承前*1
日付は前後するが、６月19日付の
Duncan Campbell, Vikram Dodd and Mark Tran “UK 'deeply concerned' over Rushdie comments” http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330050351-103595,00.html
また、22日付の
Duncan Campbell “Bhutto condemns Rushdie attack” http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330064423-103595,00.html
Benazir Bhuttoパキスタンを叱る。ここには親子２代の因縁あり。
23日付けの
Riazat Butt, Duncan Campbell and Martin Wainwright “UK Muslims divided on Rushdie protests” http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330070089-99819,00.html
英国におけるムスリムの反応をレポート。
Timothy Garton Ash氏の論説
“No ifs and no buts” http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330070173-99819,00.html
Ash氏は今回の騒動の性格について、
と述べる。また、
The issue here is not whether Rushdie's writing merits a knighthood, nor whether leftwing, cosmopolitan writers should accept honours from Her Majesty. (My answers, by the way, are "yes", and "why not?") The issue is whether people should be killed, or face a serious threat of being killed, for what they say or write; and whether a sovereign, democratic state should censor its recognition of its citizens in the face of such intimidation. On this there can be no compromise, no ifs or buts. All our individual solidarity, all the necessary resources of the state, are called for at such a moment. Although this did not seem uppermost in the minds of the committee that recommended the award, when the Queen taps Mr Rushdie on the shoulder with her ceremonial sword and says "Arise, Sir Salman", she will now be striking a regal blow for free speech.
最後に、
The right to free speech is not unlimited. In determining its limits, context matters. The American judge Wendell Holmes famously observed that a man should not be free to shout a false alarm of "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. Now the fact is that even if a secular liberal intellectual were to say "Mad Mullah X deserves to be shot", the likelihood of someone shooting Mullah X as a result is close to zero. So far as we know, there are no al-Darwinia brigades making bombs in secret laboratories in north Oxford, awaiting an order from their beloved Imam Dawkins to assassinate Mullah X. If, however, a Muslim cleric or intellectual says "Salman Rushdie deserves to be shot", there are people who may take it literally. Remember that Rushdie's Japanese translator was murdered, his Italian translator stabbed and his Norwegian publisher shot because Ayatollah Khomeini had called for everyone involved in publishing The Satanic Verses to be punished.Because of this explosive context, Muslim speakers need to exercise a particular care in their choice of words. But we non-Muslims need, in return, to be generously clear about the distinction between what a free society requires of them and what we merely desire. We may desire that they abandon what we regard as outmoded superstitions, "see reason", become modern, liberal, secular. But, in a free society, nobody should require that of them. The toleration of widely differing opinions and beliefs is precisely what distinguishes a free society from the ideological regimes of the Middle East. Rushdie wrote a fiction that was deeply offensive to many Muslims. Muslims have the right to be deeply offensive back. All that a free society requires of them - as of every citizen - is that they conduct this argument peacefully and obey the law of the land.
Edward Mortimer “The colours of Allah” http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330065904-110738,00.html
Akbar Ahmed Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalisationという本の書評。
