Austins Atheism Blog Why Was The Satanic Verses Offensive?
Why Was The Satanic Verses Offensive? (Book Notes: Terror and Liberalism) Thursday April 20, 2006 Although the world-wide protests over the publication of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad are foremost on people’s minds, these incidents were not unique – they were very much like the protests against Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses. Perhaps we should consider why that book was so offensive. In Terror and Liberalism, Paul Berman writes: A lot of people, not just the ayatollah, figured that Rushdies novel was horribly disrespectful to Islam, and was meant to be disrespectful, and Rushdie was a nasty provocateur. But look at The Satanic Verses today. Rushdie describes the allure of ultra-radical, even lunatic political protest, in the immigrant neighborhoods of London. He describes the allure of the most delirious of Islamic ravings,
