Western country.

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Telephone justice Let us reflect a little longer on the telephone call that is the subject of our analysis. Here the situation is comparable to an executive calling a judge about what verdict should be given in a particular trial (or “advising” on verdicts). The practice of ringing up judges to tell them how they should decide in a case is called “telephone justice”.29 This practice was prevalent in the Soviet Union and former East Bloc states. It is generally considered one of the foremost violations of the ideal of the independence of the judiciary.30 27 The German government had “wegen der bestehenden Pressefreiheit keine Möglichtkeit, auf derartige Sendungen Einfluss zu nehmen”. Or, according to Jürgen Chrobog, speakerspokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Wenn Dritte etwas machen, können wir es nur bedauern”. See: “Carrell-Affäre: nicht klug”, pp. 25-27, 26. 28 Visser, R.K., In dienst van het algemeen belang: ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid en parlementair vertrouwen, Boom, Amsterdam 2008, p. 19; Driessche, I.A., Politieke ministeriële verantwoordelijkheid: het Nederlandse begrip in vergelijkend perspectief, Kluwer, Deventer 2005, p. 147. 29 See on this: Shepard, Randall T., “Telephone Justice, Pandering, and Judges who speak out of School”, in: Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. 29, 2002, pp. 811-825. 30 Breyer, Stephen, “Judicial Independence: Remarks by Justice Breyer”, in: The Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 95, 2007, pp. 903-907; Greenhouse, Linda, “Independence: why & from what?”, in: Daedalus, Fall 2008, pp. 5-7.

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This idea of “independence” goes back to the idea of the separation of powers, as developed in, among others, Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (1748).31 The idea is that to forestall abuse of power the state is to be divided into three independent branches of government: the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive. The executive is not supposed to influence the judiciary, just as the judiciary is not supposed to exert political power. The press is not a formal part of Montesquieu’s idea of the separation of powers, but some authors argue that it should be. They see the media as an informal “fourth branch” of power. The idea of freedom of the press is predicated on a similar idea.32 A free press is an important vehicle for criticism of the government, and criticism of the government, in turn, is an important element of democracy.33 If the press is free, the government cannot overstep its boundaries. Or, as Anthony Browne (b. 1967) writes, “a successful, modern, democratic society can only be built on free speech when public differences of opinion are fought over with words rather than police investigations”.34 Now the difference between telephone justice and a member of the government calling a journalist is that, usually, phone calls to judges remain secret. The judge is supposed to keep those phone calls “confidential”. In the case analyzed in this chapter this was different, but the paradoxical situation is that it was probably meant to be that way. The minister called the journalist before the transmission of the program, and the whole matter might have stayed confidential were it not for the fact that the journalist invited the politician to “go public”. Paradoxically, that “live phone call” was both more and less problematic than a conf idential call. It was less problematic because it invalidated possible accusations that the government had tried to secretly influence the press. Anyone watching the program could see what the minister was trying to accomplish, and everyone could make up their mind about the appropriateness of his conduct. If freedom of the press was curtailed, at least it was done in a kind of “informal plebiscite”. But there was also a problematic side to the minister’s open call. Everything having been conducted in the open, it had become crystal clear for the authorities in Iran that the Netherlands seriously feared the Iranian 31 Montesquieu, Oeuvres complètes, II, Texte présenté et annoté par Roger Caillois, Éditions Gallimard 1951 (De l’Esprit des lois, 1748, Chapitre VI, De la Constitution d’Angleterre), pp. 396-407. 32 See on the media: Wilson, James Q., American Government, Institutions and Policies, Fifth Edition, D.C. Heath and Company, Lexinton (Mass.) and London 1992 (1980), pp. 239-263; Cater, Douglass, The Fourth Branch of Government, Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1959. 33 Hume, Trigger Warning, p. 39. 34 Browne, The Retreat of Reason, p. 52.

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dictator and its acolytes. After the transmission of “Behind the headlines”, with the controversial clip about Khomeini left out, there was tangible proof that Ayatollah Khomeini could not only influence the programming on Iranian state television, but also that of a small country by the North Sea. The case proved that Khomeini could get the government of a liberal democracy to openly disavow the principles enshrined in the Dutch constitution and in European human rights documents the state of the Netherlands had ratified.35 It is unlikely that this state of affairs had no effect on the Iranian dictator’s self-confidence; a boost he so desperately needed after his humiliation in the Iran-Iraq War.

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The meaning of Carrell’s apology Considering the context of the situation, as described above, it can be viewed as somewhat ironic that the Minister of Foreign Affairs specifically mentioned Carrell’s “apology” to the Iranian head of state. He also said that the whole matter had turned out to have “unpleasant consequences for Mr. Carrell personally”. This, of course, cannot be denied. But what does the minister mean to say by it? Does he want to imply that Carrell regretted his spoof? And that, because Carrell himself felt sorry for the spoof on German television, we should not put him in a precarious situation by repeating the clip on Dutch television? If that was the point, it seems we have to inquire a little further. We have to ask why Carrell apologized. An apology is only worth something when people really mean what they say. If they simply say something that does not reflect their inner conviction, this makes the apology worthless in personal relations. Now, what did Carrell think? Was not Carrell simply scared to death that something might happen to him? Or as the Germans say: “In der Reue mischte sich Existenzangst” (“His contrition was mixed with fear”).36 Was not fear for his life the reason for his “apology”, which was, accordingly, not a “real apology”, in the sense of a sincere apology, at all? Is it unduly speculative to raise the question of whether Carrell might not somehow have had the feeling that his life was in the hands of a German government that seemed less than willing to defend its principles, to put it cautiously? 35 See on this: Klerk, Y.S. & Poelgeest, L. van, “Ratificatie à contre coeur: de reserves van de Nederlandse regering jegens het Europees verdrag voor de Rechten van de Mens en het individueel klachtrecht”, in: RM Themis, 5(1991) mei, pp. 220-246. 36 “Carrell-Affäre: nicht klug”, pp. 25-27, p. 26.

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On 7 August 1991, the last prime minister of Iran under Shah Reza Pahlavi was murdered in Paris.37 Shapour Bakhtiar (1914-1991) was killed with a bread knife in his home in Paris, as was his secretary. Of his three assassins, two escaped to Iran, while the third, Ali Vakili Rad, was apprehended in Switzerland. He was extradited to France, where he served a prison sentence of eighteen years. When he left prison in 2010, he was welcomed back as a hero by Iranian officials.38 In 1987, this had not happened yet. But the Iranian regime’s modus operandi was no secret.39 That the Iranian state was capable of vicious violence and the ruthless liquidation of political opponents was a well-known fact, of course, and it was precisely this adroitness in brute suppression that made the Minister of Foreign Affairs take the unusual step (at least in a democracy) to try to influence the press, thereby setting the precedent for many future incidents of the same character. 40 We should also remind ourselves that only six years earlier, the Iran hostage crisis (November 1979 – January 1981) had ended. Anti-American sentiment in Iran peaked when Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi fled Iran during the revolution of 1979. When he entered the US for medical treatment, Islamic militants stormed the US embassy in Tehran and seized sixty-six Americans. 41 The hostage takers received the implicit support of the new Iranian regime. They demanded the extradition of the Shah, which President Jimmy Carter refused. Instead, he froze Iranian assets in the US. In April 1980 a rescue operation was organized, but it failed. This proved to be an ugly blemish on Carter’s reputation (and probably one of the foremost reasons for his failure to win reelection). In 1980, the Shah died, but this did not turn out to be the solution to the crisis that had been hoped for. Fifty-two hostages remained in captivity until 20 January 1981, when they were finally released after the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan. 37 Saxon, Wolfgang, “Shahpur Bakhtiar: Foe of Shah hunted by Khomeini’s followers”, in: The New York Times, 9 August 1991. 38 Saxon, Ibid. 39 Certainly not to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who, in the introduction to her interview with Khomeini (as early as 1979), lists all the dictatorial measures taken or condoned by Khomeini. She writes: “The West observed in uncomfortable silence, and those who had greeted the coming of the Ayatollah with enthusiasm were forced to admit, through clenched teeth, that they had been wrong” (Fallaci, Ibid., p. 176-177). 40 See on this: Asadi, Houshang, Letters to my Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran, One World, Oxford 2010. 41 See: Carter, Jimmy, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, Bantam Books, Toronto 1983 (1982), p. 431 ff.

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This background also seems relevant for the phone call analyzed in this chapter. Is it not very likely that the Dutch government feared ending up in the same position as the American government during the hostage crisis? Proponents of the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ course of action will perhaps see this as an argument for the reasonableness of the appeasement approach. But one may also see it as an added reason why that regime deserves to be criticized – precisely because it is a dictatorship.

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Subdued tone of conversation It is remarkable that, in the conversation between the Dutch television reporter and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the matter is discussed in such a euphemistic manner. One gets the impression that all the parties are trying to find the most diplomatic words to frame the situation, thereby also presenting an untruthful account of the nature of the problem. The possibility that the dictator Khomeini will use illegitimate violence against a citizen of another country is discussed by the minister as a difference in “culture” between “them” and “us”. About freedom of the press, he says: “These are matters that we perhaps can only understand if we take some notice of the Iranian culture, the Iranian customs, the Iranian religion”. The minister seems to adopt the attitude of the curious cultural anthropologist; eager not to judge a foreign culture, and only trying to “understand” the way these people, so different from us, think and act. 42 But is it necessary, or even justifiable, to adopt such a “tolerant” attitude? Or is this what Popper warns us about when he says that “unlimited tolerance” must lead to the “disappearance of tolerance”?43 One may also challenge the pretense, implicit in much of the conversation, that the Iranians are so difficult to understand. Of course, they have a different culture and religion. But is what is going on here really so difficult to understand? Isn’t it in fact very common? Hasn’t political dictatorship tried to suppress civilized behavior for most of human history? 42 E.g. about clitoridectomony. See for cultural antropologists on this: Frederiksen, Bodil Folke, “Jomo Kenyatta, Marie Bonaparte and Bronislaw Malinowski on Clitoridectomy and Female Sexuality”, in: History Workshop Journal, 65(1), 2008, pp. 23-48. 43 See: Popper, K.R., The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume 1, The Spell of Plato, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and Henley 1977 (1945), p. 265. See for an analysis of Popper’s ideas on militant democracy: Rijpkema, Bastiaan, “Popper’s Paradox of Democracy”, in: Think, Volume 11, Issue 32, September 2012, pp. 93-96. For Popper and cultural anthropology, see: Sandall, Roger, The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays, Westview, Boulder/Colorado 2001.

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There are, of course, cultural differences between people. And we should always exert some effort to really understand people who live in another culture (which can be perplexing at times). But there is also a list of universals, and here a reflection on human nature and history may be more pertinent than the approach the minister chooses. 44 As Jean-Claude Barreau (b. 1933) and Guillaume Bigot (b. 1969) write: “since prehistoric times there is immense historical and technical progress, but there is no progress whatsoever from a psychological point of view: man has been the same since the day of his first appearance”. 45 Human nature has always been a source of inspiration for the tradition of natural law. After the Second World War the world community also tried to adopt a list of universal values based on human nature. This became the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) as adopted by the United Nations; the first declaration of values not based on religion and yet claiming universal validity. 46 But Khomeini did not acknowledge any claims of universality, except for Islam, of course. Interesting from a psychological point of view is that the bold moves of this new type of dictator violated national sovereignty in a way that Stalin, Mao, or Hitler did not dare.47 The Nazis tried to intimidate their communist foes on the streets of Germany in 1930s, but they did not openly intimidate journalists in other countries for what they wrote. Khomeini was different. He simply refused to recognize the principles of national sovereignty as they had been established in the world since roughly 1648 (the Peace of Westphalia). To a certain extent, this is a difference between the Western world and other parts of the world. As Bernard Lewis (1916-2018) writes: “In the Western world, the basic unit of human organization is the nation, in American but not European usage 44 See on this: Nielsen, Kai, “Ethical Relativism and the Facts of Cultural Relativity”, in: Social Research, 33 (4), 1966, pp. 531-551; Pojman, Louis P., “Ethical Relativism: Who’s to Judge What’s Right and Wrong?”, in: Louis P. Pojman, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, Second Edition, Wadsworth, Belmont, California 1995; Kluckhorn, Clyde, “Ethical Relativity: Sic et Non”, in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 52, No. 23, 1955, pp. 663-677; and Lazari-Pawlowska, Ija, “On Cultural Relativism”, in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 67, No. 17, September 1970, pp. 577-584, p. 577 who claims that people are “in fact the same everywhere”. It is enough, the author says, “to see a mother despairing over her dead child in any spot on our globe, to be impressed by the identity of human experience”. 45 Barreau, Jean-Claude & Bigot, Guillaume, Toute l’histoire du monde: de la préhistoire à nos jours, Fayard, Paris 2005, p. 24/25: “l’homme est le même que le jour de son surgissement ”. 46 See: Fourest, Caroline, La dernière utopie: menaces sur l’universalisme, Éditions Grasset, Paris 2009; Freeman, Michael, “Universality, Diversity and Difference: Culture and Human Rights”, in: Michael Freeman, Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Polity, Cambridge 2003, pp. 101-131. 47 This point is made by the Dutch scholar Karel van het Reve in: Reve, Karel van het, “Achterlijke artikelen”, in: Karel van het Reve, Verzameld Werk, Deel 6, Van Oorschot, Amsterdam 2011, pp. 350-353.

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virtually synonymous with country. This is then subdivided in various ways, one of which is by religion. Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations”.48 Commenting on the fatwa, a Globe & Mail editorial formulated this no less clearly: “It is the attempted extra-territorial application of Iran’s capital sanction against blasphemy, without the inconvenience of a trial. It is a calculated assault on international law”. 49

A new sort of religious behavior

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From 1979 onwards, Europeans suddenly experienced a whole new world of religiosity they had no idea even existed (or had “forgotten” existed).50 This was religion not in the form of the peaceful, otherworldly and heartening recommendations of religious leaders that can be taken as a “source of inspiration” for how to organize their lives, but the dictates of people who speak with the authority and self-assuredness of God himself. In a time when Europeans were learning that the commands of their religious leaders, such as the pope in Rome, could be taken with a grain of salt, they also experienced a world religious leader whose wishes were the commands of his acolytes. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ideology of Islamist fundamentalism and theoterrorism seemed to have taken over the role of communism, the previous challenger of the Western world. Fukuyama, in his famous essay “The End 48 Lewis, Bernard, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2003, p. xviii. Others emphasized that national sovereignty expresses itself in the national legislature. See: the Palestinian political scholar Camille Mansour, who in “Back to the rule of law” (1993) writes: “only the law of the state (positive law and not religious law) is able to define the limits (of free speech) and not the executive branch”. See: Mansour, Camille, “Revenir à un État de droit”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 215-216, p. 215. 49 “The Rushdie Affair”, Editorial, Globe & Mail, 21 February 1989. “An assault on international law”. This is an important observation: Khomeini’s fatwa was, apart from an assault on free speech, an assault on international law. This dimension is generally neglected by scholars of international law. See for an exception to this negligence: Bennoune, Karima, “Remembering the other’s others: theorizing the approach of international law to Muslim fundamentalism”, in: Columbia Human Rights Review, Vol. 41, 2009-2010, pp. 635-698. 50 Shakespeare, Hobbes and Voltaire, to name only a few, would have known, of course, what devastating effect religious differences can have on the social cohesion of the national polity. But the wars of religion were “forgotten” by most people living in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. See: Vallet, Odon, Petite lexique des guerres de religion, d’hier et d’aujourdhui, Albin Michel, Paris 2004; Barnavi, Elie & Rowley, Anthony, Tuez-les tous! La guerre de religion à travers de l’histoire VIIe-XXIe siècle, Perrin, Paris 2006; Reynaert, François, Nos Ancêtres les Gaulois et autres fadaises, Fayard, Paris 2010; Frégosi, Franck, Penser l’islam dans la laïcité, Fayard, Paris 2008, p. 34.

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of History” (1989), spoke condescendingly about the “crackpot messiah” (a veiled reference to the Iranian political and spiritual leader, one may assume) who tried to obstruct the inevitable march of liberal thought and democratic institutions throughout the world. But this analysis has proved to be mistaken. As Terri Murray reminds us in Identity, Islam and the Twilight of Liberal Values (2018), Fukuyama underestimated liberal democracy’s ethno-religious rivals. He also failed to acknowledge religious fundamentalism’s powerfully resistant bulwark against liberal democracy.51 The “crackpot messiah” has become an important figure in modern history.52 How important precisely became clear in that same year, 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini issued a “fatwa”53 calling for the assassination of British author Salman Rushdie.54

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I inform all zealous Muslims of the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses – which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran – and all those involved in the publication who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death. I call upon all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they may be found so that no one else will dare to insult the Muslim sanctities. God willing, whoever is killed on this path is a martyr. In addition, anyone who has access to the author of this book but does not possess the power to execute him should report him to the people so that he may be punished for his actions.55 51 Murray, Terri, Identity, Islam and the Twilight of Liberal Values, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge 2018. 52 See: Fukuyama, Francis, “The End of History?”, in: The National Interest, No. 16, Summer 1989, pp. 3-18: “Our task is not to answer the challenges to liberalism promoted by every crackpot messiah around the world exhaustively, but only those that are embodied in important social or political forces and movements, and which are therefore part of world history.” Fukuyama also speaks of a “new Ayatollah” who proclaimed “the millennium from a desolate Middle Eastern capital” (Ibid., p. 3). But he thinks this is all not very important: “there is some lager process at work” (Ibid., p. 3). 53 “A juristic ruling – the equivalent of the Roman Responsa or Rabbinical Teshuvot, providing an answer to a question on a point of law”, as Bernard Lewis writes. See: Lewis, Bernard, “Religion and Murder in the Middle East”, in: Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2004, pp. 100-108, p. 105. 54 1989 was also the year when in a school in the suburbs of Paris (Creil) the headscarfcontroversy started. See: Finkelkraut, Alain, L’identité malheureuse, Éditions Stock, Paris 2013, p. 23. Three pupils refused to remove their headscarf although the board of the school had ordered them to do so. 55 Ruhollah al-Musavi al-Khomeini, 14 February 1989, quoted in: Pipes, Daniel, “Two Decades of the Rushdie Rules”, in: Commentary, October 2010, pp. 30-35 and Pipes, The Rushdie Affair,

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As Mohamed Arshad Ahmedi writes in Rushdie: Haunted by His Unholy Ghosts (1997), since that moment “even non-Muslims around the world were going to add a new word to their vocabularies no matter what language they spoke – this word was Fatwa”.56 To understand this properly, one has to know something about orthodox Islam, sharia law, and the position of religious leaders in orthodox Islam.57 Sharia law is based on four sources: (1) the Koran (Islam’s holy book), (2) the Sunna (i.e. the sayings and doings of the Prophet and his companions), (3) the consensus of the community (but in reality, the view of the legal scholars, or ulema), and (4) analogical reasoning.58 Among orthodox believers, the Koran is deemed to be the direct word of God. The whole text is a replica of a tablet in heaven. Legend has it that the tablet was sent down from above to the Prophet Mohammed during a period of twenty years. Nowadays, the text of the Koran is extremely difficult to read and understand and, as scholars of the book (although not the believers, of course) contend, contains “not infrequent contradictions”.59 So there is always the problem: How does a Muslim know what to believe? Here the ulema, or the consensus of religious scholars, has an important role to play. Although the consensus among all believers was once the official source of sharia law, this developed into consensus among the learned or the clergy. As the scholar of Islam Denis MacEoin (b. 1949) writes:

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The unlearned are not equipped with the specialized knowledge that would allow them to understand and participate in legal matters. This division is particularly marked in Shiism, where there is a more defined clerical hierarchy than in Sunnism.60 p. 27. Ayatollah Khomeini “knew no English and had apparently never read the novel”, writes Bernard Lewis in: “Religion and Murder in the Middle East”, p. 105. 56 Arshad Ahmedi, Mohamed, Rushdie: Haunted by His Unholy Ghosts, Islam International Publications Limited, Tilford UK 2007 (1997), p. 39. 57 See on this: Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights, One for All, London 2010; Tibi, Bassam, “Islamic Law/Shari’a, Human Rights, Universal Morality and International Relations”, in: Human Rights Quarterly, 16 (1994), pp. 277-299; Ahdar, Rex & Aroney, Nicholas, eds., Shari’a in the West, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010; Kadri, Sadakat, Heaven on Earth: A Journey through Shari’a Law, Vintage Books, London 2012; Zee, Choosing Sharia; Manea, Women and Shari’a Law. 58 MacEoin, Denis, “Sharia Law or ‘One Law For All?’”, in: David G. Green, ed., Sharia Law or “One Law For All”, Foreword by Neil Addison, Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London 2009, pp. 9-74, p. 18. 59 Ibid., p. 21. 60 Ibid., p. 26. See also: Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, “From Selma to Tunis: When will we march against the segregation of our time?, in: Huffpost Religion, 25 March 2015.

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1979 showed us a “steady flow of radicalized clergy”.61 And Ayatollah Khomeini can be seen as the most outspoken manifestation of this tendency. The Western world knew, of course, about the Iran Iraq War. And the capture of the American embassy personnel during the hostage crisis and the ensuing humiliation of the United States and its President were also on everybody’s mind.62 But this was all on Iranian territory. That a religious leader would openly threaten a civilian from a Western country or intimidate the government of a European state was hard to even imagine. This was a violation of the whole idea of state sovereignty as it had developed since 1648. And it posed a challenge to the whole modern world.63

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Sense of humor and human emotions Once we study the significance of blasphemy laws, sharia, the importance of the ulema and other elements of the traditional makeup of radical Islam, we realize that the conversation between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch journalist on that auspicious eve of 23 February 1987, and the ensuing discussion of the events between the minister and a section of Dutch Parliament on 26 February of that same year, did not even begin to address the relevant issues. This was not about “sense of humor”, as the journalist brought up in his confrontation with the minister. If the cause of the row was that Carrell’s spoof was not funny enough, it would imply that spoofs about Khomeini that are funnier or more tasteful would have been acceptable to the Iranian government. But that is not an adequate interpretation of the situation. Isn’t the problem here that especially funny spoofs about Khomeini are not allowed (because they speak irreverently about holy matters)? The problem seems to be that there were two elements involved that laid bare the suppression of women in a fundamentalist theocracy. First, 61 MacEoin, Ibid., p. 26. 62 See for Jimmy Carter’s own account of the events: Carter, Keeping Faith, pp. 431-572. 63 See on this: Toft, Monica, Philpott, Daniel, Shah, Timothy Samuel, God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics, W.W. Norton’s Company, New York and London 2011; Philpott, “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations”, pp. 66-95; Philpott, Daniel, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations”, in: World Politics, 52 (January, 2000), pp. 206-245; Tibi, Bassam, “From Old Jihad to New Jihad”, in: Gelijn Molier, Afshin Ellian & David Suurland, eds., Terrorism, Ideology, Law, and Policy, Republic of Letters Publishing, Dordrecht 2011, pp. 35-65.

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not just men but women also exerted their right to criticize; and the ones they lampooned were not just men, but the most important men in the political order, even the supreme religious leader. Second, these women behaved in a way that may be considered highly improper, tossing their underwear at him.64 The Minister of Foreign Affairs makes another miscalculation, perhaps, by attributing turbulent “emotions” to the Iranian government. During the televised conversation he remarks that in Iran “one reacts in a very emotional way”. Is that really true? From the optimistic scenario that seems the guiding perspective for the minister and Members of Parliament who discussed the issue in 1987, this may be true. But from a more pessimistic point of view, it would be more accurate to say that the Iranian authorities react in a very rational and calculated way. Sensing the weaknesses of the other party perfectly, they calculate the opponent’s strength with admirable accuracy; something we could all learn from. The most “emotional reaction”, perhaps, was that of the Foreign Minister, calling to the television and trying to convince the journalists to cancel a program out of fear.

Not about freedom of the press

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In the conversation on television and in the subsequent discussion about the matter in parliament, it is repeatedly proclaimed that this “has nothing to do” with free speech (though, for most of us taking cognizance of the matter, it seems undoubtedly a key issue in this conflict). Is it not crystal clear that this is about freedom of the press, or rather, yielding to foreign 64 See Chapter 5 (“Discrimination against women and non-Muslims”) and Chapter 6 (“Restrictions of the rights and freedoms of women”) in: Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, Fourth Edition, Westview, Boulder, Colorado 2007, pp. 99-113, pp. 113-147; Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, “Universal versus Islamic human rights: a clash of cultures or a clash with a construct?”, in: Michigan Journal of International Law, Vol. 15, 1993-1994, pp. 308-404, pp. 329-333, p. 360, pp. 389-402; Amara, Fadela, with Zappi, Sylvia, Breaking the Silence: French Women’s Voices from the Ghetto, translated with an Introduction by Helen Harden Chenut, Originally published under the title Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whore Nor Submissive), University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2006; Bhutto, Benazir, “Male Domination of Women”, Fourth Conference of Women, Beijng, China, September 4, 1995, in: Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century, Edited by Bob Blaisdell, Dover Publications, Mineola, New York 2011, pp. 218-220; Chesler, Phyllis, The Death of Feminism: What’s Next in the Struggle for Women’s Freedom, Palgrave, MacMillan 2005; Cliteur, “Female Critics of Islamism”, pp. 154-167.

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pressure in matters of freedom of the press? Yet the Foreign Minister says: “I am not used (not even in diplomacy) to give way to foreign pressure when it comes to our freedom of the press”. But isn’t this exactly what has happened here? Giving way to foreign pressure? Yet the representative of the Christian faction also said that he did not consider this a limitation of the freedom of the press. The liberal democrat MP did the same: freedom of the press was not the issue here. One wonders: what definition of “freedom of the press” do these participants in the discussion subscribe to? Do they mean that it does not apply to humor? Or to cheap humor? Or is freedom of the press not the issue when dictators do not laugh at the jokes? Unfortunately, the idea of freedom of the press that lurks behind this assessment is not explicated by any of the participants. It may seem a bitter irony that these questions are still part and parcel of discussions we have today. The Carrell Affair is still topical. Decades later, the name Rudi Carrell still makes civil servants in the German Foreign Office shiver.65 On the other hand, his approach to world politics was also praised (especially decades later). In 2003, the Berliner Zeitung called his show “for always a political classic” (“für immer zu einem Politi-Klassiker”).66 Claus Christian Malzahn was no less laudatory in 2007 in Der Spiegel when he wrote that for years the German public had been tricked by its government about a so-called critical dialogue with Iran: For years the country’s foreign ministers fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a “critical dialogue” between Europe and Iran. It went something like this: If we are nice to the ayatollahs, cuddle up to them a bit and occasionally wag our fingers at them when they’ve been naughty, they’ll stop condemning their women to death for “unchaste behavior” and they’ll stop building the atom bomb.67 65 Wittke, Thomas, “Aus Angst vor dem Eklat ein fast virtueller Staatsbesuch”, in: GeneralAnzeiger, 8 July 2000. “Wenn bei den Protokollbeamten des Auswärtigen Amtes in diesen Tagen der Name Rudi Carrell genannt wird, erstarren diese regelmäßig vor Schreck”. It is for that very reason that Hermann Glaser’s remark in, Deutsche Kultur: 1945-2000, Carl Hanser Verlag, München, Wien 1997, 464-465 that German show masters (also mentioning Rudi Carrell) distinguish themselves by “political innocence” (the German show masters “zeichnen sich allesamt durch politische Ungefährlichtkeit aus”) may be deemed inappropriate. 66 “Witze gegen den Kalten Krieg”, in: Berliner Zeitung, 24 July 2003. 67 Malzahn, Claus Christian, “Kommentar – Böse Amis, arme Mullahs”, in: Der Spiegel, 28 March 2007; “Poll shows majority of Germans think USA ‘more dangerous’ than Iran”, in: BBC Monitoring European, 29 March 2007. See also: Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, Fourth Edition, Westview, Boulder, Colorado 2007, p. 10 who warns against “equating Islamic culture with governmental representations of culture”.

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If this is true we can indeed say that the Carrell Affair is still important in our time.68 In the chapters that follow I will assess several incidents similar to the Carrell Affair. I will also try to establish if a common pattern can be found. Once we see this pattern it may be possible to develop a more consistent strategy of how to deal with these kinds of conflicts.

68 “Schlüpfer-Gag kostete Sendung”, in: Neue Presse, 7 March 2012: “Der damalige SchlüpferSkandal wirkt bis heute nach”.

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3.

The Coherence of Theoterrorism No doctrine dies because it has been criticized or even attacked; it can die, however, because it has been immunized against criticism.1 Amin Malouf

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As we have seen in Chapters 1 and 2, in 1987, Germany and the Netherlands were ill-prepared for the kind of confrontation that radical Islam (or Islamism) posed to the world.2 The worldview that brought Khomeini to issue a death verdict on a British author, or make threats to a German television show master, was new for most Western politicians. Foreign Minister Van den Broek formulated this, unwittingly, when he said that Iran had a completely different view on freedom of the press, the mocking of religious leaders, etc. Now, for all the criticism that may be exerted on the minister’s stance in this dilemma, this assessment cannot be contradicted. Slowly the West would learn more about the differences, but we have to emphasize “slowly” here. It may be enlightening to start with an anecdote that also tells us something about Dutch culture. In April 2008 the American-Israeli terrorismexpert Amos Guiora (b. 1957) had dinner with Ahmed Marcouch (b. 1969), then District Mayor of Slotervaart, then3 a district of Amsterdam, and now Mayor of Arnhem. 4 The dinner was held shortly after Sheikh Fawaz Jneid (b. 1964), the radical imam of the as-Soennah mosque in The Hague, frequented by Moroccan youth, issued a fatwa5 against Marcouch, of 1 “Aucune doctrine ne meurt d’avoir été critiquée, ou même attaquée; elle peut mourir de s’être rendue imperméable aux critiques”, Maalouf, Amin, “Pour Rushdie”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 210-211, p. 211. 2 As were intellectuals in general. See: Berman, Paul, The Flight of the Intellectuals, Melville House, Brooklyn, New York 2010, p. 174 who writes: “The rise of Islamism around the world in the 1980s and ‘90s created a tremendous crisis on the European and even the American left – even if, for a lot of people, the crisis went unnamed and undiscussed”. See also: Strindberg, Anders, and Wärn, Mats, Islamism: Religion, Radicalization, and Resistance, Polity, Cambridge 2011. 3 Guiora, Amos N., Tolerating Intolerance: The Price of Protecting Extremism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2014, p. 33. 4 Amsterdam is divided into eight boroughs or ‘districts’. 5 A fatwa is “a legal opinion or decree handed down by an Islamic religious leader.” Webster’s Dictionary 456 (11th ed. 2003). See also: Lewis, Bernard, “Religion and Murder in the Middle East”, in: Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, pp. 100-108, p. 105.

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Moroccan background, who had suggested on a national TV show that Islam must “come to terms with homosexuality”.6 “One person is Muslim, another person is homosexual, and yet another person is both Muslim and homosexual. That is what I stand for”, Marcouch had said.7 In addition, he had alleged that full assimilation into the Netherlands was only possible if young Islamic men sought gainful employment and learned Dutch. On the television program Pauw & Witteman, during a debate with Fawaz Jneid, Marcouch said that the imam had signed a statement referring to Marcouch as a “hypocrite” and “disguised unbeliever”.8 According to Marcouch, the statement had the status of a fatwa (an Islamic judgment, and in this case also a kind of curse), and as a result, his life may be in danger.9 On the day Guiora and Marcouch met, the Volkskrant (a national daily) published Marcouch’s open letter to Fawaz Jneid, challenging him to rescind the fatwa and to openly debate the issues.10 Marcouch indicated that he had received numerous private expressions of support but no public ones, Guiora writes. Shortly thereafter, on Guiora’s initiative, the fatwa was discussed at an academic conference11. Turnout at the conference was limited, as many participants were unaware (at least publicly) of its existence. One individual sought to limit its importance by arguing one “must understand its context.”12 Let us elaborate on the context. Sheikh Fawaz apparently saw the local Moroccan youth as his “children”. He felt it was his job to inculcate them with the right attitudes about homosexuality, says Guiora. Since District Mayor Marcouch frustrated that process, he had to be stopped.13 In order 6 Pauw & Witteman Show (VARA Television Broadcast, 2 April 2008), available at www.youtube. com/watch?v=xkr8RGtX89g. See also Marcouch’s commentary in his autobiographical book: Marcouch, Ahmed, Mijn hollandse droom, Uitgeverij Contact, Amsterdam/Antwerpen 2010, p. 54. 7 Marcouch, Ahmed, Mijn hollandse droom, Uitgeverij Contact, Amsterdam/Antwerpen 2010, p. 68. 8 Guiora, Amos N., Tolerating Intolerance: The Price of Protecting Extremism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York 2014, p. 33. 9 Fatwa Against PvdA Politician Marcouch, NIS News Bull., 26 April 2008, www.nisnews.nl/ public/260408_2.htm (last visited 17 March 2009). 10 Forum, Imam Fawaz vs. Broeder Marcouch, in: De Volkskrant, 25 April 2008, at 11, available at http://extra.volkskrant.nl/opinie/artikel/show/id/410/Imam+vs.+Ahmed+Marcouch. 11 Exit Strategies for Terrorists, April 2008, at The Hague (organized by the Center for Terrorism and Counterterrorism by the University of Leiden and the National Counterterrorism Coordinator). 12 Guiora declared that he found this comment troubling, so much so that he immediately phoned an American colleague who suggested such a response echoes statements more closely associated with Europe in the late 1930s. See Guiora, Tolerating Intolerance, p. 34. 13 In that sense this was also a conflict about the province of state and church. The politician Marcouch was stepping outside his terrain of competence and expertise, according to the sheikh.

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to realize his aims Fawaz probably did not shy away from pretty radical measures, and he seemed at least to be playing with the idea of resorting to the same measures that Ayatollah Khomeini had used to silence Salman Rushdie. That, at least, was the fear of Ahmed Marcouch, who was more experienced at decoding the messages that Fawaz sent to his followers than the native Dutch population, who were not used to the religious violence that also characterized Europe in previous epochs. With Sheikh Fawaz we had to deal with a completely different religious worldview than the kind we see exemplified in the speeches of, say, Martin Luther King (1929-1968). While King had interpreted the holy tradition as one of non-violence, Fawaz’s God was one of hatred and punishment for unbelievers – a God of wrath.14 The words of Fawaz could have had the same effect on Dutch Muslims that the pronouncements of right-wing rabbis in Israel had on Yigal Amir (b. 1970) before he assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995).15 While Fawaz subsequently retracted the fatwa16 and moderate Islamic leaders denounced it, there are a number of irrefutable, inescapable conclusions germane to this discussion. The criticism of the fatwa was not immediate; to an outside observer dependent on translation of the culture and the language, the response of moderates, decision-makers, and public intellectuals seems best described, Guiora writes, as “wait and see”. As evidenced both by the killing of Theo van Gogh in 200417 and other acts of religion-based violence in the Netherlands, extreme religious doctrine or belief threatens both specific individuals and the general population. One may also put it this way: it would be a bit haughty The right attitude towards homosexuality is a religious matter. And in religious matters the sheikh is the ultimate authority, not the politician. See on the long struggle between secular and religious power in the Western world: Hamburger, Philip, Separation of Church and State, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., London, England 2002; Sturzo, Luigi, Church and State, With an Introduction by A. Robert Caponigri, University of Notre Dame Press, Two volumes, Notre Dame, Indiana 1962. 14 Like the God of Calvin. See: Zweig, Stefan, Castellio gegen Calvin oder Ein Gewissen gegen die Gewalt, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983 (1936). 15 See: Guiora, Amos N., Freedom From Religion: Rights and National Security, Terrorism and Global Justice Series, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. 33-37. 16 See: Van Zanten, Claudia, “Marcouch: Code Should Ban Fatwa Record”, in: Elsevier, 25 April 2008, www.elsevier.nl/web/10191369/Nieuws/Nederland/Marcouch-Wetboek-moet-verbodfatwa-opnemen.htm. 17 Van Gogh, a Dutch columnist, film-maker, social critic, and radio personality was shot seven times and stabbed to death in Amsterdam on 2 November 2004 by Mohammed Bouyeri. The Van Gogh murder will be treated later in this chapter. See: Shore, Zachary, Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2006, p. 1.

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and not very fruitful in the political sense to dismiss those ideas as “obsolete”, “medieval”, “crazy”, “crackpot” or otherwise not to be taken seriously. When crazy medievalism gains ground we have some cause for concern. The same is true when such worldviews are taken seriously by radicalized individuals prepared to kill for their convictions. Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), Ayatollah Khomeini, Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), and other ideologues of radical Islam have a relevance to our contemporary predicament that is not yet acknowledged by the general public.18 How serious is the challenge that comes from Islamist thought? Regarding a similar contrast between the principles of liberal democracy and a movement that aimed to annihilate these principles, the philosopher T.D. Weldon (1896-1958) wrote in 1946: “Generally speaking it is not the case that political parties in this or in any other country are at odds with one another because they differ about political philosophy. Much more commonly they share a philosophy and quarrel about particular applications of it.”19 Whether this was true in 1946, against the backdrop of growing tension between East and West, is not what concerns me here. What seems more relevant is to ask ourselves whether this is true with regard to the present tension between Islamism and the West. Are Ayatollah Khomeini and Western politicians like Tony Blair20 only “at odds with one another” about the application of a commonly shared political philosophy – to borrow a phrase from Weldon – or is there a deeper source of conflict? Many authors think there is a deeper conflict. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali (b. 1949) in Triple Jeopardy for the West (2012) writes: “Not since the demise of Marxism has the world been faced with a comprehensive political, social and economic ideology determined, by force if necessary, to achieve hegemony 18 See on this: Jansen, Johannes J.G., The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1997; Tibi, “From Old Jihad to New Jihad”, pp. 35-65; Tibi, Bassam, Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: Democratic Peace and Euro-Islam versus Global Jihad, Routledge, London and New York 2008; Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals, p. 40; Esposito, John L., Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, Oxford University Press, New York 2002. 19 Weldon, T.D., States and Morals: A Study in Political Values, John Murray, London 1946, p. 2. 20 See on Blair’s ideas on religious extremism and religion: Blair, Tony, “A Battle for Global Values”, in: Foreign Affairs, Volume 86, No. 1 (Jan./Febr.), 2007, pp. 79-90; Griffiths, Rudyard, ed., Hitchens vs. Blair: Be it resolved Religion is a Force for Good in the World, The Munk Debate on Religion, 26 November 2010, Anansi, Toronto 2011. But Blair’s views on this seem to have changed somewhat, and for the better. He is more realistic in the sense that he sees how religion can be a source of conflict. See: Blair, Tony, “Religious difference, not ideology, will fuel this century’s epic battles”, in: The Observer, 25 January 2014; Blair, Tony, “The ideology behind Lee Rigby’s murder is profound and dangerous. We must take on this extremism”, in: Mail on Sunday, 2 June 2013; Blair, Tony, “Why Inter-Faith Understanding Is More Important Than Ever in Leadership”, in: The Huffington Post, 14 May 2012.

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over large parts of the world. I mean, of course, the rise of radical Islam, in its various manifestations, with its claim to be the only authentic interpretation of Islam”.21

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Aboutaleb: the Mayor of Rotterdam Another Dutch politician of Moroccan descent who incurred the wrath of homegrown jihadists was Ahmed Aboutaleb (b. 1961), formerly Alderman in Amsterdam and presently Mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second largest city. Aboutaleb was the son of a village imam. He grew up in a small Moroccan village in Nador Province in the Rif region. In 1976 he was taken to the Netherlands by his mother. There he studied telecommunications and worked as a reporter for Dutch radio corporations. He also had an assignment as public relations official at the Dutch health ministry. A turning point in Aboutaleb’s career was 1998 when he became director of Forum, an institute dealing with integration and multicultural matters. In 2004, the year in which the f ilmmaker Van Gogh was murdered, he succeeded Rob Oudkerk (b. 1955) as Alderman of the city of Amsterdam. Another four years later he was nominated Mayor of Rotterdam. Aboutaleb exemplif ied the successfully integrated Moroccan and therefore became popular with the Dutch community but unpopular with the radical Islamists. On radical websites, he was called a “collaborator”. Mohammed Bouyeri, in threats to Aboutaleb, dispersed over the internet under pseudonyms, accused him of being a zindiq, or heretic, which makes him, as cited by Ian Buruma in Murder in Amsterdam (2006), “an enemy of Islam destined for execution”.22 In 2005 Aboutaleb indicated that he wanted a conversation with the twelve members of the so-called “Hofstadgroep” – a group of Islamist youngsters suspected of potential terrorism (and some of them also convicted on that basis). Aboutaleb indicated that he did not want to speak with Mohammed Bouyeri, who had by that time murdered Van Gogh, but that he would like to speak to other potential terrorists.23 He wanted to know what drives them. 21 Nazir-Ali, Triple Jeopardy for the West: Aggressive Secularism, Radical Islamism and Multiculturalism, Bloomsbury, London 2012, p. 83. 22 Buruma, Ian, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, Penguin, New York 2006, p. 249. 23 “Aboutaleb: gesprek Hofstadgroep”, in: Trouw, 2 March 2005.

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Aboutaleb became a heavily protected Dutch politician, and for a considerable time, he seemed more reluctant to speak out on the controversial matters that brought him fame when the discussion on the Van Gogh murder dominated the headlines.24 Why was he so silent? In 2008 he made an intriguing confession. The cover of Volkskrant Magazine of 15 November 2008 showed a photo of him with the subheading “I do not dare to enter the mosque anymore”.25 In that interview, Aboutaleb says: “I used to go to mosque”. Following a short silence he continues: “But I do not dare anymore. It’s as simple as that. One simply does not dare anymore”.26 Although a Muslim, the Mayor of the second largest city in the Netherlands does not dare to enter a mosque. One would expect this to spark a national discussion. But that did not happen. There was only uncomfortable silence in the Dutch press.27 In 2015 Aboutaleb made headlines in the international press. Now it was not because of something he had said about what happened in the Netherlands, but about the terrorist attacks in France on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and the Jewish supermarket on 7 January 2015, which altogether left seventeen people dead. All over the world, he was lauded for his courageous and straightforward reaction to the event. What did he do? The Mayor of Rotterdam on television told the Islamist extremists to shut up.28 Aboutaleb appeared on live television just a few hours after the attack during which twelve people were gunned down. “It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom”, he said in the television program “Nieuwsuur”. And he added: “But if you don’t like freedom, for heaven’s sake, pack your bags and leave” (or rather ***off). He called the French cartoonists “humorists” who make a newspaper, and he advised the extremists: “Leave the Netherlands if you cannot find your place here”. 24 Although he made some tough comments after the massacre in the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo. On January 2015 Aboutaleb commented, “If you cannot live with humorists who make a newspaper, then pack your bags and leave” (“Als je het niet ziet zitten hier met humoristen die een krantje maken, mag ik het zo zeggen: rot toch op”). Mayor of London Boris Johnson called Aboutaleb “his hero” for that reason. See Johnson in The Telegraph of 11 January 2015. 25 In Dutch: “De moskee durf ik niet meer in.” See the interview by: Kouters, Steffie, “De moskee durf ik niet meer in”, Interview met Ahmed Aboutaleb, in: Volkskrant Magazine, 15 November 2008, pp. 10-18. 26 “Maar ik durf het niet meer. Zo simpel is het. Je durft het gewoon niet meer.” Ibid., p. 18. 27 See for a bleak picture of the Dutch situation: Browne, The Retreat of Reason, p. 58. 28 “Muslim Mayor in the Netherlands tells Islamists to ‘f-off’ on live TV”, in: The Washington Times, 13 January 2015.

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These remarks were all the more courageous because a decade earlier, in 2004, he made a similar commentary when Theo van Gogh was murdered. And it was this type of commentary which made him a target for extremists. Now, ten years later, in a similar situation but in his position as Mayor of a major Dutch city, he took the same stance. No Dutch politician – with the sole exception of Geert Wilders – would have dared to use such language. Aboutaleb earned a wide variety of supporters among colleagues abroad. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson lauded Aboutaleb as his “hero”.29 In an article in The Telegraph Johnson characterized Aboutaleb’s approach as that of the Enlightenment, of Voltaire. Johnson appears totally aware that this is a struggle for the hearts and minds of the people. But, contrary to what many others think and assert, he does not think we can win this war by pusillanimous language. Aboutaleb’s approach is the “kind of voice we need”. One of the most interesting aspects of this whole discussion is that people can inspire each other with vacuous and dishonest commentary,30 but also to make some valuable points. Aboutaleb’s inspiration proved to be influential 29 Johnson, Boris, “The Islamists want war, but it would be fatal if we fell for it”, in: The Telegraph, 29 January 2015: “And my hero – the man who got straight to the point – was the Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, himself a Muslim. ‘If you don’t like freedom’, he told the Dutch nation’s potential jihadists, ‘then pack your bags and leave. There may be a place where you can be yourself, so be honest with yourself, and don’t kill innocent journalists. If you don’t like freedom, then f–off’”. 30 Irresponsible commentary came from Pope Francis who, while on his way to the Philippines, where around 1,500 Muslims protested against the depictions of the Prophet, said that there are limits to the freedom of expression and that anyone who swears at his mother deserves a punch. See: “Charlie Hebdo: Pope Francis says if you swear at my mother – or Islam – ‘expect a punch’”, in: The Independent, 9 February 2015. What makes this shocking comment is not that the pope says that there are limits to free speech. This is self-evident as everybody knows. The striking fact is that the pope refers to a rule which has no significant status whatsoever. Does the pope want to insinuate that we cannot make jokes about mothers? But, second, and more importantly, the pope speculates about the possibility of physical attacks as a reaction to jokes or swearing two days after people have been butchered by terrorists for precisely that reason. That the pope after these harmful comments added that “freedom of speech and expression are fundamental human rights” was an empty if not cynical phrase because he had just effectively killed those rights. He subsequently abolished hundreds of years of development of human rights by adding, “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith others”. But under the aegis of modern human rights conventions and democratic constitutions, you certainly can. Following the pope’s advice would bring us back to the days before Vatican II or even to the days of the Spanish Inquisition. With the jihadist terrorists as their angels of revenge the pope flirts with going back to the most dark periods in human history. How dangerous his flirtation with vigilante justice was appeared when, on 8 January 2015, 1,000 people protested in London against “offensive caricatures of the Prophet” and a boy aged no more than ten waved with a placard saying “Insult my Mum and I will punch you”, quoting Pope Francis in the wake of the attacks. See: Drury, Ian, & Greenwood, Chris, “Swarming

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to the Mayor of London who himself made some valuable points. Johnson points out that hardly any paper in Britain has followed the lead of Charlie Hebdo and printed the offending Mohammed cartoons. He comments: “You would have thought it was essential to the story”.31 Why? Because by not printing the cartoons published in Charlie Hebdo the British public is unable to form any kind of judgment about what exactly is meant to have caused the offense. “Was there something particularly rude or risqué about the drawings? Were they obscene?”32 And after having rejected some of the most often repeated arguments against publishing the cartoons (e.g. that this would give “unnecessary offense to any religion”), Johnson openly confesses what made him decide not to republish the Danish cartoons ten years earlier (when he was editor of The Spectator). His motive then was fear. Now, in 2015, he acknowledges that it is essential to be open about this.

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The “village idiot” of Amsterdam Now that we have seen what the reactions were to the Charlie Hebdo attack, it is important to provide some context by going back to the murder in 2004 in the Netherlands. Aboutaleb’s reaction would have been unthinkable without the murder of Theo van Gogh (1957-2004), Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author, actor, journalist, public intellectual and – most notably – contrarian33. Van Gogh was born in The Hague, but lived in Amsterdam in the years before his death, where he was also killed, on the street, in broad daylight. He was the son of Johan van Gogh (b. 1922), who had worked for the Dutch Intelligence and Security Agency (AIVD). His uncle and namesake Theo (1920-1945) was executed as a resistance fighter by the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. His great-grandfather, also called Theo (1857-1891), was the famous art dealer and younger brother of the world-renowned artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1891). around hero Monty, the hardline Muslims protesting against freedom of speech”, in: The Daily Mail, 8 February 2015. 31 Johnson, Ibid. 32 Ibid. The same point was at stake when, on behest of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch VARA did not rebroadcast the fragment that Khomeini objected to, and which was aired in Germany eight days earlier. See Chapter 1 of this book. 33 The term became more popular after the death of Christopher Hitchens who was generally considered a “contrarian”. See: Hitchens, Christopher, Letters to a Young Contrarian, Basic Books, New York 2005. Theo van Gogh may perhaps best be characterized as a Dutch contrarian.

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Theo van Gogh’s life was full of personal quarrels and vehement intellectual clashes with people he deemed to be politically correct. In the last years of his life he was much impressed by the ideas and work of two other notorious Dutch opinion makers: Pim Fortuyn (1948-2002) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Fortuyn was a Dutch politician who was murdered by left-wing activist Volkert van der Graaf (b. 1969). Van der Graaf deemed Fortuyn to be a “danger” who had to be stopped (i.e. eliminated) although he did not specifically say that Fortuyn had to be stopped because of his criticism of Islam. One of Fortuyn’s political issues was criticizing Islam for its anti-Enlightenment stances, in particular with regard to homosexuality (Fortuyn himself was an ostentatious homosexual who openly avowed his sexual preferences). His most controversial statements were about the “backward nature” of Islam (in Dutch: “achterlijk”).34 Hirsi Ali (b. 1969) is a Somalia-born author and scholar who, after becoming an atheist,35 criticized her former religion, Islam, of anti-feminist proclivities.36 Together with Van Gogh, she made a film on this issue which was shown on Dutch television on 29 August 2004.37 Its title, Submission, refers to the literal translation of the word “Islam”, but also to the submissive attitude the believers exemplify with regard to the central ideas of their belief which makes progress difficult or even impossible. For

34 Poorthuis, Frank & Hans Wansink, “De islam is een achterlijke cultuur”, Interview met Pim Fortuyn, in: De Volkskrant, 9 February 2002. Fortuyn’s ideas on Islam are explained in: Fortuyn, Pim, “Tegen de islamisering van onze cultuur. Nederlandse identiteit als fundament”, in: De grote Pim Fortuyn omnibus, Speakers Academy, Van Gennep 2001, pp. 197-283. Fortuyn was influenced by: Goodwin, Jan, Price of Honor: Muslim Women lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World, A Plume Book, Penguin 2003 (1995). See on his life and ideas in general: Snel, Bert, Pim 1: De politieke biografie van Pim Fortuyn als socioloog en als politicus 1990-2002, Uitgeverij Van Praag, Amsterdam 2012; Snel, Bert, Pim 2: Pim Fortuyn en zijn partijen, Leefbaar Nederland, Leefbaar Rotterdam, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, Prof. Dr. W.P.S. Fortuyn Stichting 2013. 35 She tells her life story in two autobiographical books: Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Infidel: My Life, The Free Press, London 2007 and Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Nomad: From Islam to America, A Personal Journey through the Clash of Civilizations, The Free Press, London 2010. 36 She made her entrée in Dutch intellectual circles in 2001 with an article under the title “Allow us a Voltaire”. She meant: allow us, Muslims, also critical minds as Voltaire. Do not condemn us, Muslims, to obscurity by criticizing the Enlightenment thinkers who criticize religion. See: Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, “Gun ons een Voltaire”, in: Trouw, 24 November 2001, also in: Jaffe Vink & Chris Rutenfrans, De terugkeer van de geschiedenis, Uitgeverij Augustus, Amsterdam 2005, pp. 79-85. Her criticism was worked out in books like: Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, The Free Press, New York and Sydney 2006. Her work shows some similarities with that of Taslima Nasrin (France), Necla Kelek (Germany), Maryam Namazi (United Kingdom). See: Cliteur, “Female Critics of Islamism”, pp. 154-167. 37 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Submission, broadcast in “Zomergasten” (“Summer Guests”), 29 August 2004, with an introduction by Betsy Udink, Uitgeverij Augustus, Amsterdam 2004.

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Van Gogh, Hirsi Ali, and in a sense also Fortuyn, progress in the sense of Enlightenment was only possible by relinquishing religion.38 Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Van Gogh made criticism of Islam, the most radical monotheist creed, an important part of his polemics. His last film (06/05) was dedicated to the life and murder of Pim Fortuyn. In 2003 he wrote a book titled Allah weet het beter (Allah knows better).39 In circles of artists and writers, Van Gogh was exceptional because he did not subscribe to the fashionable left-wing views of many of his colleagues. But he was also hated for this. And for his personal attacks which were – admittedly – often beyond the pale. 40 The irony is that for many people his death, and especially the way this came about, actually proved what he had not been able to convey during his lifetime: that radical Islam was a mortal danger to the social cohesion of Dutch society (and, frankly, all democratic and liberal societies). On 2 November 2004 Van Gogh was murdered by home-grown jihadist Mohammed Bouyeri (b. 1978). 41 Van Gogh was cycling to work in the morning. The killer shot the filmmaker eight times with a handgun and afterwards tried to decapitate him with a knife. He also stabbed two knives in the victim’s chest, one with a note in which he spelled out his extremist message to the world, i.e. to Western democracies, Jews, and in particular Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali proved to be untouchable for the killer and Van Gogh was a soft target. 38 At least Islam. Fortuyn had sympathy for Catholicism. Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh were straightforward atheists and had no sympathy for any religion whatsoever. Hirsi Ali was influenced by the Dutch atheist Herman Philipse. See: Philipse, Herman, Verlichtingsfundamentalisme? Open brief over Verlichting en fundamentalisme aan Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Mede bestemd voor Piet Hein Donner, minister van Justitie en coördinerend minister in de strijd tegen terreur, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2005. Fortuyn, combining his sympathy for Catholicism and free speech with criticism of Islam, can perhaps be compared with the prolific American author Robert Spencer: Ali, Daniel & Spencer, Robert, Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, Ascension Press, West Chester, Pennsylvania 2003; Spencer, Robert, Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington DC 2007; Spencer, Robert, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington 2005. 39 Gogh, Theo van, Allah weet het beter, Xtra Producties, Amsterdam 2003. 40 A portrait of Van Gogh is painted by his friends Holman and Pam in: Holman, Theodor, Theo is dood, Met een voorwoord van Gijs van de Westelaken, Mets en Schilt, Amsterdam 2006; Pam, Max, Het bijenspook: over dier, mens en god, Prometheus, Amsterdam 2009. 41 Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam; Eyerman, Ron, The Assasination of Theo van Gogh: from Social Drama to Cultural Trauma, Duke University Press, Durham and London 2008; Llosa, Mario Vargas, “Schießen, schneiden, stoßen: Theo van Goghs schrecklicher Tod”, Die Welt, 4 November 2006; Chorus, Jutta & Olgun, Ahmet, In Godsnaam: Het jaar van Theo van Gogh, Uitgeverij Contact, Antwerpen/Amsterdam 2005.

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There were two reasons why it was so easy to kill Van Gogh. First, unlike Hirsi Ali he had no police protection. Van Gogh used to joke that the Amsterdam police had offered him protection but only during and after his public performances. “I hope that Al Qaeda respects the office hours”, he used to say. Second, he himself believed he was not a target for terrorist attacks in the same way that Hirsi Ali was because she was a Muslim (or rather an apostate Muslim) and he was a Dutch writer with no ties to Islam. So in his case, there was no “apostasy”. 42 According to Van Gogh’s understanding of Islamist ideology, there would be no reason to harm, let alone kill, him. He was after all “the village idiot”. But this proved to be a fatal miscalculation, not only of Van Gogh himself, but the Amsterdam police and Dutch authorities as well. That you do not have to be a Muslim to get killed by a jihadist had also been proven by the murder of Rushdie’s Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi (1947-1991) on 11 July 1991 and the attacks on his Italian translator Ettore Capriolo (1926-2013) on 3 July 1991 and his Norwegian publisher William Nygaard (b. 1941) on 11 October 1993. So what counts is not the identity of the victim but the fatwa issued by Khomeini. And Khomeini couldn’t be clearer, as I will explain more fully in Chapter 4. He does not respect the right to criticize, neither of Theo van Gogh nor Rudi Carrell or Salman Rushdie. 43 Anyhow, the murder of Van Gogh took most people by surprise. Especially the politically correct elite that Van Gogh had so vehemently criticized felt embarrassed, although not many people changed their attitudes openly. For Dutch society, though, the murder proved a watershed. The anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders achieved huge electoral successes.44 It is difficult to imagine this would have taken place without the murder. The assassin, Bouyeri, was apprehended nearby after the shoot-out and on 26 July 2005 sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.45 This severe sentence was a result of the fact that the murderer showed no remorse at all. 42 Ibn Warraq, ed., Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2003; Marshall, Paul, & Shea, Nina, Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011; Marshall, Paul, ed., Radical Islam’s Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari’a Law, Rowman & Littlef ied Publishers, Inc., Lanham etc. 2005; Sookhdeo, Patrick, Freedom to Believe: Challenging Islam’s Apostasy Law, Isaac Publishing, Three Rivers (Michigan) 2009. 43 See on the Rushdie Affair: Malik, From Fatwa to Jihad; Winston, The Rushdie Fatwa and After. 44 For a biography of Wilders see: Fennema, Meindert, Geert Wilders: Tovenaarsleerling, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam 2010. 45 Rechtbank Amsterdam, 26 July 2005 (Moord op Theo van Gogh).

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On the contrary, he used the public trial to explain the jihadist ideology in a manner that must have been a confronting experience for many people who had denied any danger. After the murder, a confusing and heated debate on the “causes” of this tragedy erupted. During this debate, a deep rift in Dutch society came to the surface. On the one hand, there was the multicultural and politically correct Dutch elite who pointed to Van Gogh’s brutal and outrageous criticism of vulnerable minorities in Dutch society. 46 On the other hand, there were people that pointed to the nature of jihadist ideology. The two groups could not agree on the causes of the new religious terrorism that seemed to take hold. This fundamental cleavage manifested itself in more or less the same manner in France, Great Britain, Germany and other countries, where debate erupted about how to deal with the new religious terrorism: What is the “cause” of Khomeini’s fatwa over Rushdie and his publishers? Is it the nature of jihadist ideology? Or is it Rushdie’s (and others) coarse criticism of religion?

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The theoterrorists’ profession of faith There is a famous quote from Nazi ideologue Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels (1897-1945) was surprised by the naivety of the general public. 47 Had the Nazis not made their intentions crystal clear? How could it be that some people did not hear them coming? He said: “We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us. (…) We 46 This point of view found a marked expression in: Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam; Buruma, Ian,“Der Dogmatismus der Auf klärung”, in: Thierry Chervel & Anja Seeliger, ed., Islam in Europa: Eine internationale Debatte, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 126-128. Exactly ten years later, after the attack on the editorial board of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, Buruma defended the same position in: Buruma, Ian, “Charlie and Theo”, in: Project Syndicate: the World’s Opinion Page, 15 January 2015. In 2004 Buruma depicted Van Gogh as a “provocateur”, in 2015 he did the same with the French cartoonists who were brutally massacred. 47 The element of “naivety” when dealing with dangerous people who make their intentions crystal clear is analyzed convincingly by: Jespersen, Karen & Pittelkow, Ralf, Islamistes et naivistes: un acte d’accusation, Editions du Panama, Paris 2007 and inspired by: Frisch, Max, Biedermann und die Brandstifter. Ein Lehrstück ohne Lehre, mit einem Nachspiel, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996 (1958).

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are coming neither as friends [n]or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we.”48 In the pages that follow, I will try to show that something similar is applicable to the Islamist ideology. When we listen carefully to what Islamist theoterrorists say, it is completely clear what their worldview is and what their intentions are. The only problem is many people are not prepared to listen. It was Bouyeri’s profession of faith – although generally ignored in the press – which was highly relevant to our understanding of the jihadist mindset. As indicated, there was the “Open letter” to Hirsi Ali he left on Van Gogh’s corpse on 2 November 2004. 49 This letter contained threats to Hirsi Ali, but also complaints about the Muslim community, which, according to the Dutch jihadist, forsook its primary duty.50 During his trial, he said: “You may send me all your psychologists, psychiatrists, and experts, but I will tell you, you will never understand this. You cannot. If I am released and get the chance to do again what I have done on 2 November, wallahi, I would do exactly the same.”51 The assassin expected a martyr’s death. Found on his body was a suicide note with the words: “So these are my last words… riddled with bullets… baptized in blood… as I had hoped.”52 What can we make of this? As Ron Eyerman writes in The Assassination of Theo van Gogh (2008), the killing appears staged as a ritual assassination.53 But one may also call it a “social performance”.54 Eyerman continues: 48 Goebbels, Joseph, ‘Why do we want to join the Reichstag?’ (translated by Randall Bytwerk), Der Angriff 1928. Available at: . 49 B., Mohammed, “Open brief aan Hirsi Ali”, in: Ermute Klein, red., Jihad. Strijders en strijdsters voor Allah, Uitgeverij Byblos, Amsterdam 2005, pp. 27-33; “Open Brief aan Hirsi Ali” door Mohammed B., Bijlagen Kamerstukken II, 29 854, No. 2. 50 B., Mohammed, Ibid., pp. 27-33. See for an analysis of this letter: Jansen, Hans, “De brief van Mohammed B., bevestigd aan het lijk van Theo van Gogh”, in: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 118, No. 3 (2005), pp. 483-491. 51 In Dutch: “U mag al uw psychologen, psychiaters en deskundigen op me af sturen, maar ik zeg u, u zult dit nooit begrijpen. Dat kunt u niet. Als ik vrij kom, en ik had de mogelijkheid om nog een keer te doen wat ik op 2 november deed, wallahi, ik zou precies hetzelfde hebben gedaan”. Translation Paul Cliteur, cited in: Alberts, Jaco & Derix, Steven, “Strafproces eindigt in wezenloze harmonie: proces Mohammed B. Verdachte wil levenslang”, in: NRC Handelsblad, 13 July 2005. See the verdict in: Rechtbank Amsterdam, 26 July 2005 (Moord op Theo van Gogh). This was where Mohammed B. stood trial for his murder of Theo van Gogh. Later he would also stand trial as a suspected member of the Hofstadgroup. The quotations about the three reasons why Van Gogh deserved death are derived from the Hofstadgroup trial. 52 Eyerman, The Assasination of Theo van Gogh, p. 6. 53 Ibid., p. 7. 54 Ibid.

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Three intended victims were identified in Mohammed B.’s letters on the Internet: Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Ahmed Aboutaleb, an Amsterdam politician born in Morocco, with an opposite view on Muslim assimilation; and Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician following in the footsteps of Pim Fortuyn.55

That the murder of Van Gogh was not only meant to send a signal to Van Gogh and Hirsi Ali but also to the Dutch citizenry in general, appears from the short conversation that developed after the murder. As Ian Buruma (b. 1951) writes in his account of the events, Mohammed made no serious attempt to escape after having killed his victim. While he reloaded his gun a woman who happened by called out: “You can’t do that!” “Yes, I can,” Bouyeri replied, (…) “and now you people know what you can expect in the future.”56

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The Woolwich attack What struck many was the sober explanation Bouyeri was willing to give immediately after the murder. What it shows us is that the theoterrorist is not in a state of confusion. His worldview is not “mad” or inconsistent. On the contrary, there is great coherence in most of what theoterrorists are saying and doing. They really do what they say, although outsiders often choose to ignore their threats, probably because they make us feel so uncomfortable. The coherence of theoterrorism was something the world would later experience with the Woolwich attack. On 22 May 2013, two attackers killed the twenty-five-year-old British soldier Lee Rigby (1987-2013) in Wellington Street, Woolwich, in southeast London. Rigby was walking along the street when two men ran him down with a car and subsequently used knives and a cleaver to literally hack him to death. Afterward, the police indicated that a postmortem had established that Rigby died from multiple incisive wounds, indicating that he suffered slashing or hacking from the blade of the weapon as opposed to its point.57 The attackers remained at the scene until the police arrived and in the meantime provided an explanation to passersby. Like had happened on 2 November 2004, one of the people witnessing the scene asked for an explanation; Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a Cub Scout leader, engaged one of the assailants in conversation, asking him what he wanted. The attacker, later identified as Michael Adebolajo (b. 1985), 55 Ibid., p. 8. 56 Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam, p. 2; Chorus & Olgun, In Godsnaam, p. 14. 57 Dodd, “Woolwich attack”.

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waving a butcher’s cleaver, his hands soaked in blood, made a statement, justifying the attack which was captured on video. He said:

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The only reason we have killed this man today is that Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. And this British soldier is one. It is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. So what if we want to live by the Sharia in Muslim lands? Why does that mean you must follow us and chase us and call us extremists and kill us? Rather you lot are extreme. You are the ones. When you drop a bomb, do you think it hits one person or rather your bomb wipes out a whole family? This is the reality. By Allah, if I saw your mother today with a buggy I would help her up the stairs. This is my nature. But we are forced by the Qur’an in Sura at-Tawba [Chapter 9 of the Qur’an], through many, many ayah [verses] throughout the Qur’an that [say] we must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your governments. They don’t care about you. Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think politicians are going to die? No, it’s going to be the average guy, like you and your children. So get rid of them. Tell them to bring our troops back so we can, so you can all live in peace. Leave our lands and you will live in peace. That’s all I have to say. Allah’s peace and blessings be upon Muhammad, as-salamu alaykum.58

Apparently, Adebolajo and his companion Michael Adebowale (b. 1991) see themselves as angels of revenge for injustices done to people living “in Muslim lands”. From the perspective of their ideology, they have done nothing wrong. On the contrary, Adebolajo acted in self-defense, or rather, defending the rights of his co-religionists in other parts of the world (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq – in every place of the world where this type of religion strives for supremacy). Adebolajo’s world is not a world divided into nation-states (as our world is),59 but into religious jurisdictions. What 58 “Woolwich attack: the terrorist’s rant”, in: The Daily Telegraph, 23 May 2013. 59 Philpott, Daniel, “The Challenge of September 11 to Secularism in International Relations”, in: World Politics, 55 (October 2002), pp. 66-95. The element of violating national sovereignty is, of course, also inherent in the Rushdie Affair. Here there was a state, Iran, which clearly and openly practiced terrorism. This aspect was emphasized by Bernard-Henri Lévy when wrote in 1999 about the fatwa as an act that one would have expected to belong to “obscurantist times”.

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“the West” is doing, is interfering in the jurisdiction of the world of Islam. Thereby, the West, in this case Great Britain, is doing something terribly wrong. Adebolajo and his fellow attacker are here for to right this wrong.

The Woolwich attack and the London bombings of 2005

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All British newspapers made the comparison between this jihadist attack and the London bombings of 7 July 2005. “Rigby’s death was the first on British soil at the hands of terrorists driven by the Al-Qaida ideology since the London bombings of 7 July 2005”, The Guardian noted.60 This comparison is understandable, of course, because the explanation of Adebolajo’s motivations as expressed in his declaration in front of the passersby was very similar to the declaration of Mohammed Sidique Khan (1974-2005), one of the four suicide terrorists responsible for the London underground bombings in 2005. In a video message released by Al Qaeda in September 2005 we see him declaring: I’m going to keep this short and to the point, because it’s all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. And our words have no impact upon you, therefore I’m going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood. I’m sure by now the media’s painted a suitable picture of me, this predictable propaganda machine will naturally try to put a spin on things to suit the government and to scare the masses into conforming to their power and wealth-obsessed agendas. I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our driving motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam – obedience to the one true God, Allah, and following the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad. This is how our ethical stances are dictated. Your democratically elected governments perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture This act is that the government of a country that is a member of the United Nations condemned a citizen of another country to death. This United Nations membership is an important element indeed. See: Lévy, Bernard-Henri, Avec Salman Rushdie: Questions de principe six, Le Livre de Poche, Librairie Générale Française, Paris 1999, p. 9. 60 Dodd, “Woolwich attack”.

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of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.61

Sidique Khan, like Adebolajo after him, constructs an important duality between “his people” and the rest of the world. It is certainly true, fortunately, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims give a different interpretation of the central tenets of Islam. It is also true that classical Islam is something different from the radical Islamist interpretation that Mohammed Sidique Khan presents of his religion. But it would be equally false to overlook that Sidique Khan finds moorings for his violence in his religion. His act, it seems reasonable to claim, is motivated and legitimated by his religion and aimed at the protection of his religion against the presumed onslaughts of modernism against Islam.62 But although the ideology as expressed by Adebolajo is very similar to the one we encounter in the declaration of Sidique Khan, the type of terrorist attack that they perpetrated was dissimilar. While Sidique Khan targeted all British citizens, Adebolajo, like the Kouachi brothers in the Paris attack, chose someone deemed to be more representative of British state policy: a soldier (or in the case of the Paris attack, blaspheming cartoonists and Jews). Military images are very prevalent in the jihadist imagination. So there is repeated reference to the idea of the “soldier”. Sidique Khan sees himself as a “soldier”. So does Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Theo van Gogh.

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The Woolwich attack and the murder of Van Gogh The ideology of Mohammed Bouyeri (b. 1978), the murderer of Theo van Gogh, is basically the same as that of Adebolajo, or that of Amedy Coulibaly (1982-2015), who synchronized his attacks on a French supermarket with the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Saïd Kouachi (1980-2015) and Chérif Kouachi (1982-2015).63 And like Adebolajo, Bouyeri was not only willing to explain this with an impressive calmness to one of the witnesses at the scene 61 BBC, “London Bomber: Full Text”, 1 September 2005, also Quoted in: Desai, Meghnad, Rethinking Islamism, p. 6. 62 Although, again, theism and fanaticism are not necessarily connected. This point is also rightly made by the Belgium philosopher Freddy Mortier. See: Mortier, Freddy, De hoer van de duivel: Illusies en godsgeloof, Acco Leuven, Den Haag 2011, p. 27. 63 Coulibaly, who killed four people and a Parisian policewoman in the Parisian kosher grocery store, pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a video published online two days after his death. See: Borger, Julian, “Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly declared allegiance to Isis”, in: The Guardian,

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(this time on the corner of Linaeusstraat and Oosterpark in Amsterdam), but also during trial before a Dutch court on 23 January 2008.64 Four years after the murder of Van Gogh the murderer gave some new insight into his motives. He declared the following: The reason for the murder of Van Gogh is that he had offended the Prophet. According to the law he deserved the death penalty, and I have executed it (…). Theo van Gogh considered himself a soldier. He fought against Islam. On the second of November, Allah sent a soldier who cut his throat. (…) This is Jihad in the most literal sense. Van Gogh saw himself as a soldier and he needed to be put down. Van Gogh knew exactly what he was doing. He was in the arena.65

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This is an insightful passage that teaches us something about the mindset of a theoterrorist which has some added value to what can be found in the declarations of Adebolajo and Sidique Khan. Let us carefully analyze what is said here. 12 January 2015. In the video he also pledges allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Kouachis declared themselves to be followers of Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. 64 This was a ruling about the question whether a group of jihadists, the so-called “Hofstadgroep”, could be tried and sentenced collectively for participating in a criminal organization. This was not the case, according to the court. By that time B. was already interned for the murder of Van Gogh on 2 November 2004. See on the Hofstadgroep: Vermaat, Emerson, De Hofdstadgroep: Portret van een radicaal-islamitisch netwerk, Aspekt, Soesterberg 2005; Vermaat, Emerson, Nederlandse Jihad: het proces tegen de Hofstadgroep, Aspekt, Soesterberg 2006. 65 Gerechtshof Den Haag, 23 January 2008 (Hofstadgroep). In Dutch: “Het motief van de moord op Van Gogh was gelegen in het feit dat hij de profeet had beledigd. Volgens de wet verdiende hij de doodstraf en die heb ik voltrokken (…) Theo van Gogh zag zichzelf als een soldaat. Hij streed tegen de Islam. Op 2 november 2004 heeft Allah een soldaat gestuurd die hem de strot heeft doorgesneden. Allah heeft het woord van Kufr op die dag vernederd. Op die dag heeft Allah het woord van de waarheid gevestigd. De Kaf ir is afgeslacht. Dit is Jihad in de meest letterlijke zin (…) Van Gogh zag zichzelf als soldaat en hij moest afgemaakt worden. Van Gogh wist precies wat hij deed. Hij bevond zich in de arena.” See on the murder of Van Gogh: Cliteur, Paul, “Godslastering en zelfcensuur na de moord op Theo van Gogh”, in: Nederlands Juristenblad 2004(45), 17 December 2004, pp. 2328-2335; Cliteur, Paul, “Cast Your Discomfort Aside: In matters of life and death, debate is the only thing that counts”, in: The Times Higher Education Supplement, 28 January 2005; Cliteur, Paul, “State and religion against the backdrop of religious radicalism”, in: International Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2012, pp. 127-152; Jansen, “De brief van Mohammed B., bevestigd aan het lijk van Theo van Gogh”, pp. 483-491; Nesser, Petter, “The Slaying of the Dutch Filmmaker – Religiously motivated violence or Islamist terrorism in the name of global jihad?”, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment PO Box 25, NO-2027, Kjeller, Norway 2005; Eyerman, The Assasination of Theo van Gogh; Eyerman, Ron, The Cultural Sociology of Political Assasination: From MLK and RFK to Fortuyn and van Gogh, Palgrave, Macmillan 2011.

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First, that Van Gogh has “offended the Prophet” and “fought against Islam”. Second, that on the basis of this indictment he “deserved the death penalty”. Third, that the murderer justifies his actions by asserting that he had simply executed this lawful punishment. Fourth, that part of the justification for this punishment is seen in the fact that it is based on the will of God. It was, in fact, Allah himself who had sent “a soldier to cut his throat”. Fifth, that the murderer presents the theological doctrine and justification for this act in the concept of “Jihad”. The assassin seems to present the whole conflict as a fair fight between opposing parties. He speaks of “soldiers” who were “in the arena”. He also claims to speak for his victim, who “knew what he was doing”. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Van Gogh’s co-author of Submission,66 their film on the position of women in Islamic culture, was also “in the arena” and marched in the “ranks of the soldiers of evil”, said Mohammed Bouyeri. He added: She has offended the Prophet. She is an apostate and she has joined the enemy. Three reasons, each in and of itself sufficient to qualify her for the death penalty (…). From the moment she went into politics and declared her oath in parliament, she became an apostate (…). I left the “Open letter to Hirsi Ali” on the corpse of Theo van Gogh to make a clear statement (…). That statement is: it is war, and if you enter the arena you know what will happen.67

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The theoterrorists argument analyzed Here the argument is both similar but also slightly different from what has been said about Van Gogh. There is the common indictment of offending 66 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Submission. 67 In Dutch: “Ze heeft de profeet beledigd, ze is afvallig en ze heeft zich aangesloten bij de vijand. Drie redenen, die ieder op zich voldoende zijn om haar voor de doodstraf in aanmerking te doen komen (…) Vanaf het moment dat zij de politiek in ging en haar eed voor het parlement aflegde, is ze afvallig geworden (…) Ik heb de ‘Open brief aan Hirsi Ali’ op het lichaam van Theo van Gogh achtergelaten om een duidelijk statement te maken (…) Het statement is: het is oorlog en als je je in de arena bevindt, weet je wat er gebeurt.” Gerechtshof Den Haag, 23 January 2008 (Hofstadgroep). See also: Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals, p. 246; Shore, Zachary, Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2006, p. 3.

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the Prophet and its fateful consequences. But then Hirsi Ali’s case differs from Van Gogh’s in a fundamental way. First, Hirsi Ali is an apostate, someone who has relinquished his or her religious belief.68 Under modern constitutional law, and on the basis of the postwar human rights declarations, changing or even relinquishing your religious belief is an elementary human right.69 But whoever is familiar with the stories of the Hebrew Bible, as told in e.g. the books of Deuteronomy, Judges, Numbers, and 1 and 2 Kings, will immediately recognize that the theme of apostasy is central to the whole narrative. The “fateful national consequences of disloyalty to Yahweh” are a highly pervasive theme.70 The book of Kings describes the kings of Israel or Judah “as either good or bad, depending on how they reigned”.71 We have to understand that “good” in this context means: loyal to Yahweh. “Bad” means disloyal to Yahweh. I will elaborate on this theme in the chapters that follow. But let us leave the theological dimension for a moment to stress that, apparently, Van Gogh’s murderer is severely opposed to liberal democracy as a political system. Indeed, his different testimonies can be read as a declaration of war against freedom of expression and the liberal democratic order. One cannot be both a true believer and a member of parliament in a democracy, so he tells us. The way he attacks that system is not only with words, but also with violence. Although the declarations of Adebolajo, Sidique Khan, and Mohammed Bouyeri are similar in the sense that they go back to the same ideological conviction, there is also a difference. Adebolajo killed Rigby because he was a soldier. Bouyeri killed Van Gogh because the latter said and wrote 68 Marshall & Shea, Silenced; Sookhdeo, Freedom to Believe; Zwemer, Samuel M., The Law of Apostasy in Islam: Answering the question why there are so few Moslem converts, and giving examples of their moral courage and martyrdom, Marshall Brothers, London, Edingburgh & New York 1924; Cohn, Haim H., “The Law of Religious Dissidents: A Comparative Historical Survey”, in: Israel Law Review, 34 (2000), pp. 39-100. 69 Cherry & Brown, Speaking Freely about Religion, p. 9; Schaik, Mirjam van & Doomen, Jasper, “De toekomst van godslastering”, in: Nederlands Juristenblad (30), 12 September 2014, pp. 2110-2116; Herrenberg, Tom, “Denouncing Divinity: Blasphemy, Human Rights, and the Struggle of Political Leaders to defend Freedom of Speech in the Case of Innocence of Muslims”, in: Ancilla Iuris, 1, 2015, pp. 1-19 70 Fee, Gordon D. & Stuart, Douglas, How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour, Zondervan, Michigan 2002, p. 91. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Augmented third edition, with the Apocryphal /Deuterocanonical Books, Michael Coogan, ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, p. 488. See also: Halbertal, Moshe, and Margalit, Avishai, Idolatry, Translated by Naomi Goldblum, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., London 1992. 71 Pawson, David, Unlocking the Bible: A unique overview of the whole Bible, Collins, London 2007 (2003), p. 292.

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things about the prophet he did not like. For people who do not share the Islamist persuasion these things are very different. Humanitarian intervention means invading a country by military means. Criticizing a religious prophet means making comments on religion, which is an elementary constitutional right – protected by European constitutions and treaty law. But for the Islamist, these things are more or less the same because they are brought together under the label “attack against Islam”. The problem that Adebolajo has with foreign interventions in countries in the Middle East is not that the territorial integrity of those countries is violated (a kind of preoccupation that would testify loyalty to the nation-state as an idea), but that these countries are deemed to be “Islamic”, so that every invasion of those countries is eo ipso a violation of “Islam”.

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Theocracy and democracy Now, what is the political system (if any) that Bouyeri, Adebolajo, Coulibaly, the Kouachi brothers, and Sidique Khan defend? Bouyeri does not use a word for it, but “theocracy” seems appropriate here. And according to the jihadist, there is a sharp contrast between democracy and theocracy. A theocracy is government by God (“theos”). Democracy, on the other hand, is government by the people (“demos”). Speaking about the Jewish tradition, the American political philosopher Michael Walzer (b. 1935) says: “Republics and democracies make no appearance in the biblical texts (though commentators have found them there)”.72 This cannot come as a surprise. Democracy is a relatively modern idea.73 But perhaps we should go a step further. Not only do republics and democracies “make no appearance” in the biblical texts, many stories make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the civil liberties so intimately connected with the modern mindset are vehemently rejected in the Bible.74 And the same 72 Walzer, Michael, In God’s Shadow: Politics and the Hebrew Bible, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2012, p. xiv. 73 Even in the nineteenth century the idea of democracy was heavily attacked by some of the most brilliant minds. See: Lippincott, Benjamin Evans, Victorian Critics of Democracy, The University of Minesota Press, Minneapolis 1938. 74 This is a controversial statement, of course, and an overwhelming literature has been written on the question whether or not the bible supports liberal values. See: Lüdemann, Gerd, The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Kentucky 1997; Soulen, Richard N., Sacred Scripture: A Short History of Interpretation, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville and Kentucky 2009; Boer, Roland, Rescuing the Bible, Blackwell Publishing,

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can be said about Islamic scripture. In the whole monotheistic tradition, for instance, it is considered impossible for God and the people to be on the same level.75 Or: we cannot both serve God and “we the people”. There can only be one final source of sovereignty. Either God is the ultimate source of our laws or this sovereignty is vested in the people. We are either ruled by sharia law or by man-made law. There simply is no compromise, according to the theocrat.

Two schools of thought

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Let us now take up a most delicate matter. Does this have anything to do with Islam? Abdullah al Andalusi, a spokesman for the Muslim Debate Initiative, which brings together Islamic scholars and researchers in the UK, said after the Woolwich attack: “These people claimed they killed the soldier in the name of protecting others from UK foreign policy. But if what they claim is true, they have acted no differently from the crimes they claim they wish to see stopped”.76 “They have done a cowardly, barbaric act,” said Imam Ajmal Masroor of the Islamic Society of Britain. “They have insulted God and Islam. They are low vile scum. We, the British, will remain together resolute and strong.”77 It is, of course, very helpful and hopeful that prominent members of the Muslim community so clearly disavow the murderous acts of the attackers.78 But is it really the case that Bouyeri and Adebolajo have no theological grounds for their deeds whatsoever? Are there no religious justifications for what they have done in holy scripture? If that is the case, how can Islamist ideology be so powerful? Malden 2007; Cliteur, Paul, “The Postmodern Interpretation of Religious Terrorism”, in: Free Inquiry, February/March 2007 (Volume 27, Number 2), pp. 38-41. 75 This is also stressed in the work of the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann (b. 1938): Assmann, Jan, Die Mosaische Unterscheiding: Oder der Preis des Monotheismus, Carl Hanser Verlag, München, Wien 2003; Assmann, Jan, Monotheismus und die Sprache der Gewalt, Wiener Vorlesungen, Picus Verlag, Wien 2006. 76 Quoted in: Grundy, Trevor, “Muslims condemn savage attack on British soldier”, in: The Washington Post, 23 May 2013. 77 Grundy, Ibid. 78 A marked contrast with the demonstration in London against depictation of the Prophet Mohammed after the murder of the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo. During that demonstration women were kept separate from men, “out of respect”, as the organisers said. See: Drury & Greenwood, “Swarming around hero Monty, the hardline Muslims protesting against freedom of speech”.

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The American journalist Rich Lowry (b. 1968) points out that after the Paris terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocery store, the attackers declared, “we have avenged the Prophet Mohammed”.79 White House spokesman Josh Earnest had a different reading of the events. Earnest, claiming the administration’s first concern was “accuracy”, said that the “individuals” who carried out the act of terrorism later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam. Lowry commented: “This makes it sound as if the Charlie Hebdo terrorists set out to commit a random act of violent extremism and only subsequently when they realized that they needed some justification, did they reach for Islam.”80 This is no coincidence, but regular practice with the Obama administration. Lowry also quotes the State Department’s deputy spokesperson Marie Harf, who had said that the militants of Boko Haram “claim to be active in the name of Islam”. The suggestion, apparently, is that the State Department knows better what motivates these people than they themselves. Lowry says: “The problem with all this dancing around the obvious is that it makes it impossible to take Islamic terrorists seriously on their own terms.”81 Lowry got support from columnist Thomas Friedman, who wrote: “When you don’t call things by their real name, you always get in trouble. And this administration, so fearful of being accused of Islamophobia, is refusing to make any link to radical Islam from the recent explosions of violence against civilians (most of them Muslims) by Boko Haram in Nigeria, by the Taliban in Pakistan, by Al Qaeda in Paris and by jihadists in Yemen and Iraq)”.82 Like Adebolajo had done for Loyau-Kennett, Deputy PM Nick Clegg (b. 1967) quoted from the Koran to substantiate his vision on the Woolwich attack. But the difference was, of course, that Adebolajo quoted scripture to justify the attack, while Clegg, more in line with the Obama administration approach on the Paris attacks, quoted scripture to delegitimize it. Clegg cited verse 32 chapter 5 of the Koran, which says: “If anyone kills a human being it shall be as though he killed all mankind whereas if anyone saves a life it shall be a though he saved the whole mankind.”83 Clegg added some theological reflections to his verdict and said: “A religion of peace was being 79 Lowry, Rich, “Of course it is Islam”, in: Politico, 14 January 2015, pp. 1-4, p. 2. 80 Ibid., p. 2. 81 Ibid. 82 Friedman, Thomas, “Say It Like It Is”, in: The New York Times, 20 January 2015. See also: Tibi, Bassam, and Hasche, Thorsten, “The Instrumental Accusation of Islamophobia and Heresy as a Strategy of Curtailing the Freedom of Speech”, in: Erich Kolig, ed., Freedom of Speech and Islam, Routledge, London and New York 2014, pp. 187-209. 83 “Clegg: Woolwich suspects ‘perverted’ religion of peace”, in: BBC News, 24 May 2013.

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distorted, turned upside down and inside out, perverted in the cause of an abhorrent and violent set of intensions”.84 He also said: “Terrorism has no religion because there is no religious conviction that can justify the kind of arbitrary, savage random violence that we saw on the streets of Woolwich”.85 Does Clegg mean to say that Adebolajo’s and Adebowale’s conviction is “not religious”? But this is difficult to sustain. Adebolajo, Sidique Khan, Bouyeri, and other jihadist ideologues and activists exemplify some characteristics that we all clearly associate with “religion”. They find justifications for their acts in holy scripture; they pray to their God for inspiration and courage; they present theological reasoning to explain why they did what they did; they undoubtedly hope and expect to be rewarded in the hereafter for their bloody interventions in this world. It seems Clegg must use the words “religion” and “religious” in a very eccentric way to uphold the statement that what the jihadists have done has nothing to do with religion. Why does he take a stance that so obviously flies in the face of what even the most casual researcher can establish for himself? The answer seems clear. What Clegg wants to say is that not all Muslims are terrorists. And this is true. Probably he also wants to say that the majority of the Muslims are peace-loving individuals. Which is also true. He may also want to underscore that Islam as a religion has many faces;86 there are moderate and liberal currents within Islam. Again, these are all valid points, one may say. But that still does not justify the curious statement that the jihadists mentioned are “not religious”. This simply makes no sense. Theoterrorists take their religion very seriously. It is important to state this clearly because a successful cure starts with the right diagnosis. And one may fear Clegg is not able to provide us with this. He is, perhaps, under the spell of political correctness, and accordingly at a far distance from an adequate diagnosis of the problem itself. Melanie Phillips (b. 1951), a more promising commentator, writes: “Ever since the specter of Islamic terrorism in the West first manifested itself, Britain has had its head stuck firm in the sand.”87 Even if we do not know yet whether Phillips has diagnosed the problem correctly, it seems right to affirm that

84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 This point is also made by: Viswanathan, Gauri, “Religion and the Imagination. Interview with Salman Rushdie”, in: Alfred Stepan & Charles Taylor, eds., Boundaries of Toleration, New York and Chichester 2014, pp. 7-34, p. 22. 87 Phillips, Melanie, “Until our leaders admit the true nature of Islamic extremism, we will never defeat it”, in: Mailonline, 26 May 2013.

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Clegg’s statement is a manifestation of this “head stuck firm in the sand”.88 It simply makes no sense to say that people who pray, cite holy scripture, and expect rewards for their “martyrdom operations” in an afterlife are “not religious”. And again, it seems not unduly critical to say – even if one disagrees with Phillips on many points – that the British government “still has no coherent strategy for countering radicalization”.89 Clegg’s remarks are not only difficult to harmonize with what was there for all to see, but are also internally contradictory. He said: “A religion of peace was being distorted.” Apparently, the Islamists have not been totally unsuccessful in their reinterpretation of the religion of peace. Even Clegg is impressed that a religion was being distorted. Does that not imply that religion can develop into something violent indeed? Or does he want to say that by some magical trick a “distorted religion” is no longer a “religion”? Perhaps we should adopt a more understanding attitude towards Clegg. He is, one may say, not concerned about contributing to a sound theological debate, but with politics. He tries to rally the majority of the Muslims behind the flag of Great Britain. But even taking into consideration his motives, we may challenge the soundness of this approach. What to think of the attempt of rallying Muslim people behind Great Britain’s flag on the basis of theological interpretations of the Koran? Is this a viable strategy? Do we not run the risk that by exchanging passages from holy scripture we make loyalty to the British state dependent on the outcome of a theological debate? And is this self-assuredness about the messages of the Koran so well-founded? Undoubtedly, Adebolajo or Coulibaly or Saïd or Chérif Kouachi can cite some sources and clerics as well. The radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed (b. 1958) praised Adebolajo as “courageous” and a “hero”. It is somewhat naive to think that Adebolajo will not be able to substantiate his actions with quotes from the Koran provided by Islamist ideologues like Omar Bakri Mohammed or people with similar ideas. As Phillips says correctly, “this extremism is religious in nature.”90 She follows her analysis with the contention: “It arises from an interpretation of Islam which takes the words of the Koran literally as a command to kill unbelievers in a jihad, or holy way, in order to impose strict Islamic tenets on the rest of the world.”91 88 Another critical commentator on British denialism is: Cohen, Nick, What’s Left? How the Left lost its Way, Harper Perennial, London 2007; Cohen, Nick, You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom, Fourth Estate, London 2012. 89 Phillips, Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid.

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The debate about the role of Islam

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Needless to say, this is a matter of great controversy. Debate on this issue is divided into two schools of thought. On the one hand, there is the school that attributes a certain significance to “Islam”, “radical Islam”, or “Islamism” in the explanation of terrorism. The doyen of this school is Bernard Lewis. His essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (1990)92 coined the phrase “clash of civilizations” that would later inspire Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) in his eponymous essay (1993)93 and subsequent book (1996).94 The second school of thought denies the importance of the cultural factor. Here there are a wide variety of explanations for terrorism, but what they have in common is that they all deny the significance of religion, ideology, or culture. Important approaches are that of anthropologist Scott Atran (b. 1952)95 or Islam scholar John Esposito (b. 1940).96 Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech mainly derives inspiration from the culturalist approach, in particular the works of scholars like John Kelsay (b. 1953),97 Bassam Tibi (b. 1944),98 and Meghnad Desai (b. 1940).99 The London bombings, the murder of Van Gogh by a home-grown jihadist, the Danish cartoon crisis that raged all over Europe from 2005 onwards, the Paris terror attack on 7 January 2015 – these are all manifestations, so it seems, of a newly asserted self-confidence by radical Islamist groups. They perpetrate terrorism based on their idea what God expects from them. They are, in that sense, “theoterrorists”. It seems right to say, as the chairman of 92 Lewis, Bernard, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, in: The Atlantic Monthly, September 1990, also in: Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, pp. 319-331. 93 Huntington, Samuel, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, in: Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49. 94 Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon & Schuster, New York 1996. See also: Frum, David & Perle, Richard, An End to Evil: How to win the War on Terror, Ballentine Books, New York 2003, p. 40. 95 Atran, Scott, Talking to the Enemy: Violent Extremism, Sacred Values, and what is means to be Human, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London 2010. 96 Esposito, John L., The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Oxford University Press, New York 1992; Esposito, John L. & Mogahed, Dalia, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, Gallup Press, New York 2007. Esposito’s book, Christopher Catherwood writes, propagate a “sympathetic and almost apologetic version of Islam, past and present”. See: Catherwood, Making War in the Name of God, p. 7. 97 Kelsay, John, Arguing the Just War in Islam, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England 2007. 98 Tibi, Political Islam, World Politics and Europe; Tibi, Bassam, Islamism and Islam, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2012; Tibi, “From Old Jihad to New Jihad”, pp. 35-65. 99 Desai, Rethinking Islamism.

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the French committee that revindicated the old constitutional ideal of laïcité (secularism)100 has done, that nowadays secularist ideals are challenged by religious extremists.101 I do not think there is much to win by declaring these ideas of extremists “non-religious”, as we hear politicians do all over the world.102 They may be very religious indeed, but what we may hope (and should strive for) is that this violent and fundamentalist interpretation of religion does not get the upper hand.

Attacks on mosques

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Developing the right diagnosis to counter theoterrorism is not only important for the self-defense of democratic societies but also to conquer racism, xenophobia and even what is called “Islamophobia”. Immediately after the Woolwich attack scores of supporters of the English Defence League threw bottles at the police and chanted anti-Muslim slogans. EDL Leader Tommy Robinson (b. 1982) said: “They’re chopping our soldiers’ heads off. This is Islam. That’s what we’ve seen today. They’ve cut off one of our army’s heads off on the streets of London.”103 Professor Nigel Copsey (b. 1967) of Teesside University is the author of a report which showed that between forty and sixty percent of mosques 100 See on the French concept of “laïcité” and the Anglophone “secularism”: Weil, Patrick, “Why the French Laïcité is Liberal”, in: Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 30, No. 6, 2009, pp. 2699-2714. See also: Weil, Patrick, Le Sens de la République, avec Nicolas Truong, Bernard Grasset, Paris 2015; Blackford, Russell, Freedom of Religion & The Secular State, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2012. 101 “Car il faut être lucide: oui, des groupes extrémistes sont à l’œuvre dans notre pays pour tester la résistance de la République et pour pousser la résistance de la République et pour pousser certains jeunes à rejeter la France et ses valeurs.” Laïcité et République, Rapport au Président de la République, Commission présidée par Bernard Stasi, La Documentation française, Paris 2004, p. 13. See also: Juergensmeyer, Mark, Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State, from Christian Militias to Al Qaeda, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London 2008. The type of secularism advocated by the French committee who prepared the report Laïcité et République has, of course, nothing to do with the rhetorical and deprecatory use of the term by Michael Zazir-Ali when he writes that there is a “aggressive secularism” which, in his view, “refuses public space to any religion and has been shown to be totalitarian in its instincts”. See: Nazir-Ali, Triple Jeopardy for the West, p. vii. 102 Also President Obama, see: Gerson, Michael, “Step up the war against ISIS, not the rhetoric against Islam”, in: The Washington Post, 8 Februari 2015; Friedman, “Say It Like It Is”. 103 Quinn, Ben, and Urquhart, Conal, “Anti-Muslim reprisals after Woolwich”, in: The Guardian, 23 May 2013.

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and other Islamic centers had been targeted since 9/11.104 Commenting on the resurgence of what are called “anti-Islamic attacks” Copsey said: “There has undoubtedly been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents since the Woolwich murder. An obvious concern now is whether the number of hate crime incidents return to ‘normal’ levels or whether Woolwich has been a game-changer in terms of increasing the underlying incidence of anti-Muslim hate over the longer term.” A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “There is no place for anti-Muslim hatred or any kind of hatred in Britain, and we are committed to tackling this unacceptable scourge.”105 As a statement of fact, the spokesman’s comment makes no sense. The figures show that there is indeed anti-Muslim hatred. Perhaps he meant to say that he would like it better if this had not been the case. He is expressing wishes. What about the rest of his comment? The question is: is the British government really tackling this scourge? And if so, how? What does the government do, apart from expressing its regret about the proliferation of hatred in the country? The bleak picture is that the British government apparently failed to protect Drummer Lee Rigby from being murdered, just as the French government, apparently, failed to adequately protect the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. The British government failed to protect mosques from being attacked, failed to stop the rise of radicalism and extremism and the proliferation of religious and ethnic hatred. Now, does the rise of all these unfortunate processes and tendencies have anything to do with failing to pose the right diagnosis of the problem? Saying that “there is no place for anti-Muslim hatred”, as the local government spokesman did, is easy enough, but is it a significant contribution to mastering the problem? Wouldn’t the greatest contribution be developing a consistent counterterrorism policy? In a complicated world, there are always many causal factors at work, but it seems fair to say that the English Defence League would have had a much smaller constituency if the British government had been more successful in their counterterrorism policies. The right diagnosis of the causes of theoterrorism is, therefore, a vital precondition for community welfare. Does the analysis presented above “excuse” or “legitimize” racism? AntiMuslim violence? Bigotry? Islamophobia? 104 Quoted in: Rawlinson, Kevin, and Gander, Kashmira, “Half of Britain’s mosques have been attacked since 9/11”, in: The Independent, 28 June 2013. 105 Ibid.

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I do not think it does. What it does, is challenge conclusions that government officials and those who monitor racism usually draw from disturbing figures indicating a decline of community solidarity and a rise in religious hatred. These figures are disturbing indeed. And hatred of any kind – as the government spokesman indicated – is something to be deplored and conquered. But only addressing the people who are deemed to be in the grip of this “phobia” is not effective. Taking away the root causes of their fear is much more effective. And would it be a very wild guess to say that the state has failed to curb the challenges posed by theoterrorists to modern nation-states? Wouldn’t organizations like the English Defence League become much less influential if governments made more progress in curbing the terrorist threat? The greatest contribution to eradicating racism and xenophobia and establishing harmonious relations between different groups in society would be an effective counterterrorism strategy. As long as the state fails to develop an effective strategy the state or “politics” is not part of the solution, but part of the problem.106

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The Netherlands, Denmark, and Great Britain In this book, three countries receive a great deal of attention: the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Denmark. In each of these countries, there was a notorious clash between religious extremism and the values of a liberal society. In the Netherlands, this was the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh (1957-2004). In Great Britain, the terrorist threat to the writer Salman Rushdie (b. 1947), and in Denmark, the Cartoon Affair (2005). Although there are similar patterns, there are also differences, as one may expect. In this book, much attention is paid to the Dutch case and, especially, to Dutch legislation in the field of terrorism and freedom of speech, which has some remarkable differences compared to other countries, making the Netherlands essential, to understanding the problems under discussion. 106 At the end of June 2013 British media sources were reporting that the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer had been banned from the United Kingdom as their entry was considered “not conducive to the public good”. Geller and Spencer were planning on attending and speaking at a rally in Woolwich organized by the EDL. See: “Pamela Geller Banned from England”, in: The Jewish Press.com, 27 June 2013. Also the two leaders of the EDL, Robinson and Carroll, were arrested as they tried to visit the scene of the Woolwich terror attack. See: Legge, James, “EDL leaders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll arrested in London”, in: The Independent, 29 June 2013.

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A little excursion into Dutch history may be useful. During the 1960s, the Netherlands evolved from a rather religious and traditional country into a very liberal and secularized one.107 Although Dutch blasphemy law was still in force (it was finally abolished in 2014),108 a liberalized, even anarchistic and iconoclastic frame of mind that we associate with bohemians, artists, or the “radical chic” had arisen. Authors like Gerard Reve (1923-2006) fantasized about having sex with God, who would manifest himself in the shape of a donkey.109 His brother Karel van het Reve (1921-1999) mocked religious believers in essays that were deemed “blasphemous” by many traditional and religious compatriots.110 Youngsters under the name of “Provos” (“provocateurs”) entered into conflicts with the police.111 Authority was knocked off its pedestal. One of the main public discussions centered around war criminal Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), a major organizer of the Holocaust, whose trial took place in 1962. The Eichmann trial was commented on by political philosophers and public intellectuals like Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). According to Arendt, Eichmann exemplified the “banality of evil”.112 He was not the monster most people took him for, but an ordinary individual, very much inclined to follow orders. 107 See on the cultural development of the Netherlands in the 1960s: Kennedy, James C., Nieuw Babylon in aanbouw: Nederland in de jaren zestig, Tweede druk, Boom, Amsterdam/Meppel 1997 (1995); Kennedy, James, “The Moral State: How much do the Americans and the Dutch differ?”, in: Hans Krabbendam & Hans-Martien ten Napel, eds., Regulating Morality: A Comparison of the Role of the State in Mastering the Mores in the Netherlands and the United States, Maklu / E.M. Meijers Instituut, Antwerpen/Apeldoorn 2000, pp. 9-23. General accounts of the culture of the Sixties are: Marwick, Arthur, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c. 1958-c. 1974, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1998; Diski, Jenny, The Sixties, Profile Books, London 2009. For a general history of the Netherlands, see: Kossmann, E.H., The Low Countries: 1780-1940, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1978. 108 From a modern point of view all “penalties, disabilities, and legal inequalities which were imposed for religious motives” should be deprived of all significance in the eyes of the law. See: Ruffini, Francesco, Religious Liberty, Translated by J. Parker Heyes, with a preface by J.B. Bury, Williams and Norgate, London, New York 1912, p. 12. 109 Reve’s letter, the basis for his legal prosecution on the basis of blasphemy, was: Reve, Gerard, “Brief aan mijn bank”, pp. 185-188. During his trial he held some notorious speeches that are assembled in: Reve, Gerard, Vier Pleidooien, Polak & Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1972. 110 Reve, Karel van het, “De ongelooflijke slechtheid van het opperwezen”, in: NRC Handelsblad, 20 July 1985, also included in: Karel van het Reve, De ongelooflijke slechtheid van het opperwezen, Van Oorschot, Amsterdam 1987, pp. 7-20. 111 See on this movement Harry Mulisch’s account in Bericht aan de rattenkoning, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 1966. 112 Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Revised and Enlarged Edition, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1992 (1963).

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Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) tried to prove Arendt’s thesis with psychological experiments that corroborated the view that under the right circumstances people feel obliged to follow orders, even if it means committing the most horrendous crimes.113 So basically Eichmann was a “bureaucrat”. This had important consequences for the Weberian model of bureaucracy, as one might expect.114 Authority, i.e. following orders, became hugely unpopular with a new generation of youngsters. Dutch novelist Harry Mulisch (1927-2010),115 who was also present in Jerusalem during the Eichmann trial to comment on the court proceedings for the Dutch magazine Elsevier, published his views on the matter in De zaak 40/61 (1962).116 Mulisch, whose views were similar to those of Arendt (though he claimed to have developed them earlier and independent of her), summarized the new attitude towards politics and culture in his exclamation that in his youth there was only collaboration, reasonableness, moderateness, and hypochondria.117 In 1972 he indicated that he abhorred fathers, teachers, policemen, and the like – people who want to forbid things, take things from you, who refuse to listen and think they know best but, in reality, are dumb and servile and unjust.118 Mulisch castigated the generation of “fathers” who had fought the Germans in the Second World War as not only 113 Milgram, Stanley, “The Perils of Obedience”, in: Harper’s Magazine, 1974, under the title: “An Experiment in Autonomy” also in: Louis P. Pojman, ed., The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature, Oxford University Press, New York Oxford 2000, pp. 625-640; Cliteur, Paul, The Secular Outlook: In Defense of Moral and Political Secularism, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2010, pp. 206-208. 114 Meaning, roughly, that civil servants are working under the supervision of politicians and have to follow orders. See: Weber, Max, The Profession and Vocation of Politics, in: Max Weber, Political Writings, ed. Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994, pp. 309-370. 115 Harry Mulisch was a famous Dutch novelist. His The Assault (1982) was a worldwide bestseller and has been translated into more than thirty languages. In 1986 it was made into a movie that won an Oscar for best non-English film. Another novel by Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven (1992), was favorably reviewed by John Updike in The New Yorker (25 November 1996), who compared the Dutch author with Homer, James Joyce, Umberto Eco, and Thomas Mann. 116 Mulisch, Harry, De zaak 40/61: Een reportage, Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 1979 (1962). Although he had a weak spot for authoritarian left-wing regimes like that of Fidel Castro. He wrote an opera lauding Castro together with the musician Peter Schat. When Schat later changed his opinion on Cuba Mulish considered his former friend a “traitor”. See: Verkijk, Dick, Harry Mulisch: “Fel anti-nazi” – vanaf wanneer?, Uitgeverij Aspekt, Soesterberg 2006, p. 31. Mulisch’s book on Eichmann has been translated into English: Mulisch, Harry, Criminal Case 40/61: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Translated by Robert Naborn, Foreword Debórah Dwork, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2005. 117 Mulisch, Harry, De toekomst van gisteren, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 1972, p. 39. 118 Ibid., p. 37.

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bourgeois but as “fascist” in itself.119 So iconoclasm seemed to be the rule rather than the exception in the 1960s. An author and filmmaker like Theo van Gogh was, in a certain sense, the offspring of that frame of mind.120 But now that the Dutch were liberated from all kinds of restraints in the field of criticism of religion, a new wave of immigrants brought a certain amount of traditional puritanism into the country. And, in its Islamist form, even a violent form of puritanism. Theo van Gogh’s murderer was an exponent of that new mentality. As Roger Scruton wrote in 2009: “Everything that happens in Holland is now closely watched by other European leaders, anxious to know where Europe itself is going.”121 But before I continue with the Dutch story, let us first delve into the development of theoterrorism’s assault on free speech in another small European country.

119 Mulisch, De zaak 40/61. 120 An account of Theo van Gogh’s personality and views is to be found in a character sketch by his friend Theodor Holman (b. 1953) made in: Holman, Theo is dood. Another friend of Van Gogh, Max Pam (b. 1946), presents an interesting view on the controversial filmmaker in: Pam, Het bijenspook. Dutch novelist Leon de Winter (b. 1954) presented a fictionalized account of the events around Van Gogh’s death in: Winter, Leon de, VSV of Daden van onbaatzuchtigheid, De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam 2012. 121 Scruton, Roger, “Free Speech in Europe”, in: The American Spectator, May 2009, p. 41. See also: Shore, Zachary, Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2006, p. 3: “The Dutch case symbolized the social tensions mounting across Europe between a burgeoning young, religious Muslim population, on the one hand, and a fearful, secular, ethnic European populace, on the other”.

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4. The Danish Cartoon Affair We so much value our democracy that we want to export it to Afghanistan. To avoid spilling the lives of the boys we send there we have to defend our democracy here first. Kurt Westergaard 1

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The Rushdie fatwa certainly announced a new era of a sort, an era in which Western governments were only too happy to play down the value of free expression in favor of realpolitik in the interests of social cohesion at home and international trade and cooperation. Caspar Melville2

The most direct attempt to destroy the principle of free speech is to openly announce that you will kill anyone who writes something that offends your own religious sensibilities. An eerie example of this practice is found in what has been identified as an “Al Qaeda glossy”, a magazine entitled Inspire, which popped up on the internet around July 2010. On page 25 under the title “The dust will never settle down” a list of names is presented on what looks like an old film-poster, including Lars Vilks, Flemming Rose, Geert Wilders, Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Kurt Westergaard, and Molly Norris. The names are accompanied by a picture of a shotgun. According to the security services of several European countries, Inspire is probably made in Yemen.3 The makers’ message is spelled out under the list of targets: “If you have the right to slander the Messenger of Allah, we have the right to defend him. It is part of your freedom of speech to defame Muhammad, it is part of our religion to fight you.” A year later another “hit list” with Geert Wilders’s name on it surfaced on the internet. The Dutch National Coordinator for Security and 1 Kurt Westergaard quoted in: “Deense cartoonist ontsnapt aan aanslag”, in: De Volkskrant, 4 January 2010. 2 Melville, Taking Offence, p. 23. 3 “Wilders op dodenlijst in online glossy Al Qaida”, in: De Volkskrant, 17 July 2010. See on the glossy also: Kester, Sacha, “Al-Qaida glossy vol tips voor de ‘ondernemende jonge jihadist’”, in: De Volkskrant, 3 May 2012; Cavendish, Julius, “Al-Qa’ida glossy advises women to cover up and marry a martyr”, in: The Independent, 14 March 2011.

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Counterterrorism was to conduct research to assess the severity of the situation, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad revealed. 4 In March 2013 the magazine renewed its threats against Wilders. The March edition of Inspire offered an item entitled “Wanted: Dead or Alive” that gave a list of names including – besides Wilders – Molly Norris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Flemming Rose, Salman Rushdie, Lars Vilks, Terry Jones, and Kurt Westergaard.5 Geert Wilders, misspelled “Girt”, is in fourth place on the pastiche film poster.6 Wilders himself called the poster “dreadful and frightening”.7 In his own words, to quote the title of his book, he is “marked for death”.8 The 2013 and 2010 lists are the same, except for the addition of Terry Jones. It is beyond the scope of this book to take a stance on the origin of the hit list published in Inspire and other terrorist publications. The internet, apart from being a source of reliable and useful information, is also an open sewer containing the most sordid and violent material. Much of that material is anonymous, especially if the maker can expect difficulties with the law in one or more national jurisdictions. So who is behind all those threats of violence is hard to establish with certainty. Yet not to take these threats seriously is not an option either, as the real attempts to kill Rushdie, Westergaard, Van Gogh, and others teach us. Whatever the source of those internet threats, they certainly teach us something about the nature of Islamist-jihadist ideology (as distinguished from the ideas of the majority of believers). And we know for sure that theoterrorists have a real grudge against people like Kurt Westergaard, as many attempts to kill him have proven beyond reasonable doubt. We also have empirical evidence that the man who attempted to kill Westergaard on 1 January 2010 was motivated by Islamist ideological thought. And the man who actually killed Theo van Gogh claimed to have been inspired by his religious convictions as well, as we have seen in Chapter 3.9 4 “Wilders op dodenlijst van al-Qaeda”, in: Algemeen Dagblad, 4 July 2011. 5 Halper, Daniel, “Al Qaeda Mag publishes ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’ List”, in: The Weekly Standard, 1 March 2013. 6 DutchNews.nl, 2 March 2013. 7 On twitter, see: Alphen, Kelly van, “Wilders en Hirsi Ali in top 10 dodenlijst Al-Qa’ida”, in: Elsevier, 1 March 2013. See also: “‘Girt’ Wilders op nummer vier dodenlijst al-Qaeda”, in: volkskrant. nl, 2 March 2013. 8 Wilders, Geert, Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me, Regnery Publishing, Inc., Washington DC 2012. 9 See the testimonies quoted in pp. 139 and 140 in: Cliteur, “State and religion against the backdrop of religious radicalism”, pp. 127-152.

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What are cartoons? The first thing we have to remind ourselves, is that the designation “cartoon” is not entirely appropriate. The word “cartoon” suggests a picture in a series. This was not the case with the Danish “cartoons”. Another epithet used in this context is the term “caricatures”, which is a better description.10 But whatever the best term, “cartoons” seems firmly established and it is very difficult to change a semantic practice once it has been established. So I will also stick to “cartoons”. The cartoons led to widespread protests, but also to threats of violence and even actual violence. The turmoil following publication cost the lives of more than 150 people, six of whom died in martyrdom operations around the Danish embassy in Pakistan.11 As we know from the kidnapping of the French journalists Chesnot and Malbrunot, terrorist intimidation can incur heavy financial costs as well.12 According to calculations of the Aarhus Business School, the boycott of Danish products as a result of the cartoon publications cost the Danish economy more than 270 million euros.13 Now, undoubtedly the protests by those insulted by the cartoons are protected by the civil right to freedom of expression and freedom of association. This is different, though, when people use violence with the intention of “causing fear” to cartoonists or writers, as Section 83a of the Dutch Criminal Code formulates it. What terrorists want to accomplish is to force the state or society “to do, not do, or condone” (Article 83a Dutch Penal Code) something they would not have done or condoned if they had not been forced to. The message in the aforementioned radical e-zine Inspire is a good example of an attempt to intimidate or strike fear into the heart of the state and the population in the way indicated in Section 83a of the Dutch Criminal Code. The makers of the magazine say that if the Messenger of 10 In French one speaks of the “caricatures”: “Caricatures de Mahomet: un quotidian danois s’excuse”, in: Le Point, 4 March 2010; Sifaoui, Mohamed, L’affaire des caricatures de Mahomet: dessins et manipulations, Editions Privé, Paris 2006. 11 Broder, Henryk M., “Westergaard’s Life Sentence – Muhammad Cartoonist Defiant After Attack”, Interview with Kurt Westergaard, in: Spiegel Online International, 20 January 2010. 12 According to Daniel McGrory (1952-2007) from The Times, the French government paid a ransom to have the hostages released. The French government has denied this though. See: McGrory, Daniel, “How $45m bought freedom of foreign hostages; Iraq”, in: The Times, 22 May 2006. See also: Callimachi, Rukmini, “Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror”, in: The New York Times, 29 July 2014: “Kidnapping Europeans for ransom has become a global business for Al Qaeda, bankrolling its operations across the globe”. 13 “‘Verrat an der Meinungsfreiheit’”, in: Die Welt, 27 February 2010.

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Allah is “slandered” they have the right to “defend him”. But by “slandered” they do not mean physically attacked (which would be an offense under the law of all civilized countries if it happened to a living person), but verbally denigrated (which is something entirely different). And by “defend” they do not mean to defend with words, an apologia,14 but to physically attack, preferably kill, anyone who dares to criticize the Prophet. Much in the way the Inquisition tortured and subsequently killed heretics and blasphemers. So they announce their intent to kill anyone who disagrees with the views of a person who lived fourteen hundred years ago (viz. the Prophet Mohammed).15

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Terrorizing the laicist state As indicated in this chapter, on 20 August 2004 the French journalists Chesnot and Malbrunot, together with their driver Muhammed al-Jundi, were taken hostage by the Iraqi terrorist organization The Islamic Army in Iraq. The terrorists gave the French government a 48-hour deadline to repeal its law on conspicuous religious symbols in schools. Both French hostages were released on 21 December 2004 and Muhammed al-Jundi was freed by US Marines in November 2004. So it all ended well. Nevertheless, the case is important because here we see that terrorist organizations try to change the foundations of a country by attempting to force it to transform its constitution structure – either by demanding that fundamental principles of a written constitution are abandoned (secularism in France),16 or that human rights as enshrined in international declarations are ignored. These are fundamental changes indeed. The law on conspicuous religious symbols is an important law, securing the secularist orientation of the French state.17 14 A vindication of the rights of God, as Joseph de Maistre used to present in Du Pape, Seconde Édition, J. Casterman, Tournai 1820 or: Prieur, Jean, Déclaration universelle des droits de Dieu, Éditions Le Temps Présent, Agnières 2012. 15 This comparison between theoterrorism and the inquisition is also made by: Mafouz, Naguib, “Salman Rushdie et la liberté de l’écrivain”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 212-214, p. 213: “Nous assistons là à un retour de l’Inquisition”. 16 Or what the French call laïcité. See on this: Pena-Ruiz, Henri, Dictionnaire amoureux de la laïcité, Plon, Paris 2014. 17 The secular character of the French state was constitutionally enshrined in 1905 in 2004 reaffirmed after a committee issued a report on the matter: Laïcité et République, Rapport au Président de la République, Commission présidée par Bernard Stasi, La Documentation française, Paris 2004.

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Another example is the Belgian law prohibiting the wearing of full-face cover in public.18 A woman wearing a burqa was arrested, and as a result an Islamist attacked two police officers with a knife. The attacker demanded two things. First, that Belgium withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Second, that the new Belgian law prohibiting full-face cover be repealed. The attacker was arrested on suspicion of “attempted murder in a terrorist context”.19 In both the Chesnot and Malbrunot case and the latter case, force is used to intimidate the state or society to change its legislation. The same can be said, of course, of terrorist actions aimed at changing Dutch or Danish law with regard to free speech and criticism of religion. That brings us to the cartoons. Since the publication of his “Mohammed cartoons”, Westergaard has received many telephone threats.20 Even after (or, according to the perverse logic at work here, especially after) the assault on his life on the first of January 2010 it rained new threats.21 In the Westergaard case it was remarkable that violence was perpetrated not so much to prevent further publication of the cartoons (for that had already happened) as to punish the cartoonist for publishing the cartoons in the first place. In other words, the violence perpetrated during the Cartoon Affair was exerted in the name of “vengeance” or “retribution” and not to prevent further publication.22 Even more than five years after initial publication, plots in reaction to the cartoons were regularly discovered.23 Westergaard’s story is particularly weird, especially if one realizes what could have happened. As indicated earlier, on 1 January 2010, Mohamed Geele, a twenty-eight-year-old Somali carrying an axe, forced entry into Westergaard’s house.24 At the time Westergaard was in the company of his 18 See for an analysis of the legislation on this issue: Schyff, Gerhard & Overbeeke, Adriaan, “Exercising Religious Freedom in the Public Space: A Comparative and European Convention Analysis of General Burqa Bans”, in: European Constitutional Law Review, 7 (2011), pp. 424-452. 19 See: Reinarts, G., “Islamist prikt Brusselse agenten neer”, in: Spits, 9 June 2012. 20 Broder, Ibid. See also: Freedman, Leonard, The Offensive Art: Political Satire and Its Censorship around the World from Beerbohm to Borat, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, London 2008, p. 152. 21 Bomsdorf, Clemens, “Internet-Drohungen gegen dänischen Karikaturisten”, in: Die Welt, 22 January 2010. 22 Because punishing offenders of the law (a manifestation of sovereignty) of the state is one of the most important indicators of statehood we see here that terrorist organizations de facto exert state functions. See on sovereignty: Baudet, Thierry, The Significance of Borders: Why Representative Government and the Rule of Law require Nation States, E.J. Brill, Leiden 2012, pp. 41-59. And on the functions of punishment: Haag, Ernest van den, Punishing Criminals: Concerning a Very Old and Painful Question, Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, New York 1975, p. 34 ff. 23 Weaver, Matthew, “Muhammad cartoonist had $100,000 bounty on head”, in: Guardian, 10 March 2010. 24 “Negen jaar cel voor aanvaller Mohammed-cartoonist”, in: De Morgen, 4 February 2011.

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five-year-old granddaughter, Stephanie. Seeing the intruder in his house, Westergaard fled to the bathroom, which had been refurbished as a safe room with a button to alert the police in case of an emergency.25 Before the attacker, screaming “revenge” and “blood”, could force open the door of the safe room, the police arrived and arrested him.26 The attacker appeared to be in contact with the Islamic group Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based Al Qaeda cell that controls large swathes of southern Somalia. Sheik Muktar Robow (b. 1960), a spokesman for Al-Shabaab, called the attacker a “hero for all Muslims”.27 To Time he commented that he felt very sorry that the mission had not been completed. Al-Shabaab would pray that the attacker would soon recover from the wounds inflicted by the Danish police.

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In good faith It has been noted many times: millions of cartoons are made, countless books written, and plays performed, and in so many manifestations of literary or artistic genius views are expounded that are deeply shocking and insulting to the worldview of religious extremists. If all those artists had to be killed (or less severely punished) this would by far transcend the capacity of even the most resourceful theoterrorist organizations and terrorist individuals. So terrorists have to concentrate on a few obvious cases. Why did they select Westergaard, whose cartoon in itself is not very insulting? Arguably, it is the interpretation that he himself gave to his actions that made his performance annoying. It is very common to speculate about the motives of the cartoonist. He did not make his cartoon in good faith, some critics say.28 He did it simply to mock the people who believe in the sacred character of the Prophet Mohammed. The whole thing was ultimately meant to provoke anger from Muslims, etc. 25 Randall, David, “Muslim terror suspect tries to assassinate Danish cartoonist”, in: The Independent on Sunday, 3 January 2010. Kurt Westergaard’s sister, Elin, disclosed that her feelings were hurt when her brother was accused of being a coward by the Danish journalist Karen Thisted. See: Westergaard, Kurt, and Lykkegaard, John, Kurt Westergaard: The Man behind the Mohammed Cartoon, Mine Erindringer, Tilst, Denmark 2012, p. 50. 26 Sjouwerman, Petra, “Denen scharen zich achter Westergaard”, in: Trouw, 4 January 2010. 27 Wadhams, Nick, “The Danish-Cartoonist Attack: Sign of a Wider Plot?”, in: Time, 5 January 2010: “hero to all Muslims”. 28 This is an important topic, in the eyes of critics of the cartoonists, as it was in the eyes of critics of Salman Rushdie in publishing his novel. See: Rushdie, Salman, “In Good Faith”, 1990, in: Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, Vintage Books, London 2010 (1981), pp. 393-414.

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One of the most often voiced complaints about Westergaard is that his cartoon targeted “all Muslims” by depicting them as terrorists. Another contention often presented is that Westergaard meant that “Islam in general” is a terrorist religion. But this is all “interpretations” of Westergaard’s motives by his critics and, worse still, interpretations that are explicitly contradicted by the cartoonist himself. Westergaard denies that his cartoon had no other motive than insulting or humiliating others.29 When the Sikh author Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti was asked why in 2004 she had written a play (Behzti)30 that caused so much turmoil in the Sikh community, led to threats against the author and subsequently forced her to go into hiding, she answered: “I did not write Behzti to offend. It is a sincere piece of work in which I wanted to explore how human frailties can lead people into a prison of hypocrisy.”31 In January 2005 she wrote in The Guardian: “I am proud to be a Sikh, and my play is both respectful to Sikhism and honest.”32 Rushdie in his autobiography Joseph Anton (2012) reveals that writing The Satanic Verses took him four years. When afterward people tried to reduce it to an “insult” he wanted to reply: “I can insult people a lot faster than that”.33 In 1990 he declared in an interview: “I have said over and over again, the book did not set out (…) to insult and abuse. If people got upset, I am sorry. I didn’t want to do that (…).”34 29 Weaver, “Muhammad cartoonist had $100,000 bounty on head”; Malik, Kenan, “Enemies of free speech”, in: Index on Censorship, No. 41, 2012, pp. 40-53; Broder, Henryk M., “Journey of a Muhammad Caricaturist – From Pariah to Guest of Honor in Five Short Years”, in: Spiegel Online International, 9 September 2010; Broder, “Westergaard’s Life Sentence – Muhammad Cartoonist Defiant After Attack”. 30 Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur, Behzti (Dishonour), First Performed at Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 19 December 2004, The Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham 2004. But, contrary to the announcement in the subtitle of this play, it was not performed. See: Melville, Taking Offence, p. 10; Grillo, Ralph D., “Licence to offend? The Behzti Affair”, in: Ethnicities, 7 (5), 2007, pp. 5-29; Mitchell, Jolyon, and Gower, Owen, eds., Religion and the News, Ashgate, Aldershot 2012, p. 184. 31 Kaur Bhatti quoted in: Warburton, Nigel, Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, p. 54. See also: Malik, Kenan, Multiculturalism and Its Discontents, Seagull Books, Calcutta 2013, p. 72. 32 Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur, “This warrior is fighting on”, in: The Guardian, 13 January 2005. Five years later Bhatti published another play, this time performed indeed, in which she looked back on the events that led her in hiding. See: Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur, Behud (Beyond Belief ), First performed at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry on 27 March 2010, Oberon Modern Plays 2010. 33 Rushdie, Salman, Joseph Anton: A Memoir, Jonathan Cape, London 2012, p. 74. 34 Brown, Maggie, “Rushdie talks of the rejection hardest to bear”, Interview with Salman Rushdie, in: The Independent, 28 September 1990, reprinted in: Pradyumna S. Chauhan, ed., Salman Rushdie: Interviews, A Sourcebook of His Ideas, Greenwood Press, Westport 2001, pp. 103-104.

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Another person who incurred the wrath of extremists is Lars Vilks (b. 1949), a Swedish artist. Vilks too offers laudable motives for having presented his works of art, which proved controversial among the theoterrorists. He said: “Why can you not criticize Islam when you can criticize other religions?”35 This simple question is usually not posed, let alone answered. Most people present speculations about the motives of Westergaard and Vilks, particularly that they had the ambition to insult and humiliate. But it is likewise possible to give a completely different interpretation to their work, viz. that their actions can be seen as a protest against the hijacking of Islam by extremists. And what can be insulting about that? As indicated, what terrorists probably find annoying in Westergaard is not so much his cartoon, but the attitude he adopted after its publication. Westergaard did not do what the overwhelming majority of the other cartoonists did: implicitly adopt an attitude of submission and fear (think of what Carrell did, as described in Chapters 1 and 2). He defied his aggressors, saying: “I still support my drawing.” What the other cartoonists did was hide from their aggressors. They gave no interviews. They tried to make the fanatics forget about them. Eleven cartoonists sought anonymity. Only one fought the battle for freedom of speech, even when his own life was at stake.36 Asked whether he was aware of the risks involved, Westergaard answered: “I hope I can make it to 80”, openly alluding to the tragic fact that one day terrorists might succeed in their plans to kill him.37 As far as taking personal risks is concerned, Westergaard finds his equal only in Vilks, so it seems. Vilks declared, even after it became known that murderous attacks were planned on his person, that he had an axe ready in case an attacker might force entry into his home.38 But whether an axe is sufficient to deter future terrorists is highly doubtful.

Why were the cartoons published? After relating these developments, and explaining the motives of the victims of terrorist intimidation, let us also say something about the historical 35 Quoted in Weaver, Ibid. 36 “Dane stands by his drawings; Cartoonist who survived Somali’s axe attack says police can’t protect him from ‘the terrorist type’”, in: The Toronto Star, 5 January 2010: “Maybe because I am the one who feels the best about standing forward and speaking about what I have done, I stand by my drawing”. 37 The Toronto Star, 5 January 2010. 38 “Zweedse cartoonist met dood bedreigd”, in: ANP Infonet, 9 March 2010.

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background of the Cartoon Affair. This is necessary because in the media the matter is often presented in a somewhat tendentious manner. As said, it is common to speculate about the motives of the cartoonists without paying heed to what they themselves have said in this regard.39 This was especially noticeable at the beginning of the whole affair in 2005. Nowadays there seems to be a change of attitude, perhaps mainly due to the protracted nature of the problem. The Carrell Affair appeared to be a precedent to the Rushdie Affair and not an unconnected incident. The reason why it is reasonable to make that claim, is because after the Carrell Affair similar cases arose. And human nature being what it is, it is very reasonable to claim that the later incidents were inspired by previous ones. Slowly but inevitably politicians have to pose the relevant questions: how to respond to violent reactions by religious zealots to freedoms that are considered to be (or at least used to be) self-evident civil liberties in the Western world? As a result, the Cartoon Affair is now studied by a growing group of philosophers,40 human rights scholars,41 communication experts,42 scholars specialized in humor, 43 and finally, scholars engaged in the study of international diplomacy. 44 This has resulted in more understanding for the makers of the cartoons. What were the motives of the newspaper that published the cartoons? And what were the ideas of the cartoonists who collaborated on the experiment? Let us start with the former. Why did the Danish newspaper publish the cartoons in the first place? 39 See on this: Khader, Naser, & Rose, Flemming, “Reflections on the Danish Cartoon Controversy”, in: Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 59-66; Rose, Flemming, “Why I Published Those Cartoons”, in: The Washington Post, Sunday, 19 February 2006; Malik, “Enemies of free speech”, pp. 40-53. Rose’s stance is now worked out in: Rose, Flemming, The Tyranny of Silence: How one Cartoon ignited a Global Debate on the Future of Free Speech, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. 2014. 40 Benatar, David, “Cartoons and Consequences”, in: Think, Volume 6, Issue 17/18, March 2008, pp. 53-57; Burley, Mikel, “The Danish Cartoons: Considering the Consequences”, in: Think, Volume 5, Issue 15, September 2007, pp. 77-82. 41 Keane, David, “Cartoon Violence and Freedom of Expression”, in: Human Rights Quarterly, 30 (2008), pp. 845-875; Kim, Sebatian C.H., “Freedom or Respect?: Public Theology and the Debate over the Danish Cartoons”, in: International Journal of Public Theology, 1 (2007), pp. 249-269. 42 Rolfe, Mark, “Clashing Taboos: Danish Cartoons, the Life of Brian and Public Diplomacy”, in: The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 4 (2009), pp. 261-281. 43 Lewis, Paul, ed., “The Muhammad cartoons and humor research: A collection of essays”, in: Humor, 21-1 (2008), pp. 1-46. 44 Andreasen, Uffe, “Reflections on Public Diplomacy after the Danish Cartoon Crises: From Crisis Management to Normal Public Diplomacy”, in: The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 3 (2008), pp. 201-207.

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Flemming Rose (b. 1958), Culture editor of the Jyllands-Posten, the daily that published the cartoons, was surprised by the fact that in January 2005, at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, the film Submission (2004)45 by Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali was not shown because of security considerations. 46 Rose considered this to be odd. Didn’t this imply that the free press gave in to threats of violence? Under those circumstances, was freedom of expression not in fact abolished or at least severely limited?47 That was Rose’s question. Another incident that provided food for thought was that writer Kare Bluitgen (b. 1959) found it impossible to contract an illustrator for a children’s book because nobody dared to draw a picture of the Prophet Mohammed. 48 “The immediate issue that led to my commissioning the Muhammed cartoons was Kare Bluitgen’s children’s book on the life of the Prophet”, Rose writes in The Tyranny of Silence (2014). 49 Such was the background of the Cartoon Affair. This is important because, if this is true, there were no pestering xenophobic intellectuals trying to target innocent religious minorities, as was contended in many commentaries.50 The people who devised the cartoon experiment were concerned. They were concerned about the erosion of civil liberties. It soon became clear to Rose that it proved much more difficult than expected to convince people that something important was at stake. There was no problem at all, many said. Then the idea arose to “test” whether there really was a problem. A real empirical test, like the way science operates to prove or disprove something.51 To test whether cartoonists exerted selfcensorship he asked forty-two cartoonists to give their view on the Prophet Mohammed. As said before, only twelve made an actual cartoon. It was not clear in advance who would present a critical view of the Prophet and who would take a more admiring or neutral stance. The experiment was simply to establish if, and how many, people would dare to make such a 45 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Submission. 46 Troost, Ibid. 47 Rose, “Why I Published Those Cartoons”. 48 Kim, “Freedom or Respect: Public Theology and the Debate over the Danish Cartoons”, pp. 249-269. 49 Rose, The Tyranny of Silence, p. 28. 50 E.g. one of the princesses of the House of Orange, Mabel, stated in an interview that one should not publish something with the sole aim to insult, harm, or humiliate other people. See the remarks by Princess Mabel quoted in: Albrecht, Yoeri & Broertjes, Pieter, “Ik kan niet tegen onrecht. Het veelkoppige monster van de onvrije democratie”, in: De Volkskrant, 10 March 2007. 51 See on the scientific method: Russell, Bertrand, Religion and Science, Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto 1935, pp. 7-19.

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cartoon. And so, the twelve cartoons that would cause such turmoil on the international scene came into being: the cartoons “that shook the world”, to quote the title of Jytte Klausen’s book.52

What did the Cartoon Affair prove? What the Cartoon Affair proved beyond all reasonable doubt was that the persons who did not want to engage in the cartoon experiment because of security considerations were right. It indeed proved mortally dangerous to make such a cartoon. The experiment showed not so much that the makers were cautious,53 but that they had every reason to be.

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The dark sides of globalization In 2010 Jörn Mikkelsen (b. 1956), editor-in-chief of the Jyllands-Posten, looked back on the events of 2005. In December of that year, when the cartoons had just been published, Associated Press reported on protest meetings held against the cartoons and the cartoonists. Protests, where? In Kashmir! Initially, people in the editorial offices of the newspaper sniggered at this, Mikkelsen says. Protests in Kashmir against a cartoon published in a Danish newspaper may be considered somewhat comic and absurd. But soon, so Mikkelsen relates, this amusement changed into concern.54 Since 2005 these concerns have only increased. And not only in the editorial offices of the Danish newspaper but also in other European countries and among different actors. In March 2008 protests were held in Afghanistan against the film Fitna by Geert Wilders (b. 1963). Protesters in the cities of Sharan, Jalalabad, and Pul-i-Alam burned the Dutch flag and called for the Afghan government to end all diplomatic relations with the Netherlands and Denmark (the latter because of the cartoons). The UN spokesman in Afghanistan made a remarkable comment on the issue. He indicated that 52 Klausen, Jytte, The Cartoons that Shook the World, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2009. 53 As Sebastian Kim writes: “the very concepts they deplored in the cartoons – portraying Islam as inherently violent and somehow related to terrorism – were dramatically exhibited through the actions of some Muslims in protest at them.” See: Kim, “Freedom or Respect: Public Theology and the Debate over the Danish Cartoons”, pp. 249-269, p. 262. 54 See also: Broder, “Westergaard’s Life Sentence – Muhammad Cartoonist Def iant After Attack”.

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he shared the concern of the protesters because Wilders’s film showed “no respect for religion”.55 The type of problems that the Dutch had avoided in 1987 during the Carrell Affair, by submitting to the wishes of the Iranian dictator Khomeini, had now become full-blown. And the Dutch were openly reprimanded for the rude behavior of one of their politicians by the UN spokesman in Afghanistan. So even within the United Nations, an organization that issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights56 and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966),57 there seemed to be scanty support now for the universal right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion (in the sense of the freedom to criticize religion). “We’re in for a rough ride on our shrunken planet”, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor commented in 1989 on the Rushdie controversy.58 His words seem appropriate for the cartoon crisis and similar situations as well.59 What lessons can we learn from this? Do these examples teach us that small countries like Denmark and the Netherlands operate within a larger framework of rules and customs, often religious rules and customs that do not always harmonize with the secular legal order of the nation-state?60 One of the points that keep commentators deeply divided is the question of whether the cartoon experiment was morally legitimate in the f irst place. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung, looking back on the Cartoon Affair in 2010, qualified it as a piece of performative journalism that is partly responsible for bringing forth the events that it purports to comment on (“Ein Stück jenes performativen Journalismus, der sich die Ereignissen, über die er 55 “Anti-Wildersbetogingen Afghanistan”, in: Spits, 6 March 2008. 56 With article 19 proclaiming, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. 57 With, again, an article 19, proclaiming in paragraph 2: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”. 58 Taylor, Charles, “The Rushdie Controversy”, in: Public Culture, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Fall 1989), pp. 118-122, p. 121. This essay is not included in: Taylor, Charles, Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2011. 59 Taylor did not voice an impressive protest against this limitation of free speech though. He seems to take it for granted that free speech is an impossible ideal in the world we live in nowadays. He adopts a tone of great understanding towards those who react with threats and aggression to Rushdie’s book. His essay closes with a sentence that sums it all up: “To live in this difficult world, the western liberal mind will have to learn to reach out more” (Taylor, Ibid., p. 122). I will present a more elaborate analysis of Taylor’s work in the next chapter. 60 See on this: Juergensmeyer, Global Rebellion.

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berichtet, teilweise selber erzeugt”).61 This sentence encapsulates the gist of the criticism that is often formulated about those who organized the cartoon experiment: it is simply manufactured. In a sense that is true. If the cartoons had not been published the atrocities that took place would not have happened. But what must we conclude from that? As Nick Cohen (b. 1961) writes in his book What’s Left? (2007): “Sexist judges used to say that women who went out in mini-skirts were ‘asking for it’. Their provocative dress was the ‘root cause’ of their rape”.62 This theory, now generally discredited in the context referred to by Cohen, is hugely popular when it comes to threats made against people who become targets of Islamist terrorists. Cohen gives an elaborate analysis of this process in his book You Can’t Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom (2012).63 Before entering into an in-depth debate about the legitimacy of publishing the cartoons, let us look at some of the comments that immediately appeared on the matter.

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Reactions to the cartoons One of the commentaries held that the cartoons (in contrast with The Satanic Verses by Rushdie) had no artistic value. This was voiced by the British historian Andrew Roberts (b. 1963). Roberts is a well-known British scholar and author of many books, including The Storm of War: A History of the Second World War (2009),64 A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900 (2008),65 and Hitler & Churchill (2004)66. He also edited a volume with the intriguing title What Might Have Been (2005),67 a work that describes how different history could have been if certain historical events had turned out slightly differently. 61 See: Seifert, Heribert, “Das lange Leben der Mohammed-Karikaturen; Ein Kulturstreit auf dem Hintergrund von Medien, Migration und Muslimen”, in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 12 January 2010. 62 Cohen, What’s Left?, p. 273. 63 Cohen, You Can’t Read This Book, pp. 3-31. 64 Roberts, Andrew, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Penguin, London 2009. 65 Roberts, Andrew, A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900, Harper Perennial, London and Sydney 2008. 66 Roberts, Andrew, Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, Phoenix, London 2004. 67 Roberts, Andrew, ed., What Might Have Been: Imaginary History from Twelve Leading Historians, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2005. See on this genre also: Ferguson, Niall, ed., Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, Penguin Books, London 2011 (1997).

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About the cartoons Roberts said: “I have seen the cartoons and was unimpressed by them. They are the intellectual equivalent of shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded cinema.”68 He also called them “(…) trite, purposively provocative and unnecessary”, and concluded that “in this case, the protesting Muslims have a point”.69 These comments confront us with a host of questions. First, is it relevant to the legitimacy of the stance taken by Rose and the other editors of the Jyllands-Posten that Roberts was not impressed by the artistic value of the drawings? Should we entertain different rules for, say, D.H. Lawrence’s (1885-1930) Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928)70 than for insignificant cartoons? If that were the case, we should have artistic standards. But then it might also be possible to defend the position that, for instance, Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses deserves more protection than, say, John Le Carré’s (b. 1931) books which, according to common standards of literary criticism, lack the status of great literary works. Is that a viable path to take? This matter also played an important role in the Netherlands. A similar complaint to Robert’s was voiced earlier by the Dutch Foreign Minister who told the Dutch broadcasting corporation about Carrell’s Khomeini spoof: is this piece of “amusement” worth the trouble? In 2008 the politician Geert Wilders published his film Fitna on the internet. From an artistic point of view, the film was generally considered not to be very successful. But does the low quality of artistic ingenuity imply that its maker deserves less protection from a human rights point of view? In other words, does article 19 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights proclaim that “high art” enjoys more protection than “low art”? Here the situation of Rudi Carrell’s spoof, analyzed in Chapter 1, resurfaces (according to some, too insignificant to protect). The same was said about Wilders’s film: Fitna was not important, its artistic low. But then, it would be consistent to argue, things changed in 2012, when Wilders published a book through an academic publisher, viz. Regnery.71 Is Marked for Death, with a foreword by the distinguished Canadian journalist Mark Steyn,72 68 Roberts quoted in: “What price must be paid for free speech?”, in: The Times, 4 February 2006. 69 Roberts quoted in The Times. 70 Published in Italy; in England for the first time in 1960. See: Craig, Alex, The Banned Books of England and Other Countries: A Study of the Conception of Literary Obscenity, George Allen & Unwin 1962, pp. 77-78; Fishburn, Matthew, Burning Books, Palgrave, MacMillan 2008, pp. 74, 85. 71 Wilders, Marked for Death. 72 Steyn, Mark, “Foreword”, in: Geert Wilders, Ibid., pp. ix-xviii.

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perhaps more deserving of protection as cultural heritage than his film had been? And what if Carrell or Wilders had been the authors of novels with the artistic value of Anna Karenina (1877) or Madame Bovary (1856)? Would the Dutch Foreign Minister have called Carrell’s publishing house (instead of the TV) not to publish a book that might cause a furor comparable to that caused by The Satanic Verses?

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Shouting fire and “senseless provocation” A second reproach that is often made about the cartoons is that they were a “senseless provocation”. We also find this with Roberts. He even considered the cartoons so provocative that he likened their publication to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.73 In making this comparison, Roberts introduced John Stuart Mill’s (18061873) famous formula from On Liberty (1859). But against the backdrop of what we have seen before about the developments in the field of censorship, it should at least be considered whether there was not indeed a fire. Shouting “fire” is illegitimate when there is no actual fire. But if the overcrowded theater is really burning, and the people have to be warned, shouting “fire” is not only legitimate but a moral and civic duty. It is our civic duty to warn our fellow citizens of a mortal danger threatening the republic. Roberts probably had a different estimate of the situation than the editors of the Jyllands-Posten. The Danish whistle-blowers suspected there to be real fire in the theater and they wanted to warn us. Roberts assumed this is not the case and so started complaining about the shouting. But perhaps what the discussion should have focused on is: was there or was there not a fire in the theater? Only after it has been established that there was no actual fire can we start the discussion about the shouting and reproach, or even fine, the people who spread fear without good reason. An interesting question to raise now, after ten years of experience with the matter, is whether we have to review our judgment on the question whether there was a fire in the theater. It is very well possible that Roberts too, with the wisdom of hindsight, might change his position. He might say that then, in 2005, he did not see any fire, but now, ten years later, it is clear to him there was a fire, or at least one was smoldering, which later set the whole world ablaze. 73 See also: Mill, On Liberty, p. 20 en Dershowitz, Alan, Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a turbulent Age, Little, Brown and Company, Boston/New York/London 2002.

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Can only Muslims criticize Islam? Roberts’s negative opinion about the cartoons was shared by Ziauddin Sardar (b. 1951), author of the books Desperately Seeking Paradise: the Journeys of a Skeptical Muslim (2004)74 and Why People Hate America (2003).75 Sardar said: I have spent a lifetime criticizing Islam and Muslims, but I am absolutely infuriated by these cartoons. They are a provocative and premeditated insult against Islam, and a violent abuse of power.76

According to Sardar, the situation was so serious that he made a comparison between the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany and Muslims in contemporary England.

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What people must remember is that we are watching the repetition of an argument that took place in Europe during the Thirties. Then, we were discussing the right to depict Jews in cartoons with racial stereotypes. Now, we are discussing the right to show Muslims.77

This is an intriguing commentary but it immediately provokes the reaction that if Sardar has indeed, as he himself contends, criticized Islam (“I have spent a lifetime criticizing Islam and Muslims”) this can hardly be considered an illegitimate activity. How can he reproach the cartoonists for doing something that he himself has done all his life? Apparently, there must be a difference between the way Sardar himself conducts his criticism and the way the cartoonists operate. Or does Sardar want to argue that, being a Muslim himself, he is qualified or morally legitimized to make critical comments while the Danish (or French) cartoonists are not? Let me start by saying that the approach taken by Sardar is not entirely unfamiliar to all of us. Think of the father who, to his own mind, is perfectly qualified to criticize his daughter, but others are not.78 In some private relationships, Sardar’s approach is not uncommon, so it seems. There are things a father may say about his daughter that another person had better not. But the question is, of course, whether it is a good thing to give religion, 74 Sardar, Ziauddin, Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim, Granta Books, London 2004. 75 Sardar, Ziauddin, and Davies, Meryll Wyn, Why People Hate America, Icon Books, London 2003. 76 Sardar quoted in: “What price must be paid for free speech?”, in: The Times, 4 February 2006. 77 Sardar, Ibid. 78 See on this: Cliteur, The Secular Outlook, pp. 80-84.

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or a religious icon, the same status as a family member. It is like the British saying: “You just hit my dog”. But is it wise to extend this saying to: “You just stood on the toes of my Moses” or “You just offended my Mohammed”? Apparently, this is the world we live in nowadays. “There are things which are so inflammatory that they are a danger to public order, to life and limb”, Charles Taylor writes in his essay on the Rushdie controversy cited before.79 As a statement of fact, there can hardly be any doubt that Taylor is right. But the question is: should we condone the situation he is describing? Can we acquiesce in this predicament? Can we accept that people immunize their religious ideas against any form of criticism? In my view not. Taylor seems to think there simply is no alternative. We have to accept this (as he himself apparently does) because it is inevitable. But is that really the case? And what would the consequences be? Would it not be a problem that engaging in this approach implies that we could never criticize something “from without” (i.e. from a perspective outside of the culture or religion that is being criticized)?

Tony Benn’s call to “respect” for religion

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Commentary similar to that of Sardar was also voiced by the British Labour politician Tony Benn (1925-2014). Benn, a “man of principle”80 and with great authority within the British Labour Party, adopts an approach that is often voiced nowadays, viz. that faith or religion deserves respect. Benn wrote: People’s faith should be respected. To say anything that offends against the faith of others is a real mistake. (The cartoons) have caused great offense at a very sensitive time. This is not a question of illegality; that is nonsense. You just do not insult people.81

What to think of this? Benn, apparently, belonged to what British philosopher Philip Kitcher (b. 1947) calls “the fans of faith”.82 Benn thought that it is not very civil, wise, or moral to insult people. In a sense this is self-evident. But judging from what Benn proclaimed here, he seemed to identify this with 79 Taylor, “The Rushdie Controversy”, p. 118. 80 See: Blair, Tony, A Journey, Hutchinson, London 2010, p. 36. 81 Benn quoted in: “What price must be paid for free speech?”, in: The Times, 4 February 2006. 82 Kitcher, Philip, Life after Faith: the Case for Secular Humanism, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2014, p. 16.

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the claim that “people’s faith should be respected”. This, however, is not the same thing. Most faiths are perfectly acceptable perhaps – but is any faith to be respected, regardless of its content? Are all religious systems and ideas – Mormonism, Scientology, Buddhism, Wicca, etc. – equally respectable? Is this not a somewhat rosy picture of faiths or convictions? In Yann Martel’s (b. 1963) adventure novel Life of Pi (2001), the protagonist is an Indian boy exploring all religions.83 On the basis that all religions are equally respectable he calls himself a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, all at once, to the dismay of his family. Is that possible? Can one be a Christian, Muslim, and Hindu at the same time? The boy’s father denies this, but why would it be impossible? If all the religions are equally respectable it should be possible to subscribe to them all. Or should we distinguish between religions and religious ideas? People can have the most despicable convictions, religious or otherwise.84 They can be convinced that other people will burn in hell for the simple reason that they have a different religious faith or no faith at all. Should we then say, “this faith should be respected”? Is it a “real mistake”, to use Benn’s words, to say to such a person: “Sorry, I do not share your faith, I think this is a very weird conviction”? The Dutch political philosophers Meindert Fennema (b. 1946) and Marcel Maussen (b. 1972) consider this to be a viable approach. They write: “It is not the opponent’s opinions that one should respect, or the reasons invoked to defend his or her position, but only the fact that he or she has the right to articulate this point of view”.85 This may be qualified as “freethought”.

Thomas Jefferson’s religious heterodoxy Freethought is also in harmony with the approach taken by Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the American republic.86 Jefferson (1743-1826) certainly did not consider this to be a mistake. In a revealing letter of 11 April 83 Martel, Yann, Life of Pi, Knopf Canada, Toronto 2001. 84 Sam Harris makes this point eloquently by analyzing the religion of the jains. See: Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, pp. 6-9. 85 Fennema, Meindert & Maussen, Marcel, “Dealing with Extremists in Public Discussion: Front National and ‘Republican Front’ in France”, in: The Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 8, Number 3, 2000, pp. 379-400, p. 388. 86 See on this: Stewart, Matthew, Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic, W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London 2014.

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1823 to John Adams (1735-1826) he spells out his reasons why he does not consider the religion of John Calvin (1509-1564) as deserving of much respect. “I can never join Calvin in addressing his god”, Jefferson writes.87 He calls Calvin’s religion “daemonism” and adds: “If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. (…) It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.”88 Jefferson’s heterodox religious ideas89 caused him to reject many orthodox dogmas of the church, including the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. He writes: The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.90

This is, from the perspective of orthodox Christianity, certainly “blasphemous” or a “defamation of religion”. But is it eo ipso wrong? In his essay Why I am not a Christian (1927) the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) comments on the ideas and moral character of Jesus Christ. Christ believed in hell, Russell says:

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I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching – an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates.91

Here Russell unfavorably compares the character of Jesus Christ to that of Socrates, and by implication indicates that Jesus’ conviction that there will be everlasting punishment in hell is not “humane”. Why does Jesus not simply respect the religious beliefs of others? Threatening people with 87 Jefferson, Thomas, Writings, The library of America, New York, N.Y. 1984, p. 1466. 88 Ibid. 89 Culminating in: Jefferson, Thomas, Jefferson’s “Bible”. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, Foreword by William Murchison and Introduction by Judd W. Patton, American Book Distributors, Grove City 1996 (1904). 90 Jefferson, Writings, p. 1469. 91 Russell delivered this lecture on 6 March 1927 to the National Secular Society. It was published as a pamphlet that same year and later included in: Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian and other essays on religion and related subjects, Unwin Paperbacks, London 1957, pp. 13-27.

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eternal hell-fire seems a clear violation of Benn’s injunction that “faith should be respected”. Is Russell right to reject Jesus’ views in this respect? Or should we consider his remarks beyond the pale for the sole reason that he is critical of the founder of a world religion?92 From a humanist perspective, it is perfectly possible to criticize Jesus. It is our human duty to judge every conviction, even one that is a central element of religious faith.93

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From cartoons to scholarly work: Jytte Klausen So far, I have approached this problem from a deontological angle: the right to criticize ideas, even religious ideas. But there is also a more pragmatic or utilitarian approach, and this certainly does not only point in the direction of limitation of free speech. Giving in to the demands of terrorists, one may say, will make the world less safe. Safer perhaps in the short run, but less safe in the long run. And if one is willing to give in to censorship in the case of novels and cartoons, then why not in the case of science and scholarly work? This has actually happened in the case of the publication of a scholarly work on the Cartoon Affair, viz. a book by the Danish scholar Jytte Klausen (b. 1954), referred to earlier in this chapter. Klausen is Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation at Brandeis University. She is also an affiliate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard. In 2005 she wrote The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe,94 and in 2009 she published a book on the Cartoon Affair: The Cartoons that Shook the World.95 Klausen is not a well-known advocate of the cartoonists or the editorial policy of the Jyllands-Posten. She is (or at least was at the time of publication 92 See for an analysis more in line with Russell than the “respect thinkers”: Blackburn, Simon, “Religion and Respect”, in: Louise M. Antony, ed., Philosophers Without Gods: Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, pp. 179-194. 93 On the centrality of heaven and hell for Christian belief, see: Zaleski, Carol & Zaleski, Philip, The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000; McGrath, Alistair, A Brief History of Heaven, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, Oxford, Carlton 2003; Eire, Carlos, A Brief History of Eternity, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2010. 94 Klausen, Jytte, The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. 95 Klausen, The Cartoons that Shook the World.

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of her book)96 more on the side of the politically correct97 critics of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard in particular, than on the side of those who favor freedom of speech. Nor was she very supportive of the initiative by the Jyllands-Posten to test whether self-censorship had become the rule after the atrocities perpetrated towards critics of Islam and the Prophet in particular. But Klausen was very much interested in the matter and the book she wrote about it is praised, on the cover, as “deeply researched and sensitively written”, which is true, to a certain extent. Within the context of this book, her work is significant for two reasons. The first is that her monograph on the cartoons, and specifically the controversy that resulted from its publication, is illustrative of the fact that once you start condoning or even advising censorship (“to hold your pen”, as Trevor-Roper said referring to Rushdie’s book) with regard to cartoons, you may end up with censorship of scholarly work. The second reason for the significance of her work has to do with the affair connected to its publication. This affair teaches us something about the limited relevance of the motivation of the writer in causing violent reactions from readers. What happened? For obvious reasons, Klausen wanted to have the controversial cartoons included in her book. Think of the controversial fourteen-second criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini analyzed in Chapter 1 of this book. After a row had emerged in Germany, the Dutch television wanted to show Carrell’s pastiche for a Dutch audience so viewers could judge for themselves. Why not do the same with the cartoons, Klausen must have thought? Why not include in a book the cartoons around which the whole controversy had arisen, so everyone could judge for themselves? From a postmodernist perspective, with an emphasis on motives, this was all very well. Klausen is a scholar. She does not publish cartoons to tease a vulnerable minority. Her motives are sound.98 In her book, she also wanted to include illustrations and pictures of demonstrations organized in protest of the cartoons, as well as documents in which the publication of the cartoons is criticized and other relevant material. One of the most shocking illustrations is a chain letter in which the names of the twelve cartoonists are mentioned, as well as the name of the 96 Later she seems to have changed her position considerably. See: Klausen, Jytte, “Freedom of Speech is of no use unless we exercise it”, in: Time, 7 January 2015; Klausen Jytte, “The Charlie Hebdo Attack and the Future of al Qaeda”, in: Foreign Affairs, 7 January 2015. 97 Used in the sense of words or behavior which will not offend any group of people. 98 See for a summary of the affair: Caldwell, Christopher, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London 2009, pp. 167-171.

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culture editor of the Jyllands-Posten. The letter also indicates that people can donate money, which would be awarded to people willing to kill one of the cartoonists.99 This is, of course, not merely shocking, it is outrageous. But it also confronts the people involved in publication of the book with a moral quandary. The moral problem seems to be: is it morally permissible to reveal names of people who are being targeted by religious terrorists when those people themselves (i.e. the cartoonists)100 are doing everything in their power to remain (or become) anonymous? This seems a legitimate moral question, and it would not have been bizarre or pusillanimous for Yale University Press and the author, Jytte Klausen, to have done some soul-searching and conduct a profound discussion on the issue. Whether they have had such a conversation is impossible to say, but that they should seems obvious. Nevertheless, this was not the main point of the controversy that arose around Klausen’s book. The main point was the republication of the cartoons themselves. The publisher, Yale University Press, decided to publish Klausen’s text but not the illustrations, i.e. the cartoons. Doing this, they argued, would result in a security risk for both author and publisher.

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The refusal of Yale University Press to republish the cartoons In the end, Yale University Press did not publish the illustrations around which the whole affair revolved. In a way, this is understandable, of course, but at the same time it is not entirely satisfying. How can you write a book on such an affair without publishing the cartoons the entire affair was all about? Is that not like writing a whole book on the Sistine Chapel without a picture of what is displayed on that magnificent piece of art? Or having a conversation on television on fourteen seconds of satire of Khomeini without showing the original footage (Chapter 1)? Klausen’s book begins with two explanations, one from the publisher, the other from the author herself. In explaining why it refused to publish the cartoons, Yale University Press indicates it is “deeply committed to free expression”. The publishers also state that initially, they had planned to include the cartoons, but after consulting experts in the field (“scholars in Islamic studies”) had changed their minds. According to the “Publishers’ Statement” at the end of the book, “the overwhelming judgment of the 99 See: Klausen, Ibid., p. 111. 100 With one exception: Kurt Westergaard.

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experts was that the republication of the cartoons by Yale University Press ran a serious risk of instigating violence.” When the publisher decided not to include the cartoons, Klausen disagreed, but nonetheless agreed to publish the book with Yale University Press. This had been done, as she declared, “with sadness”. Subsequently, she made a remark about her motives: “But I also never intended the book to become another demonstration for or against the cartoons, and I hope the book can still serve its intended purpose without illustrations.”101 This is an interesting remark. From the perspective of classical scholarship, the intentions of the author of a scholarly work are irrelevant. But from the perspective of the Schmittian friend-foe distinction102 that pervades so much postmodernist theory, this is all too important. Perhaps Klausen thinks her remark will make the book more acceptable for the religious terrorists. But why should that be the case? Theoterrorists are not postmodernists, after all. Only academics are (at least, some of them). This confession of her innocent intentions endears Klausen to postmodernists, not to theoterrorists, one may presume. Theoterrorists do not make a distinction between “scholarly works” on the one hand and “cartoons” on the other. They are opposed to every depiction of the Prophet, so serious academic work by scholars like Klausen is just as affected by their ban as the cheap and mean stuff that populist racist leaders throw into the world. Klausen found this difficult to understand. And from a postmodernist perspective emphasizing motives, it is indeed difficult to understand. If you start from the assumption that some critics of religion publish cartoons merely to provoke and anger religious believers, and that it is this motive that makes the deed objectionable, publishing those cartoons for scholarly purposes is not a problem. But was the assumption right? Probably not. Theoterrorists are against depictions of the Prophet whatever the motives of the people involved. They are not against a pastiche of Khomeini by Carrell because his motives are unsound and would thus condone the broadcasting of Khomeini criticism in the context of a journalistic setting; they are against criticism of Khomeini. Klausen’s mistaken interpretation of religious terrorism finds a parallel in similar discussions among other authors on written texts. For instance, there is a widespread belief that theoterrorists take offense to criticism 101 See: “Author’s Statement”, Ibid. 102 Schmitt, Carl, Der Begriff des Politischen, Text von 1932 mit einem Vorwort und drei Corollarien, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1963 (1932), p. 26.

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of their prophet in, from a literary point of view, not very accomplished authors, but that they will condone critical remarks made in the work of great literary writers. This is naive. Those esthetic distinctions may be relevant for Western authors, but not for theoterrorists. Here is Dante’s (1265-1321) description of the penalties for the Prophet in Inferno.103

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Even a wine-cask, that has lost a stave in the middle or the end, does not yawn as widely, as a spirit I saw, cleft from the chin down to the part that gives out the foulest sound: the entrails hung between his legs: the organs appeared, and the miserable gut that makes excrement of what is swallowed. While I stood looking wholly at him, he gazed at me, and opened his chest with his hands, saying: “See how I tear myself: see how Mahomet is ripped!”

One may put forward that this unfavorable description of Mohammed is not made acceptable for a theoterrorist when it occurs in the work of Dante, one of the greatest Western poets. On the contrary, it testifies that the whole West (not just a few deluded individuals like Terry Jones, the Koran-burning pastor, or Salman Rushdie) is corrupted and has to be punished. One may be critical of Yale University Press’s decision not to publish the cartoons, but one has to realize that this seems a logical consequence of the attitude that Western governments and many scholars have taken. Some commentators are uncomfortable with this attitude. The Canadian political commentator Mark Steyn (b. 1959) writes that if a Muslim does not want to make drawings of the Prophet he should not do so, but why should this be the norm for Yale University Press?104 The American journalist Anne Applebaum (b. 1964) posed the question of what this would mean for the freedom of speech. “Yale’s press is one of the best in the country: if its editors won’t publish the Danish cartoons, why should anyone else?”105 It is against this background that the Danish prime minister (Rasmussen) spoke of an assault on the open society. One may also say, an assault on free scholarly work. Do I dare to republish the cartoons? Does my publisher? Probably not. But somehow it feels better to be open about this than to say that you do not do this out of “respect”. 103 Canto xxviii, 22. 104 Steyn, Mark, “The Islamization of the World”, in: National Review Online, 23 January 2010. 105 Applebaum, Anne, “The Decline of American Press Freedom”, in: Adam Bellow, ed., New Threats to Freedom, Templeton Press, Westconshocken, PA 2010, pp. 3-14, p. 5.

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Attacks and convictions Whatever answer one gives to the question posed above, the developments since the Cartoon Affair have made it perfectly clear that drawing the cartoons in 2005 was mortally dangerous. In June 2012 a Danish court sentenced four men to twelve years imprisonment for planning a terrorist attack on the offices of the Jyllands-Posten.106 As the BBC indicated, Munir Awad Omar Abdallah Aboelazm, and Ben Homamed Dhahri were picked up by the police on 29 December 2010 in a flat near Copenhagen. The fourth convict, Sabhi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, was arrested a day later after crossing into Sweden and extradited back to Denmark.107 The indictment said that the men had deliberately planned to frighten the population of Denmark.108 They had planned to open fire on the offices of the Jyllands-Posten on the day that Crown Prince Frederik was due to visit the paper.109 In January 2012 a Norwegian court convicted another two men of planning an attack on the buildings of the Jylands-Posten.110 This time, Mikael Davud, a man of Chinese ethnicity living in Norway with links to Al Qaeda, was jailed for seven years.111 Shawan Sadak Saeed Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd, was given three-and-a-half years. A third man, David Jakobsen, was found guilty of helping the other two to get explosives but was cleared of terrorism charges. Kurt Westergaard’s attacker, Mohamed Geele, who, armed with axe and knife, forced himself into the house of the cartoonist screaming, “You must die!” and “You are going to Hell!”, was convicted to a twelve-year prison sentence.112 This was also done on the basis of terrorism legislation. The judge said that Geele’s actions must be considered “as an attempt to instill a heightened level of fear in the population and to destabilize the structure of society”.113 We have to answer the following questions in further developing the argument of this book. Did Geele’s actions indeed instill a “heightened level of fear in the population”? In a certain sense, they did. On the other hand, many people seem to regard these developments with the level of 106 “Four guilty of Danish plot over Muhammad cartoons”, BBC News, 4 June 2012. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid. 109 “Four deny Denmark Jyllands-Posten attack plot”, BBC News, 13 April 2012. 110 “Norway jails two for Danish newspaper terror plot”, BBC News, 30 January 2012. 111 Ibid. 112 “Cartoon trial: Kurt Westergaard’s attacker convicted”, BBC News, 3 February 2011. 113 Quoted in BBC News, 3 February 2011.

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detachment exemplified by Rushdie’s critics. They seem to think that a few silly cartoons are not worth all the risk. Why not – to quote Charles Taylor again – “reach out” more? Are cartoons that important? Is the “structure of society” really destabilized if we learn to avoid offending the sensibilities regarding “making caricatures of God” (“caricaturer Dieu”)?114 Could we not, paraphrasing Trevor-Roper’s judgment on Rushdie, say that Kurt Westergaard has to learn to “control his pencil”, and if he would do this “society would benefit” and art “would not suffer”?115 Doesn’t the Cartoon Affair prove that it is very dangerous to treat “great religions” in an “impertinent” way?116 But then, that had already become clear in the Rushdie Affair, the most well-known controversy between the advocates of free speech and the ideology of theoterrorism. I will deal with this controversy in the next chapter.

114 Boespflug, Caricaturer Dieu?. 115 The Independent, 10 June 1989, quoted in: Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What Virgins? And Other Essays, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York 2010, p. 31. 116 Quoted in: Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What Virgins?, p. 32.

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The Rushdie Affair and Charles Taylor As writers and soi-disant intellectuals, it is most often our job to stress complexity, to point out with care and attention that “it’s not as simple as that.” But there are also times when it is irresponsible not to stress the essential clarity and simplicity of a question. Christopher Hitchens1

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What is ridiculous needs to be ridiculed. Paul Berman 2

So far, my analysis of the tension between theoterrorism and free speech has been roughly historical. I started with the Rudi Carrell Affair in 1987 (Chapter 1). Then I tried to show how, from this affair, with its focus on a Dutch show master, in the Netherlands several instances arose where free speech collided with theoterrorism (Chapter 2). The most notorious and fatal conflict was that resulting in the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004. This event triggered Danish journalists to organize an experiment to test whether free speech was in jeopardy in their own country, Denmark, as well in the Netherlands. This developed into the Danish Cartoon Affair of 2005. Between 1987 (Carrell) and 2005 (Westergaard), there was another great conflict between free speech and theoterrorism. This was, of course, the controversy that arose as a result of the publication of Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and was foreshadowed, as I have argued in Chapter 1, by the Carrell Affair. Rushdie’s book, published in the United Kingdom by Viking Penguin on 26 September 1988, caused great controversy. After so many years of accidents, incidents, and precedents we tend to forget how great this first global clash between Islamist terrorism and civil liberties was. The following are only the incidents that occurred in the first year after publication. 1 Christopher Hitchens during a public meeting at 22 February 1989, quoted in: Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, p. 159. 2 Berman, Paul, “The Charlie Cover: Slander, ridicule, and terror in post-1968 France”, in: Tablet Magazine, 14 January 2015.

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On 5 October 1988, the book was banned in India and on 24 November, in South Africa. On 14 January 1989 copies of The Satanic Verses were burned in Bradford, England. On 27 January demonstrations took place in Hyde Park and a petition was presented to Penguin to cease publication. On 1 February 1989, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd announced that the British government had no plans to change blasphemy laws in response to Muslim demands. On 12 February five people were killed in riots in Islamabad, Pakistan. A day later more than one hundred people were injured in riots in Kashmir, India. On 14 February Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa against Rushdie, his publishers, and his translators. The next day, a national day of mourning was organized in Iran. Demonstrations took place outside the British Embassy in Tehran. All Viking Penguin books were banned from Iran. A price of a million and a half dollars was placed on Rushdie’s life. Harold Pinter led a writers’ delegation to 10 Downing Street in support of Rushdie. On 16 February Rushdie and his wife, Marianne Wiggins, went into hiding. On 17 February, the Iranian President suggested that Rushdie apologize. Canada banned the book and several US bookstore chains took the book off their shelves. On 18 February Rushdie expressed regret. On 19 February Rushdie’s apology was rejected and the death sentence reconfirmed. On 20 February Britain received strong support from foreign ministers of the European Community. All EC countries withdrew their ambassadors from Iran. On 22 February 1989, The Satanic Verses was officially published in the United States. The organization US PEN called a writers’ meeting in New York. On 24 February rioting took place in Bombay. On 26 February thousands of Muslims demonstrated against Rushdie in New York City. On 28 February two bookstores in Berkeley, California, were firebombed. On 2 March a World Writers’ Statement in defense of Rushdie and free speech was issued. On 7 March Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Britain. On 15 March the Nobel Prize committee split over including the book in its considerations. On 16 March the Islamic Conference Organization refused to support Iran over the death threat. On 29 March two moderate Muslim religious leaders were killed in Brussels after expressing opposition to censorship. On 27 May 50,000 Muslims demonstrated against the book in central London. On 4 June 1989 Khomeini died. The fatwa against Rushdie remained unchanged. On 3 August Rushdie remained in hiding. To date, more than 1.1 million hardcover copies of the book have been sold.3 And this is only in the first year of the controversy. Similar occurrences continue to the present day with new books, new clashes, new threats, and 3

See on the events in the first year: Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, pp. xiii-xiv.

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analogous considerations about state policies and the defense of important liberal principles. Western governments and intellectuals were now put to a crucial test. They had to defend (or decline to defend) the principles of free speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion while an important segment of a vulnerable non-Western religious minority seemed to oppose these principles. The first Muslim reactions to the Rushdie Affair testified to that.

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Backing for Khomeini’s judgment in the Iranian Parliament In Chapter 1, I cited the fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini informing “all zealous Muslims of the world” that Salman Rushdie, his publishers, and his translators were “sentenced to death”. Khomeini exhorted all zealous Muslims to execute this verdict. It has been said, and rightly so, that in this Khomeini did not express the ideas and attitudes of all Muslims. Neither did he speak for all Iranians. How many Iranian citizens had completely different ideas from those of the Iranian clergy and its supreme leader, remains difficult to say. The reason is simple: it is always hard to say who agrees and disagrees with a brutal dictator. But it would be equally untrue to lean back and claim that Khomeini’s support was very small. Reading the original commentaries from the Iranian government about Rushdie is a sobering experience. During a session of Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) on 15 February 1989 (i.e. one day after Khomeini’s declaration), Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (b. 1934) said that throughout the events surrounding the publication of Rushdie’s novel one could discern that “there has been planning and organizational work aimed at bringing about a very dangerous move – which is worse than an officially declared war”. 4 Rafsanjani continued to explain that Iran’s successes had to do “with the holiness which covers everything which is sacred in Islam”.5 Materialism and “all kinds of political forces” had failed to break such holiness. So the enemy (the West) chose a new method of action. They chose a person seemingly from India who had a misleading name to discredit Islam. According to Hashemi Rafsanjani “money had been given to that person, in advance, as royalties”. Subsequently “they appointed guards for him, in advance, as they 4 “Iran’s Majlis speaker says publication of The Satanic Verses was ‘worse than an officially declared war’”, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 17 February 1989. 5 BBC, 17 February 1989.

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knew what they were going to do”.6 Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to convince the Iranian public that Salman Rushdie was bribed to discredit Islam. As is so often the case, not everything the speaker of Parliament said was untrue. Rushdie had earned royalties in advance for his book. His new, often called “aggressive agent”, Andrew Wylie (b. 1947), was an astute negotiator with publishing houses who generally got the most attractive offers for writers he represented.7 But this is, of course, a totally different situation from what Rafsanjani was insinuating. He intimated that Rushdie was somehow bribed by the state. Rafsanjani contended that this was a confrontation “to break the sanctity of Islam and all that is sacred in Islam”. He continued:

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The logic of Islam is clear. The Koran, from the very early days, instructed Muslims not to befriend those who leave the faith. (…) This is the logic of the Koran – not to indulge in bad language, in insulting ways in the sacred schools and in anything which is sacred to the nations. The Koran does not indulge in bad language, nor does it accept it, nor does it shrink from opposing insults to the sacred things of other peoples. For us that applies to other religions. If today somebody insults His Holiness Moses, Abraham, or Jesus, then we must stand up against such insults with the same intensity. These are sanctities in which the majority of people believe. You see how the Koran campaigns against accusations inflicted on Her Holiness Mary.8

The reference to Moses and Mary is particularly interesting. It would mean that e.g. Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), a film which also gives an interpretation of Moses’ mission, is something the Iranian authorities take an interest in. In addition to Mohammed, also Abraham, Moses, Mary, and other “sanctities in which the majority of the people believe”, are protected cultural property, according to the statement by Rafsanjani. On the basis of this declaration, one would almost think that Rafsanjani is a multiculturalist, although from a somewhat aggressive variety, preaching respect for all religions and all prophets, until one realizes that he only protects religious icons that can in some way be seen as preparing the way for the Prophet Mohammed as the seal of the prophets. Rafsanjani does not preach any respect for, say, Joseph Smith (1805-1844), founder of the Church of Jesus 6 Ibid. 7 See on this: Weatherby, W.J., Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death, Carrol & Graf, New York 1990, pp. 109-122. 8 BBC, 17 February 1989.

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Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), or for the Persian Baha’ullah (1817-1892) and his son Abdul Baha (1844-1921), founders of the monotheistic religion of Baha’i. Nor does he extend his respect to polytheistic religions such as Hinduism or Buddhism. The most disconcerting element, however, is that the Iranian citizens get the impression that Rushdie is some sort of hired gun, contracted by Western governments to discredit the Iranian state and its citizens. In another declaration on Tehran Domestic Service (in Persian) of 15 February 1989, it is contended that The Satanic Verses was published at the “request of British Intelligence Services” by a “hireling of Indian origin who lives in England and is known as Salman Rushdie”.9 The British Intelligence Services are indicted of “trying to start a poisonous and disgraceful propaganda campaign against Islam and the Koran on the basis of an impudent program”.10 Is it accidental that Rushdie’s book “has been introduced in Britain as the book of the year”? Not to Tehran Domestic Service: “This is actually an effort to confront Islam and the Muslims”.11

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Khamenei’s sermon on the Rushdie Affair Three days after Ayatollah Khomeini’s declaration on Rushdie’s book, the President of Iran, Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (b. 1939), addressed the issue in a sermon delivered at Tehran University. Khamenei stresses that the Rushdie Affair is an important battle. “We Muslims should be as wary of the enemy’s cultural front as we are of the enemy’s military front”, he said.12 Khamenei repeated the accusations by earlier Iranian commentaries that Rushdie was hired by “the Great Satan”, the United States, or one of his surrogates. Rushdie was “forced to write a book”.13 Rushdie also took advantage of the situation and “gave interviews and adopted an impartial and cool attitude”. But at the same time, “he repeated his insults and filthspreading in other forms”.14 In another declaration, read by an announcer on 23 February 1989 via Tehran Domestic Service, Khomeini declared that the issue of The Satanic 9 BBC, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 16 February 1989. 10 BBC, 16 February 1989. 11 Ibid. 12 “Iranian President’s sermon at Friday prayers attacks British policy on The Satanic Verses issue”, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 20 February 1989. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid.

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Verses was a “calculated move aimed at rooting out religion and religiousness, and above all, Islam and its clergy”.15 But if we “recognize the tricks, ploys, and deceptions of the world-devourers” it would be possible to withstand these attacks. Subsequently, Khomeini elaborated on the ways of God, indicating there was somehow a divine plan at work in the assault on the clergy and Islam:

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God wanted the blasphemous book of The Satanic Verses to be published now, so that the world of conceit, arrogance and barbarism would bare its true face in its long-held enmity to Islam (…).16

For someone with a secular perspective, this is perhaps the most astonishing passage of all the diverse declarations that Khomeini and his acolytes have issued on the Rushdie Affair. Here Khomeini says that God wanted Rushdie’s book to be published. In other words, the publication of The Satanic Verses was part of a divine plan. But if that is the case, does it not imply that not the Great Satan but God himself is behind the whole plan? And if so, how can we hold the author, viz. Rushdie, responsible for all this?17 This is a question, however, that is not pertinent to Islam in particular, but inherent in the whole monotheist conception of God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and eternal being who created humans with a free will and, supposedly, made them responsible for their own acts.18 It is a problem that haunts the whole Western Judeo-Christian theology as well. If Jesus Christ is destined to die at the cross for the sins of mankind, how can Judas be criticized for what he has done? Felix culpa, St. Augustine said.19 In the next sections I will give an idea of the early reactions to the publication of The Satanic Verses and Khomeini’s subsequent fatwa. There were a variety of reactions, as one may understand. Politicians gave their views, 15 BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 24 February 1989. 16 BBC, 24 February 1989. 17 Some of the paradoxes of the monotheist conception of God are treated with great skill in: Hartmann, Eduard von, Die Selbstzersetzung des Christenthums und die Religion der Zukunft, Zweite Auflage, Carl Ducker’s Verlag, Berlin 1874. 18 See on this: Cliteur, Paul, “Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theism”, in: Cliteur, The Secular Outlook, pp. 14-69; McInerney, Peter K., “God”, in: Introduction to Philosophy, HarperCollins, New York 1992, pp. 9-22. 19 The phrase felix culpa derives from Augustine’s Enchiridion (viii) where he ponders over the Fall of Man or the source of original sin. Apparently, God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit evil to exist at all. The phrase also appears in the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil: “O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem”, meaning: “O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer”.

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scholars brought forward their ideas, and colleagues of Rushdie defended their colleague writer (or failed to do so, as we will see). A variety of voices were heard. Nonetheless, we can discern some patterns in the discussion, and I will try to highlight four lines in the reactions: (1) The Islamist response (2) The multiculturalist response (3) The realist response (4) The political response These four types of responses interacted, as one may expect. I will first give an idea of the Islamist response, which was very negative both about Rushdie as a person and his book. I call this the “Islamist” and not “Muslim” or “Islamic” response because I think the reactions to the fatwa supporting Khomeini are not representative for Islam in general, but for a specific ideological variety of Islam, a religious fundamentalist version. This Islamist response, although not representative for Islam in general or for all Muslims, was nonetheless important and it very much influenced the other three responses.

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The Islamist response As said, the first response I want to distinguish is the Islamist response. The very first Islamist response was, of course, the reaction to Khomeini’s fatwa in Iran. But that reaction I have already sketched above. What I mean here is the Islamist response in other countries, in particular Great Britain. Because that is where the first surprise after the fatwa manifested itself, namely that Khomeini proved to speak for more people than his acolytes in Iran. There appeared to live a considerable contingent of fellow Islamists in Great Britain. Or, to formulate it in more direct terms, there seemed to be British Muslims who agreed with Khomeini’s stance. This was, of course, a bit of a shock to many. Suddenly we learned that the way of thinking of the Islamists was not without support from Muslims living in countries where they were not a majority. Especially disappointing was the reaction by some people claiming to have a representative function (the so-called “community leaders”). One of those persons was Sir Iqbal Sacranie (b. 1951), founding Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain from 1997 to June 2006. Sacranie spoke of a “clash of views” and he was definitely not on the side of Rushdie and free speech. “Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him (…) his mind must

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be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah”, he commented on Khomeini’s death sentence for Rushdie.20 Another uncompromisingly crude voice in the early days of the Rushdie Affair came from Inayatullah Zaigham from Kent, UK, who indicated that Rushdie, himself a Muslim until recently, “has committed acts of apostasy by writing what he did in his Satanic Verses”.21 Then the author makes a comparison between apostasy and high treason. He says that apostasy is a “very serious crime against the Muslim Ummah (universal brotherhood of Muslims), much more serious than high treason is against a state of which one is a citizen”.22 The problem with this commentary is that Zaigham seems to indicate that for a Muslim, loyalty to the ummah must always have priority over loyalty to the nation-state. This is also the view so uncompromisingly formulated by Michael Adebolajo to Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, the Cub Scout leader witnessing the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby on 22 May 2013 (see Chapter 3). The dominance of such an attitude would make it impossible for Muslims to be citizens of a nation-state based on the idea of territorial jurisdiction. One may differ in opinion whether this statement, as formulated by Rushdie’s critic, is a religious conviction, a political view, a religious-political persuasion – whatever one may wish to call it, one may hope this is not the view that gets the upper hand among Muslims. And even if it exists as a minority view, it can still cause tremendous problems, because, as Bernard Lewis famously quipped, “terrorism requires only a few”.23 Zaigham also spells out what would happen if his views would get the upper hand. Like many secular states that employ the death penalty for high treason, several schools of Islamic thought deem the blood of an apostate a fair target for Muslims, he writes. Thus “Ayatollah Khomeini (…) did his duty as a religious leader when he pronounced the death sentence against Salman Rushdie for his crime of high treason against the Muslim Ummah”.24 This death penalty even extends to Rushdie’s publishers: “The Ayatollah’s verdict against these publishers, too, is just and fair”.25 Zaigham saw only one way out of this quagmire: “By recanting his blasphemies publicly, he can win a reprieve to make amend for the wrong he had done. God is oft-forgiving most merciful.”26 20 Sacranie, quoted in The Guardian, 15 February 1989. 21 Zaigham, quoted in The Independent, 17 February 1989. 22 Ibid. 23 Lewis, The Crisis of Islam, p. xxvii. 24 Zaigham, Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid.

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What this writer does not address is the fact that Khomeini’s pretentions went much further than most Islamic scholars would judge appropriate. Khomeini not only condemned the former Muslim Rushdie, his judgment also meant the death of Rushdie’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, killed on 11 July 1991 in Tokyo. His Italian translator Ettore Capriolo was attacked with a knife on 3 July 1991 in Milan, and his Norwegian publisher William Nygaard was wounded by gunshots on 11 October 1993 in Oslo. As Ramine Kamrane writes on the publisher and translator, “they were no Muslims”.27 Only Rushdie was, or rather, was considered to be one.28 Rushdie was not inclined to repent. The reason is clear. For if he did repent, would it not actually mean his abdication as a citizen of Great Britain? As Malcolm Yapp (b. 1931) wrote in an article in The Independent: “To appeal to Muslim law would destroy or weaken the most fundamental of all Rushdie’s protections, namely English law”.29 He would, in fact, become “stateless”. His only option would be to knock on the door of a new kingdom, a new empire, the universal brotherhood of the ummah. But before he would gain admission to that new kingdom, he would have to promise submission to the rules of the clerics. Only then could he avoid the wrath of the Ayatollah. Should he do that? In a moment of weakness, Rushdie decided to comply, like Rudi Carrell had done two years earlier in Germany after having mocked Khomeini (something Rushdie seems to be unaware of, at least he does not make a single reference to the Carrell Affair in his autobiography),30 though he soon reconsidered. .

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Rushdie’s apology In an effort he later deplored, Rushdie tried to appease the situation by presenting a declaration, on 18 February 1989, saying: “As the author of The Satanic Verses I recognize that Muslims in many parts of the world are genuinely distressed by the publication of my novel. I profoundly regret the distress that publication has occasioned to the sincere followers of 27 Kamrane, La Fatwa contre Rushdie, p. 30. 28 The question who is a “Jew”, or a “Muslim”, is, of course, very controversial because the criteria to answer it differ from person to person. According to the modernist interpretation, what counts is what the person himself (or herself) thinks, but for Khomeini the question is, “Were your parents Muslim?”. If so, you are automatically a Muslim yourself. See for this question in Judaism: Haag, Ernest van den, The Jewish Mystique, Stein and Day, New York 1969. 29 Yapp, “The hubris of the hidden imam”. 30 Rushdie, Joseph Anton.

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Islam. Living as we do in a world of many faiths this experience has served to remind us that we must all be conscious of the sensibilities of others.”31 This was the sort of excuse that the Iranian authorities required Rudi Carrell to make after he had offended the Iranian dictator. Carrell complied to these requests, and here Rushdie did the same. This is also the sort of declaration that many multiculturalists consider to be helpful in the world of religious difference in which we live. A religiously pluralist world means we have to be more careful. We have to respect the sensitivities of others. What can be wrong with that? But Rushdie did not endear himself to all Muslims with his declaration. The Council of Mosques described his statement as “not a sincere apology but a further insult to the Muslim community as a whole”.32 Khomeini’s reaction was even more vehement: “Even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of his time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and his wealth, to send him to hell”.33 So while Carrell had averted hell, Rushdie was less successful. What to conclude from this? The Independent summarized the results: “Neither Mr Rushdie’s statement – extracted under the most appalling of threats – nor Sir Geoffrey’s studied moderation had eased the crisis or improved the position of supposed pragmatists in Tehran.”34 There was a glimmer of hope, though. There appeared to be a difference of opinion among the clerics themselves about whether or not Rushdie should be forgiven if he showed remorse. President Ali Khamenei’s answer was “yes”. Khomeini’s answer was “no”. Some clerics made a distinction between the different ways in which Islam was attacked.35 According to Ayatollah Motaheri (1920-1979), an open attack against Islam required an open response, i.e. book against book, opinion against opinion. But if the 31 Sunday Times, 19 February 1989. This may be called the multiculturalist reaction to ideological and religious diversity. This reaction is: be careful. Do not tread on someone else’s toes. There is another possible reaction, though. This is the reaction we find in a verdict of the US Supreme Court, viz. Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940). Here the Court says that in a country where you have a people “composed of many races and of many creeds” you need to emphasize “liberties”. In other words, not the ideology multiculturalism provides the most likely guiding star in a world of religious diversity, but secularism and its respect for free speech. See on this: Berlinerblau, Jacques, How to be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, New York 2012, p. 18. 32 Sunday Times, 19 February 1989. 33 Irna Iranian News Agency, 19 February 1989. 34 The Independent, 21 February 1989. The reactions of England’s Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe (b. 1926), to the Rushdie Affair will be discussed later in this chapter. 35 Yapp, “The hubris of the hidden imam”.

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attack was done in a deceitful manner the attack should be violent, Motaheri said some ten years before the Rushdie Affair. But even then, if the attackers sincerely repented, they should be forgiven. Why Motaheri did not say that a deceitful attack should be answered “deceitfully” (and not “murderously”) is not clear.

Not a clash of civilizations but of visions

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Nowadays it is something of a taboo to speak about a “clash of civilizations”.36 According to most commentators, Samuel Huntington’s (1927-2008) famous thesis could serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, something which, for obvious reasons, has to be avoided. It could also serve as the ideological foundation for interventions in other countries and cultures, many commentators said, and therefore Huntington’s ideas were bound to have nefarious consequences in international politics.37 Perhaps the term “civilizations” also calls forth all kinds of misunderstanding. It reinforces the impression that there is a homogeneous Western civilization on the one hand (“the West”), and a totally different, equally homogeneous non-Western civilization on the other (“the Rest”), and never the twain shall meet.38 A bleak view, to be sure. And not only bleak but not in accordance with the facts. Has it not been made clear that many people in Western civilization harbored the same, or at least similar, feelings as the mullahs in Iran? Roald Dahl (1916-1990) and John Le Carré (b. 1931), whose reactions will be discussed later in this chapter, voiced the same indignation about Rushdie’s supposed motives as did Khomeini, Rafsanjani, and Khamenei. And authors like Ramine Kamrane,39 Bharati Mukherjee40, 36 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, pp. 22-49. 37 See for some commentaries along these lines: Ali, Tariq, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity, Verso, London and New York 2002; Gray, John, “A Clash of ideologies: ‘the Enlightenment’ versus Islamism”, in: The National, 2 July 2010; Said, Edward W., “The Clash of Definitions”, in: Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2000, pp. 569-590. 38 See on this: Kishore, Mahbubani, “The West and the Rest”, in: The National Interest, No. 26, Summer 1992, pp. 3-12; Scruton, The West and the Rest; Mishra, Pankai, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia, Allen Lane, Penguin, London 2012; Pena-Ruiz, Henri, “Clash des civilisations”, in: Henri Pena-Ruiz, Dictionnaire amoureux de la laïcité, Plon, Paris 2014, pp. 202-209. 39 Kamrane, La Fatwa contre Rushdie. 40 Mukherjee, Bharati, “Prophet and Loss: Salman Rushdie’s migration of souls”, in: The Village Voice, (Literary Supplement), 72, March 1989, pp. 9-12.

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and Aziz Al-Azmeh, 41 and hundreds of others from the Muslim world in support of Rushdie42 voiced a critique of the Iranian authorities that was very similar to Rushdie’s own criticism. Apparently, civilizations are not impermeable entities. Perhaps it is better not to speak of a “clash of civilizations” but of a “clash of visions”, of a fundamental difference in the way the different participants to the discussion think about democracy, citizenship, civilization, progress, and the rights of man. This is clearly noticeable, for instance, in Rushdie’s quintessential antagonist, the Indian Muslim politician Syed Shahabuddin. Shahabuddin’s views are important to analyze a little further. First, there is a great difference in vocabulary. Shahabuddin (b. 1935) uses not so much the language of the religious believer, but the multiculturalist vocabulary. In discussing the Rushdie controversy, he notes that it is unbelievable that “what pains one section gives pleasure to the other”. 43 This contention that religious individuals and communities feel “pain” when their holy convictions are challenged is typically based on a kind of multiculturalist sensibility. Conversely, from the perspective of Rushdie’s freethinking stance, “holy convictions”, must be challenged as well. This is part of the ordinary process of discussion that human beings engage in when structuring the world around them. Saying that you feel “pain” if someone challenges your ideas is melodramatic. It would make all conversation impossible. A scientist or philosopher who would complain that he feels “pain” when his theories or ideas are severely criticized by a colleague scientist or philosopher, would be laughed out of court. Why should this be different when it comes to religious ideas? Because people react very touchy when it comes to religion, one may answer. That may be true but this touchiness becomes a problem when it inhibits the free discussion of ideas. When people complain about the “pain” they feel when someone else contradicts their ideas, this information is usually followed by the demand that the other person has to withhold his commentary. One has to be silent. “Pain talk” is followed by silencing the other. From a multiculturalist perspective, though, this whole commentary would be considered cold and heartless. Multiculturalists assume that this attitude of severe criticism, defended by philosophers like W.K. Clifford 41 Al-Azmeh, Aziz, “Aziz Al-Azmeh”, in: New Statesman & Society, 20 January 1989. 42 Abdallah, Anouar et al., Pour Rushdie. See also: Majid, Anouar, A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London 2007. 43 Shahabuddin, Syed, “You did this with satanic forethought, Mr Rushdie”, in: Times of India, 13 October 1988.

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(1845-1879),44 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), 45 and Karl Popper (1902-1994), 46 is all right for Western societies, but that in some parts of the world there are people for whom this mentality should not be the norm. Multiculturalists present their approach as “empathic”, but from a freethinking perspective, they are paternalistic and patronizing. In reality, contrary to how it may appear, they adopt a kind of neocolonialist attitude of condescension. They think “the Other” cannot discuss their religious convictions in the same critical way as is possible in the West. Is this not au fond a racist attitude, some commentators were inclined to think?47

The secular West against the religious Rest?

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Shahabuddin also presumes that the population of India is “religious” and do not want to discuss their religious ideas. He writes: “Yes, Mr. Rushdie, we are a religious people and we do not like our religious personalities – prophets, avatars, saints, rishis to be abused and vilified, directly or indirectly”.48 But is that true? Are there not also a great many people living in India who are not religious? Here it may be helpful to contrast Shahabuddin’s ideas with those of the famous Indian philosopher Amartya Sen. Amartya Sen (b. 1931) published an anthology of his writings under the title The Argumentative Indian (2005), stressing secularist ideas in India. 49 Other scholars also criticized the idea that Indian culture would be averse 44 Clifford, W.K., “The Ethics of Belief”, in: Contemporary Review, 29 (1876: Dec. – 1877: May), pp. 289-309. 45 Mill, On Liberty. 46 Popper, Karl R., “Science: Conjectures and Refutations”, A Lecture given at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in Summer 1953, in: Conjectures and Refutations, Harper Torchbooks, Harper & Row, New York Hagerstown San Francisco London 1968 (1962). Although Popper did not support Rushdie. See: Popper, Karl, “Popper to the Society of Authors, 24 February 1989, and to Isaiah Berlin, 5 March 1989”, in: Karl Popper, After the Open Society, Selected Social and Political Writings, edited by Jeremy Shearmur and Piers Norris Turner, Routledge, London and New York 2008, pp. 202/204. 47 See e.g. Ibn Warraq and Michael Weiss, “Inhuman Rights”, in: City Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 2009, pp. 1-6; Ibn Warraq, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York 2007; Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What Virgins? And Other Essays, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York 2010. 48 Shahabuddin, Ibid. 49 Sen, Amartya, The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London 2005. See also his: Sen, Amartya, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, W.W. Norton & Company, New York & London 2006 and Sen, Amartya, The Idea of Justice, Penguin Books, London 2010 (2009).

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to secularism. The Norwegian philosopher Finnigeir Hiorth (b. 1928) shows in Introduction to Atheism (1995) and Introduction to Humanism (1996) that India harbors an ancient atheist and humanist tradition.50 For reasons that now seem obvious, writers in India do not dare to publish a volume entitled Why I am Not a Muslim (1995), as Ibn Warraq did;51 but four years after the outbreak of the Rushdie controversy, Ramendra Nath (b. 1957) did publish a book entitled Why I am not a Hindu (1993),52 inspired by Bertrand Russell’s Why I am not a Christian (1927).53 The official constitution of India is secular. That there is a greater plurality of voices in India than only the religious lobby also appears from an open letter of 20 October 1988, signed by nineteen Indian writers, to the prime minister. Mr. Rushdie is alleged to have insulted Islam, the signatories explained. Yet, it may be pointed out that Sufi poets like Rumi (1207-1273) and Omar Khayyam (1048-1123) compared “God to an innkeeper” talking much of houris and wine. Besides, Rushdie’s work is fantasy. “Why should a fantasy hurt the feelings of any community?” the signatories asked. In The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), a film by Martin Scorsese (b. 1942) that provoked controversy among Christians, Jesus is depicted as making love to Mary Magdalene. This film, based on Nikos Kazantzakis’s (1883-1957) novel The Last Temptation (1953),54 had not yet been banned in India. Many books that stirred controversy have become modern classics: Ulysses (19181920) by James Joyce, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) by D.H. Lawrence, Dr. Zhivago (1957) by Boris Pasternak, and many works of Solzhenitsyn. India, the signatories reminded the prime minister, is a “secular democracy”.55 Shahabuddin assumes that he formulates what India is (the living soul of the country, so to speak) and that Rushdie is the outsider, the intruder, the one who wants to force upon India a totally alien set of values. But is that true? Shahabuddin says that you can call Rushdie’s critics “primitive”, you can call them “fundamentalist” or “superstitious barbarians”, but that this does not alter the fact that Rushdie’s book serves “to define what has gone wrong with the Western civilization – it has lost all sense of distinction between the sacred and the profane”.56 50 Hiorth, Finngeir, Introduction to Atheism, Indian Secular Society, Pune 1995; Hiorth, Finngeir, Introduction to Humanism, Indian Secular Society, Pune 1996. 51 Ibn Warraq, Why I am not a Muslim, Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1995. 52 Nath, Ramendra, Why I am not a Hindu, Bihar Rationalist Society, Bihar 1993. See also: www. infidels.org/library/modern/ramendra_nath/hindu.html. 53 Russell, Why I am not a Christian. 54 Kazantzakis, Nikos, The Last Temptation of Christ, Bantam Books, New York 1968 (1953). 55 Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, p. 41. 56 Shahabuddin, Ibid.

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What this passage makes clear is that Shahabuddin wants to correct “Western civilization”. He has a religious and political agenda that is not only critical of an insulting, blaspheming, unreasonably mocking author but an agenda that wants to correct “Western civilization”. What Shahabuddin objects to, are the key values of Western civilization as they have been expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issued in 1948, i.e. around the same time that India gained independence. What he wants is the acknowledgment of the Indian people as a “religious people”, India as a religious country, a country where the “sacred” has priority over the “profane”. It is Shahabuddin’s right to do this, but would it not be more in accordance with the actual state of affairs to say that he is the revolutionary, not Rushdie? In one respect Shahabuddin is right, though, when he refers to Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, which reads: “Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or (…) insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment (…) or with fine (…) or with both.”57 This blasphemy clause fits in uneasily with Article 19 of the Constitution of India, in which freedom of speech is guaranteed.58 But we find the same contradiction in all modern countries with both secularist constitutions and blasphemy laws.59 From a secular perspective, blasphemy laws are relics from a past in which unbelief was punished by both church and state (often working closely together).60

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Some early Muslim reactions to the publication of The Satanic Verses Let us return to the early Islamist reactions to The Satanic Verses in Great Britain. Undoubtedly, these reactions were not in any way representative for those of British Muslims as a whole, but certainly representative for an 57 Ibid. 58 Freedom of Thought 2014. A Global Report on the Rights, Legal Status, and Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists, and the Non-religious, International Humanist and Ethical Union, London 2014, p. 317, mentions India as a country with “severe discrimination”. India is the world’s most populous democracy, religiously pluralistic, and with a secular constitution. Nevertheless the country is found to be declining. 59 Cherry & Brown, Speaking Freely about Religion. 60 See on this: Brent Plate, S., Blasphemy: Art that Offends, Black Dog Publishing, London 2006; Levy, Leonard W., Blasphemy: Verbal Offense against the Sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London 1993; Nash, David, Blasphemy in the Christian World: A History, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010 (2007).

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Islamist fundamentalist minority which was very vocal in the early days of the controversy. An important voice, apart from those mentioned before, was that of Dr. Hesham El Essawi, chairman and founder of the Islamic Society for the Promotion of Religious Tolerance. He wrote an open letter to Rushdie in The Observer of 19 February 1989, saying: “I would like to invite you to take some kind of corrective stand before the monster that you have so heedlessly created grows, as it will do worldwide, into something uncontrollable.” Dr. Syed Pasha (1930-2011), secretary of the Union of Muslim Organizations, an umbrella organization for Islamic groups in Great Britain, proved equally hostile to Rushdie and supportive of Khomeini. He urged Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to prosecute Rushdie and Penguin under the Public Order Act (1986) and the Race Relations Act (1976). To no avail; Thatcher made it clear in a reply on 11 November 198861 that there were no grounds on which the government would consider banning the book.62 The government also gave something of an ideological defense of its position: “It is an essential part of our democratic system that people who act within the law should be able to express their opinions freely.” This probably did not satisfy Dr. Pasha because the prime minister’s answer presupposes that Rushdie had acted within the law. And that was precisely the point that Pasha had challenged. Nevertheless, the British government offered something of a compromise by referring the matter to Solicitor-General Sir Patrick Mayhew (b. 1929), who decided that the book constituted no criminal offense. Subsequently, Pasha appealed to Lord Mackay (b. 1927), the Lord Chancellor, and to the Home Office, demanding a ban on the book. But the responses were all negative. A third critic of Rushdie was Dr. Mughram Al-Ghamdi, acting on behalf of the UK Action Committee on Islamic Affairs. Although he is considered by some as the advocate of a “less confrontational approach”,63 he objected to Rushdie’s book (“thinly disguised as a piece of literature”) because it “grossly distorts Islamic history in general, but also portrays in the worst possible colours the very characters of the Prophet Ibrahim and the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon them). It also disfigures the characters of the 61 See: The Sunday Times, 19 February 1989. 62 In Thatcher’s autobiography, Thatcher, Margaret, The Path to Power, HarperCollins, London 1995, the name of Rushdie does not occur even once in the index of the book. 63 See e.g. Pargeter, Alison, The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2008, p. 28; Weller, A Mirror for our Times, p. 64.

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Prophet’s Companions (Bilal, Salman Farsi, Hamza, Abu Sufyan, Hind, Khalid and several others) and the Prophet’s holy wives and describes the Islamic creed and rituals in the foulest language.”64 Some authors used heavy artillery to express their anger with Rushdie’s book. H.H. Faruqui, a fourth vocal critic of Rushdie, claimed that the Muslim community in Britain “is shocked and outraged beyond any describable measure by the unprecedented enormity of this sacrilege and by the fact that a so far respectable publisher, Penguin, has been insensitive enough to lend its name in this profanity”.65 Faruqui, speaking on behalf of Muslim organizations in Britain, presented three demands: (1) to withdraw and pulp all copies of The Satanic Verses and to undertake not to reprint it in the future;66 (2) to offer an unqualified public apology to the World Muslim community; (3) to pay damages equal to the returns received from the copies already sold in Britain and abroad.

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Faruqui wrote that these demands had been supported by the Secretary General of the 46-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada. With the OIC involved, Rushdie was confronted with a daunting adversary. To this day, the OIC has great influence and prestige in the Islamic world. The organization is behind many initiatives within the UN to criminalize blasphemy, defamation of religion, and the suffocation of all heterodox voices in both the Islamic world and Europe.67 Pirzada (1923-2017) had called upon member states of the OIC to “take strong measures to ensure that this book is withdrawn from circulation by its publisher immediately and its copies are destroyed”.68 Another demand 64 Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, p. 47. 65 Faruqui, M.H., “Publishing sacrilege is not acceptable”, in: Impact International, 28 October – 10 November 1988. The words “so far respectable publisher” are interesting here. Penguin had another problem with: Doniger, Wendy, The Hindus: An Alternative History, Penguin Books, London 2009. The book was banned from India. See on this: Biswas, Soutik, “Why did Penguin recall a book on Hindus?”, in: BBC News, 12 February 2014. 66 Like with the Danish cartoons, many authors were against republication of The Satanic Verses, although they did not oppose publication in the first place. See: Webster, Richard, A Brief History of Blasphemy: Liberalism, Censorship and “The Satanic Verses”, Orwell Press, Oxford 1990 and Webster, Richard, “Reconsidering the Rushdie Affair: Freedom, censorship and American foreign policy”, 1992, unpublished, in 2002 in: richardwebster.net. 67 Ibn Warraq and Michael Weiss, “Inhuman Rights”, in: City Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 2009, pp. 1-6. 68 Faruqui, Ibid.

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by Pirzada, speaking on behalf of the OIC, was that “the blasphemous book and its author must be banned from entry into all Islamic countries”.69 Faruqui, though, had a new and even more far-reaching plan for Rushdie than just banning him from Islamic countries. “Perhaps it would be more salutary if the author is allowed to enter into Islamic jurisdiction and prosecuted under relevant law”.70 It is not clear from Faruqui’s words whether he is serious or joking when he uses the word “allowed”. One would say: he must be joking, because entering an Islamic country, and being tried there, could mean certain death for Rushdie. Rushdie would, of course, never do this on his own initiative. Is Faruqui perhaps insinuating that Rushdie should be extradited? But then, no civilized democratic country will extradite its citizens for writing a book that is completely legitimate under the legislation of Western jurisdictions and human rights declarations. Faruqui thus leaves his readers puzzled. Yet the impression his letter makes is that he must be serious, because he explains that an important matter is at stake here. He stresses that the ummah (community of believers) must stand up for the honor and dignity of its faith, of its Beloved Messenger, and of God. If the ummah does not react, it must be prepared to “receive more Rushdies and more Penguins”.71 Whatever one may think of Faruqui’s arguments, this last contention is not unrealistic: the Rushdie case is an important precedent. It is a precedent for either bolstering free speech or bolstering the suppression thereof. It is here that even Faruqui’s most convinced adversaries must concede he has a point.

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Rushdie’s own defense: the centrality of doubt One of the most remarkable features of the Rushdie Affair, a feature that clearly distinguishes his case from that of the Carrell case72 and the Cartoon Affair, is that it is about a serious author, i.e. an intellectual, someone with a special gift: the ability to write, to argue, to convince. And apart from that, it was about a bright and intellectual writer who had clear and cogent 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 See on this: Cliteur, “The Rudi Carrell Affair and its Significance for the Tension between Theoterrorism and Religious Satire”, pp. 15-41; Cliteur, Paul, Herrenberg, Tom, and Rijpkema, Bastiaan, “The New Censorship: A Case Study of Extrajudicial Restraints on Free Speech”, in: Afshin Ellian and Bastiaan Rijpkema, eds., Freedom of Speech under Attack, Eleven, International Publishing, The Hague 2015, pp. 291-318.

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views about the values he had to defend. This he did with admirable clarity and strong arguments.73 He proved not only a daunting adversary of the theoterrorists who wanted to kill him, but also for the politicians inclined to yield to terrorist pressure. In an interview recorded on 27 January 1989 and broadcast on 14 February on Channel 4, Rushdie appears to be acutely aware of the tenor of this early criticism of his novel. His answer is clear: “It seems to me completely legitimate that there should be dissent from orthodoxy, not just about Islam, but about anything.”74 To the common objection that he wrote his book to insult and provoke he replied: “If you don’t want to read a book, you don’t have to read it. It’s very hard to be offended by The Satanic Verses, it requires a long period of intense reading. It’s a quarter of a million words.”75 This last rejoinder is interesting and highlights a much-overlooked aspect of the case. What is remarkable in the whole Rushdie Affair is that the participants often use arguments that do not match the position they take. Let us distinguish between two positions. First, the position that the Prophet (or Islam) may not be criticized because criticism is, from an absolute point of view, i.e. totally unrelated to any human perspective, prohibited.76 If that is the position human feelings, including feelings of being hurt, offended or insulted, are irrelevant. Second, there is the position that the Prophet (or Islam) may not be criticized because the feelings of Muslims have to be protected. If you take the second position (and most people did) then Rushdie’s answer about a quarter 73 Like Philip Val, Caroline Fourest and Jeanette Bougrab would do for the Charlie Hebdo editors: Val, Malaise dans l’inculture; Bougrab, Jeanette, Maudites, Albin Michel, Paris 2015; Fourest, Caroline, Éloge du blasphème, Bernard Grasset, Paris 2015. 74 Rushdie quoted in: Appignanesi and Maitland, Ibid., p. 23; Weatherby, Ibid., p. 96. 75 Rushdie quoted in: Appignanesi and Maitland, Ibid., p. 21. Or, as the Economic and Political Weekly of 22 October 1988 wrote: “A book priced at £ 12.95 and running into 547 pages in good English is not likely to be very avidly or widely read in India”. See also: Lévy, Avec Salman Rushdie, p. 87 where Rushdie affirms to Bernard-Henri Lévy that he certainly did not write The Satanic Verses to provoke or insult Muslims or anyone. “If I had wanted to insult anyone I can do it with a few phrases”. Why should he spend f ive years working on a project simply to insult, if this can be done in a moment? On Rushdie’s supposed will to insult and provoke, see also: Arshad Ahmedi, Mohamed, Rushdie: Haunted by His Unholy Ghosts, Islam International Publications Limited, Tilford UK 2007 (1997), p. 3: “The best way to portray Islam and its noble personages in a negative and flagitous way was to employ the literary craft of a ‘fiction’ writer who could by his sensational style use it to the maximum effect”. 76 That seems to be the position taken by Arshad Ahmedi, Mohamed, Rushdie: Haunted by His Unholy Ghosts, Islam International Publications Limited, Tilford UK 2007 (1997), p. 40. Every picture of Islam or the prophet that is critical is always “a distorted and false picture of Islam”, as this has been painted by “orientalists”.

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of a million words you have to read in order to legitimately claim to feel insulted, is quite strong. You cannot complain about drunkenness if you have voluntarily drunk two bottles of whiskey. Similarly, you cannot complain about being insulted if you have gone through – to quote Rushdie – a quarter of a million words to get insulted. As long as you are not forced to read a book, the argument about being insulted by a book does not hold water. Rushdie also addresses the often-voiced argument about provocation: “It depends what you mean by provocation. Any writer wishes to provoke the imagination. You want to make people think about what you’re writing. One of the reasons for writing, I believe, is to slightly increase the sum of what it’s possible to think, to say ‘Let’s look at it a different way’. If it works, then people are provoked, and maybe they don’t like it.”77 As W.J. Weatherby (1930-1992) writes in his biography of Rushdie, “the novel is full of asides from the author”.78 The following is especially illuminating:

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Question: What is the opposite of faith? Not disbelief: Too final, certain, closed. Itself a kind of belief. Doubt.79

Rushdie’s argument is based on his right, as a citizen and as a writer, to make caricatures of important religious icons. Rushdie’s critics, however, repeatedly claim that one subject is off limits: criticism of the Prophet. They vehemently object to the suggestion that a shady “businessman-turnedprophet” should be likened to the Prophet Mohammed. They also dislike it that the prophet Abraham is called a “bastard”.80 But from Rushdie’s perspective “there are no subjects which are off limits and that includes God, includes prophets”.81 He explains: “I refuse to think that I should shut my mind off to subjects which are not just of interest to me but which have been my concern all my life.”82 77 Rushdie quoted in: Appignanesi and Maitland, Ibid., p. 23. 78 Weatherby, Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death, p. 98. 79 Quoted in: Weatherby, Ibid., p. 98. See for a similar point of view: Bugliosi, Vincent, Divinity of Doubt: God and Atheism on Trial, Vanguard Press, New York 2012 (2011); Haught, James A., 2000 Years of Disbelief: Famous People with the Courage to Doubt, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York 1996; Hecht, Jennifer Michael, Doubt: a History, The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson, HarperOne, New York 2005. 80 Walsh, John, “Words that outraged Islam”, in: The Sunday Times, 19 February 1989. 81 Basu, Shrabani, “Of Satan, archangels and prophets”, Interview with Salman Rushdie, in: Sunday (India), 18-24 September 1988. 82 Basu, Ibid.

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The debate about revelation Not only Rushdie’s remarks about the Prophet proved to be controversial, so did his treatment of central ideas of monotheism like the idea of revelation. In Midnight’s Children (1981),83 published seven years before The Satanic Verses, Rushdie had already addressed the subject of revelation. In 1981 he had referred to Mount Hira, where the Prophet Mohammed spoke to the Archangel Gabriel. Mohammed (“on whose name be peace, let me add”, Rushdie teased his readers) heard a voice saying “Recite”. Mohammed, Rushdie writes, “thought he was going mad”.84 Even in 1981 there were some protests, but, and this is remarkable, the remarks in Midnight’s Children did not cause the groundswell that his later book would effectuate.85 Why the difference? Was The Satanic Verses so much more offensive? Or was the world in 1989 a different world from the world of 1981? Was religious fundamentalism perhaps more powerful in 1989? Or had postmodernism and multiculturalism undermined Western self-assurance in 1989? Over the years Rushdie’s vision remained fairly constant. In his universe there is no infallible will of God revealed to mankind: “I don’t believe that Mohammad had a revelation, but then I don’t doubt his sincerity either. Mohammad didn’t make up the angel. He had that genuine mystical experience. But if you don’t believe in the whole truth and you don’t disbelieve him either – then what’s going on? What is the nature of the mystical experience? Given that we accept it happens and we also don’t believe in God and archangels. That’s what I tried to write about”.86 As Madhu Jain writes in a review of Rushdie’s novel for India Today: “The root idea of the novel is that there are no absolutes”.87 This seems to be a good characterization of the core of the novel. Mahound, the prophet, has a tough time telling the difference between the voice of the angel and the shaitan (devil) up there on Mount Cone. And, of course, this makes prophets human, all-too-human. Here a comparison with a classical thinker can be made. In his equally controversial book The Age of Reason (1794), published one year after Kant’s Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) commented on Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from above. This was 83 Rushdie, Salman, Midnight’s Children, Vintage Books, Random House, London 1995 (1981). 84 Rushdie quoted in: Weatherby, Ibid., p. 96. 85 Weatherby, Ibid., p. 96. 86 Basu, Shrabani, “Of Satan, archangels and prophets”, Interview with Salman Rushdie, in: Sunday (India), 18-24 September 1988; Weatherby, Ibid., p. 94. 87 Jain, Madhu, “An irreverent journey”, in: India Today, 15 September 1988.

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a “revelation”, so Paine tells us, but a “revelation to that person only.”88 He meant: only a revelation to Moses, not to us. When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so (…).89

The same is true, of course, of the revelations to Mohammed, as Paine makes clear:

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When I am told that the Qur’an was written in heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes near to the same kind of hearsay evidence, and second-hand authority, as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.90

Paine’s position is that what we know about revelation is always mediated by what we may call “religious leaders”. So anyone who believes the Ten Commandments to be true does not do this on account of God’s authority, but on the basis of the authority of Moses.91 And, as Robert Blakey writes in The History of Political Literature (1855), “Under the government of Moses the Jewish nation was a theocracy; it was founded and regulated by the express command of the Almighty himself, through the instrumentality of his appointed and special lawgiver”.92 Rushdie’s position is not fundamentally different from that of Paine. It is therefore plainly unjust to reproach him for targeting the religion of Islam in particular. Rushdie’s (and Paine’s) criticism of revealed religion affects all monotheist creeds.93 Answering the question of whether his novel was a critique of Islamic fanaticism, Rushdie answered: “Actually, one of my 88 Paine, Thomas, The Age of Reason, 1794, in: Thomas Paine, Collected Writings, The Library of America, New York 1995, pp. 665–885, p. 668. 89 Paine, Ibid., p. 668. 90 Paine, Ibid., p. 668. 91 Similar arguments, although more cautiously formulated and represented by the figures in a dialogue, we find in Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Edited with an Introduction by Henry D. Aiken, Hafner Press, New York, Collier Macmillan Publishers, London 1948 (1779). 92 Blakey, Robert, The History of Political Literature from the earliest Times, Vol. 1, Richard Bentley, London 1855, p. 5. 93 With exception of mystic movements, which are based on a supposed direct apprehension of the divine essence. See on this: Stace, W.T., Time and Eternity: An Essay in the Philosophy of

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major themes is religion and fanaticism. I have talked about the Islamic religion because that is what I know the most about. But the ideas about religious faith and the nature of religious experience and also the political implications of religious extremism are applicable with a few variations to just about any religion.”94

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The right to express a humanist view of life As one may expect, not only religious and political leaders commented on the Rushdie Affair, but literary critics and creative novelists as well. Rushdie was, after all, a writer. The literary critic D.J. Enright (1920-2002) remarked that The Satanic Verses has been banned in India on the grounds that it is offensive to Muslims. He makes an important addition, though: in The Satanic Verses nobody is treated with very much respect. “Gods, angels, demons, prophets, they are all of them all too human, and most of the time unable to distinguish between good and evil. If they can’t, how can we ordinary mortals be expected to?”95 What makes this quote by Enright interesting, is that at the root of Rushdie’s “offense” lies an important ideological point. Rushdie claims that gods, angels, demons, and prophets have great difficulty in distinguishing between good and evil. Apparently, what they do, is not automatically “good” but in many cases evil. This implies that gods, angels, demons, and prophets are not the foundation for morals but subservient to ethics, like ordinary human beings are. This may be offensive to believers, but at the same time it is an important point that humanism tries to make, sometimes alongside but often also in confrontation with religious creeds.96 Religion, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 1952; Happold, F.C., Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1979 (1963). 94 Jain, Madhu, “My theme is fanaticism”, Interview with Salman Rushdie by Madhu Jain, in: India Today, 15 September 1988. Perhaps here Rushdie overstates his case a bit. He seems to defend that all religions are the same (with a few variations). For a different point of view, see: Ruse, Michael, Atheism: What everyone needs to know, Oxford University Press, New York 2015, p. 108. See also Sam Harris on the Jains: Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation, p. 6. 95 Enright, D.J., “So, and not so”, Review of The Satanic Verses, in: The New York Review of Books, 2 March 1989. 96 Grayling, A.C., “Keep God out of public affairs”, in: The Observer, 12 August 2001; Grayling, A.C., Against all Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness, Oberon Books, London 2007; Kurtz, Paul, The Courage to Become: The Virtues of Humanism, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, London 1997.

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If this analysis is convincing, it would imply that in a certain sense the whole “offense” that Rushdie’s book effectuated is unavoidable. Modern society, i.e. one functioning under the aegis of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom to read and to think, is inherently a society where people are “vulnerable” because they are subjected to the possibility that other people voice “offensive” ideas. The creed as advocated by pious believers is “offensive” to humanists, atheists, and agnostics. And vice versa: the humanist creed is “offensive” to true believers. The whole ambition of playing with the idea of excluding offense is futile. It can never be attained. Excluding offense would mean excluding all discussion about the great matters of life and death. Syed Ali Ashraf (1925-1998), director-general of the Islamic Academy in Cambridge, UK, writes that Rushdie, in writing his novel, wants to “remove from the hearts of people any sense of reverence for angels, prophets, holy, and hence any faith in God and the Hereafter”.97 The problem is that even if this were true, it would be perfectly legitimate. The whole idea of freedom of religion implies that it is perfectly legitimate for a Muslim to try to “remove from the hearts” of Christian people any idea that Jesus Christ is the son of God, as it is for Christians to argue that Muslims should convert to Yahweh. It is also legitimate for Marxists-Leninists, freethinkers, and atheists to try to “remove from the hearts of people” reverence for all gods, prophets, angels, and holy books.98 Now the question is: why should we “give the floor” to religious believers to expound, defend, and publicly praise their creeds and deny this right to humanists?99 Because the former claim to be more offended? To be more hurt in sacred convictions than the latter, who affirm the value of free speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion? Is that the point? Or is the heart of the matter that the religious believers appear to be more violent and brutal in defending their creed? Or is the literary form decisive here? Should we say that the nonreligious or humanist writer has the right to expound his views as long as he does it in the form of Spinoza’s tortuous prose and 97 Ashraf, Syed Ali, “Nihilistic, negative, satanic”, in: Impact International, 28 October – 10 November 1988. 98 Dutch blasphemy law was introduced in the nine-teen thirties of the previous century because the Justice Minister took offense by all the atheist propaganda made by the communists. See on this: Herrenberg, Tom, “Vrijheid van meningsuiting in de multiculturele samenleving: evaluatie van twee tegenstrijdige interpretaties”, in: Civis Mundi, 14 January 2014; Schaik & Doomen, “De toekomst van godslastering”; Cliteur, Paul & Herrenberg, Tom, “On the Life and Times of Dutch Blasphemy Law (1932-2014)”, in: Paul Cliteur and Tom Herrenberg, eds., The Fall and Rise of Blasphemy Law, Leiden University Press, Leiden 2016, pp. 71-111. 99 This point is also made by Kitcher, Life after Faith.

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does not use Voltaire’s mordant wit? When in 1889 Bradlaugh introduced a bill into the English House of Commons to decriminalize blasphemy and atheism, it was opposed by several gentlemen who professed a readiness to tolerate “opinion”, but objected to allowing the feelings of decent persons to be “shocked or insulted”.100 The extent of the clash of visions became evident when even the son of the former Shah of Iran, although Khomeini’s most outspoken critic, could not unreservedly embrace the freedom of speech that Rushdie claimed was a non-negotiable heritage of the Western world. Reza Pahlavi (b. 1960) is the older son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980) and Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi (b. 1938). He is the last crown prince of the Imperial State of Iran. This regime was ended by the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Pahlavi’s are, of course, mortal enemies of the current Islamist regime. But common enemies do not always make common friends. Also, Reza Pahlavi is a sharp critic of Salman Rushdie. He declared, “I, too, cannot countenance an offense to Islam, particularly if it should be a deliberate one.”101 But is that a viable concept, an “offense to Islam”? We may take this as a figure of speech. But is it possible to offend a religion? We simply cannot offend a table, because a table lacks consciousness. We cannot offend an animal because it lacks the mental capabilities to take offense. We can be rude to a human being for making offensive remarks on a newly bought piece of furniture just as making critical remarks about your neighbors’ pet animal can displease him (“You just hit my dog”). But we cannot offend a religion just as we cannot offend a table or an animal. Another objection we can raise against Reza Pahlavi’s rejection of the “offense to Islam” is whether he also thinks that we can offend Christianity. And Judaism? And if we can offend the great monotheistic religions, can we also offend Scientology or Mormonism? From there the questions proliferate: if we can offend religions, can we also offend philosophies of life and worldviews, such as humanism? Or political ideologies like socialism and capitalism? And scientific views? Can we “offend” the theory of gravitation or the theory of relativity? What would be the position of the shah’s son in these matters? Would he claim a special status for Islam, like Khomeini probably does? 100 Bradlaugh Bonner, Penalties Upon Opinion, p. 113. Bradlaugh Bonner disagrees: “Every controversialist (…) must decide for himself what weapons he shall use in attacking what he believes to be false or mischievous”. See Bradlaugh Bonner, Ibid., p. 133. 101 The son of the Shah, quoted in: Salzburg Kronen Zeitung, 11 March 1989.

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These questions are not meant to ridicule the words of the shah’s son or anyone else taking this position. They have to be raised in earnest. And answering them is not engaging in some idle metaphysical pursuit or a play of words, but a sincere attempt to delineate the contours of a theory that must have far-reaching consequences for the way we, humans, organize the world. If it really is true that we can offend a religion, this would have far-reaching consequences for our system of law. Not only in Europe or the West, but in the whole world.

“Wade through a filthy drain” It has often been said that most of the people who condemned Rushdie’s book had never read it. This is undoubtedly true. But the relevance of this statement is often overlooked. The Indian MP who first brought up the issue, Syed Shahabuddin, wrote in an open letter to The Times of India:

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You are aggrieved that some of us have condemned you without a hearing, and asked for a ban without reading your book. I have not read it, nor do I intend to. I do not have to wade through a filthy drain to know what filth is.102

This statement was paradigmatic for many other reactions. Most people who argued against the publication of Rushdie’s book had only a vague idea about its contents. Now, the relevance of this statement is perhaps that such an approach may be possible if you done on the ground that all criticism of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed is illicit. If you take this position, i.e. the position that all criticism is forbidden, the attitude of Shahabuddin and all the others who rejected Rushdie’s book on the basis of “hearsay evidence” might be possible. It is, after all, possible to be informed by others on whether a book you have not read contains criticism of a certain f igure. But the irony is that almost no commentator took the position that no criticism of the Prophet was allowed. Almost all comentators, even the most orthodox and pious ones, took the position that although they were in no way opposed to all criticism, it was the tone, the insults, the context, the motives of this specific author they had problems with. Earlier, I referred to the debate in the House of Commons in 1889, when Bradlaugh introduced his bill to decriminalize blasphemy and atheism. 102 Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, p. 3.

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Many of those present said they did not object to “opinion” but to opinion which “shocked or insulted” the feelings of others.103 And that brings us back to the empirical fact that hardly any of Rushdie’s critics had read, let alone carefully studied, the book; they all spoke about something they had no first-hand knowledge of, even though you can only fruitfully comment on context, motives etc. if you have really studied the material yourself. In that sense you really have to “wade through a filthy drain” in order to know what is, let us say, the quality of the filth. And perhaps in addition to carefully studying the book, you need to do so with the guidance of experienced literary scholars, literary critics with a certain expert knowledge of literary works. In other words, you have to study the ways irony and satire work – some comparative study has to be done on the work of other satirists like Voltaire (1694-1778) and Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Why do some believers think that religious texts are so complex that you need a professional class of interpreters – priests, imams, and other pundits – to interpret them for you, while at the same time they think that the most complicated secular scriptures do not require any guidance from persons who have made study of the ways in which literature can be interpreted? How is it possible that many people think it is extremely complicated to gauge what God means when he says, “burn the witch”,104 while they think it is very easy to establish what Shakespeare, Voltaire, Swift, or Rushdie thought when they wrote their works? Commentators like Malise Ruthven (b. 1942),105 D.J. Enright (1920-2002),106 and Harold Bloom (b. 1930)107 felt obliged to do some serious research into Rushdie’s work, but in many cases Rushdie’s book was vehemently rejected on the basis of other people’s interpretations, speculations, and feelings about an author they were not even superficially connected with. It was as if a “feeling” about a book proliferated like a virus. 103 Bradlaugh Bonner, Penalties Upon Opinion, p. 113. Bradlaugh Bonner disagrees: “Every controversialist (…) must decide for himself what weapons he shall use in attacking what he believes to be false or mischievous”. See Bradlaugh Bonner, Ibid., p. 133. 104 In early modern Europe, between the fourteenth and eighteenth century, witchcraft was seen as a diabolical conspiracy against Christianity. The scriptural injunction for this practice was: Exodus 22:18. The New Revised Standard Version translates this passage as follows: “You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live”. But the most well-known translation is, of course, that in the King James Version: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”. 105 Ruthven, A Satanic Affair. 106 Enright, D.J., “So, and not so”, Review of The Satanic Verses, in: The New York Review of Books, 2 March 1989. 107 Bloom, Harold, ed., Salman Rushdie, Bloom’s Modern Critical Views, Chelsea House Publishers, Broomall, PA 2003.

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The multiculturalist response of Taylor, Dummett, and others So far, we have highlighted the reaction of Muslims or Muslim leaders to the book. For anyone taking cognizance of the central features of religious fundamentalism, including its Islamist variant, those reactions cannot come as a surprise. But also, the reactions by an important segment of the Western intelligentsia were vehemently dismissive. Especially authors with multiculturalist leanings did not give a warm support to Rushdie’s book.108 In this regard, an early commentary on The Satanic Verses controversy by one of the founding fathers of multiculturalism may be clarifying: the reaction by Charles Taylor (b. 1931). Charles Taylor is an important figure in the discussion on the Rushdie Affair for several reasons. First, he is, in a sense, the founding father of multiculturalism with his seminal essay “The politics of recognition” (1994).109 Taylor was not the first to write from a multiculturalist perspective, but he was certainly the most impressive representative among the great philosophers to do so, and he gave the concept of multiculturalism a philosophical underpinning and prestige it did not have before. Second, Taylor is interesting for the line of argument developed in this book because he wrote about the Rushdie Affair in its early stages, and returned to the matter in 2011. In between, many other incidents had occurred (or a pattern developed, as I like to call it) and it is interesting to see whether we can discern a certain development of his ideas on this great controversy. A controversy – does it need saying? – which is at the heart of multiculturalism. In his early essay on the matter, “The Rushdie Controversy” (1989), the great Canadian philosopher writes that “in the West, we have developed explorations on the meaning of the life, of the ultimate questions, which involve rejecting religion”.110 Rushdie’s book seems a potent example of this type of criticism of religion, he says.111 108 Support for this view is also to be found in: O’Neill, Daniel I., “Multicultural Liberals and the Rushdie Affair: A Critique of Kymlicka, Taylor, and Walzer”, in: The Review of Politics, Volume 61, Issue 2, 1999, pp. 219-250. See also: Cliteur, “Taylor and Dummett on the Rushdie Affair”, pp. 1-25. 109 Taylor, Charles, “The Politics of Recognition”, in: Taylor, Charles, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, Edited and introduced by Amy Gutman, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey 1994, pp. 25-75. 110 Taylor, “The Rushdie Controversy”, p. 118. 111 This is also contended by Bradley, Arthur, and Tate, Andrew, The New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy and Polemic after 9/11, Continuum, London/New York 2010, pp. 82-105, who picture McEwan, Amis, Pullman and Rushdie as the artistic spokesmen of the New Atheism. Schweizer does something similar for Pullman in: Schweizer, Bernard, Hating God: The Untold Story of Misotheism, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, pp. 193-213. See also: Freitas, Donna & King,

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Taylor discerns three features in The Satanic Verses that make it offensive for people with a firm religious conviction:

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One, def iant unbelief, aff irming the dignity of humans alone in the universe; two, courage before a universe which is in itself meaningless; and three, an acceptance of human limitation, of the irremediable unspirituality of human beings, or of the weakness, sensuality, self-referentiality of everything they call “spiritual”, not seeing this as “fallenness” anymore.112

All three critiques appear in Rushdie’s work, Taylor says, and that upsets many people outside the Western world. As a description of the situation, this is perfectly true, of course. But then Taylor’s argument takes an interesting turn when he shifts from the descriptive to the normative or evaluative dimension of the matter. Taylor makes a plea for “some degree of understanding”.113 Not for Rushdie, but for Rushdie’s critics. He also accuses The Satanic Verses of being “an anti-paradigm of what we need”.114 He says: “the problem with this literature, as it has developed in a relatively self-satisfied Western world, is that it has lost touch altogether with the possibility that religious symbols, stories, dogmas, might mean something very different to those who espouse them than they do to the rejecters.”115 In the final sentences of his essay on the Rushdie Affair, Taylor even makes a comparison between Rushdie’s book, which he scornfully characterizes as “comforting to the western liberal mind”, and Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa, on which Taylor has remarkably little to say. What the author of the novel and the politician who issued the death sentence have in common, Taylor says, is “that there is nothing outside their worldview which needs deeper understanding, just a perverse reflection of the obviously right”.116 What strikes the reader is that Taylor makes a comparison between two texts of which one is a novel and the other a death sentence. And the ground of the comparison, apparently, is that both authors of these very different texts, in Taylor’s view, seem to think they are “obviously right”. Now, one of the first questions one is inclined to ask is: how can these two texts be compared in any significant way? It is as if one compared the Jason, Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman’s Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials, John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco 2007. 112 Taylor, “The Rushdie Controversy”, p. 119. 113 Ibid., p. 122. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid.

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instructions for a washing machine with Dante’s Inferno¸ only to conclude that what the authors of both texts have in common is that they think they have written excellent texts, or that they are convinced of what they say. Is this not a bit weird? Another objection which can be made against Taylor’s comparison is that Rushdie’s personal opinions are not necessarily identical with the ideas expressed by the characters in his novel. So, when Taylor talks about Rushdie’s “worldview”, which in his opinion is somehow similar to Khomeini’s, he cannot refer to the controversial book itself. What can Taylor mean then? Is he, perhaps, referring to interviews in which Rushdie has presented his ideas?117 And if so, what ideas in particular does Taylor object to? Is it Rushdie’s view that freedom of speech is particularly important for a democracy? Or does Taylor mean Rushdie’s ideas about the legitimacy and even social usefulness of criticism of religion? Or perhaps that, in his opinion, Rushdie should show repentance for having written a book in which ideas are voiced which some members of religious communities find rejectable? Or was it Rushdie’s self-conscious attitude towards the ideas he defends that makes him an irritating figure for Taylor? Although Taylor has written about the matter extensively, the longer you think about what he is trying to say, the less clear it becomes to interpret his position. The most likely interpretation is that, in Taylor’s view, Ayatollah Khomeini and Salman Rushdie have one thing in common, i.e. both think they are in their right; Khomeini in pronouncing a writer dead and inciting others to kill him, and Rushdie in writing a novel. But formulated in the way indicated, Taylor’s statement would also become somewhat trite. Indeed, both authors think they are right in what they’re doing, but who does Taylor think is right? Or does he think both are wrong, and if so, equally wrong? This comparison between Khomeini and Rushdie is clearly very insinuative with regard to Rushdie (one could also call it “insulting”, were it not that this word is a little overused nowadays). The brunt of Taylor’s criticism seems not directed at the religious fanatic, but at the secular writer who shows insufficient concern for the sensibilities of the cleric. To Taylor, apparently, the fatwa is not a “bribed assassination scheme” or “arrogant state-sponsored homicide”,118 as Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) famously characterized Khomeini’s actions, but something that we have to “understand”. Obviously, 117 E.g.: Chauhan, Pradyumna S., ed., Salman Rushdie: Interviews, A Sourcebook of His Ideas, Greenwood Press, Westport 2001; Reder, Michael, R., Conversations with Salman Rushdie, University Press of Mississipi, Jackson 2000. 118 Hitchens, Christopher, God is not Great, p. 28.

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then, it is not Khomeini who has to mend his ways, but Rushdie, or what Taylor calls “the western liberal mind”. The Western liberal mind “will have to learn to reach out more” and be less “self-satisfied”.119 Now, if Taylor takes this position – and I think he def initely takes a position, notwithstanding his cautious language – with regard to The Satanic Verses, one does not have to ask what his position would be with regard to Theo van Gogh and Hirsi Ali’s f ilm Submission120 or Terence McNally’s (b. 1938) play Corpus Christi,121 which caused havoc first among Catholics and later among Muslims, or the Danish cartoons republished in Charlie Hebdo.122 Are these not all manifestations of an unwillingness “to reach out more”? But where does “reaching out” end? On 17 December 2014, a self-proclaimed head of a Salafi party in Algeria publicly made death threats against the journalist and writer Kamel Daoud (b. 1970), whose novel Meursault, contre-enquête (2013), had displeased the Islamists.123 Daoud was declared an “apostate”. “If we were under an Islamic regime, we would have applied Shari’ah law”, the Salafi activist Abdelfattah Hamadiche Ziraoui declared. He also incited true believers to execute the writer in public.124 If we have to “reach out” to Khomeini, should we also “reach out” to Ziraoui? Taylor’s article was written in the year of the fatwa, so in the early days of the controversy. At that moment in time, not many people were very successful in presenting the right diagnosis. There were exceptions (think of Jeremy Waldron’s insightful essay on the fatwa),125 but most commentators were confused, especially at the early stages of the controversy. What were Taylor’s views in the later period?

The later Taylor The problem is that Charles Taylor’s views did not change much over time, as can be seen in the concluding chapter of the book on secularism which he 119 Taylor, Ibid., p. 122. 120 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, Submission. 121 McNally, Terrence, Corpus Christi, Dramatists Play Service Inc., New York 1999. 122 “Fatwa on Terence McNally for his gay Jesus play”, in: Agence France-Presse, 29 October 1999. 123 “Algerian journalist ‘threatened by salafi activist, fears for his life’”, in: BBC Monitoring Middle East, 17 December 2014. 124 “Islamist call for Algerian author’s death stirs outrage”, in: Agence France Press, 17 December 2014. 125 Waldron, “Rushdie and Religion”, pp. 134-143.

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wrote in 2011.126 Also in 2011, Taylor claimed that the relationship “between religious and nonreligious people is often characterized by incomprehension, distrust, and sometimes intolerance”.127 Now, on the level of description, this can hardly be denied, of course, but in the following sentence it becomes clear who is to blame for this “incomprehension”. Here we find the same shift from description to normativity as we found in 1989. On the normative level, Taylor and his co-author Maclure write: “Atheists and agnostics have difficulty conceiving why, in the twenty-first century, individuals adhere to religious beliefs whose truth cannot be established through the scientific approach”.128 But is that the problem? Would it not be more accurate to say that atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and also Rushdie, know perfectly well why people adhere to a religious worldview, but that they simply do not agree with the claims religious people make? And expressing that disagreement, in the case of Rushdie, brings them in a situation where they can be killed. Is it not strange, then, to recommend “an ethics of dialogue” which is “respectful of different metaphysical and moral perspectives”, as Taylor does?129 This is not about metaphysical perspectives but about life and death. In 2011, like in 1989, Taylor seems to have been under the spell of a colossal mistake. It is the same mistake, basically, that permeates his first essay on the Rushdie Affair, viz. the ideology of multiculturalism. At the heart of this mistake, is that both in 1989 and 2011, Taylor seems to think that what he advocates expresses what people call “respect for Muslims”, while in reality, he condones violence by the most extreme fanatics. An example may clarify this. It is as if Taylor thinks that criticizing Mussolini is beyond the pale because you have to be respectful to Italians. Or that he creates a taboo around condemning Hitler out of the respect we owe to Germans. The tragedy is that nobody is helped by this kind of “understanding”, least of all the reforming Muslims in Islamic countries, where they are 126 Maclure, Jocelyn, and Taylor, Charles, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 2011; this is a translation of a French book which was published a little earlier: Maclure, Jocelyn, Taylor, Charles, Laïcité et liberté de conscience, La Découverte, Paris 2010. In my view this is not so much a book on secularism as it is a book on multiculturalism. Taylor uses the word “secularism” but it is certainly not secularism in the most current form. One has the impression that Taylor and Maclure try to redefine secularism in such away that it harmonizes with the multiculturalist convictions, something that would not clarify the issue but confuse us more, in my view. But digressing on this issue would be out of place within the context of the argument developed in this book and in this chapter. 127 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 106. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid., p. 107

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suppressed by Islamist hardliners.130 The point Taylor missed in 1989, and again, writing about the same subject, in 2011, is that this is not about for or against “Islam”, for or against “Muslims”, but about for or against religious fanatics.131 For or against theoterrorists. There is one thing, though, which hampers our attempt to understand what Taylor means. A considerable problem in interpreting his stance is that he does not seem to take one consistent position either way but constantly vacillates from one position to another. The general tenor, though, is dismissive of Rushdie and “the western liberal mind” (whatever that may be) as well as of those who advocate the primacy of individual human rights.132 That in 2011 Taylor is fully aware of the context of the discussion appears from the passage where he refers to artistic offensive creations like Rushdie’s book, the caricatures of Mohammed, and Martin Scorsese’s133 and Mel Gibson’s films about Christ.134 Taylor states that he does not believe we have to limit the freedom of expression “in the name of respect”, except, he continues, “in flagrant cases of defamation or incitement to hatred”.135 It is striking that Taylor leaves out “incitement to violence” as a possible limitation of free speech, although this is the most obvious limitation.136 Instead of referring to incitement to physical violence, Taylor refers to “defamation”, one of the more recent terms, used by members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to suffocate free speech within the Human Rights 130 Good overviews with empirical underpinning provide: Freedom of Thought 2012. A Global Report on Discrimination against Humanists, Atheists and the Nonreligious, International Humanist and Ethical Union, London 2012; Freedom of Thought 2013. A Global Report on Discrimination against Humanists, Atheists and the Nonreligious, International Humanist and Ethical Union, London 2013; Grim, Brian J., and Finke, Roger, The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011. 131 This has been described by – among others – the French author Gilles Kepel in: Kepel, Gilles, Fitna: Guerre au coeur de l’islam, Gallimard, Paris 2004, or, in English translation: Kepel, Gilles, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London 2004. 132 See also on this: O’Neill, Daniel I., “Multicultural Liberals and the Rushdie Affair: A Critique of Kymlicka, Taylor, and Walzer”, in: The Review of Politics, Volume 61, Issue 2, 1999, pp. 219-250. 133 Scorsese, Martin, (director), “The Last Temptation of Christ”, Film based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ (1953). See: Kazantzakis, Nikos, The Last Temptation of Christ, Bantam Books, New York 1968 (1953). 134 Gibson, Mel, (director), “The Passion of Christ”, Film based on a screenplay by Benedict Fitzgerald and Mel Gibson, 2004. 135 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 108. 136 Going back to: Mill, On Liberty, pp. 5-115; Rabban, David M., “Clear and Present Danger Test”, in: Kermit L. Hall, ed., The Oxford Companion to The Supreme Court of The United States, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford 1992, p. 158.

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Council of the United Nations.137 Should we conclude from this that Taylor wants to advocate that religious symbols should not be “defamed”? But what is wrong with defaming symbols? The problem with Taylor’s views is that, although not expressed in postmodern jargon, it is very difficult to establish what his position really comprises. Once he has stated his views, this is usually followed by formulations which seem to take back what he has defended in previous sentences. Probably this is considered by some to be a manifestation of his sophistication, but others may experience this less generously as vagueness or imprecision. For instance, having made the remarks about “defamation”, Taylor also says he would not like to live in a society “where Salman Rushdie or Richard Dawkins would be censored”.138 But if he does not like censorship why does Taylor not present a more straightforward rejection of the fatwa?139 Isn’t issuing a fatwa to kill someone who put his thoughts on a matter in writing the introduction of the most efficient system of censorship one can think of? At the end of their book, Taylor and Maclure appear to make a distinction between the Danish and French caricatures and Rushdie’s book. Rushdie’s mockery, says Taylor, “was situated within a work that offers a compelling portrait of the human condition in the era of globalization”.140 This is no small compliment. But the same cannot be said of the caricatures, he adds. Here, again, we may ask whether the two things are comparable. Of course, a cartoon does not offer a “compelling portrait of the human condition in the era of globalization”. How could a cartoon or caricature ever do that? That would be an impossible task. What the cartoons did try to do, or what those who commissioned them tried to establish, was the experiment sketched in the previous chapter. So the only fair question to ask about the cartoons is: did they succeed in that purpose? In the meantime, i.e. in the period of Taylor’s writings between 1989 and 2011, one could say that much new material has been produced which proved that the commissioner of the cartoons (Flemming Rose, see Chapter 3)141 in 2005 was not entirely mistaken about his concern. But what does Taylor say about that? Taylor does indeed make some comments about that, but again, he makes the same mistakes as he did in his earlier contributions to the discussion, 137 See on this: Cherry & Brown, Speaking Freely about Religion; Ibn Warraq and Michael Weiss, “Inhuman Rights”, in: City Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2, Spring 2009, pp. 1-6. 138 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 109. 139 Taylor adds that, although het rejects censorship, one might say it is not “wise” or “desirable” to exert the type of criticism that Rushdie presented. 140 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 110. 141 See for a defense of his position: Rose, The Tyranny of Silence.

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i.e. totally misinterpreting the intentions of those publishing or republishing the cartoons, which are deemed so offensive to those prepared to use gross violence. In this case, it is about the reprinting of those cartoons in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. This republication, Taylor asserts, “served only to fan the conflict and to shore up the newspaper staff’s sense of self-importance”.142 Unfortunately, Taylor does not mention that the motive behind both the publication of the caricatures in 2005, as we have seen in the previous chapter, and their republication in Charlie Hebdo was to defend free speech,143 which is something entirely different. In doing that, the newspaper’s staff took great risks for their personal security – in vain as we experienced on 7 January 2015, when a considerable part of the editorial board were gunned down by the Kouachi brothers.144 The slur which Taylor and Maclure make in accusing those staff members of shoring up their sense of self-importance manifestly contradicts what they themselves said about their motives. Perhaps Taylor does not believe them. But in that case, it would do them more justice to explain why Taylor and Maclure think they have more reliable information about the motives of those who took the decision to publish or republish the caricatures than the persons themselves. Subsequently, Taylor praises Western media outlets who refused to republish the caricatures. He claims this attested to “wise judgment”, but fails to explain why and, particularly, why this was not the same as capitulating for terror. At the end of his analysis, Taylor also confuses the matter discussed (i.e. what to do with religiously motivated violence?) with the question of whether religion can be a basis for morals. This is, of course, an entirely different question. He praises Rawls and Habermas (“who once defended more restrictive views”)145 to arrive at the conclusion “that religious perspectives are important sources of ethics that can contribute significantly toward furthering democratic culture”.146 142 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 110. See for a defense of the position of Charlie Hebdo: Val, Malaise dans l’inculture; Val, Philippe, Reviens Voltaire, Ils sont devenus fous, Bernard Grasset, Paris 2008; Fourest, Caroline, Éloge du blasphème, Bernard Grasset, Paris 2015; Bougrab, Jeanette, Maudites, Albin Michel, Paris 2015. 143 “Charlie Hebdo Editor Threatened Over Mohammad Cartoon”, in: Huffpost Media, 26 September 2012; Swan, Michael, “Charlie Hebdo ‘part of the situation’ that led to attack, says Charles Taylor”, in: The Catholic Register, 21 January 2015. 144 See on this: Claudel, Philippe, “Je suis Charlie mais un peu tard”, in: Jacques Attali et al., Nous sommes Charlie, pp. 32-35. 145 The word “restrictive” is important to highlight here. Apparently, the view that morals is not necessarily based on religion is called “restrictive” by Taylor. 146 Maclure and Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, p. 110.

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That religious perspectives are a source of ethics is something nobody can deny.147 However, that is a totally different subject. Khomeini’s fatwa was undoubtedly connected with his religious views. But this example also makes abundantly clear that religious perspectives do not always put us on the track of responsible moral judgment. Mixing up the subjects of the supposed religious basis of morals and the limitations of free speech is not very helpful. Somehow, Taylor manifests a sort of psychological longing for a time when morals were thought to be supported by religion.148 In that sense he is a Romantic. He is also what Daniel Dennett called a “believer in belief”149 or Kitcher a “fan of faith”.150 This is the position taken by people who do not necessarily believe themselves in any significant religious sense, but think it is a good thing for others to believe. One thing one should certainly never do is awake those people from their dogmatic slumber. So what the new atheists151 and other atheists152 are doing, as far as possible without losing their own lives,153 i.e. raising conscience and critically discussing religious beliefs, is a bad thing to do from the perspective of Charles Taylor.154 147 This is clearly worked out by: Nowell-Smith, P.H., “Morality: Religious and Secular”, in: Ian Ramsey, ed., Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy, SCM Press, London 1966; NowellSmith, P.H., “Religion and Morality”, in: Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 7, Macmillan & The Free Press, New York, London 1967, pp. 150-158; and especially in: Nowell-Smith, Patrick, “Morality: Religious and Secular”, in: The Rationalist Annual, 1961, also in: Eleonore Stump and Michael J. Murray, eds., Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions, Blackwell, Malden / Oxford 2001 (1999), pp. 403-412. 148 Most clearly in: Taylor, Charles, A Secular Age, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2007. See for a criticism: Berlinerblau, Jacques, “Introduction: Secularism and Its Confusions”, in: Secularism on the Edge, Pagrave MacMillan, New York 2014, pp. 1-16. 149 Dennett, Daniel C., Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, New York 2006, p. 200 ff. See also: Dawkins, Richard, The God Delusion, p. 20: “These people may not be religious themselves, but they love the idea that other people are religious”. 150 Kitcher, Life after Faith. 151 Stenger, Victor J., The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason, Prometheus Books, Amherst N.Y. 2009; Amarasingam, Amarnath, ed., Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal, Brill, Leiden 2010. 152 E.g. the atheist feminist group Femen. See: Femen, Femen by Femen, With Galia Ackerman, translated by Andrew Brown, Polity, Malden 2014. 153 Bury, J.B., A History of the Freedom of Thought, Thornton Butterworth, London 1932 (1913); Robertson, J.M., A History of Freethought: Ancient and Modern to the Period of the French Revolution, Vol. 1, Watts & Co., London 1936; Robertson, J.M., A History of Freethought: Ancient and Modern to the Period of the French Revolution, Vol. 2, Fourth edition, revised and expanded, Watts & Co., London 1936. 154 For a similar critique, see: Dalrymple, Theodore, “What the New Atheists Don’t See: To regret Religion is to regret Western Civilization”, in: City Journal, Autumn 2007, pp. 1-7.

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6. The Rushdie Affair and Michael Dummett

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I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Christopher Hitchens

The idea that we have to reach out to what was called “the Muslim community”, and that we could do this by empowering the most aggressive and fundamentalist figures and currents within that community, was widespread among Western progressivist and multiculturalist writers of the past decades. They propounded the idea that some sort of “balance” had to be found.1 This idea that somehow you have to deal with the fanatics, find some kind of compromise, was common and also found its way into monographs on the Rushdie Affair. Here I will discuss two of those books, viz. Paul Weller’s A Mirror for our Times: “The Rushdie Affair” and the Future of Multiculturalism (2009) and Richard Webster’s A History of Blasphemy: Liberalism, Censorship and “The Satanic Verses” (1990). Weller’s book is prefaced with an “acknowledgment of the loss of many years of personal liberty for Salman Rushdie”.2 He also speaks of a “loss of life and injury experienced by a number of people of various backgrounds throughout the world who became caught up in the violent events that occurred around the controversy”.3 But then he speaks of an equal part of the “passion and pain of many ordinary offended Muslims who felt their concerns had been misunderstood by the general non-Muslim public of the ‘Western world’, and who also felt betrayed by the liberal intelligentsia”. 4 And there we have the notion of betrayal again. What Weller fails to do, however, is assessing the reasonableness of the “feelings” (of betrayal) he describes. He takes those feelings at face value (as Taylor did, as cited earlier).5 As something you cannot judge. But how 1 Swan, “Charlie Hebdo ‘part of the situation’ that led to attack, says Charles Taylor”. 2 Weller, A Mirror for our Times, p. xiv. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Taylor, “The Rushdie Controversy”.

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reasonable are my feelings when I tell you I feel “betrayed” if you have a different opinion of my sacred values than I do? Do I have the right to feel “betrayed” when you do not, as I do, consider Schopenhauer (1788-1860) the greatest philosopher of all times? You did not promise me in advance you would go along with my feelings, did you? This whole idea of betrayal, an idea we also find with Taylor, and more extremely with Michael Dummett whose ideas I will discuss in a moment, is strange. The tradition of civil liberties as it has come to fruition in modernity never promised anyone, neither a group nor an individual, that his or her preoccupations would be exempted from criticism. Anyone who takes cognizance of the development of Western political thought (and Taylor, having presented monumental and impressive overviews of that history,6 is one of the most qualified to acknowledge this) can easily establish for himself that what Rushdie does, i.e. exert criticism of religion, is in complete harmony with that tradition.7 If what Rushdie did were a “betrayal”, then Spinoza, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Meslier, Holbach, Freud, and Russell would all have been beyond the pale, or outside the mainstream tradition. Or does Taylor think that these authors also “betrayed” ethnic and religious minorities? Or were there perhaps no “minorities” in those times, and is what Voltaire did in the eighteenth century all right, but would it be clearly wrong in our times, because national minorities in Western countries would now take offense?8 These are all issues we could discuss, but before we can do so we must have them openly on the table. And that is now not the case. At least, the multiculturalists have not put all their cards on the table. A striking feature in the commentaries on the Rushdie case, especially in its early phases but, unfortunately, also in its later development, is the inability of most commentators to bring the matter to a higher level of abstraction instead of judging whether you like the author or the book. In that sense Weller’s book does a better job than Webster’s. But especially Taylor’s comments are amazing reading because it seems hard to understand why he does not address the general question at stake. What is that general question? 6 Among others: Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989, a book that, ironically, was published in the year of the Rushdie fatwa. 7 This point is also rightly made by: Blackford, Russell, “The Rushdie Affair – Lest we Forget”, in: Free Inquiry, Vol. 34, No. 4, June/July 2014, pp. 8 and 53. 8 E.g. with regard to the staging of Voltaire, Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet Le Prophète, Tragédie, Postface par Jérôme Vérain, Éditions Mille et une Nuits, Paris 2006 (1753).

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[W]hat to do when a foreign dictator, as part of a terrorizing strategy, decides to give an order for a targeted killing of a citizen in another country and therefore (at least that is the logic since 1648, the birth of “national sovereignty”)9 living under a totally different jurisdiction?

To think that in such a situation there should be a “dialogue” without specifying by whom and to what purpose, is unsatisfactory, to say the least. What made the whole matter so frustrating is that every commentator picked on a particular aspect of the matter that for some reason they took a certain interest in, without addressing the wider issue. This was especially the case in the confusing discussion about the legitimacy of free speech and its possible limitations ignited by the Rushdie Affair. A discussion that started with this affair but, of course, has lasted to the present day. One of the most perplexing characteristics of this discussion is that so few authors could make the step from a moral evaluation of one particular manifestation of free speech to the legitimacy of the legal principle as such.

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The legal and the moral What the Rushdie Affair should have ignited was a discussion on the legitimacy of free speech as a principle and on the possible legal limitations we want to set to that principle. Now there may be readers who think that this phrasing of the problem is too traditional, insufficiently adapted to the new condition of multiculturality we currently live under. In that case, I will rephrase it in a more culturally sensitive manner: are there reasons to rethink our whole concept of the limitations of free speech in the light of a new multicultural situation, in which most societies have populations with diverse cultural and religious backgrounds? It looks like this is basically what many commentators implicitly believed. But the problem is, they did not develop any new ideas on the subject, but only reproached Rushdie for not having “foreseen” this somehow. He should have known, they declared in unison. Really? Taylor’s and others’ contributions to this discussion would have been more than welcome. What we see, however, is that most commentators make loose comments on “what is wise” to say, and whether they agree, or 9 Philpott, Daniel, “The Religious Roots of Modern International Relations”, in: World Politics, 52 (January, 2000), pp. 206-245.

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disagree, with a particular statement made by others without presenting criteria for the limitation of free speech themselves. The problem with free speech as a legal principle is also that many people have great difficulty in accepting the sometimes counterintuitive consequences of that principle, viz. that things are being said that we abhor.10 What those who defend free speech as a legal principle should do is try to engage those who profusely give us lofty recommendations about what would be “wise” to say in a discussion on the legal principle. We have to invite them to come off the fence. So the first question to Taylor ought to be: “OK, fine, saying something about religion that other people abhor is not wise. Now, shall we draw conclusions from this observation for the legal limitations on free speech?” Usually the protagonists of “wise speech” do not want to be dragged into this discussion. They do not want to get their hands dirty and conveniently position themselves in the situation of commenting on the protagonists of free speech who are being reproached for being “formal”, “fundamentalist”, “cold”, “not understanding what those religious minorities experience”, etc. Still, I think we have to persist: what would the legal principle of free speech look like that they, i.e. the multiculturalists, would find acceptable (and better than the regime we have now, i.e. the regime infused by what Taylor calls the “western liberal mind”). One possible proposition is, “Free speech has a limit where others might be offended”. Clearly, that is too broad, so even the most committed multiculturalist will concede. So perhaps, “Free speech has a limit if a sufficiently broad segment of the population is offended”. But perhaps this is too vague. Besides, it would lead to the suppression of very important ideas, e.g. the publication of Darwinian evolution theory. If we had applied the legal principle of free speech in this sense to the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859) in the nineteenth century, the book would never have been published. But then let us try to pursue our quest for the right legal limitations on free speech with something like, “Free speech is fine as long as there are no vulnerable religious minorities targeted”. That is an important concept in this context: vulnerability. “If you are going to contribute to the sense of marginalization of these people”, Charles Taylor says about Muslims who feel offended by the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo, “you’re going to contribute to a situation that could produce what happened”.11 Another key word in this discussion is “targeted”. Multicul10 Lewis, Anthony, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment, Basic Books, New York 2007. 11 Swan, Michael, “Charlie Hebdo ‘part of the situation’ that led to attack, says Charles Taylor”.

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turalists think that religious minorities are “targeted” by books as that of Rushdie and a fortiori by cartoons as made by Westergaard or Charlie Hebdo. Sometimes “targeted” is used in combination with “deliberate”. So, Rushdie, Charb (i.e. Stéphane Charbonnier), and Westergaard deliberately target religious minorities, the multiculturalists claim. The suggestion is false, of course, or at the very least has to be proven by those who state it. But, more importantly, we should not deviate from our path, which is the quest for a legal limitation of free speech. Can we give “vulnerable religious minorities” some sort of special protection perhaps? I think this is implied in most of the commentaries by multiculturalists, although they hardly ever defend it explicitly. Why not is not difficult to understand: it is simply not feasible. This can be made clear by reflecting on the key concepts, to begin with “vulnerable”. Who is “vulnerable”? Is that the person who complains most when his religious icons are commented upon or satirized? Or is “vulnerable” Orwellian speech for those who appear to defend the honor of the Prophet by killing the satirist? Once one starts really to think about that concept it becomes very unclear what is meant by this. Was Khomeini more vulnerable than Rushdie? Was Mohammed Geele, the man who tried to kill Westergaard on 1 January 2010, “vulnerable”? And when Said and Chérif Kouachi invaded the offices of Charlie Hebdo with their AK-47 assault rifles, killing twelve people and injuring eleven others – were they more vulnerable than the French cartoonists?12 Or would e.g. Charles Taylor suggest that, although the Kouachi brothers were not vulnerable, the majority of the Muslims they claim to represent certainly are? But then the question arises who is to blame for their “vulnerability”? Should we not say, in all honesty, that we are all vulnerable? Liberals like to hear liberal opinions, conservatives conservative ones etc., but we have learned that referring to “what we like to hear” is no argument to silence others to ventilate their views. The danger with Taylorian “respect” is that it introduces a new and dangerous convention: to exclude certain categories of people from this general civilizing process of discussing our views, subjecting them to criticism. And paradoxically the group which is excluded from this process is the group which is most in need of having their views discussed. Violent Islamists like Khomeini deserve to be criticized and lampooned. And although the violent terrorists are the most in need of criticism, it is precisely that category that benefits from multiculturalist non-judgmentalism. This is unfair, is it not? 12 Swan, Michael, “Charlie Hebdo ‘part of the situation’ that led to attack, says Charles Taylor”.

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Michael Dummett and the cause of anti-racism That brings me to a second great philosopher I want to focus on as representative of the multiculturalist response to the Rushdie Affair. Charles Taylor has not been able to make clear what the problem with cartoons which satirize religious symbols is exactly, at least that conclusion seems justified based on our attempt to understand his ideas in the previous sections. We have also seen that really following his advice would lead to irresponsible social policy, i.e. respecting what deserves the least respect. But Taylor is not the only multiculturalist philosopher, and perhaps other authors give a better justification for heeding the terrorist commands not to criticize religious symbols and icons. The British philosopher Michael Dummett seems to depart from more or less the same principles as Charles Taylor. Dummett’s criticism is similar to that of Taylor because his angle of interest is not primarily the exertion of violence from the side of the theoterrorists but the “pain” Rushdie had, in Dummett’s view, caused to immigrant communities. Dummett introduced a, in my view, fateful notion already implicit in the multiculturalist critique of Taylor but now made explicit, viz. the notion of race. Dummett established the notion that criticizing someone’s religious beliefs, makes that critic wittingly or unwittingly a “racist”. This is a terrible mistake because once you start to stigmatize criticizing “ideas” as a form of “racism”, every reasonable discussion becomes virtually impossible. Nevertheless, this is the fateful turn the whole discussion had taken. But before I venture to criticize Dummett’s ideas let me start with this. Michael Dummett (1925-2011), like Charles Taylor, is a very prominent philosopher of our time. As Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford, he was noted for his great contributions to the philosophy of language, logic, and mathematics.13 In addition, he held teaching posts at Birmingham University, the University of Berkeley (California), Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard and won many prizes for excellent philosophical work. He was particularly known for his clear exposition of the work of the logician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). After Dummett died, in 2011, The New York Times invited both colleagues and students to testify about the breath of his knowledge and influence upon contemporary philosophy. This gives us the image of a great personality, beloved by all, and universally admired. “Michael was exemplary, not just 13 See: Honderich, Ted, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford New York 1995, pp. 208.

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as a thinker, but as a human being”, his colleague Hilary Putnam (1926-2016) said.14 He was lavishly praised for his generosity and tolerance. “Not once did Dummett attempt to proselytize”, one of his former student’s remarked.15 But there are two other dimensions of his work apart from sophisticated philosophical analyses in the field of logic and the philosophy of language, and these are essential to understanding his stance in the Rushdie Affair. First his commitment to Roman Catholicism. He was received in the Catholic Church in 1944 and remained a practicing Catholic for all his life. He also engaged in heated debates about theological matters such as the Eucharist. In 1987 Dummett wrote a key contribution castigating those who diverged from orthodox Catholicism, which sparked considerable controversy among Catholics.16 After his death one of his Italian students wrote that what stuck in her mind was that on Good Friday, “when there was the traditional ‘veneration’ (kissing) of the cross, Dummett would take off his shoes before joining the procession”.17 Another former student wrote: “Sir Michael was a profoundly religious person and found it hard to understand the preconceived hostility of many Italian intellectuals towards the Catholic Church.”18 The impression this makes on readers outside of the circle of his many admirers is that we have here an extremely rational and critical mind who at the same time must have had a soft spot for the most curious superstition. It is as with Newton, on the one hand developing the theory of gravitation, and on the other speculating about the apocalypse. But such a commentary would from an ecclesiastical point of view only testify to the limited perspective of “the western liberal mind”, one may surmise. Second, we have to mention Dummett’s commitment to anti-racism. Dummett tried to influence civil rights movements in what he took to be the interest of minorities. This resulted in his book On Immigration and Refugees (2001) in which he proposed that opposition to immigration was founded in racism.19 One of his former students commented on the book: “It is a stunning account of the historic failures of the British government to address questions 14 Putnam, Hilary, “A Half Century”, in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 15 Green, Mitchell, “Request Granted”, in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 16 Dummett, Michael, “A Remarkable Consensus”, in: New Blackfriars, Volume 68, Issue 809, 1987, pp. 424-431. 17 Crane, Tim, “Smoke and Milk”, in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 18 Picardi, Eva, “A Guide Lost”, in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 19 Dummett, Michael, On Immigration and Refugees, Routledge, Taylor & Francis group, London and New York 2001.

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of racism and protect refugees and an elegant philosophical argument for an immigration policy broadly based on natural law that would not respect national frontiers.”20 One may consider “not respecting national frontiers” a bit unrealistic, and developing an immigration policy based on natural law wildly utopian and still be impressed by many aspects of Dummett’s book – a book that is, paradoxically (and ironically), similar to many ideas Rushdie expressed in his essays.21

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Dummett on Rushdie I think these two elements are helpful to understand Dummett’s stance in the Rushdie Affair, although in the end, as I hope to make clear, Dummett does not prove to be a better guide in the matter than Taylor. A good start is to highlight Dummett’s great political commitment. According to many of his pupils, Dummett had a great sense of injustice. He separated himself from other giants of the philosophical profession “through his enduring commitment to eradicating injustices wherever he found them”, one of his pupils writes in a testimony on the great philosopher.22 But among those “injustices” there was apparently no place for the injustice done to a writer condemned to death by a religious dictator in another part of the world for crimes which were no crimes according to English criminal law, as we will see. “He was also hugely generous to people whose lives were threatened by racism”, another testimonial indicates.23 But someone whose life was threatened by the dictates of a theocrat was not a cause Dummett did take an interest in. One thing no one can deny. When Dummett jumps into action, he does it with vehemence and total commitment. This was also the case when he jumped into the discussion on the Khomeini fatwa. On 11 February 1990 he wrote an article in The Independent in the form of an open letter to Salman Rushdie.24 The author begins with the statement that he is extremely glad 20 Critchley, Simon, “Shouting Across the Gulf”, in: in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 21 Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands; Rushdie, Salman, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002, The Modern Library, New York 2003. 22 Lepore, Ernie, “A Passion for Action”, in: The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 23 Isaacson, Daniel, “Profound and Generous”, The New York Times, 4 January 2012. 24 Dummett, Michael, “Open Letter to Rushdie”, in: The Independent, 11 February 1990. See also: Wheatcroft, Geoffrey, “5 Years on death row – Salman Rushdie”, in: The Guardian, 11 February 1994.

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that the first Muslim responses, published in the newspaper in reaction to Rushdie’s “In good faith”,25 have been so generous. And then he continues, “My own reaction, I am sorry to say, is less generous. After a year in which to reflect upon it, is that all that you could manage to say?”. The first thing that is remarkable in this statement, is that one would think: if the first Muslim reactions were so generous, let us be very glad indeed. Do not stir up the matter or pursue a conflict that everyone would be more than happy to leave behind. But that is not the reaction of Dummett. He wants to provide us with reasons to be “less generous”. What is also remarkable is that Dummett characterizes the year that Rushdie had to spend in captivity to escape from his potential murderers as a year in which he could “reflect” upon the matter. As if Rushdie was on a holiday trip, giving him an opportunity to reflect on his, undeniably inappropriate, behavior. Dummett starts by informing his readers of the “untold damage” the Rushdie Affair has done in his view. Not to Rushdie himself, it soon turns out, because Dummett refers to the “intensified alienation of Muslims here and in other Western countries from the society around them”. He speaks of “racist hostility” and mentions the “wretched hostages” who, in his opinion, experienced a “far more severe imprisonment” than Rushdie.26 Rushdie is also castigated for not having mentioned an imam in Belgium who spoke out against Khomeini and was actually assassinated. One would have thought that all this would be ample evidence of the fact that it was Khomeini’s fatwa which was at the bottom of all this, but apparently Dummett doesn’t see it that way. No book, no fatwa, seems to be the elementary “logic” of Dummett. Now, what leaves the reader puzzled is that we are not talking about someone inexperienced in abstract thought who engages in metaphysical 25 This is an article in which Rushdie clarif ies his position. It is an apology without being an excuse. Like his great predecessor, Socrates, who was also accused of blasphemy, Rushdie cautiously and rationally explains what had been his motives in writing the book and why he was “in good faith”. See: Rushdie, Salman, “In Good Faith”, 1990, in: Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, pp. 393-414. For Socrates: Plato, Apology, in: Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis 1997. 26 Dummett tacitly refers to Terry Waite (b. 1939), who was held hostage in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, while trying to get other hostages free. Among the other hostages was John Patrick McCarthy (b. 1956), a British journalist and broadcaster. McCarthy was held in Lebanon for more than five years. Dummett’s remarks about the other hostages being in a far more serious predicament proved wrong. This cannot be held as an argument against him, because no one can predict the future, although some commentators already foretold that Rushdie’s predicament would last for his whole life (if he would survive).

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speculations and, understandably, makes some elementary mistakes. We are talking about the best-trained philosopher of the twentieth century, respected and acknowledged by all. Dummett is a logician. But would it not be crystal clear to every reader of The Independent where Dummett published his diatribe that by establishing this type of causal relations one can always reproach the victim of robbery that they were walking on the street (had they not been there, they would not have been robbed, isn’t that right?). Or one can reproach the man whose car was stolen for having had a car in his possession in the first place. The reason that cars are stolen is not that there are thieves but that there are cars. When Voltaire ranted about the earthquake in Lisbon (1755) with countless victims, Rousseau reacted with the statement that if people would not live in houses, the roofs would not have fallen on their heads. Which is also true, of course. The notion of causality is very complicated. And not many analytical philosophers can claim to be in a better position to shed light on the issue than Michael Dummett who is rightly famous for entangling the most difficult philosophical knots. What is the cause of all the trouble? Is it that Rushdie published a particular book? That Khomeini issued the fatwa? That many people are so sensitive when their religion is criticized? That Rushdie had been taught to read and write? That his parents had sent him to England? The list of “causes” is endless, of course. And somehow, we have to find criteria to make selections in this chain of causes. But one thing is certain, the most simple-minded choice would be to select the publication of one book as the one and only cause of the trouble, and blame the author for having written it. And precisely this is the choice made by the most sophisticated philosopher of the twentieth century in one of the most puzzling articles of his entire career. Dummett’s argument is (and here he makes something explicit which was only insinuated by Charles Taylor) that Rushdie had done all this to himself. But to the reader’s surprise “this” does not refer to the violence, or the threat of violence, that Rushdie had to live under. The greatest disaster that Rushdie had brought over himself consisted in something totally different, according to Dummett. The greatest tragedy was that at one time Rushdie was a hero among members of the ethnic communities. During a forceful television broadcast Rushdie had denounced “British racism”. And precisely that status as a hero had made his book “appear so great a betrayal”, according to Dummett. This was Rushdie’s tragedy: “Much as you might want to, you can never again

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play that role: you can never again credibly assume the stance of denouncer of white prejudice”. But Rushdie’s primary concern was to stay alive, to reach the next day unharmed, every sensible reader of The Independent must have thought after reading these lines. It is nothing short of hilarious that Dummett thinks Rushdie’s greatest concern should be: “Oh gosh, unfortunately the fatwa makes it impossible for me to act as denouncer of white prejudice. What a tragedy.” Isn’t this very silly? And as the ultimate nightmare for Rushdie, Dummett holds before him, “now you are one of us. You have become an honorary white: merely an honorary white intellectual, it is true, but an honorary white all the same.”

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The tragedy of being an honorary white Being a white intellectual seems to be one of the worst things that can happen to an individual in life. And the greatest status a person can aspire to is to develop into a “denouncer of white prejudice”, according to Dummett. Also somewhat surprising is that Dummett claims that being offensive is one of the greatest moral wrongs someone can display. “If you really did not grasp the offense you would give to believing Muslims, you were not qualified to write upon the subject you choose”, he writes. This is somewhat surprising for a philosopher to maintain, considering that the history of philosophy is full of “offensive ideas”. That is precisely the point of being a philosopher: thinking things most people do not think. And expressing these thoughts with the unintended consequence that other people complain to be offended. Dummett reproaches Rushdie for being unqualified to write the things he writes. But even if Rushdie was not qualified to write on the subject, who cares? Perhaps the whole world of academically educated scholars of Islam also proved unqualified to write upon the subject. If so, that is because no one could predict the Rushdie Affair.27 Likewise, relatively few scholars predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the outbreak of the French Revolution. If failing to predict such occurrences deprives someone of his qualification to write about them, there will not be many people left at the universities. And then Dummett makes an equally curious step by saying, “no one escapes responsibility for the consequences of a bad action by having failed 27 The scholar of Islam who comes closest to the status of a prophet (no offense meant) is perhaps Bernard Lewis with his prescient essay: Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, pp. 319-331.

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to foresee them”. But what does that mean exactly? Would it not be more reasonable to proclaim that one cannot bear responsibility for what one cannot foresee? How can Dummett deny this? Only God could have foreseen the fatwa. And furthermore, publishing a novel was not a bad action (whatever Khomeini’s ideas may have been). The action was completely legitimate according to the legal system of the country where Rushdie lived. Does Dummett mean to suggest that apparently there is an official legal system, the British system, and a kind of informal legal order that Rushdie was supposed to have known because of his special knowledge of Islam? And what would that mean? A kind of sharia law28 with international legal validity, even when it contrasts with national legal systems? But that would mean that we are all now in complete ignorance of impending disaster looming over our heads. Although we assume to faithfully respect the laws of the country we live in, we may be punished by some sort of unknown legal order, by a self-appointed judge.29 What would the principles of this new, until that moment unknown, legal order comprise? One candidate seems to be that we all have to know that – in Dummett’s words – it “is a disgusting thing to defile what other men regard as holy”. But men regard many things as holy. Especially philosophers are usually not intimidated by claims of holiness. Philosophers let every idea present its claims before the tribunal of reason and only respect reasonable constraints on free speech and free inquiry. Here Dummett seems to adopt a totally different strategy, i.e. simply to respect what “other men regard as holy”. How would Socrates have fared with this recommendation as his guiding star? And then Dummett formulates something that we came across in Taylor’s work in more or less the same words. Dummett says: “Those in the West who have no religious belief are oblivious to the depth of pain caused to those who have by what they perceive as blasphemy.” One cannot help wondering, whose “depth of pain” is Dummett talking about? Khomeini’s? The theoterrorists’? The pain of religious fundamentalists, or Muslims in general? 28 Zee, Machteld, “Five Options for the Relationship between the State and Sharia Councils”, in: Journal of Religion and Society, Volume 16 (2014), pp. 1-18; Zee, Machteld, “Sharia: Scheiden voor Allah”, in: Vrij Nederland, 21 September 2013, pp. 44-49; Zee, Choosing Sharia. 29 Legal scholars call this the principle of legality: nullum crimen sina lege. See: Krey, Volker, Keine Strafe ohne Gesetz. Einführung in die Dogmengeschichte des Satzes ‘nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege’, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin New York 1983.

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Whose pain? That brings me to a somewhat speculative point I want to make. I readily concede it is speculative, but still think it is a question that has to be raised. As we have also seen with Taylor, multiculturalists talk extensively about “pain” which is being experienced by members of “minority cultures”. But whose pain is involved here? We already addressed this matter in Chapter 1 when discussing the Rudi Carrell Affair. The claim by the Iranian government was, the Iranian people were shocked and offended by the pastiche on their political leader. Is that really the case? Does that include the many people in prison in Iran? The Christians, homosexuals, atheists, and agnostics living in that country and trying to survive the regime? Were they also terribly offended by the jokes about Khomeini? That is not very likely. The Iranian dissident Houshang Asadi, who served a prison sentence of nine years as a political prisoner under the Khomeini regime, will probably not be offended by criticism of Khomeini, one may presume.30 On the contrary, the people unjustly languishing sentences in Iranian prisons are probably delighted by criticism of the dictator in other countries. It gives them hope, a sense of justice, an indication that not the whole world has forgotten them. The same question, of course, can be raised when talking about the Cartoon Affair and Rushdie Affair. What we have seen are huge crowds on the streets calling for Rushdie’s head or for the death penalty for Westergaard. We also know that foreign courts, like the Egyptian court who convicted to death the amateur f ilmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula for having made a film about the Prophet, are sometimes inspired by the theoterrorist outlook. So it would be untrue to say that there is no support whatsoever for Khomeini’s verdict.31 And yet, most of the Muslims were at home, and not in the streets protesting. After the fatwa it also proved possible to rally hundreds of voices of Muslim writers not sympathetic to the interpretation that Khomeini and his Islamist allies tried to give of the religion of Islam.32 30 See: Asadi, Houshang, Letters to my Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran, One World, Oxford 2010. 31 Herrenberg, Tom, “Politici, de vrijheid van meningsuiting en Innocence of Muslims”, in: Nederlands Juristenblad, 24 September 2013, pp. 2255-2259; “Grand mufti approves death penalty for ‘Innocence of Muslims’ producers”, in: Egypt Independent, 29 January 2013. 32 Abdallah, Anouar et al., Pour Rushdie.

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So the problem with Taylor’s and Dummett’s rash conclusions that Muslims in general “feel pain” is perhaps not quite justified.33 How to explain that Taylor and Dummett are so rash in their judgment, which in other matters is so balanced? Is it perhaps their own pain they are talking about? Are there personal matters involved? This is the reason why I thought it relevant to provide some preliminary information about Dummett’s life and convictions. He was an orthodox Catholic with very definite ideas about God. Dummett’s aversion of criticism of religion is so well-developed that he thinks that that blasphemy law is not so bad after all.34 He pleads for extension of the blasphemy law, not abolition as happened in the United Kingdom and all other modern countries. He also makes the point that “if there had been such a law, the Rushdie affair would not have occurred”. So here we see the Catholic Dummett deplore that blasphemy laws were not more extensively applied. Is it going too far to say that there seems to be a somewhat nostalgic longing in this passage; a longing to a time when the Catholic Church could still punish blasphemers and apostates in the way it had done for so many ages? In most overviews of political philosophy this religious dimension and the connection with multiculturalism is usually ignored. But not in French treatises on political philosophy. Évelyne Pisier (b. 1941) writes that in the 1980s the Catholic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas gained a new topical interest in the United States. Thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor “opposed the modern theories starting with Descartes and the philosophy of the Enlightenment” to defend that rationality is not an abstract capacity but has to be construed as linked to tradition.35 As MacIntyre 33 As it is unjustified to assume that the Muslim community in general will be upset by the fact that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has not quashed the French ban on full face covering in S.A.S. vs France (2014). Women wearing burqas is a very small minority within the Muslim community and most Muslims will be offended by the practice as are most non-Muslims. So when the ECrtHR writes “The Court is also aware that the Law of 11 October 2010, together with certain debates surrounding its drafting, may have upset part of the Muslim community including some members who are not in favor of the full-face veil begin worn” (S.A.S. vs France, para 148), the Court is in the grip of a stereotype idea about the Muslim community. 34 A classic treatment is: Bradlaugh Bonner, Penalties Upon Opinion. A modern scholarly version of the whole history is: Levy, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense against the Sacred from Moses to Salman Rushdie. Useful about the American context provides: Dershowitz, Alan, Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is hijacking our Declaration of Independence, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey 2007. 35 Pisier, Évelyne, (avec François Châtelet, Olivier Duhamel et al.), Histoire des idées politiques, texte publié avec le concours du Centre National du Livre, Quadrige, PUF, Paris 1982, p. 13.

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claims in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), it is impossible to uphold a morality based upon individualism.36 He advocates a “back to Aristotle” movement in contrast to the “back to Kant” movement derived from the work of, among others, Jürgen Habermas, Pisier indicates.37 Although an adherent of Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophy and therefore departing from different philosophical assumptions than Taylor and MacIntyre, Michael Dummett seems to share some of their religious convictions. En passant Dummett formulates some other things he would like to see criminalized: In addition to defiling holy things, incitement to hatred and incitement to “contempt” and pornography.38 The problem is that what Dummett qualifies as “contempt” for other people is a natural expression of their humanist convictions. And what Dummett experiences as “pornography” for other people are stimulating and creative ideas for what you can do with your love-partner to make life more pleasant.39 In Philip Roth’s novel Indignation (2008) the main character opposes compulsory attendance to chapel for a total of forty times before he graduates. I don’t see where the college has the right to force me to listen to a clergyman of whatever faith even once, or to listen to a Christian hymn invoking the Christian deity even once, given that I am an atheist who is, to be truthful, deeply offended by the practices and beliefs of organized religion. 40

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Roth’s character does not need any God to tell him how to live, as he indicates. Perhaps Dummett will experience this kind of confession as “contempt”, and in a way it is, depending on the meaning you attach to the 36 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Duckworth, London 1988. 37 Pisier, Ibid., p. 13. 38 This is not so liberal an idea we also find with MacKinnon, Catherine, Only Words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England 1996 (1993), whose work apparently, but surprisingly, influenced: Waldron, Jeremy, “Dignity and Defamation: The Visibility of Hate”, 2009 Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, in: Harvard Law Review, Vol. 123, 2009-2010, pp. 1596-1657; Waldron, Jeremy, The Harm in Hate Speech, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London 2012. See for a more realistic treatment of the subject: Monroe, Dave, Porn: Philosophy for Everyone, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, Oxford, Chichester 2010. 39 See on pornography: Post, Robert C., “Cultural Heterogenity and Law: Pornography, Blasphemy, and the First Amendment”, in: California Law Review, Vol. 76, 1988, pp. 297-335; Rushdie, Salman, “The East is Blue”, in: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and Gore Vidal, XXX: 30 Porn Star Photographs, Bulfinch, London 2004, pp. 98-106; Monroe, Porn. 40 Roth, Philip, Indignation, Vintage Books, London 2009, p. 100.

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word “contempt”, but does he understand that his views can also be deeply offensive to Roth’s main character? And not only his views, but also his actions, such as kissing the feet of a crucifix? The reactions by Taylor and Dummett are characteristic of many other reactions as will be made clear with the examples which follow. Let me conclude my comment on Dummett’s stance in the Rushdie Affair by saying that perhaps we are too much concerned with the religious feelings of Muslims to understand the positions taken in this controversy and neglecting the religious views of many Christians, Jews, and other religious positions. It seems not unduly speculative to surmise many non-Muslims took stances in this controversy by projecting ideas onto Muslims which were in fact more representative of their own feelings – their own “pain”. If we look back at the early responses to the fatwa, it is prima facie astonishing that so few people from the intelligentsia came out in favor of the novelist, and so many criticized him for writing a novel that in another time and context would have been clearly undisputed (although in still other times he would have been hanged, stoned, beheaded, or quartered for writing it). 41 Of course, these are very personal matters, one might say. But that does also apply to the comments made by Dummett and Taylor. When Charles Taylor in his monumental work A Secular Age (2007)42 allegedly describes why “people” do not find spiritual fulfillment in our secular age he is, perhaps, talking less about the people he describes than about Charles Taylor himself. The Rushdie Affair gave those people a pretext to talk about others, Muslims, and about how empathic we should be with regard to what “they” miss, but they are talking about themselves. One may say this is all very speculative. True. But when we read the reactions to Rushdie by some great minds, i.e. authors who in other respects are perfectly reasonable, we simply have no other option than to look for psychological explanations. What to think of the following 41 Stanley Fish opened one of his op-eds with “Salman Rushdie, self-appointed poster boy for the First Amendment”. Especially the word “self-appointed” is interesting. See: Fish, Stanley, “Crying Censorship”, in: The New York Review of Books, 24 August 2008. Here the point was that Random House had indicated not to publish Sherry Jones’s novel The Jewel of Medina because of fear for terrorist reprisals. Rushdie had called this “self-censorship”. Fish speculated that some other press is perfectly free to publish Jones’s book and one probably will. So there was no censorship involved, only “civilized behavior”, according to Fish. See: Melville, Taking Offence, p. 16; Jones, Sherry, The Jewel of Medina, Beaufort Books, New York 2008. 42 Taylor, A Secular Age.

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remark, made by one of the greatest historians of our age, a man whose reputation among historians matches that of Dummett and Taylor among philosophers? On the Rushdie Affair the famous historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003) wrote: I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring his manners, would waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them. If that should cause him thereafter to control his pen, society would benefit and literature would not suffer. 43

What makes this reaction interesting is that Trevor-Roper so openly shows understanding for physical violence against the writer (if not advocating it). It is also quite unusual for an academic who, due to the nature of his own profession, can only exist and work under conditions of academic freedom, to write that the novelist should “control his pen”. And Trevor-Roper is a historian and the author of such books as The Last Days of Hitler (1947), 44 The Invention of Scotland (1994), 45 History and the Enlightenment (2010), 46 and many other works. He must certainly have been aware of the history of censorship, intimidation, and violence against writers and scholars in the past. 47

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President Carter on the role of religion in brokering peace What I said about Dummett and Taylor, i.e. that their own religious convictions must have played a role in the stance they take in the Rushdie controversy, also applies to the reaction of the former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter (b. 1924). Carter referred to something that came up time and again in the discussion on Rushdie’s book, viz. that as a Muslim, a former Muslim, or at least someone cognizant of the mores in the Muslim world, he should have known better: 43 The Independent, 10 June 1989, quoted in: Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What Virgins?, p. 31; Weller, A Mirror for our Times, p. 21. 44 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Last Days of Hitler, Pan, London 2012 (1947). 45 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History, Yale University Press, New Haven 1994. 46 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, History and the Enlightenment, Yale University Press, New Haven 2010. 47 See e.g. Trevor-Roper, Hugh, The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation & Social Change, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 1967.

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The author, a well-versed analyst of Moslem beliefs, must have anticipated a horrified reaction throughout the Islamic world. 48

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Carter, a born-again Christian, 49 also gives some background information to explain his views, referring to the time of the Camp David agreements. And, again (as with Dummett, Taylor, and others), religion plays a role. He makes some revealing comments about the way he brokered an agreement between Menachem Begin (1913-1992) and Anwar el-Sadat (1918-1981). Carter, Begin, and Sadat had “several talks” about their “common religious beliefs”, Carter tells us. Sadat emphasized the “reverence that Moslems have for Jesus and the Old Testament Prophets”.50 Begin “rarely commented himself”, Carter says without explaining why this was the case, but he had “little doubt that these expressions of goodwill helped us find common ground in political matters”.51 Apparently, Carter thinks that peace in the Middle East was dependent on the question of whether one has respect for Jesus and the Old Testament Prophets. Peace is deemed to be dependent on religious agreement. If true, this is a somewhat uneasy idea.52 What if you have another opinion of Old Testament Prophets than Sadat and obviously Carter? Would peace then be impossible? Carter relates that Begin did not say much about the issue. Could it be the case that Begin did not consider it proper to make political agreements on the basis of religious convictions? Or did he perhaps have a different idea about Jesus than Sadat or Carter? Anyhow, it is strange that the president of a country that is officially based on the separation of church and state, on the First Amendment of the American constitution, carved out by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and James Madison (1751-1836), so openly flirts with religious ideas as the basis of political agreement.53 Does Sadat also 48 Carter, Jimmy, “Rushdie’s book is an insult”, in: The New York Times, 5 March 1989, also in: Appignanesi, Lisa & Maitland, Sara, eds., The Rushdie File, pp. 236-237. 49 See: Styron, William, “Fanatismus ökumenisch”, 11-2-1992, in: Thierry Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben: Briefe an Salman Rushdie, Piper, München, Zürich 1992, pp. 72-74, at p. 72. 50 Carter, Ibid., p. 236. 51 Ibid. 52 This is also the basis of a ecumenical project of the German theologian Hans Küng. See on this: Küng, Hans & Kuschel, Karl-Josef, Erklärung zum Weltethos. Die Deklaration des Parlamentes der Weltreligionen, Piper, München/Zürich 1993. 53 Madison, James, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, 1785, in: Madison, James, Writings, The Library of America, New York 1999, pp. 29-39; Jefferson, Thomas, “To Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and Others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut”, 1 January 1802, in: Jefferson, Thomas, Writings, The library of America, New York, N.Y. 1984, p. 510.

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have respect for Joseph Smith (1805-1844), founder of the Mormon religion?54 Or for L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986), founder of the religious movement called Scientology? And what to think of “Wicca”, a modern pagan witchcraft religion, developed in the first half of the twentieth century and popularized in 1954 by the retired British civil servant Gerald Gardner (1884-1964)? Do we have to respect all religions? Or is it perfectly legitimate to discriminate? Perhaps Carter does not consider these questions relevant, because he was only assessing the religions whose supposed representatives he had assembled around the negotiation table, but that would be a bit short-sighted from the perspective of my treatment of the subject in this book. Does Carter not de facto accept the United States of America as a “Christian nation” and eo ipso “establish” a religion (which the First Amendment of the American Constitution explicitly prohibits)? And does he not implicitly disavow the non-Muslim people in Egypt and the secular Jews in Israel by making the respective religions a starting point of political negotiations? Now, after all this criticism of Carter’s position, it is necessary, perhaps, to state that Carter does not, of course, condone Khomeini’s death verdict. He calls it an “abhorrent response”55 to Rushdie’s book. That is obviously a crucial difference with the early Islamist reactions in Great Britain. It also marks a difference between Carter and Hugh Trevor-Roper and Charles Taylor, who did not comment on Khomeini’s fatwas. But in comparing Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)56 with The Satanic Verses, Carter states that Rushdie went much further than Scorsese in “vilifying the Prophet Mohammed and defaming the Holy Koran”. And here his choice of words is exactly the same as that of the religious fundamentalists. Nor does Carter explain what he means with “much further”. Does he want to insinuate that Scorsese is all right but Rushdie is not, because Rushdie “went further”? What yardstick does Carter have in mind for criticism of religion? That a little bit of criticism is fine (Scorsese) but that it should not go “too far” (Rushdie)? We also repeatedly find with Carter the claim that Rushdie must have “anticipated a horrified reaction throughout the Islamic world”. He thought the publication of Rushdie’s book was “the kind of intercultural wound that is difficult to heal”.57 Carter considered severing relations with Iran an 54 As Douglas Murray writes: “Whatever your take on Mormonism, at least it can claim to be the only religion actually invented in America”. See: Murray, Douglas, Islamophilia, first edition 30 May 2013, Amazon Digital Services 2013, Chapter 2. 55 Carter, Ibid., p. 237. 56 Scorsese, Martin, (director), “The Last Temptation of Christ”, Film based on the novel by Kazantzakis, Nikos, The Last Temptation of Christ, Bantam Books, New York 1968 (1953). 57 Carter, Ibid., p. 237.

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“overreaction” and he put his cards on “tactful public statements and private discussions” which could, he thought, “defuse this explosive situation”.58 Hearing these reactions reminds us of the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs when Rudi Carrell was intimidated (Chapter 2). Now, defusing an explosive situation is always right, to be sure. But the question is, will it work on the basis of what Carter proposes? The problem with Carter’s “understanding” of the sensitivities of Khomeini and his acolytes is that they will probably say that Carter is not sincere. If he really means what he says, he should try to amend the American constitution and laws in such a manner that books like Rushdie’s can no longer be published in the United States. And is this a price worth to pay? Does Carter want to pay this price? Or is it not even a “price” in his view, because he would welcome such legislation, and is the Khomeini fatwa instrumental to that end (be it a somewhat blunt instrument)?

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Rushdie knew what he was doing Carter’s assumption that Rushdie must have been aware of what the reactions to his book would be was also voiced by, remarkably, Rushdie’s fellow writer Roald Dahl (1916-1990). Dahl said that Rushdie “must have been totally aware of the deep and violent feelings his book would stir up among devout Muslims” and “knew exactly what he was doing and cannot plead otherwise”.59 This was a reaction as harsh and uncompromising as that of Michael Dummett. But the reaction is also amazing because Dahl seems to suggest that experts on Islam (among them Rushdie) should have known that violent reactions are to be expected when you exercise criticism of religion. Is Dahl suggesting that Rushdie should have known this and that he should have exercised self-censorship all along? And is such speculation about Rushdie’s motives convincing? One may have doubts about that. As appears from his memoir Joseph Anton (2012), Rushdie has lived in (sometimes deadly) fear since that fatwa.60 It is not an exaggeration to say that he has paid an enormous price for publishing his book.61 Afterward, he never considered writing anything similar to The Satanic Verses. In that sense Khomeini’s intimidation worked quite well, 58 Ibid. 59 Quoted in Ibn Warraq, Ibid., p. 32. 60 Rushdie, Joseph Anton. 61 See also: Blackford, “The Rushdie Affair – Lest we Forget”, pp. 8 and 53.

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one might well say, and still does to the present day, some decades after his death. In that sense, Trevor-Roper, who wanted Rushdie “to control his pen”,62 can also be satisfied. Not only Rushdie but many other writers, one may speculate, have proved perfectly able to control their pens, refrained from making jokes, works of art, etc. There have been a number of incidents, certainly, but this number is relatively small compared to what could have happened if novelists and cartoonists had allowed themselves the liberty to comment on Islam the way they do on Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, and many other creeds. Nor should we ever forget that Kurt Westergaard never made another cartoon like that one in 2005. All the attempts to kill Westergaard are based on one single cartoon. It is not very likely that Rushdie, or anyone else who has experienced the perseverance of terrorists, would have been prepared to make such a personal sacrifice had he known in advance what the result would be. So, Dahl’s and Carter’s speculations that Rushdie had anticipated what would happen seem questionable, to say the least.63 Besides, is it really likely that Rushdie had foreseen a death threat of this kind, issued by Ayatollah Khomeini?64 The very notion of a “fatwa” was largely unknown outside of scholarly circles, let alone one in the form of a death warrant.65 He surely must have foreseen that not everyone would read his novel with approval. He may even have foreseen “horrified reactions”, as Carter writes. But a fatwa stating that a writer living in a completely different part of the world should be executed for writing a novel was something entirely new. This was unforeseen by both Roald Dahl and Jimmy Carter as well as by Salman Rushdie himself, one may presume. No other dictator had openly done such things. As the Dutch expert on Russian language and culture Karel van het Reve (1921-1999), who was introduced in Chapter 3, remarked in an early analysis of the Rushdie Affair,66 not even Stalin dared

62 The Independent, 10 June 1989, quoted in: Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What Virgins?, p. 31. 63 See also what Rushdie himself writes about this issue in: Rushdie, “In Good Faith”, pp. 393-414. 64 “L’imaginaire conduit au réel et la réalité dépasse la fiction. Rushdie a-t-il fait ce chemin sciemment?”, Khoury, Elias, “L’écrivain et le récit”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 199-200, p. 199. 65 See on fatwas in general: Mozaffari, Mehdi, Fatwa: Violence & Discourtesy, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus 1998; Addison, Neil, “Foreword: Sharia Tribunals in Britain – Mediators or Arbitrators?”, in: David G. Green, ed., Sharia Law or “One Law For All”, Foreword by Neil Addison, Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London 2009, pp. viii-xv, p. ix: “A ‘Fatwa’ is the traditional title for a Sharia legal judgement or legal opinion”. 66 One of the few articles that can compete with Waldron’s piece in incisiveness and wisdom. See: Waldron, “Rushdie and Religion”, pp. 134-143.

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to operate in the manner Khomeini did.67 Stalin gave the order to murder Trotsky, but he was not proud of doing it. And when accused of having done this, he denied any involvement. Khomeini’s order was something entirely different. Here we see a dictator who has not the slightest respect for national sovereignty, freedom of speech, Western civil liberties, the right of a novelist to write and of his reading public to read – there are countless ways to frame the events, but one thing is certain: it was a flat-out violation of everything civilized society stood for.68

Rushdie, Nietzsche, Freud, and Spinoza A remarkable aspect of the reactions following the publication of The Satanic Verses was that so many commentators were prepared to reserve a special place for religion when it comes to criticism. Fellow novelist John le Carré (b. 1931), whom we have mentioned before, commented in an interview on the Rushdie Affair in May 1989:

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I don’t think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity.69

This remark aligns with Tony Benn’s exhortation to respect religions, as we have discussed in Chapter 5, but also with Trevor-Roper’s endorsement of violence, quoted earlier. The word “impunity” has a sinister undertone. Do not think you can get away unharmed when you criticize religion. But what about “impertinent” and “great religions”? What does “impertinent” mean in this context? Is all criticism of a great religion eo ipso impertinent? Or does Le Carré want to distinguish between modest, legitimate criticism and impertinent criticism? Where is the dividing line, we can ask (the same question we asked of Carter)? Was Nietzsche (1844-1900) “impertinent” when he declared God dead?70 Should he expect the same from God or his defenders here on earth, viz. that God will declare him, Friedrich Nietzsche, 67 Reve, Karel van het, “Achterlijke artikelen”, in: Elsevier, 4 March 1989, republished in: Pierre Vinken & Hans van den Bergh, red., Het scherp van de snede: de Nederlandse literatuur in meer dan honderd polemieken, Prometheus, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 662-667. [see n. 49, p. 57] 68 See on Iran under Khomeini: Taheri, The Persian Night. 69 Quoted in Ibn Warraq, Ibid., p. 32. 70 In: Nietzsche, Friedrich, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, in: Sämtliche Werke, 1882, Band 3, Kritische Studienausgabe herausgegeben von Giorgio Colli und Mazzino Montinari, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, De Gruyter, München 1999, pp. 343-653.

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dead? And what about Freud (1856-1939) when he wrote about religious belief as an illusion?71 Was Spinoza (1632-1677) impertinent in identifying God with nature?72 Would Le Carré extend his criticism to the whole literature of criticism of religion as it has been developed by Voltaire, Holbach, Kant, Freud, Hegel, Spinoza, Meslier, Paine, and countless others? Are these authors all representative for what Charles Taylor dismissively called the “western liberal mind”? Perhaps, because their writings were certainly “impertinent”? As the philosopher Matthew Stewart noted, Spinoza had ample reason to fear for his safety in 1676, while today philosophers do not have to fear for their lives when they publish something akin to Spinoza’s Ethics (1678) or Nietzsche’s Antichrist (1888-1889).73 But how did that change come about? Was it not because some of those philosophers were so “impertinent” as to write things that Charles Taylor, Michael Dummett, John le Carré, Jimmy Carter, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and other commentators quoted here consider highly inappropriate, thus paving the way for a safe discussion of these matters in our time? It seems not unreasonable to speculate that Dawkins and Hitchens can now write what they write because Holbach and Voltaire paved the way. And would it not be unwise to let this cultural heritage erode? To let it slip through our fingers because we mistakenly suppose that freedoms once won are our birthright forever?

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Contemporary iconoclasts despised The paradox seems to be that, irrespective of content, there is a tendency to be hurt and offended when a contemporary author such as Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) qualifies religious belief as a “delusion”,74 while Freud’s (1856-1939) characterization of religious belief as an “illusion” does not elicit any comments.75 At least not anymore. This is strange. The enraged rantings on Christianity or religious belief in general by Nietzsche (1844-1900) or 71 Freud, Sigmund, Die Zukunft einer Illusion, 1927, in: Sigmund Freud, Studienausgabe, Band IX, Fragen der Gesellschaft, Ursprünge der Religion, S. Fischer Verlag, pp. 135-191. 72 Thereby giving a decisive impetus to the Enlightenment, according to the British historian Jonathan Israel in, among others, Israel, Jonathan I., Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 2001 and Israel, Jonathan, “Enlightenment! Which Enlightenment?”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 67, Number 3 (July 2006), pp. 523-545. 73 Stewart, Matthew, The Courier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, W.W. Norton & Company, London 2006, p. 11. 74 Dawkins, The God Delusion. 75 Freud, Die Zukunft einer Illusion.

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Holbach (1723-1789) are considered to be part of the European tradition of liberty, our cultural heritage, while the less confronting criticisms of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, or Michel Onfray (b. 1959)76 are considered “outrageous”, “unnecessarily provocative”, “deliberately offensive”, or words to that effect. Historical iconoclasts are lauded, their contemporary equivalents despised. How to explain this? Is it because Freud is dead, and Dawkins is not? One may say: it doesn’t make much sense to get all riled up over the words of a dead person: they cannot be punished anymore anyway. Plus, there would be no occasion, now, to suddenly get angry at Freud. Why now, at this moment, when his words have been around for so long? The critics of Rushdie leave us with many questions about the interpretation of their words. What do Le Carré and others mean by “great religions”? Should we take his words to mean that he is not opposed to criticizing religions when it comes to the smaller religions or sects, but that he is against criticizing the larger religions?77 But what is the reason for this “big is beautiful” approach? And where to draw the line? As I said, should we also consider it impertinent to comment unfavorably on Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism,78 and Ron L. Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology? Or are Mormonism and Scientology not “big enough” to attain a status of exemption from criticism? And is the size of a religion, the number of its adherents, a good criterion for placing a religion beyond criticism? One may have serious doubts about that. It would imply that Christianity in its infancy could be the object of serious criticism but once it had gained the status it later acquired, it was exempt from criticism. Why not the reverse? Why not say that a religion in its infancy should be handled gently but once it acquires a certain official status such as that of state religion it should be criticized rigorously, because “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, as Lord Acton (1834-1902) wrote in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton (1843-1901) in 1887?79 76 Onfray, Michel, Traité d’athéologie: Physique de la métaphysique, Grasset, Paris 2005. 77 See on sects: Hunt, Stephen J., Alternative Religions: A Sociological Introduction, Ashgate, Aldershot 2003, pp. 33-61. 78 See on this: Guiora, Amos N., “Protecting the Unprotected: Religious Extremism and Child Endangerment”, in: Journal of Law & Family Studies, Vol. 12, 2010, pp. 391-407. 79 “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it”, see: Acton, Lord (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), “Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton”, 5 April 1887, in: J.N. Figgis and R.V. Laurence, eds., Historical Essays and Studies, London, Macmillan 1907.

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These are important questions, and by posing them we did not even elaborate on Le Carré’s words “with impunity”. Le Carré said that we could (or should?) not be “impertinent to great religions with impunity”. What does “impunity” mean in this context? Is Le Carré also alluding to punitive measures against the novelist, as Trevor-Roper did more openly when he said he would not shed a tear if aggressors were to waylay Rushdie in a dark street? Or would we thereby misconstrue what Le Carré is trying to tell us? Unfortunately, we do not know,80 even though the matter is important because what happened in the Rushdie Affair was that a cleric called for vigilante justice, like the Prophet Elijah did when he exclaimed: “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” (1 Kings 18: 40).81 That is a serious affair. It must be possible to object to Rushdie’s book, to advocate the maintenance or even reintroduction of blasphemy laws in a modern system of law,82 but at the same time to issue a warning against taking the law into our own hands. In other words, the implementation of blasphemy laws has to be done by the state, more in particular the judiciary, not by private actors acting on what they see as a violation of the will of God.

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The realist response of John Berger and John Le Carré So far, we have concentrated on moral objections advanced against Rushdie. He was too radical, he should have known, he was too provocative, he was deliberately insulting. But it is also possible to defend that it is simply impossible to criticize the Prophet and Islam because this would set the world on fire. It is simply too dangerous. This idea seems to have animated another famous detractor of Rushdie, viz. the art critic John Berger (1926-2017). Berger’s point was: it would simply not be possible to control the violence. In February 1989 he wrote in The Guardian: 80 Even though Le Carré wrote a personal letter to Rushdie biographer Wheatherby explaining his stance towards The Satanic Verses. This is, however, not a retraction of his former dismissal of Rushdie’s book, nor does it make Le Carré’s views any clearer. See: Weatherby, Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death, pp. 170, 185, 205, 226. 81 New International Version. And “they seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.” See on this: Cliteur, “Biblical Stories and Religion as the Root Cause of Terrorism”, pp. 1-27. 82 Criticized by Paul Scheffer in: Scheffer, Paul, “Het multiculturele drama”, in: NRC Handelsblad, 29 January 2000. See also: Sarrazin, Thilo, Deutschland schafft sich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, 2. Auflage, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, München 2012 (2010), pp. 265-266. Webster, A Brief History of Blasphemy, criticizes Rushdie and tries to foster understanding for blasphemy laws.

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I suspect that Salman Rushdie if he is not caught in a chain of events of which he has completely lost control, might, by now, be ready to consider asking his world publishers to stop producing more or new editions of “The Satanic Verses”. Not because of the threat to his own life, but because of the threat to the lives of those who are innocent of either writing or reading the book. This achieved – Islamic leaders and statesmen across the world might well be ready to condemn the practice of the Ayatollah issuing terrorist death warrants. Otherwise, a unique 20th-century holy war, with its terrifying righteousness on both sides, may be on the point of breaking out sporadically but repeatedly – in airports, shopping streets, suburbs, city centers, wherever the unprotected live.83

Berger introduces the puzzling notion of “innocence” with regard to not only writing but also reading a book. It seems he is suggesting that if you read a book that theoterrorists object to, you run the risk of forfeiting your “innocence”. And Rushdie is not “innocent” either, because, although not being “guilty” of transgressing British law, he somehow loses his innocence when theoterrorists object to his work. The solution of the turmoil the novel has introduced in the world Berger seeks in stopping the distribution of the book: “stop producing more or new editions of The Satanic Verses”. The sanity of Berger’s proposal may be disputed. The first question that forces itself upon us is: Would this help? Suppose it would be possible to withdraw an already published book from the world (not very likely in 1989 and even less now, with the internet and endless opportunities to copy and disperse views), would that appease Khomeini’s feelings? Is it really possible? And if so, would it be a wise course to follow?

John Le Carré revisited and book burning To his credit Rushdie’s colleague John Le Carré seems to have struggled with the matter. In W.J. Weatherby’s (1930-1992) Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death (1990)84 Le Carré is quoted elaborating on his earlier comments, saying, just as Berger had done, that Rushdie should have withdrawn 83 Berger quoted in Donadio, Rachel, “Fighting Words on Sir Salman”, in: The New York Times, 15 July 2007. 84 Weatherby, Salman Rushdie: Sentenced to Death.

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his book “until a calmer time has come”. 85 Apparently, Le Carré also saw the Rushdie Affair as something exceptional, and that if you do not stir things up something of a normal situation (“a calmer time”) would return. Now, writing twenty-f ive years later, we know that the calmer time has not come. And the central question is, of course, what can bring this about? Is the “calmer time” likely to return as a result of giving in to the theoterrorist demands or will this, in fact, only draw us further into the quagmire? Perhaps one may formulate it thus: does Khomeini not demand the removal of all books with a similar content from the world? Legend has it that this was the position of the third Caliph, Uthman (c. 580-656), who ordered the destruction of the Library at Alexandria on the grounds that either the books agreed with the Koran, in which case they were redundant, or they disagreed with it, in which case they were worthless or evil. As John Grant writes: “In an act that has rightly been vilif ied throughout the centuries since the Library’s books were used as fuel to heat Alexandria’s public baths. There were so many books that the burning took six months.”86 Grant may be right that this act has been vilified throughout the centuries, but it is not completely inconsistent or illogical with the worldview it aims to purport. If you really believe that all that there is to say about morals, science, life, and human destiny is included in one single book, why read any others? When St. Paul entered Ephesus “a number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly” (Acts 19:19). The French painter Eustache Le Sueur (1616-1655) made a magnificent painting about this early book burning: La Prédication de saint Paul à Ephèse (1649). We see the majestic figure of St. Paul presiding over a meeting, engaged in the noble art of burning blasphemous, heterodox, dissident, or, from his perspective, “unnecessary” books. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) thought that once you start burning books you end up burning people. This may not be the case,87 but it is also naive to presume that condoning the burning of one book will not lead to the burning of other books. It is perhaps here that John Le Carré and John Berger are somewhat naive. They like to think that 85 Here quoted in Donadio, Ibid. 86 Grant, John, Corrupted Science: Fraud, Ideology and Science, AAPPL Artists’ and Photographers’ Press, Surrey 2007, p. 177. 87 See on this: Cramer, Frederick H., “Bookburning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Ideas of Speech”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 157-196; Fishburn, Burning Books.

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the fundamentalist mindset only affects Rushdie’s books, and not theirs. But is that not too sanguine? And would Berger, Trevor-Roper, Dahl, and Le Carré also be prepared to compromise if their own books were at stake?88 Would they be prepared to remove their own writings from the list of books to be published in the Western world if “horrified reactions” were to be the result of their theories in other parts of the world? And should we only remove books when they displease Islamist dictators or should we also give in to possible demands of dictators of a more secular type? I mean, if Khomeini has the right to cancel the publication of a book or its removal from reading lists and libraries, why not Stalin or Ghadaffi or the ruler of North Korea?89 Perhaps Berger will reject these musings as “speculative” and “not to the point”. But are they? If secular dictators or non-Islamist religious leaders learn that threats of violence are a good device to stop the publication of critical books, then why should they not copycat Khomeini’s strategies? Berger refers to the solidarity that Rushdie should practice towards the potential victims of terrorist attacks; people “who are innocent of either writing or reading a book”. As a writer, Rushdie should exercise restraint in writing his novels to protect the people who will never write nor read a book. This recommendation is not self-evident. Why does Berger not warn uneducated people that even their world will look very different if books can only be written when sanctioned by the most orthodox religious leaders of this world? Wouldn’t the ultimate consequence of Berger’s advice be that we should all be prepared to reconsider British law or the European treaties on human rights? We should, in short, be prepared to change our whole way of life to satisfy the religious fanatics that support the punitive measures against the writer. And would this not imply the installation of a theocracy instead of a democracy? Whatever we may think of it, the moral and political quandaries the Rushdie Affair brought into the world are far from solved. 88 Orhan Pamuk wrote that the attack on the freedom of one writer concerns all writers. See: Pamuk, Orhan, “Pour Rushdie”, p. 244. 89 Which was a topical matter because of the comic film The Interview. In December 2014 North Korea promised 9/11-like attacks in American cinemas if The Interview would be scheduled. In this conflict President Obama was unyielding: “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States” (Remarks by the President in Year-End Press Conference, 19 December 2014). See also: Rijpkema, Bastiaan, Weerbare democratie: de grenzen van democratische tolerantie, PhD thesis Leiden, Leiden 2015, p. 251.

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Withdraw the book until a calmer time has come

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What all those early reactions have in common is that the commentators presume the Rushdie Affair is something exceptional and probably something unique (not a precedent but an incident). This is even the case in Weller’s book from 2009, which speaks about the Rushdie Affair as something that has to do with the author Salman Rushdie. It was his personal liberty that was at stake, Weller tells us in the introduction to his monograph. This was also the way the Dutch Foreign Minister and Dutch members of parliament discussed the Carrell Affair. They had the impression that this had to do exclusively with the specific person Rudi Carrell. They did not consider, at least not explicitly, that perhaps new forms of social interaction were being developed, a new social contract was negotiated, a blueprint for a new type of society was developed. It may be a “precedent”, after all, not an incident. Berger seems to think that an individual decision by Rushdie to demand from his publishers that they remove his title from the list of books to be published could clear the air. This would affect the individual author Salman Rushdie and this specific book, but it would have no repercussions on the rest of the book trade, Berger seems to think. Carter and Dahl, like the other commentators mentioned, are very much concerned with the individual Salman Rushdie, who should have foreseen what the consequences of his actions were. In an interview broadcast on 14 February 1989, the same day the fatwa was issued, Rushdie was asked: “What you’ve written has been called insulting to Islam and a provocation to all Muslims. Did you take delight in provocation?” Rushdie did not comment on the word “delight”, but, as we have seen, he picked up the word “provocation” and answered: It depends what you mean by provocation. Any writer wishes to provoke the imagination. You want to make people think about what you’re writing. One of the reasons for writing, I believe, is to slightly increase the sum of what it’s possible to think, to say “Let’s look at it a different way”. If it works, then people are provoked, and maybe they don’t like it.90

But this idea (and ideal) of “provocation”, still so common a few years before, perhaps, was no longer widely shared among his fellow writers. Few have noted this important shift in attitudes. Few commentators seemed to 90 Interview by Bandung file, here quoted from: Appignanesi, Lisa & Maitland, Sara, eds., The Rushdie File, p. 23.

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understand or even suspect that this may not be about one specific author of one specif ic book, but about an entire way of living. It is about civil liberties, national sovereignty, and a culture of freedom as it has developed in some parts of the world (and not in others).91 That brings us to the fourth and last response to the fatwa we have to distinguish, the reaction by official politics.

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The political response and the press Now let us look at the political reactions. On 15 February 1989, the British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe (1926-2015) gave a rather tame reaction to the death sentence: “The death sentence is a matter of grave concern. It illustrates the extreme difficulty of establishing the right kind of relationship with a manifestly revolutionary regime with ideas that are very much its own.”92 A few days later the British attitude was more forthright. Now Howe declared that “nobody has the right to incite people to violence on British soil or against British citizens”.93 This last declaration, finally, hit the nail on its head. Had the British government perhaps gained courage from the support Rushdie received from some of his fellow writers? Whatever the case, there is some resemblance between the British government’s second official reaction and the words of one of Rushdie’s most well-known colleagues: Anthony Burgess. Burgess (1917-1993), commenting on the fatwa, declared: “The Ayatollah Khomeini is probably within his self-elected rights in calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, or anyone else for that matter, on his own holy ground. To order outraged sons of the prophet to kill him and the directors of Penguin Books on British soil is tantamount to a jihad. It is a declaration of war on citizens of a free country and as such, it is a political act. It has to be countered by an equally forthright, if less murderous, declaration of defiance.”94 There are several remarkable elements in these words. Burgess rightly stresses that there is a conflict of visions. Khomeini is indeed right within his own religious paradigm (I refer to what has been expounded in Chapter 91 In Europe, according to Mendras: Mendras, Henri, L’Europe des Européens: Sociologie de l’Europe occidentale, Gallimard, Paris 1997, p. 52. 92 Geoffrey Howe, quoted in The Daily Mail, 15 February 1989. 93 Sir Geoffrey Howe, quoted in The Independent, 17 February 1989. 94 Burgess, quoted in The Independent, 15 February 1989.

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3 on the “coherence of theoterrorism”). Remarkable is also that Burgess does not shy away from calling this “jihad”, meaning a “declaration of war” on citizens of another country. Burgess also stresses the element of territoriality (“British soil”). The official reaction of the British government was also criticized in the newspapers. Sir Geoffrey Howe had said that Rushdie’s book was “extremely rude” about Britain. This was, apparently, an attempt to appease the feelings of the Iranian authorities. But, as The Guardian stated in a commentary on the government’s stance on 4 March 1989, “the result was not a great success, either as an exercise in literary criticism or as a covert signal to the moderates in Iran”.95 The newspaper criticized Howe’s words as follows: “Aren’t we supposed to be against governments saying that they disapprove of books – let alone making up other people’s minds for them? It was also a somewhat philistine judgment. Not only was the book ‘rude’ but, said Sir Geoffrey, it ‘compares Britain with Hitler’s Germany’. It does nothing of the kind. It does portray, as our reviewer Angela Carter wrote before the great row began, ‘the mean streets of a marvellously evoked eighties London’.”96 The newspaper concludes by stating that Rushdie seems to have broken his silence after the government’s commentary on his book to express concern about Sir Geoffrey’s statement, and, regrettably, “one can see why”.97 Ian Davidson, in a commentary in The Financial Times, said: “Mealymouthed expressions of distaste of The Satanic Verses merely served to make the government look obsequious and cringing.”98 Rushdie had good reason to fear because “he was in danger of being dumped by the British government”.99 Davidson also makes some interesting points about the expertise and competence of the government to comment on matters of literary interpretation. Whether Sir Geoffrey or Mrs Thatcher thinks The Satanic Verses is a nice book or a nasty book, whether they believe it is offensive to Moslems, or whether they consider it unfair to the British people, are entirely irrelevant questions. In any case, they are wholly unqualified, in their capacity as elected politicians, to have a useful opinion on any of these subordinate issues.100 95 The Guardian, 4 March 1989. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 Ian Davidson in The Financial Times, 9 March 1989. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid.

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Davidson also spells out what seems to him the relevant questions in this case: Under the Iranian gun, the only questions which are immediately relevant are whether Mr Rushdie was legally entitled under British law to write and publish his book and whether Ayatollah Khomeini is entitled to incite the murder of Mr Rushdie.101

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In my view, this is an important passage. Davidson does something that only very few people commenting on the Rushdie Affair have done. First he asks us: What are the relevant questions in this controversy? You can, of course, comment on everything. On whether you liked the book, whether Rushdie could have foreseen the consequences, whether you like criticism of religion in general, or whether you have an understanding for offended feelings of religious believers. Most people simply start commenting on what they like. But what Davidson does is draw our attention to the relevance of those questions. What should, for instance, a politician, or “the state”, ask when judging the situation? And Davidson claims only two questions are important: (a) Was Rushdie legally entitled to write the book? and (b) Was Khomeini entitled to incite to murder? These two questions are, indeed, relevant questions for a politician to ask. But, as we will see, many politicians, as well as many colleague writers of Rushdie, posed all kinds of other questions. They commented on the matter as if they were ordinary citizens. Not to their credit, because what the state has to do is protect its citizens against interior and exterior enemies of the peace. And in the light of that question, the two perspectives of Davidson should be guiding. Let us now see how international politics fared in the matter.

Some reactions by foreign states Over a longer period of time, the attitudes of governments in cases like the ones discussed in this book are not always very consistent. Governments who took a defiant stance in the Rushdie Affair were wobbly in the Cartoon Affair and vice versa. The Dutch are a case in point. As Lisa Appignanesi (b. 101 Ibid.

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1946) and Sara Maitland (b. 1950) write: “The Dutch were the first European nation to treat the fatwa as an event of international diplomatic significance by canceling their Foreign Minister’s visit to Iran.”102 This is somewhat surprising because both in the Cartoon Affair and after the murder of Theo van Gogh the Dutch government was very much inclined towards appeasement and certainly not towards what Burgess called declarations of defiance. Two other governments backed the British in the struggle with religious terrorism: Germany and France. Chancellor Helmut Kohl (1930-2017) called on the “entire civilized world” to act against Iran’s threat to kill Rushdie. President Mitterrand (1916-1996) of France said: “All dogmatism which through violence undermines freedom of thought and the right to free expression is, in my view, absolute evil. The moral and spiritual progress of humanity is linked to the recoil of all fanaticisms.”103 French Prime Minister Michel Rocard (1930-2016) joined suit: “All new calls to violence or to murder will result in immediate juridical prosecutions.”104 Then Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac (b. 1932), made a similar comment: “I am not confusing Muslims with fanatics, but I cannot imagine that in Paris we will accept desperadoes who call for murder. If they are French they must be prosecuted; if they are foreigners they should be expelled. Foreigners, once they are on our soil, must respect our laws, and we cannot tolerate calls for murder in the capital of human rights.”105 Some commentators tried to convince the British government to adopt a similarly tough approach. Peter Murtagh wrote: “The Government (…) should confront Iran with the consequences of its statement and remind the Islamic community that it cannot incite people to murder.”106

Other religious leaders As might be expected, Iran was also seeking allies in both the West and among Muslim nations for its stance in the Rushdie Affair. One of their allies in the struggle against the blaspheming Rushdie was the pope. The Iranian embassy to Vatican City demanded that the pope should join their 102 Appignanesi & Maitland, The Rushdie File, p. 81. 103 The Guardian, 23 February 1989. 104 Le Monde, 1 March 1989. 105 Le Monde, 2 March 1989. 106 Peter Murtagh in The Guardian, 16 February 1989.

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actions against Rushdie. A senior Vatican official commented on this request, saying that he doubted whether the Holy Father would take any action. As the spokesman said: “After all, he is not a defender of the Moslem faith. In fact, this move by the Iranian diplomats is rather out of place.”107 Apparently, the spokesman of the Vatican did not consider this an opportunity to make clear where the Vatican stood in matters of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. He was only concerned with the fact that the Iranians sought the wrong partner for their protest. His further explanations of the Vatican stance did not improve matters. He said: “It’s their problem, not ours, we have enough of our own, especially with all the books and films which cast doubt on Jesus Christ himself. We have never asked for Moslem help in curbing their sale.”108 Must we conclude from this that if Muslims had been more helpful in protesting against criticism of Jesus Christ, the Church would have joined the actions of the Iranians against Rushdie? More support for the Iranian point of view came from the side of the Anglican Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie (19212000), called for a strengthening of the law against blasphemy to cover religions other than Christianity. About the offended Muslims Runcie said: “I understand their feelings and I firmly believe that offence to the religious belief of the followers of Islam or any other faith is quite as wrong as an offence to the religious beliefs of Christians.”109 This was a very common reaction among believers in other creeds. They saw the Rushdie Affair as an opportunity to complain about their own predicament. Had not been subject to blasphemous jokes and commentary all the time? Some began to suspect that perhaps the Iranians had found the right attitude towards this modernist evil. At least they had the courage to strike back. Khomeini also got some support from orthodox Jews. Rabbi Avraham Ravitz (1934-2009), the leader of the strictly Orthodox Degel Hatorah Party, said that Salman Rushdie needed to be condemned.110 Now we have to be careful, of course, in identifying the reactions of churches with the reactions of individual believers. Although the Vatican reaction was not very helpful, this did not mean all Catholics were uncooperative. On the other hand, the majority of the Catholic reactions were not supportive of Rushdie. A case 107 Vatican spokesman, quoted in The Telegraph, 16 February 1989. 108 Ibid. 109 The Independent, 22 February 1989. 110 Jewish Chronicle, 24 February 1989.

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in point is what Cardinal Decourtray (1923-1994), Archbishop of Lyons and President of the French bishops’ conference, said on the matter. Decourtray issued a declaration that contained two important points. First that he had not read Rushdie’s novel. Second that he was offended by the book. “Once again, the faith of believers is insulted”, the bishop declared.111 He continued: “Yesterday it was the Christians who were offended by a film which disfigured the face of Christ. Today it is the Muslims by this book about the Prophet.”112 Although not in support of free speech and freedom of thought, the cardinal’s declaration, paradoxically, may have had some positive effect. It may have been instrumental in stimulating a reaction by the French President Mitterrand, who was clearly in support of the principles that Rushdie tried to defend. The President declared on 22 February 1989: “All dogmas which, through violence, violate the freedom of the human spirit and the right to self-expression, represent, in my eyes, absolute evil.”113 Mitterrand was certainly right on this. The freedom to criticize freely is a fundamental institution of liberal democracies. That freedom is not absolute, though, and there are good reasons to reconsider the limits of freedom of speech where incitement to violence is concerned, as Amos Guiora contended in Freedom from Religion (2009).114 Or, to use an example from The Secular Outlook (2010): Ayatollah Khomeini cannot claim the protection of “freedom of speech” when it comes to his death threat towards Salman Rushdie.115 But that acknowledgment of the limits of free speech should not imply that we forget that we need the right to read,116 think,117 criticize,118 and speak when it comes to criticism of religion. Only when religious ideologies can be freely discussed and criticized can we overcome the process of radicalization that we witness within religious communities nowadays. And that also implies, of course, that the ambition to destroy this very institution would not be a bad choice for a terrorist individual, or terrorist organization, aiming to unsettle the basis of free societies. 111 “French cardinal joins attack on ‘insulting’ novel”, in: The Independent, 23 February 1989. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Guiora, Freedom From Religion, pp. 29-59. 115 See “The Limits of Free Speech” in: Cliteur, The Secular Outlook, pp. 134-138. 116 Blanshard, Paul, The Right to Read: The Battle Against Censorship, The Beacon Press, Boston 1955. 117 Bury, A History of the Freedom of Thought. 118 Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief”; Macklem, Timothy, Independence of Mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006.

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As the liberal Dutch Justice Minister, C.H.F. Polak (1909-1981), said in 1970: “Freedom of speech makes it possible that one voices protest against injustice.”119 Therefore Polak considered freedom of speech one of the most important civil liberties, “especially in a democracy like ours”.120 This was before the multiculturalist turn. This expression exuded an old orientation on universal values that seems lacking in the postmodern world we live in.

Is reaching out a wise course to take?

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And here the contrast between the two great philosophers Bertrand Russell and Charles Taylor is interesting. In Russell we have a prominent philosopher who does not shy away from criticism of religion, even when it comes to criticizing central elements of religious faith, defended by the holiest figure of the Christian creed: Christ himself. Russell died in 1970, but it is not difficult to predict how he would have reacted to Khomeini’s fatwa. He would certainly not have compared Khomeini’s stance to that of Rushdie, as Taylor did. Considering what Russell writes in The Scientific Outlook (1931)121 and Religion and Science (1935)122 about the case of Galileo’s conflict with the highest religious authority of his time, the Catholic Church, it seems more likely that Russell would have compared the Rushdie Affair with the Galileo case.123 In making his plea for reaching out, Taylor apparently rejects the significance Rushdie attributes to freedom of speech as a universal principle. What the “western liberal mind” needs is “some degree of understanding”, he said.124 What is not entirely clear, though, is what is there to “understand” when 119 “Goedkeuring van het op 24 October 1966 voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden ondertekende Internationaal Verdrag van New York van 7 maart 1966 inzake de uitbanning van elke vorm van rassendiscriminatie”, in: TK 1969-1970, 93ste vergadering – 27 augustus 1970, pp. 4333-4354, pp. 4347. 120 Polak, Idem. 121 Russell, Bertrand, The Scientific Outlook, Routledge, London and New York 2001 (1931), p. 13. 122 Russell, Religion and Science, pp. 19-49. 123 Shea, William R. & Artigas, Mariano, Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003. See also the sentence of the Inquisition as incorporated in: Russell, The Scientific Outlook, p. 13 ff. and Bury, J.B., History of the Papacy in the 19th Century, Edited, with a Memoir, McMillan and Co. Limited, London 1930, p. 14. 124 It is somewhat ironic that a recent essay co-authored by Taylor starts with a reference to Rushdie whose work is now not explicitly targeted. See: Stephan, Alfred & Taylor, Charles, “Introduction”, in: Stephan & Taylor, eds., Boundaries of Toleration, pp. 1-6, p. 1. It is said: “Rushdie has lived with, and thought profoundly about, religion and the boundaries that demarcate intolerance from tolerance, and even those that cross over beyond toleranc, to mutual respect”.

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someone tells you he will kill you for something you have said. How can you “reach out” to someone who announces he is about to kill you if you use your constitutional right to write a novel? It is a sacred right to believe in God and his messenger, but is the right to reject God and his messenger not equally sacred? David Little in his introduction to Christianity and Religious Freedom (2014) spells out what he, and the Religious Freedom Project, mean by “religious freedom”.125 His understanding of religious freedom comprises, first, “the right to believe or not”.126 The latter element implies that there is also a right “to exit religious groups”. The second element entails the right of individuals and groups to act in civil and political society on the basis of religious conscience or belief. As we have seen throughout this book, the first element, comprising the right “not to believe”, is easily forgotten. Although it is explicitly enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) with the words “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief (…)”, it does not get the attention it deserves. Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) states the same idea: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom (…).” That means that there is a “right to apostatize”. And additionally, that the notion of “heresy” has no place in a modern liberal state committed to the idea of universal human rights. This is an enormous break with tradition. As David Little explains, this modern understanding of religious freedom “is not present within any religious tradition or nation until the modern era”.127 It is important to state this expressis verbis. Not to provoke religious believers or to tar religious traditions, but rather to make clear that all attempts to go back to the “sources” of a religious tradition (“fundamentalism”) to develop adequate ideas about our modern freedoms are highly unfruitful. The idea that you can go back to original scriptural sources to calibrate our modern conception of freedom of religion does not result in recommendations for a free liberal order. There was no freedom of religion in the ancient world. Neither with the Greeks nor with the Israeli people. 125 Little, David, “Introduction”, in: David Litte, T.J. Dermont Dunphy, Karen Taliaferro, eds., Christianity and Religious Freedom: A Sourcebook of Scriptural, Theological, and Legal Texts, Religious Freedom Project, Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Georgetown University, December 2014, pp. 5-7. 126 Ibid., p. 5. 127 Ibid.

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Charles Taylor and Michael Dummett come dangerously close to excusing the most atrocious violence in their interpretations of religious freedom. The Charlie Hebdo massacre was condemned by the Vatican as a “double act of violence, abominable because it is both an attack against people as well as against freedom of the press”.128 But Charles Taylor was more reactionary than the Vatican with his equivocating messages, speculating about Charlie Hebdo who “helped contribute to a situation”.129 Taylor elucidated that the cartoonists “were part of the situation”.130 A joint declaration designed by French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and four French imams, stated: “Without freedom of speech, the world is in danger”. But Taylor could not bring himself to support this. What he defended was a much more restricted form of Catholicism. A form of Catholicism marked by a revolt against modernity. What Taylor seems to mean by “reaching out” is to accept the curtailment of such essential modern freedoms as the freedom of speech and of religion. And this is done under the cloak of “respect”, “dialogue”, “non-provocation”. It is precisely these innocuous sounding terms that make people overlook how dangerous these proposals are. It’s about the forfeiture of principles that have taken ages to ferment but can be lost within one generation. Is this an acceptable form of appeasement or would it mean cultural and intellectual suicide?131 One of the most remarkable developments of our times is that many secularist or nonreligious thinkers display an understanding of religious extremism that was non-existent a generation before. The French thinker Alain Gresh (b. 1948), influenced by Edward Said (1935-2003) and Maxime Rodinson (1915-2004), a self-declared “atheist” and “laïciste”, nonetheless wants to develop what he calls a “humanist approach based on the will to understand the Other”. He wants to free himself from the “fears and fantasies which have the risk to pull us into a war of civilizations”.132 Although it seems this new focus on “the Other” does not necessarily led to lukewarm support for Rushdie133 and Westergaard, it is a fact of life that 128 Quoted in: Swan, Michael, “Charlie Hebdo ‘part of the situation’ that led to attack, says Charles Taylor”. 129 Taylor, quoted in: Swan, Ibid. 130 Swan, Ibid. 131 Bolkestein, Frits, “How Europe Lost Faith in Its Own Civilization”, in: The Wall Street Journal, 4 June 2011. 132 Gresh, Alain, L’Islam, la République et le Monde, Fayard, Paris 2006, p. 8/9. 133 Edward Said himself, whose influence estranged many contemporary intellectuals from universalism and enlightenment ideals, supported Rushdie in: Said, Edward, “Contre les orthodoxies”, in: Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie, pp. 257-259.

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in the case of many contemporary intellectuals it has indeed had this effect. I also sense the same permissiveness in Alfred Stepan’s and Charles Taylor’s introduction to an anthology of articles on tolerance.134 There is that repeated emphasis on “you have to understand”. But it is always understanding for the terrorists and the fanatics that is required from us, never understanding for the cartoonists, novelists, artists, and other individuals who incur the wrath of the zealots. What is asked for, is tolerance towards Khomeini, not from Khomeini. Has the liberal mind become gravely ill? Ill, in the sense of defenseless? Is Berger’s and Gresh’s approach perhaps the only option left because the “western liberal mind” (Taylor) is simply too weak to defend itself against this new and vital religious intimidation, as we may also pick up as a covert message in Charles Taylor’s essay on the Rushdie Affair?135 But if that is the case, would it not be more candid to present it as such? Taylor presents his advice in the guise of a moral commentary. But there is an undertone indicating that he does something different. Does he perhaps give us military or strategic advice? Is he writing between the lines, perhaps, trying to get a message across which cannot be more candidly presented?136 Does he tell us how to save our lives? Perhaps he realizes who is the stronger party in this confrontation. Here Berger is perhaps more straightforward than Taylor when he alludes to a “holy war”. In the light of subsequent developments since the Rushdie Affair, it is important to ask what course of action is the most promising in quelling the sources of religious terrorism. Should we follow Russell or should we follow Taylor? My answer is that we have to follow Russell. But the future of criticism of religion looks bleak, as I will further elaborate on in the final chapter.

134 Stepan & Taylor, “Introduction”, pp. 1-6. 135 That seems to be the pessimistic diagnosis of Bolkestein, “How Europe Lost Faith in Its Own Civilization”. If that were true a plea for “cultural counterterrorism” would be useless. See on this: Cliteur, Paul, “Cultural Counter-Terrorism”, pp. 457-491. For Taylor: Taylor, “The Rushdie Controversy”, pp. 118-122. 136 Strauss, Leo, “Persecution and the Art of Writing”, 1941, republished in: Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London 1988 (1952), pp. 22-38.

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7.

Modern hostage taking The anti-Americanism of the radical Islamists has little to do with the antiimperialism of Mark Twain. In fact, the anti-Americanism of the Islamist is not about the United States, but reflects their contempt for the liberal social democratic society we have built and its emphasis on liberty and freedom of the individual itself. Tarek Fatah 1

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Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Ephesians 5:11 (ESV)

The previous chapters will by some readers be experienced as “pessimistic”. That is partly true, although the worst is still to come. Nevertheless, there is light at the end of the tunnel because once we have a clear diagnosis of the evils that beset us, we are in a position to think about solutions. That makes all pessimistic analyses hopeful too. Once we have an insight into our situation, we are able to cope with it. The previous chapters have presented abundant material that shows that our politicians have little idea about the severity of the crisis they face. Politicians and mainstream doctrine emphasize that the number of victims of terrorist attacks is relatively small, but they forget that the cultural impact of these attacks on liberal democratic culture is huge. This final chapter has one definite goal: to make clear that the predicament of Salman Rushdie, Kurt Westergaard, and any other writer, cartoonist, or show master is not only their predicament but also our situation. This is also spelled out by Bassam Tibi in his introduction to this book. Tibi asserts that the accusation of Islamophobia can be interpreted as an instrument of hostage taking. As will have become clear after the previous chapters in this book, my claim is that states, confronted with the challenge of theoterrorism, have 1 Fatah, Tarek, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illustion of an Islamic State, John Wiley & Sons Canada, Mississauga, Ontario 2008, p. xiv.

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a very limited and even contorted idea of the forces they have to deal with. Naturally, they fight “terrorism”, but they have no idea what its root causes are, i.e. religious radicalism. Most of the analysts and politicians even vehemently deny religion or ideology as a relevant factor in contemporary theoterrorism.2 One of the most puzzling aspects of the Rushdie Affair, and contemporary religious terrorism in general which targets novelists, show masters, artists, cartoonists, politicians, and ordinary citizens of Western and non-Western states,3 is that scholars, politicians, public intellectuals, and the public at large have so much difficulty in interpreting the situation. There is such a confusing array of aspects to the case that people easily lose sight of the heart of the matter. And perhaps there is no “heart”, no “essence” of what this is all about. Perhaps it is about many things. About freedom of religion, national sovereignty, blasphemy, free speech, decency, politeness, dialogue, the so-called “arrogance of the West”, and the backwardness of fanatics. And probably this is only a selection of relevant angles to study this topic. Some people try to frame the situation as a discussion about the “right to offend”. 4 Is there such a right? Others try to frame the situation as a discussion on artistic freedom. It’s about one specific writer, or about the right of novelists to write.5 Again, other people try to frame the situation as a discussion on how to deal with ethnic and religious minorities. And another group sees in the Rushdie Affair and its offshoots a discussion about the self-righteous West, trying to maintain its “hegemony”.6 These are all very different interpretations of one and the same event. 2 See e.g. Pappe, Robert, “The Logic of Suicide Terrorism”, in: The American Conservative, 18 July 2005, pp. 1-10. 3 See for examples of intimidations of politicians, artist,s and scholars worldwide: Bennoune, Karima, Your Fatwa Does not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London 2013. 4 See on this: Bot, Michiel, “The Right to Offend? Contested Speech Acts and Critical Democratic Practice”, in: Law and Literature, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Summer 2012), pp. 232-264; Winston, Brian, A Right to Offend, Bloomsbury, London 2012; Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, “The Right to Offend”, Speech in Berlin, 9 February 2006, in English: nrc.nl, 10-2-2006, also in German: “Das Recht, zu beleidigen”, in: Chervel & Seeliger, ed., Islam in Europa, pp. 23-29; Ogien, Ruwen, La liberté d’offenser: Le sexe, l’art et la morale, Éd. La Musardine, Paris 2007. 5 This is the impression we get, of course, of some of the manifestations of adherence to Rushdie as organized by fellow novelists. Nevertheless, there is one author, Graham Swift, who correctly stated: “The theme is not literature; your rights as a citizen is what this is all about”. See: Swift, Graham, “Die Literatur feiern”, 19-2-1992, in: Thierry Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben, pp. 102-103, at p. 102. 6 Books like Ibn Warraq, Why the West is Best: A Muslim’s Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy, Encounter Books, New York, London 2012, are often considered to be characteristic of this attitude.

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What I have done throughout this book is try to understand and analyze the Rushdie Affair and its offshoots as what might be called a form of “modern hostage taking”. Let me try to explain what I mean by this.

Hostage taking in general A “hostage” is a person seized and brought under the power of another person or organization, usually in order to compel another person or organization (including the state) to do something they would not have done without coercion. There is a long history of political or military use of hostage taking in which sometimes one organization, or one state, willingly brought certain hostages into the power of another organization or state as a guarantee of good faith, or in the observance of obligations. This element is clearly included in the definition of “hostage” we find in The Oxford Companion to the Law (1980):

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A person, usually of importance, taken from, or surrendered by agreement by one belligerent to another, to be held as security.7

The Oxford Companion continues by saying that the practice was formerly common as a means of securing legitimate warfare. But this is no longer the case. Nowadays the seizure of persons and holding them as hostages is resorted to by hijackers of aircraft and trains. Usually to force governments to give in to the terrorists’ demands.8 Jean-Paul Laurens’s (1838-1921) painting Les Otages (1896) shows us two young boys, one about ten years old and the other a little older, who, as we gather from the sophisticated clothing, must be of noble birth.9 In combination with the title of the painting, hostages, we may conjecture this refers to a situation that was more common in former times than it is nowadays. The Romans sometimes took sons of tributary princes and educated them at Rome. There they were held as a security for the continued loyalty of a conquered people. And apart from that, the Romans also educated possible future leaders in the ways and dealings of Roman civilization.10 7 “Hostage”, in: Walker, David M., The Oxford Companion to Law, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1980, p. 582. 8 The Oxford Companion to Law, p. 582. 9 Musée d’Orsay, Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921): Peintre d’histoire, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris 1997, p. 114. 10 Allen, Joel, Hostages and hostage-taking in the Roman Empire, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006.

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Hostage taking in the traditional sense of the word was a very common practice in fourteenth-century France and England. In September 1339, Edward III attacked France with a force of around 15,000 men under his command.11 The protracted war that followed included sea battles. In 1340, during one of those confrontations, the English took the rich Frenchmen prisoner and threw the rest overboard, where – in the lively description by Steve Clarke – the armor of the Frenchmen “did not help them swim to safety”.12 The French leaders Quiéret and Béhuchet tried to save their skin by surrendering and hoping to be held for ransom. Unfortunately for them, this was not accepted by the English and both were killed. During the war on the French mainland, the nobles who were taken prisoner were sometimes luckier: they were sent to England where heavy prices were demanded to get them back.13 Anyone not rich enough to hold for ransom was killed. Later Edward also started something of a stock market for hostages, as Clarke writes, and anyone returning from France with a valuable prisoner stood a good chance of selling him or her to the King. Edward would then contact the relatives of the rich captive and extort the full price.14 One may also compare the ancient hostages with prisoners of war. The practice of taking hostages as security for carrying out treaties has now become obsolete in international law. Taking hostages is nowadays considered an act of terrorism. But in the modern sense the identification of taking hostages with acts of terrorism is of relatively recent origin. It dates from the 1970s when armed terrorists kidnapped civilians of their own or another nation-state to enforce their will upon the state or society at large. In 1979 the United Nations General Assembly adopted The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages. The United States also considers hostage taking a federal criminal offense pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 203 with as the relevant clause: “whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure, or to continue to detain another person in order to compel a third person or a governmental organization to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the person detained, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years for life and, if the death of any person results, shall be punished by death or life imprisonment.” 11 12 13 14

Clarke, Stephen, 1000 Years of Annoying the French, Black Swan, London 2010, p. 87. Ibid., p. 91. Ibid., p. 93. Ibid., p. 110, 121.

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Famous hostages were Julius Caesar, Richard I of England, returning from a crusade, emperor Theodoric the Great, and, more recently, Terry Waite. The most famous situation of hostage taking in the recent history of the United States is undoubtedly the Iran hostage crisis (1979-81). Here – as we have seen in Chapter 1 – Iran seized sixty-six American citizens at the US embassy in Tehran, holding fifty-two of them for more than a year. The crisis, which took place during the chaotic aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution (1978-79) and its overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy, had a dramatic effect on domestic politics in the United States, poisoned US–Iranian relations for decades, and proved a deadly blow to the popularity of the Carter administration. In our recent past kidnapping Europeans for ransom has become a global business for Al Qaeda. One of the reasons for this is that it is extremely profitable because, although they deny doing so, particularly European governments appear willing to pay ransoms to free their citizens.15 An investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda and affiliates have taken at least 125 million dollars from kidnappings since 2008. Approximately half of that amount was paid in 2013, which makes it clear that the business is booming.16 As reporter Rukmini Callimachi writes: “Put bluntly, Europe has become an inadvertent underwriter of Al Qaeda”.17 Kidnapping for ransom has become today’s most significant source of terrorist financing and each transaction encourages another transaction. Taking hostages has also become a sort of specialty for particular organizations. Instead of doing the work themselves, terrorists outsource it to criminal groups that work on commission. Only the United States and Great Britain resist paying ransoms. Knowledge of how to successfully kidnap victims is also shared by terrorist organizations. In 2004 Abdelaziz al-Muqrin, an Al Qaeda operative, published a guide on how to conduct a successful kidnapping operation.18 Quite successful in the “kidnapping business” (this phrase could be mistaken for cynic commentary were it not that what is described is very real) is Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL). As Islam scholar Robert Spencer writes in The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS (2015), Islamic State demanded $100 million for the release of journalist James Foley.19 No ransom was paid and Foley was beheaded. It demanded $200 million for the life of another 15 Callimachi, “Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror”. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Spencer, Robert, The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS, Regnery Publishing, Washington 2015, p. 111.

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hostage, Haruna Yakawa. When no payment was provided by the Japanese government Yakawa too was beheaded. The Treasury Department estimates that in 2014 alone Islamic State took in $20 million in ransom payments.20 This proves that in many instances Islamic State is successful in having a ransom paid. The Daily Mail tells the story of a hostage who was forced to call his family during a torture session so that his screams would bring them to a point where they would pay the $80,000. When the money was paid, the victim was released.21

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Modern hostage taking I will now address what I want to call modern hostage taking. I don’t mean the “modern” hostage taking referred to above: the situation that arose in the 1970s in which armed terrorists kidnapped civilians to enforce their will upon the state or society at large. Nor do I refer to hostage taking by terrorists mainly for financial reasons, as described in the previous section. Modern hostage taking in the sense used here arose with the Rushdie Affair (or the Carrell Affair) and is done for “idealist” motives: to spread fear among the citizens and governments of the nations targeted. This modern hostage taking did not, perhaps, start with a master plan. Initially, people did not even understand what was happening. It started in 1989 (or 1987, see Chapters 1 and 2) with the inconvenience for a writer that, supposedly, would be “hidden from the public” for a few days. Things turned out differently, as we can say in hindsight. The British historian and intellectual Peter Watson (b. 1943) starts his The Age of Nothing (2014) with one of the most hilarious anecdotes of our time. And one of the most bitter as well, although highly relevant for the matter I want to discuss in this chapter. It is about Salman Rushdie who in 1990 had been living in hiding for more than a year. In July of that year the police, Watson tells us, had “a further refinement for his safety – a wig”.22 The idea was that if Rushdie would wear a wig he would be able to walk down the street without attracting attention. Rushdie decided to cooperate with the wig experiment. When he had put it on, and the police said it “looked great”, the author of the controversial 20 See Spencer, Ibid., p. 112. 21 Quoted in Spencer, Ibid., p. 113. 22 Watson, Peter, The Age of Nothing: How we have sought to live since the Death of God, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2014, p. 1.

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novel decided to “take it for a walk”.23 Once he was on the street Rushdie noted that several people burst into wide grins or even laughter. He heard one man’s voice say: “there’s that bastard Rushdie in a wig”.24 The anecdote, told by Rushdie himself in his memoir Joseph Anton25 and commented upon by Watson, is interesting for several reasons. First, it confronts us with the question, are we less naive now than in 1990, or is the level of awareness of theoterrorist threat still the same? Second, what about the attitude of the general public? The man who recognized Rushdie on the street spoke of “that bastard Rushdie”. Apparently, the man on the street had no idea that the situation had something to do with himself. That it was also his freedom that was at stake, not only Rushdie’s. He had no idea, so to speak, that it was not the individual British author Salman Rushdie who was wearing the wig, but the whole of British society, the British government, the British state. The wig is a kind of symbol for the predicament of Great Britain at that very moment in time. It was also Margaret Thatcher wearing the wig. Or Geoffrey Howe. But also the man who made the remark about the wig. He was the “bastard” he was talking about. After all, he too had voted for the laws governing Great Britain. These laws and individual human rights were not the brainchildren of a silly Anglo-Indian writer, but the laws of England: his England. The British, by upholding the Magna Carta or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, have chosen for those values.26 And now, one of their citizens, Rushdie, was a hostage in his own country, because for him some of these values seem abrogated. But before I elucidate further what I mean by the notion “modern hostage taking”, let me first emphasize that the way I portray the situation is undoubtedly very different from the way the principal agents frame it. And by “principal agents” I mean the Iranian regime, Western governments (that of the US and Great Britain, among others), Salman Rushdie himself, and also the fellow novelists who supported him.27 Traditional hostage taking, e.g. the way Terry Waite (b. 1939) and other hostages were taken, often means that someone who is physically present 23 Ibid., p. 1. 24 Ibid., p. 2. 25 Rushdie, Joseph Anton. 26 See some of these ideas: Vallance, Edward, A Radical History of Britain, Abacus, London 2010 (2009). 27 See: MacDonogh, Steve, ed., In Association with Article 19, The Rushdie Letters: Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Write, Brandon Book Publishers, Kerry, Ireland 1993; Chervel, Thierry, ed., Redefreiheit ist das Leben; Anouar Abdallah et al., Pour Rushdie.

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in the territory of another state is taken into captivity to exert pressure on a foreign regime. Modern hostage taking is different. Here someone (Carrell, Rushdie, and others) is not physically taken captive but the targets are threatened in the state where they live by foreign powers (either stately powers, as is the case with Iran, or religious or criminal organizations as Al Qaeda) who, by operating in the way indicated, terrorize the individual targeted and also the state where that person lives (or in the case of great international solidarity: the international community).28 This threat is so severe, and the countries where the threatened people live are so much in confusion about what has happened to them, that this kind of terrorist tactic is very effective. Basically, it leaves the country hit by the new strategy in great turmoil and embroiled in perplexing and protracted discussions about decency, national guilt, the freedom to offend, and the limitations of free speech. Modern hostage taking, as it manifested itself in the Rushdie Affair (and to a lesser extent in the Carrell Affair), accomplished that governments and important politicians started doubting their most sacred principles. Now this is a great success for terrorism indeed. Modern hostage taking is therefore much more effective than the old physical hostage taking. So effective, in fact, that the expectation seems justified that it will continue, and even augment.

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Why modern hostage taking is so effective From a certain perspective, making this claim is deemed to be “alarmist”. The one who engages in this type of analysis is accused of being in the grip of “fear” or “panicky”.29 But from another perspective, it might also be deemed realistic. And that modern hostage taking will increase also seems realistic. There are five reasons why this relatively new technique is so effective. First, it does not require complicated actions to get the person targeted in your power. If you take someone hostage in the traditional way, then you 28 What the Rushdie Affair distinguished from the Cartoon Affair, Jones Affair and the Trial of Wilders was that Rushdie generated international support from fellow writers. See e.g. MacDonogh, ed., In Association with Article 19, The Rushdie Letters; Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben. The Cartoon Affair did not result in such mass-scale support. The Jones Affair did lead to reactions from all over the world, but in the case of Jones of people rejecting his activities, as we have seen in Chapter 7. 29 See on this: Bourke, Joanna, Fear: A Cultural History, Shoemaker & Hoard, Emeryville CA 2006 (2005).

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have to capture the person first, and subsequently keep him alive in some hidden place. This is all fairly complicated. The people perpetrating the hostage taking are working under stressful conditions. Usually, they start quarreling with their fellow criminals about what has to happen. The Dutch movie “De Heineken ontvoering” (2011), or “The Kidnapping of Heineken”, gives a lively picture of these quarrels.30 A fatwa of the type that Ayatollah Khomeini issued in 1989 (our main case of “modern hostage taking”) does not have this inconvenience for the “kidnappers”. The only thing you have to do is make a statement that will cause havoc in another part of the world. Afterward, you can continue with your business. According to Daniel Pipes (b. 1949), one of the first writers to produce a monograph on the Rushdie Affair, this shows how easy such a “kidnapping” can be organized. “Khomeini proceeded to summon a secretary and then took the single most important step in the entire incident. He dictated the following legal judgment ( fatwa) against Rushdie and his publishers (…)”.31 So you do not have to organize a spectacular seizure of the victim in a faraway country, as the Israelis had to with Adolf Eichmann.32 You do not have to ponder over the matter where to hide the victim after he has been brought under your surveillance. You do not have to bother about internal discussions about the legitimacy of continuing with an act once perpetrated. You only have to call your secretary, formulate the death sentence, and subsequently, the person or institute intimidated (in this case Rushdie and the government of the United Kingdom) is brought in a most precarious (if not hopeless) position.33 It’s up to him, the victim, to convince his fellow countrymen that they have lost their freedom as well. And that they would do well to bear the colossal costs of the protection. But it can take years to get that message across, if at all. The second reason why modern hostage taking is so effective is that it has a greater terrorizing effect on the persons targeted than traditional hostage taking because it sends a much more frightening message to the people living in a foreign country. Let me reintroduce an example discussed earlier. In Chapter 3, I cited Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the four suicide 30 “De Heikenen ontvoering”, director Maarten Treurniet. This film is about the kidnapping of the Dutch businessman Freddy Heineken (1923-2002). Heineken and his driver Ab Doderer were kidnapped in 1983 and released on a ransom of c. 16 million euros. 31 Pipes, The Rushdie Affair, p. 27. 32 Mulisch, Criminal Case 40/61. 33 As Waldron so well understood, as I have made clear in the previous pages. See: Waldron, Jeremy, “Rushdie and Religion”, pp. 134-143.

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terrorists responsible for the London underground bombings on 7 July 2005. He said: “Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment, and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”34 This is an important passage because it teaches us something about the motives of theoterrorists. Apparently, the aim is to make people feel uncomfortable in their situation. The idea is to get the message across that, although people may feel safe in the territory of their own state, in fact, they are not. This is very effective because many people have the idea that if, say, Terry Waite goes to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages and is subsequently seized, and held captive himself (as happened between 1987 and 1991), this gives a feeling of unease. But this particular feeling of unease is nothing compared to the feeling people experience when, even in the territory of their own state, they are not immune from terrorist attacks and other types of aggression. In fact, it brings modern societies back to earlier stages of development when physical security was less well developed.35 It is for that very reason that Rushdie (and not Khomeini) is called “that bastard” by the man who recognized him despite the wig. From the point of view of the man in the street, it is Rushdie (not Khomeini) who is the primary cause of that loss of security in England. The essential reasoning is, no book, no fatwa, no problem. It is a misguided conception of causality, of course (a conception of causality that even bedeviled one of the great philosophical geniuses of our time, Michael Dummett, as we have seen in Chapter 6), because this would mean that a victim’s cause of death is not a knife stab by the villain, but the vulnerability of the human body. And yet, this mistaken conception of causality is, in the controversy discussed in this book, hugely popular. Not only with the man in the Clapham Omnibus, but with members of parliament, influential intellectuals, and professors of logic and metaphysics. Third, the modern tactic of hostage taking is so popular with aggressors, because it is extremely humiliating for the country (and especially the government) where it occurs. Usually people concentrate on the immediate victim: Rushdie, Westergaard, or Carrell. But we should not forget (one of 34 BBC, “London Bomber: Full Text”. 35 See for a comparison of our own time with previous epochs with regard to physical safety: Pinker, Steven, The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, Viking, Penguin, London 2011.

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the reasons why this has a very positive spin-off from the perspective of the terrorist) that “the British” and “the Danish”, as a people, are also involved. As are their governments. When in 1979 the American embassy in Tehran was occupied, and sixty-six Americans were seized, this was a humiliating experience for the United States.36 When in April 1980 a rescue operation was organized and failed, this only added to the catastrophe. And when Terry Waite was captured in Lebanon this obviously put the British government in a tight spot. But no one (and this is the point I want to make) will think that the United States is weak because it could not forestall the taking of hostages abroad during that crisis. Nor will anyone reproach the British government for not being able to maintain civil order in Lebanon. But if a government cannot fulfill its primary function, viz. to protect its citizens in its own territory, this is a matter of grave concern. In fact, it is an utter humiliation and, conversely, great glory for the terrorist organization. So great is the glory for the terrorist agency (and corresponding humiliation for the state whose nationals are taken captive in its own territory) that I think this partly explains Margaret Thatcher’s negative feelings towards Rushdie. In his conversation with Rushdie, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy (b. 1948) indicated that he had heard Margaret Thatcher saying that Rushdie deserved this, and also that Prince Charles was chuckling about the Rushdie Affair in Paris, saying that Rushdie was quite expensive for the British Crown.37 It is no secret that Thatcher had very negative feelings about Rushdie. This is commonly explained by referring to the fact that Rushdie had written unfavorably about the British prime minister. I do not think this is the most likely reason for her aversion to Britain’s most controversial author. A much more likely reason is the affair made Thatcher seem weak. His case, the fatwa, made the Iron Lady look silly and vulnerable, in other words, not very “ironlike”. A famous anecdote about Thatcher and the American President Bush Senior may be illustrative here. When Bush hesitated about how to react to the seizure of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein in 1990, Thatcher helped Bush to overcome his hesitations with the words, “This is no time to go wobbly, George”.38 36 See: Carter, Keeping Faith, p. 431 ff. 37 Lévy, Avec Salman Rushdie, pp. 78 and 96. 38 Coughlin, Con, “Margaret Thatcher: It was an Iron Law that there should be no Surrender to Terrorism”, in: The Telegraph, 13 April 2013.

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In the Rushdie Affair, in a certain sense much more delicate, Thatcher and the British government (as all Western governments) have been “wobbly” all the time. I think this is the most important reason why no mention at all of Salman Rushdie in Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography.39 He made the British government feel embarrassed. Not because of what he wrote, but because the government had great problems fulf illing an most important duty vis-à-vis Rushdie, i.e. safeguarding the territory of the state against physical threats by other actors. Although the government, to their credit, has been able to keep Rushdie alive, it is still a humiliating situation for a country to you have to hide your citizens, deprive them of their elementary right to move about freely in the territory of the state in order to keep them alive. In Rushdie’s autobiography, there is an interesting quote from his bodyguards which is relevant to this context: “Regarding the matter in hand, [bodyguards] Benny and Stan were reassuring. ‘It can’t be allowed.(…) Threatening a British citizen. It’s not on. It’ll get sorted. You just need to lie low for a couple of days and let the politicians sort it out’.”40 This is a great passage because it so wonderfully reflects what people who are not familiar with all the higher politics might think. “It’ll get sorted.” Unfortunately, it didn’t. And least of all by the politicians. They have been struggling with the matter for years and years, and slowly it begins to dawn upon us (and upon them, one may hope) how little the matter has been improved. Is it over the top to say that modern states can barely fulfill their primary obligations vis-à-vis Rushdie, Westergaard, and others regarding their physical safety and freedom of movement at the same time? Are we back in a pre-1648 situation? That brings me to the fourth reason why modern hostage taking is so effective. The tactic of modern hostage taking is also superior to older tactics, because it now proves much easier to stimulate a confusing debate about the moral foundations of Western countries. I will elaborate this point a little further in the next section.

Contagious indignation Let us try to imagine what the discussion on The Satanic Verses would have been like had there not been terrorist intimidation towards its author. Would 39 Thatcher, The Path to Power. 40 Rushdie, Joseph Anton, p. 146.

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Jimmy Carter, the Vatican, John Le Carré, and all the other detractors of Rushdie have taken a stance against the book if Khomeini had not taken offense? Though it cannot be proven with absolute security, it seems fair to speculate: probably not. I addressed this topic earlier when discussing Jimmy Carter’s reaction to Khomeini’s fatwa in Chapter 6. Now the consequences of this state of affairs are far-reaching. It means that the indignation of Western intellectuals and politicians on Rushdie’s positions on the Prophet Mohammed and matters deemed sacred by religious believers is heavily dependent on the ideas of Khomeini. Simply by threatening with violence (or even the expectation that he may threaten with violence, think of the Rudi Carrell Affair discussed in Chapter 1). Jimmy Carter would probably never have published a piece entitled “Rushdie’s book is an insult” on 5 March 198941 if three weeks earlier, on 14 February, Khomeini had not indicated that the book was an insult. In other words, Carter felt insulted because Khomeini felt insulted. Or perhaps because Khomeini affected to feel insulted. 42 One may raise the objection that this is all too obvious. Of course, one might say, Carter would not have taken offense if Khomeini had not taken offense. The British author Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) opined that when she read The Satanic Verses she could not understand that some Muslims would be concerned about what was written there. The most controversial passage was, after all, what appeared in a dream to one of the characters in a novel.43 Suppose Jimmy Carter had not read Rushdie’s novel (assuming he did, in fact, read the novel) at the height of the protests and death threats to the author, but as a book he had taken on holiday to read on a beach somewhere, far removed from all the sound and fury described in the modern media – would Carter have been just as enraged by the contents of the book? Probably not. That brings us to an important consequence for the subject of theoterrorism: indignation is contagious. Even simply affecting indignation can have a tremendous effect on others. It seems not unduly speculative to presume that some Islamist leaders used this indignation instrumentally to rally confused Western intellectuals behind their cause. 44 This makes it 41 Carter, “Rushdie’s book is an insult”. 42 That Khomeini was a complicated person who was more a man of the world than we think appears clearly from Oriana Fallaci’s insightful interview with the Iranian dictator. See: Fallaci, “Ayatollah Khomeini”. 43 Atwood, Margaret, “Traum im Kopf eines Taugenichts”, 8-2-1992, in: Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben, pp. 62-65. 44 See on this: Landes, Richard, “From Useful Idiot to Useful Inf idel: Meditations on the Folly of the 21st-Century ‘Intellectuals’”, in: Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 25, No. 4, 2013, pp. 621-634.

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very rewarding for potential terrorists, and those sympathizing with their ideology, to walk around with an air of “indignation” all the time. Feeling insulted by pornography on the internet, by satire of the Prophet, even by the way women dress on the streets in Europe and the United States. 45 The curious situation arises that we come to live in a world where a pretense of “feeling insulted” is an important precondition for implementing the terrorist agenda. And realizing this in a very effective way. Khomeini’s fatwa has effectively undermined Western self-confidence in its own values of free speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion, to such an extent that we find UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denouncing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz denouncing the European Human Rights Charter. In July 2012 the film Innocence of Muslims was posted on the internet, a satiric version of the life of Mohammed, a clumsy remake of Monty Python’s Life of Brian but with the Islamic Prophet substituted for Brian/Jesus. The film (or rather a fragment) was made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian Copt who moved to the United States and was convicted of various petty crimes. Both Ban Ki-moon and Martin Schulz distanced themselves from the film instead of supporting free speech, as we have seen in the previous chapters. 46 That sudden abandonment of core values of civilized governance under the pressure of theoterrorism is a most remarkable phenomenon of our times. It is this mechanism that seems to bring an excellent legal mind as Lord Phillips (b. 1938)47 to simply overlook the fact that sharia law annihilates all the values he has believed in all his life, i.e. values about equality of the sexes, equality before the law, and one law for all. These are all ideas that Lord Phillips, President of The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the highest legal office, most likely has believed in all his life. 48 And now, he suddenly starts to doubt all that because he thinks that ethnic and religious minorities make some comments, and this makes him immediately doubt the legitimacy of his own feelings (which are, to be sure, that Jesus and Buddha can be criticized, so why not Mohammed?). This is perhaps a good 45 One of the preoccupations of Sayyid Qutb, a foremost Islamist ideologue. See on him: Berman, The Flight of the Intellectuals, pp. 42-41; 50-53; 186-187. 46 Herrenberg, “Denouncing Divinity. 47 Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord, “Equality before the Law”, Keynote speech at the East London Muslim Centre, 3 July 2008, in: Ahdar & Aroney, eds., Shari’a in the West, pp. 309-318. 48 The arguments why sharia law is not compatible with human rights in the sense of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are spelled out in: ECtHR, “Refah Partisi (The Welfare Party) v. Turkey”, 13 February 2003. See also: Zee, Choosing Sharia.

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example of what Mario Vargas Llosa writes about the very thin layer of civilization. It is very thin, but also highly vulnerable. And with the first clash with something that seems stronger it can crumble down. 49 That brings us to the fifth, and final, point why modern theoterrorists are so effective in intimidating Western politicians. The modern tactic of hostage taking is so effective because the victims can never know when the situation is terminated. In fact, there is no termination. There was no end when Khomeini died. There was no end with new declarations of the Iranian government. The only end is the natural death of Salman Rushdie, as some wistful early commentaries pointed out.50 Suppose Khomeini had canceled the fatwa. Then there can still be some fanatic who is more popish than the pope.51 And suppose the Iranian government issues a declaration that, from now on, they will concentrate on another target, e.g. not a novelist but a politician. Would this save the target Salman Rushdie? Not completely, because, again, there can always be some zealous terrorist like Phinehas in the Book of Numbers, i.e. someone who aspires to outbid the official leaders of the Iranian regime (which has now begun to grow decadent, less committed to the cause, hasn’t it?). That is precisely what is characteristic of present-day theoterrorism: Phinehas does not need Elijah’s (an informal terrorist ideologue) or Moses’ (the official leader of the people) approval to avenge any assault on the reputation of God. Phinehas radicalizes the “protestant principle” that every believer is his own pope.

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The Kouachi Brothers’ final declaration of loyalty Directly after the shooting in the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo, Chérif Kouachi, one of the two Kouachi brothers who conducted the attack, commented on what had happened. A French television network managed to get into phone contact with Chérif while the brothers were holed up inside a 49 Llosa, Mario Vargas, “Sehr dünnes Häutchen”, 14-2-1992, in: Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben, pp. 95-97, at p. 95. 50 Saramago wrote at the end of his open letter to Rushdie that he did not know whether they would meet one day or that Rushdie would be forever forced to live disconnected from the rest of the world. See: Saramago, José, “Die Strasse von Santiago”, 31-1-1992, in: Chervel, Redefreiheit ist das Leben, pp. 36-39, at p. 38. That same pessimism, or realism, can also be found in Jeremy Waldron’s essay on the matter. See: Waldron, “Rushdie and Religion”, pp. 134-143. 51 Karima Bennoune describes this mechanism referring to Anwar al-Awlaki: “Anwar al-Awlaki was indeed killed by the US government about a year later, something I did not celebrate. Unfortunately, he never rescinded his own death list, which remains out there in cyberspace with a long half-life”. See: Bennoune, Your Fatwa Does not Apply Here, p. 24.

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printing factory outside Paris. A journalist for France’s BFMTW, Igor Sahiri, asked Chérif what were the motives for the attack.52 Kouachi: We’re telling you that we are the prophet’s defenders, peace and blessings be upon him, and that I, Chérif Kouachi, was sent by Yemen’s Al Qaeda.53

The journalist asked Kouachi whether he planned to kill more people. The theoterrorist answered with a semantic commentary on the concept “killer”: Kouachi: We are not killers. We are defenders of the Prophet, we don’t kill women. We kill no one. We defend the Prophet. If someone offends the Prophet then there is no problem, we can kill him. We don’t kill women. We are not like you. You are the one killing women and children in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This isn’t us. We have an honor code in Islam.

What follows is an interesting commentary on the notion and significance of the concept “revenge”. Interviewer: But you just sought revenge here, you killed 12 people.

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Kouachi: Yes, because we sought revenge. You just said it well. You said it yourself, we sought revenge.

Authors like Noam Chomsky or John Esposito will focus on the part of Kouachi’s comment where he refers to “you are the one killing women and children in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan”. Isn’t his killing revenge for interventions by Western powers in the Middle East? Interpreted in this way, the religious or theological dimension vanishes and the Kouachi brothers are only political actors. But there is another dimension, as it appears from this exchange of words between the theoterrorist and the journalist, and this is the focus of Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech – that Chérif will kill anyone who, in his view, offends the prophet. And his killing is seen as some sort of “defense”. This defense is not something which only takes place in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but also in Paris, Amsterdam, Aarhus, or any place in the 52 Saliba, Emanuelle, “Paris Killer Cherif Kouachi Gave Interview to TV Channel Before He Died”, NBC News, 9 January 2015. 53 Translated from the French by NBC News.

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world where this so-called “offense” takes place, irrespective of the national legislation of the countries involved. If European and American nation-states are not successful in curbing this danger their cartoonists, playwrights, novelists, and talk show hosts are a potential target as long as they do not comply with the holy legal order the theoterrorists aim to protect. It makes them hostages in their own countries, because they are basically outlaws, struggling to survive while their official leaders (Moses) do not know how to react. And, as I have shown in this book, it also makes us hostages in our own countries. Appeasement of the sort defended by Charles Taylor and Michael Dummett will only make matters worse because the theoterrorists will not rest until they have uprooted the whole liberal democratic order. Countering this with “respect” and “dialogue” is not a promising strategy. The tactic of modern hostage taking is so effective because the targets (and the state supposed to protect the target) have to be active and alert, while the potential perpetrators of an attack can relax and prepare themselves at a pace they deem appropriate. The only possible effective remedy against the attack is perhaps the announcement that possible attackers will be killed, but even then: how do you scare off people who do not fear death?54 So the whole matter is also a trial of exhaustion. Whose force and determinateness will prevail in this conflict is hard to predict at this point. Sometimes it seems the theoterrorists are so determined to realize their goals, and the weakness of Western leaders so embarrassingly manifest, that we must fear for the worst. Even in countries where there have been no recent official executions for blasphemy (like Pakistan), extremists frequently kill the accused either before or during the trial. Or after the accused are acquitted (wrongly, as the extremists claim).55 This revival of lynch mobs in the contemporary world is the dubious legacy of Khomeini’s highly successful fatwa on the British author Rushdie.

Coda This situation has still not been resolved. On 31 August 2018, an Afghan national, Jawed S., traveling from Germany, and with a German residency permit, stabbed two American tourists in Amsterdam Central Station. It appeared he had come deliberately to the Netherlands to carry out his 54 Pantucci, “We Love Death as You Love Life”. 55 See: Marshall & Shea, Silenced.

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attack, according to a declaration of the public prosecution office.56 He made the trip because he wanted to revenge four types of offense (or insult) he distinguished. And they had all taken place in the Netherlands. First, he noted that the Prophet Mohammed had been insulted. Second, that the Koran had been insulted. Third, that Islam had been insulted. Fourth, that Allah had been insulted in the Netherlands. This time the point of contention was not a novel or a cartoon, but a cartoon contest. The Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders had planned to organize a cartoon contest in the building of Parliament, similar to a cartoon contest held in Dallas, Texas, in 2015. During the American contest two theoterrorists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, were shot dead by security guards. Wilders was present at the event57 which gave him the idea to organize a similar event in the Netherlands. What had happened in the United States had taught Wilders a lesson. Apparently, this lesson was not that one should give up freedom of religious satire (what the philosopher Taylor called “wise judgment”) but that one should adopt the attitude of what Eugene Volokh characterized as “speech as defiance”. UCLA School of Law professor Eugene Volokh introduced this concept in his reaction to the events in Dallas. As is usual on such occasions, most commentators chided organizers of the contest for being “provocative”. Volokh did not. He said: “I think there is a special kind of exercise of free speech here: speech as defiance. The organizers are sending a message that they are not afraid, either of those who would condemn us or even of those who would kill us – at least not so afraid that they will forgo their First Amendment rights.”58 Ironically, just before the attack, Wilders had canceled the cartoon contest (so in the tradition that the Dutch had introduced in 1987, see Chapter 1) because of security considerations (and like Jones had done with his Koran burning).59 Although Wilders’s own security was more or less guaranteed 56 “Station attacker came deliberately to NL, had been spotted by police”, Dutchnews.nl, 4 September 2018. “Dutch anti-Islamist calls off Mohammad cartoon contest after death threats”, in: The Times of Israel, 31 August 2018; “Far-right Dutch MP cancels Muhammad cartoon competition”, in: Associated Press, 30 August 2018. 57 Yan, Holly, “Garland shooting: Other cases involving Americans and Prophet Mohammed drawings”, CNN, 4 May 2015; Yan, Holly, “Garland shooting: What is the American Freedom initiative?”, CNN, 4 May 2015. 58 Volokh, Eugene, “Islamo-non-phobia, and the value of defiance”, in: The Washington Post, May 4, 2015. 59 See: “Dutch anti-Islamist calls off Mohammad cartoon contest after death threats”. Although the title of the article is correct (Wilders is an anti-Islamist politician) the follow-up is false: “the

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by the heavy protection measures that he was (since 2002) subjected to, this could not be said of the Dutch troops in Afghanistan. Again, like Petraeus said in the Terry Jones Affair, the security of the Dutch military in Afghanistan was the problem. So Wilders, reluctantly, dropped his plans. At the moment of the attack, the attacker was unaware of the cancellation or the nationality of the people he stabbed down (Americans). The safety of the Dutch of ambassador Ardi Stoios-Braken also became a cause for concern. Because of the intended, or rather rumored, Dutch cartoon contest he was targeted by the Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). “The safety of our staff is a serious topic of conversation between the Netherlands and Pakistan,” a spokesman of the Pakistani government said to Dutch journalists.60

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Their force or our weakness? What makes theoterrorism so successful is not only the fanaticism of the attackers but also the weakness of liberal societies. What started in 1987 (Carrell) ended in 2015 (Charlie Hebdo). From Carrell to Charlie might not have been a bad choice for the title of this book. What this book also makes clear is that the “incidents” not only show a pattern but are interrelated. In all likelihood, a causal connection exists between the different cases commented on, and analyzed, in this book. This is often forgotten. The history of the theoterrorist assault on free speech is often portrayed in nationalist terms. The British are concerned over their own terrorist attacks, as are the Belgians, the Dutch, and the French. Those attacks, certainly when aimed at the principle of free speech, are connected in the sense that the next attack is a reaction to the previous attack. We lack hard evidence that the Carrell Affair was the stepping stone for the Rushdie Affair. Yet it very likely was. Khomeini, a shrewd strategist, must far-right politician backpedaled on his plans, amid widespread criticism at home with politicians. media and ordinary citizens slamming the idea as needlessly antagonizing Muslims”. First, Wilders is not a “far-right politician”. His policies on social issues are left to center. He is only “far-right” from the perspective of identity politics, which has defined everything seemingly not supporting religious minorities as “right wing”. Second, it is also false that there was widespread protest against his plans by fellow politicians. In fact, the reactions to his plans were rather meek. Most politicians said he had the right to do this. See also: “Far-right Dutch MP cancels Muhammad cartoon competition”. 60 “Lawyer for woman acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan flees to NL”, 5 November 2018, www. dutchnews.nl.

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have realized that his success (in intimidating the Dutch government) in the Carrell Affair was positive evidence that he could intimidate other liberal democratic governments as well. This led to the Rushdie Affair. From that moment on, protagonists of free speech tried different things to salvage a principle that was in such desperate need of support. The cartoon affairs were attempts to provide that support. The Danish Cartoon Affair (2005) was the direct result of the Rushdie Affair (1989) and especially the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam (2004). Here we have hard evidence on record with the testimonials of (then) Jyllands-Posten editor Flemming Rose. From there we proceed to other, more or less well-known, affairs with the Charlie Hebdo Affair (2015) as the most notorious. The Dallas Cartoon Contest (2015) was a reaction to Charlie Hebdo, as the aborted terrorist attack at Amsterdam Central Station in 2018 (“aborted” in the sense that there were no fatalities) was a result of the events in Texas in 2015. The result of the policy of appeasement, which started in 1987, proved unsuccessful for liberal democracy. Democracy was hit in its most precious possession, the principle which distinguishes it from dictatorships, viz. the principle of free speech, the principle to fight the culture wars with words and not with swords (or guns nowadays). This also means that Khomeini, although dead, is still among us in the sense that his legacy lives forth. Western societies are full of “modern hostages”, some of them very noticeable (Rushdie, Westergaard) others more under the radar (the cartoonist who, for mysterious reasons, never feels the urge to draw Mohammed, the novelist who feels more triggered to present Christian dystopias than Islamic equivalents).61 Once we realize the interconnectedness of the presented examples of theoterrorist intimidation, it is tempting to speculate what might have happened if in 1987 the Dutch had acted differently. This is What if history, of course, and therefore always speculative. But at the same time one cannot help raise the question. What if the Dutch had taken a firm stance in 1987 and practiced Volokh’s speech as defiance? What if government had said, “We are a democratic country with free speech as our basis and we are not going to promise a theocratic dictator we will transform our country into something only he considers appropriate.”? The world might have looked differently. What if the Rushdie Affair had not taken place in 1989? Would we have had cartoon affairs in 2005 and 2015? What if Van Gogh had not been murdered in 2004, would the Jyllands-Posten still have published 61 The great exception seems Houellebecq with Soumission, Flammarion, Paris 2015. But his portrayal of the world is so ironic that he is hard to criticize.

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Mohammed cartoons? And what if the Mohammed cartoons would not have been published, would we have had a cartoon contest in the United States in 2015? And what if there had not been an American cartoon contest, would Wilders still have had his plan for such an event in the Netherlands? Seen from this perspective, the Rudi Carrell Affair is crucial. However, the Rudi Carrell Affair is totally unknown in the English speaking world. No author of any book on Rushdie is familiar with the name Carrell. Rushdie himself probably does not know who Carrell was. The name Rudi Carrell is well known in Germany, of course, but in governmental circles he is associated with some diplomatic crisis from the past,62 not with the beginning of something new, viz. theoterrorist suppression of free speech. Nonetheless, this unknown affair changed history. Once our political leaders learn, and also acknowledge, the interconnectedness of the incidents described in this book, there might be room for a more coordinated action. As things go now, every country feels relieved once it has passed on the scourge of international theoterrorism to its neighbors. The Dutch, by complying to the wishes of the dictator Khomeini, put their country off the hook and terrorist attention shifted to the British. The Danish, who were heroic in 2005, afterwards felt betrayed because they had defended freedom in a time of crisis but paid a heavy price for that. Later they declared they did not want any further cartoon affairs. Jyllands-Posten did not support the French cartoonists in 2015. The Danish had learned their lesson a decade earlier.63 The greatest danger (a nightmare, although perhaps for some a dream) is that there will be no “provocateurs” left, not because people are afraid but because they will become more calculating in their behavior. Why defend freedom in a country where no one seems to care? Why would Rushdie defend a freedom that is hardly appreciated by his fellow British or by Americans? Isn’t the fate of Molly Norris a frightful warning to all who might be seduced to help uphold the freedom to draw, write, or say something that shocks, offends, or disturbs?64 62 See: “Carrell-Affäre: nicht klug”, pp. 25-27. Carrell was “not smart” (“nicht klug”), according to this article. Also in Germany the idea prevailed what Charles Taylor represented in the English speaking world, i.e. that it is “smart” (Taylor: “wise judgment”) to give in to terrorists and not smart to defy them (Volokh). 63 “Charlie Hebdo attack: Jyllands-Posten will not print Prophet Mohammed cartoons”, in: The Telegraph, 9 January 2015. 64 As we have seen in chapter 2, according to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the case Handyside v. United Kingdom of 1976, freedom of speech is also applicable to expressions that “shock, disturb and offend”. See: Cherry & Brown, Speaking Freely about Religion, p. 5.

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At this moment in time, liberal democracies have no idea what has happened to them. Their politicians remain silent because speaking the truth (that they traded freedom of speech for temporary peace) is too embarrassing to confess to the public. In the meantime, under the guidance of identity politics we have been distracted by senseless discussions of respect, dialogue, civility, turning the other cheek, inclusiveness, and avoiding hurting the religious sensibilities of so-called vulnerable minorities. The treason of the clerks is staggering. Islamists take advantage of this, i.e. seeing us struggling in meaningless discussions, sapping the fiber of liberal societies.

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Solutions One of the reactions I have noticed time and again in conversations about this topic is, “But what is the solution?”. Now, mind you, people say this before they have confided to you that they see the problem. What they do is let you explain the problem and subsequently indicate they wish to remain neutral or are “not yet convinced”, and when you start giving them solutions they systematically expound all the problems connected to those solutions. Having done that, they do not come up with their own solutions but take the curious step to conclude that “there is no problem”. This sounds unbelievable, perhaps, because it is so totally illogical. From a logical point of view, you can have a problem without having a solution (like you can have an illness without a cure). The two are independent. But from a psychological point of view, apparently, people feel justified in not acknowledging a problem until they have a solution. My response to this intriguing quandary is to stimulate the insight that acknowledging the problem is prior to, and probably part of, the solution. Or stimulate people to acknowledge that you first have to confess there is a problem before you can work on a solution. So you have to build in a “time-out” into the conversation. Where the listener to this problem wants to jump to a premature discussion on “solutions”, we have to take a step back and insist on first acknowledging the reality of a problem. If people do not see a problem all talk about solutions is idle. What this book hopes to make clear is that our own attitude is part of the problem. Liberal democracies are going through a spiritual crisis. Their leaders think that the values of democracy and freedom of speech are, if not negotiable, then at least something we can take with a certain relativism.

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One of the greatest campaigners for Salman Rushdie’s cause as well as the Danish Cartoons was the late Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011). Hitchens was not only a prolific writer but also an eloquent debater who did not shy away from sensitive topics. I want to conclude this book with an anecdote about him. During one of his lectures, a critic asked Hitchens a question which is highly relevant here. Let me call it the “So far the termites have come” incident.65 The audience member said: “Mr. Hitchens, I address you as an atheist and a secularist, and a Marxist. I am very much troubled by your remarks about the need to stand up and fight this Muslim Jihad. I have no time for oppressive religion of any stripe. But I think you are well aware of the long history of crimes committed by the British government in Iraq, the United States government in Vietnam, and today in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I am wondering how you can possibly say that it is Western civilization, the civilization of the colonizers and the oppressors who do it all, of course, in the name of liberation and democracy, how this is not the fundamental problem rather than what you call the Jihad and what I consider to be the response to the crimes of US and European imperialism.”

Hitchens’s response is quick and to the point.

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“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. You see how far the termites have spread and how long and well they have dined. When someone can stand up and say that in a meeting of unbelievers – that the problem is Western civilization, not the Islamic threat to it. That’s how far the termites have come.”

Hitchens does not deny the fact that the United States has committed war crimes. He does not deny Vietnam or many other examples he gives in response to his critic. What he opposes is the conclusion the audience member draws from these examples. Hitchens scolds him by saying “how utterly fatuous your implication is”. He points out that there is no compromise possible with the jihadis. Merely saying you consider it possible to make cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed makes you an enemy. Is the gentleman who posed the question willing to accept all that? Is he willing to accept theoterrorist assaults to atone for atrocities of European countries in the past? And for how long? Will he invite the jihadis to kill his children and 65 www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTnZEtR9LRs

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grandchildren to atone for the misdeeds of his father or grandfather? This means chickens come home to roost. And for how long? The person in the audience has no idea how far-reaching his approach is. Hitchens reproaches him for encouraging terrorism. I think that is fair. Many people do – not willingly, or consciously, but they do nonetheless. They simply take for granted what they see as the theoterrorist response, and have no idea what demons they’re unleashing. They think that by reflecting on the sins of Western powers they make a great contribution to independent moral reflection. The great virtue of Hitchens’s termites metaphor is that it makes clear – at least for those who understand what he is saying – that whether the United States had it wrong in Vietnam or whether the European powers have a colonialist past is not relevant. The man in the audience says, “I have no time for oppressive religion of any stripe.” But how does he think to get rid of the religious fanaticism he is confronted with nowadays? As Russell Blackford reminds us in The Tyranny of Opinion (2018), our greatest source of political virtue and strength is our liberal heritage.66 But it is not well defended nowadays. Does the man in the audience think that American and European confessions of guilt will endear the terrorists? What effect will the admission that Western civilization is one of colonizers and oppressors have on its opponents? The most likely reaction is: not a reaction conducive to rejecting terrorism. Liberal democracies should get their house in order. And they should do so very soon. As Edmund Burke remarked, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

66 Blackford, Russell, The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism, Bloomsbury, London 2018.

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Index 9/11 terrorist attacks 18, 74, 92, 150, 186

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Aboelazm, Munir Awad Abdallah 121 Aboutaleb, Ahmed 69-72, 78 Abulafia, Abraham 25 Acton, Lord 182 Adams, John 115 Adebolajo, Michael 78-82, 84-5, 86-9, 130 Adebowale, Michael 79, 88 Afghanistan 15-17, 35, 97, 101, 107-8, 214, 217, 221 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 28 Ahmedi, Mohamed Arshad 59, 141 Al Andalusi, Abdullah 86 Al Qaeda 75, 80, 82, 87, 91, 97-9, 102, 117, 203, 214 Al-Azmeh, Aziz 134 Al-Banna, Hassan 68 Al-Ghamdi, Mughram 138 Al-Jundi, Muhammed 100 Al-Muqrin, Abdelaziz 203 Al-Qaida 80, 97 Al-Shabaab 102 Amil, Yigal 67 Appignanesi, Lisa 190-1 Applebaum, Anne 120 Aquinas, Thomas 172 Arendt, Hannah 94-5 Aristophane 49 Ashraf, Syed Ali 146 Atran, Scott 90, 225 Ayatollah Khomeini 15, 21-33, 35, 38, 43, 53-60, 65, 67-8, 72, 75-6, 108, 110, 117-9, 124-5, 127-33, 138, 147, 151-3, 158, 166-8, 170-1, 177, 178-80, 184-6, 188, 190, 192-4, 197, 207, 208, 211-3, 215, 217-9 Baha, Abdul 127 Baha’i 127 Baha’ullah 127 Bakhtiar, Shapour 54 Balkenende, Jan-Peter 16 Barreau, Jean-Claude 56 Basiji 28 Begin, Menachem 176 Béhuchet 202 Benn, Tony 113, 116, 180, Berger, John 183-7, 197 Berliner Zeitung 62, 224 Bhatti, Gurpreet Kaur 103 Bigot, Guillaume 56 Bin Laden, Osama 12, 28 Blair, Tony 68, 113 Bloom, Harold 149 Bluitgen, Kare 106 Boko Haram 87 Bolkestein, Frits 44, 50, 196-7

Bouyeri, Mohammed 67, 69, 74-5, 77-8, 81, 83-6, 88 Bradlaugh, Charles 21, 147-9, 172 Brandt, Willy 22 Brinsolaro, Franck 17 Broek, Hans van den 40-5, 51, 65 Browne, Anthony 21, 52, 70 Buddhism 114, 127, 179 Bujak, Shawan Sadak Saeed 121 Burgess, Anthony 188-9, 191 Buruma, Ian 69, 74, 76, 78 Cabu 17 Caesar, Julius 203 Calvin, John 115 Capriolo, Ettore 75, 131 Carré, John le 110, 133, 180, 183-5, 211 Carrell, Rudi 9, 19, 21-3, 25, 27-39, 41-51, 53, 55, 57, 59-63, 75, 104-5, 108, 110-1, 117, 119, 123, 131-2, 140, 171, 178, 187, 204, 206, 208, 211, 217-9 Carter, Jimmy 45, 54, 60, 175-81, 187, 189, 203, 209, 211 Charbonnier, Stéphane (Charb) 17, 163 Charlie Hebdo 15, 17, 45, 70-2, 76, 81, 86-7, 92, 117, 141, 153, 157, 159, 162-3, 196, 213, 217-9 Chaucer 49 Chehabi, H.E. 23-4, 26-7 Chérif Kouachi 81-2, 85, 89, 157, 163, 213-4 Chesnot, Christian 99-101 Clegg, Nick 87-9 Clifford, W.K. 134-5 Clinton, Hillary 11, 16-7 Cohen, Nick 89, 109 Communism 24-6, 57 Copsey, Nigel 91-2 Coptic Christians 36-7, 45 Coulibaly, Amedy 81, 85, 89 Creighton, Bishop Mandell 182 Crown Prince Frederik 121 Dahl, Roald 133, 178-9 Dante Alighieri 25, 120, 152 Davud, Mikael 121 Dawkins, Richard 181-2 Dawkins, Richard 33, 154, 156, 158, 181-2 De zaak 40/61 (1962) 95-6, 207 Decourtray, Cardinal 193 Dennett, Daniel 154 Desai, Meghnad 18, 81, 90 Dhahri, Ben Homamed 121 Draper, John William 11, 17 Dummett, Michael 19, 150, 160, 164-70, 172-8, 181, 196, 208, 215 Dutch Intelligence and Security Agency (AIVD) 72

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

248  Earnest, Josh 87 Eichmann, Adolf 94-5, 207 Eisenhower, Dwight David 39 El-Sadat, Anwar 176 Enright, D.J., 145, 149 Erasmus, Desiderius 49 Es, Andrée van 44-5 Esla, Cayat 17 Esposito, John 68, 90, 214 Eyerman, Ron 74, 77, 82 Fallaci, Oriana 26-7, 29, 54, 211 Faruqui, H.H. 139 Fatah, Tarek 199 Fennema, Meindert 75, 114 First Amendment 15-17, 22, 35, 162, 173-4, 176-7 Fortuyn, Pim 73-4, 78, 82 Foucault, Michel 26 Frédéric Bousseau 17 Frege, Gottlob 164 Freitag, Armin 30 Freud, Sigmund 160, 180-2 Friedman, Thomas 87, 91 Fukuyama, Francis 57-8

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Gardner, Gerald 177 Geele, Mohamed 101, 121, 163 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich 50 Gibson, Mel 155 Goebbels, Joseph 76-7, 231 Gogh, Johan van 72 Gogh, Theo van 35, 67, 69-78, 81-4, 90, 96, 98, 106, 123, 153, 191, 218 Gogh, Vincent van 72 Gorbachev, Mikhail 24-6 Graaf, Volkert van der 73 Grayling, A.C. 14, 18-9, 145 Guiora, Amos 28, 65-7, 182, 193 Habermas, Jürgen 175, 173 Harris, Sam 46-7, 114, 145 Hermans, Willem Frederik 46 Hinduism 127, 179 Hiorth, Finnigeir 136 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan 59, 73-5, 77-8, 83-4, 97-8, 106, 153, 200 Hitchens, Christopher 12, 33, 69, 72, 123, 152, 154, 159, 181-2, 221-2 Hitler, Adolf 35, 56, 109, 154, 175, 189 Hofstadgroep 69, 82-3 Holbach, Baron d‘ 160, 181-2 Honoré 17 Hostage crisis 54-5, 60, 203 Howe, Sir Geoffrey 132, 188-9, 205 Hubbard, L. Ron 177, 182 Huntington, Samuel 90, 133 Hussein, Saddam 27, 209

Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

Ibn Taymiyyah 68 Igarashi, Hitoshi 75, 131 Innocence of Muslims 15-6, 35-6, 47, 84, 171, 212 International Convention on Civil and Political Rights 110 Iran-Iraq War 27, 53, 60 Islamic Society of Britain 86 Islamist terrorism 12, 82, 123 Islamophobia 9, 87, 91-2, 199 Jakobsen, David 121 Jawed S. 215 Jefferson, Thomas 114-5, 142, 176 Jneid, Sheikh Fawaz 65-6 Johnson, Boris 70-2 Jones, Terry 15, 36, 98, 120, 217 Kamrane, Ramine 23, 131, 133 Kant, Emmanuel 143, 173, 181 Kapur, Shekhar 18 Kazantzakis 136, 155, 177 Kelsay, John 90 Kesselaar, Rudolf Wijbrand 39 Khamenei, Seyyed Ali Hosseini 127, 132-3 Khan, Mohammed Sidique 80-2, 84-5, 88, 207 Khayyam, Omar 136 King, Martin Luther 67 Kitcher, Philip 113, 146, 158 Klausen, Jytte 107, 116-9 Kohl, Helmut 22, 34, 36, 50, 191 Kouachi brothers 81-2, 85, 89, 157, 163, 213-4 Laurens, Jean-Paul 201 Lawrence, D.H. 110, 136 Le Carré, John 110, 133, 180-1, 183-5, 211 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 37, 181 Lévy, Bernard-Henri 18, 27, 79-80, 141, 209 Lewis, Bernard 56-9, 65, 90, 105, 130, 169 Lowry, Rich 87 Loyau-Kennett, Ingrid 78, 87, 130 Lubbers, Ruud 43 MacEoin, Denis 59-60 MacIntyre, Alasdair 172-3 Mackay, Lord 138 Maclure, Jocelyn 154-7 Maitland, Sara 25, 123-4, 136, 139, 141-2, 148, 176, 187, 191 Malbrunot, Georges 90-101 Malouf, Amin 65 Malzahn, Claus Christian 62 Mao Zedong 56 Marcouch, Ahmed 65-7 Maris, Bernard 17 Martel, Yann 114 Masroor, Imam Ajmal 86 Maussen, Marcel 114

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249

Index

Mayhew, Sir Patrick 138 McCabe, Joseph 25 Melville, Caspar 35, 97, 103, 174 Merabet, Ahmed 17 Meslier, Jean 160, 181 Mikkelsen, Jörn 107 Milgram, Stanley 95 Mill, John Stuart 14, 111, 135 Mitterrand, President François 191, 193 Mohammed, Omar Bakri 89 Molière 49 Montesquieu 52 Morreal, John 49 Morsi, President Mohamed 16 Motaheri, Ayatolla 132-3 Mukherjee, Bharati 133 Mulish, Harry 94-5 Murray, Terri 13, 58, 68 Nakoula, Nakoula Basseley 15-6, 36, 45, 47, 171, 212 Nath, Ramendra 136 Nazir-Ali, Michael 68-9, 91 Nietzsche, Friedrich 160, 180-1 Norris, Molly 97-8, 219 Nygaard, William 75, 131

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Obama, President Barack 11, 16, 23, 87, 91, 186 Onfray, Michel 182 Ost, Friedrich Wilhelm 31, 34 Oudkerk, Rob 69 Pahlavi, Reza Shah Mohammad 23, 26, 54, 147 Pahlavi, Reza Shah 23, 54, 147 Pahlavi, Shabanu Farah 147 Paine, Thomas 143-4, 181 Pasha, Syed 138 Pasternak, Boris 136 Pauw & Witteman 66 Peace of Westphalia 56 Philips, Lord 212 Philips, Melanie 88 Pipes, Daniel 21, 25, 28, 58, 207 Pisier, Évelyne 172-3 Plantu 33 Polak, C.H.F. 94, 194 Pope Francis 71 Pope John Paul II 22 Pope Nicolas III 25 Popper, Karl 135 Prophet Mohammed 14-5, 25, 59, 72, 86-7, 100-2, 106, 113, 120, 126, 142, 148, 155, 177, 211-2, 216, 218-9, 221 Putnam, Hilary 165 Quiéret 202 Qurrad, Mustapha 17 Qutb, Sayyid 68, 212

Rabelais 49 Rabin, Yitzhak 67 Rad, Ali Vakili 54 Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Hashemi 125-6 Rasmussen, Anders Fogh 16, 23, 36, 120 Reagan, Nancy 22 Reagan, President Ronald 54 Religious Hatred Bill 49 Renaud, Michel 17 Reve, Gerard 46-7, 94 Reve, Karel van het 56, 94, 179-80 Richard I of England 203 Rigby, Lee 68, 78, 80, 84, 92, 130 Roberts, Andrew 109 Robertson, Geoffrey 33 Robinson, Tommy 91, 93 Robow, Sheik Muktar 102 Rose, Flemming 97-8, 105-6, 156, 218 Roth, Philip 173-4 Rumi 136 Rushdie, Salman 9, 14-5, 19, 21, 23, 25, 35-8, 45-7, 50, 57-9, 65, 67, 75-6, 79-80, 88, 93, 97-8, 100, 102-3, 105, 108-10, 113, 117, 120, 122-56, 159-61, 163-197, 199-201, 204-11, 213, 215, 217-9, 221 Russell, Bertrand 25, 91, 106, 115-6, 136, 160, 194, 197, 222 Ruthven, Malise 21, 149 Sacranie, Sir Iqbal 129 Sadek, Morris 37 Salari, Mohammad Djavad 29, 31, 34 Sardar, Ziauddin 112 Sartre, Jean-Paul 27 Satanic Verses 35, 47, 58, 103, 109-11, 123-5, 127-8, 130-1, 139, 141, 143, 145, 149-51, 153, 159, 177-8, 180, 183-4, 189, 210-1 Schlagintweit, Reinhard 29-30 Schopenhauer, Arthur 160 Scorsese, Martin 136, 155, 177 Scruton, Roger 18, 96, 133 Sen, Amartya 135 Shahabuddin, Syed 134-7, 148 Smith, Joseph 126, 177, 182 Solomon, Norman 25-6 Spinoza, Baruch de 146, 160, 180-1 Stalin, Joseph 35, 56, 179-80, 186 Stevens, Chris 13 Stewart, Matthew 181 Steyn, Mark 110, 120 Sueur, Eustache Le 185 Swift, Graham 200 Swift, Jonathan 149 Syed Shahabuddin 134-7, 148 Taliban 16-7, 87 Taylor, Charles 19, 88, 108, 113, 122, 150-66, 168, 170-7, 181, 194, 196-7, 215-6, 219 Teltschik, Horst 34-5

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,

250  Thatcher, Margaret 22, 26, 39, 138, 189, 205, 209-10 Theodoric the Great 203 Tibi, Bassam 9, 18, 59-60, 68, 87, 90, 199 Tignous 17 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 117, 122, 175, 177, 179-81, 183, 186 Ulema 59-60 Uthman 185 Vargas Llosa, Mario 74, 213 Vilks, Lars 97-8, 104 Voltaire 49, 57, 71, 73, 147, 149, 157, 160, 168, 181,

Weldon, T.D. 68 Weller, Paul 21, 138, 158-60, 175, 187 Westacott, Emrys 48 Westergaard, Kurt 14, 18, 20, 35-6, 97-9, 101-4, 107, 117-8, 121-3, 163, 179, 196, 199, 208, 210, 218 Wiggins, Marianne 124 Wilders, Geert 44, 71, 75, 78, 97-8, 107-8, 110-1, 206-7, 219 Witteman, Paul 40-3, 45, 66 Wolinski 17 Wylie, Andrew 126 Yakawa, Haruna 204 Yapp, Malcolm 23, 131-2 Youssef, Mark Basseley 36, 45, 47, 171, 212 Zaigham, Inayatullah 130 Zaklama, Fikry 37 Zalouti, Sabhi Ben Mohamad 121

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Waite, Terry 167, 203, 205, 208-9 Waldron, Jeremy 37-8, 153, 173, 179, 207, 213 Warraq, Ibn 75, 122, 135-6, 139, 156, 175, 178-80, 200 Weatherby, W.J. 126, 141-3, 183-4

Theoterrorism v. Freedom of Speech

Theoterrorism V. Freedom of Speech : From Incident to Precedent, Amsterdam University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,