WHEN THE CURSING HAD TO STOP
The media: Paul Johnson
thinks it is time to compromise over Rushdie
THE death of the Ayatollah creates an opportunity to solve the Salman Rushdie problem. This is desirable for a good many reasons but above all because it is slowly poisoning relations between the large Mus- lim community in Britain and the majority. Whatever the race-relations industry may say, people from the Indian sub-continent who have settled in Britain have been accepted here, have enjoyed approval, as they are seen to make a definite contribu- tion to British life, have in many cases prospered mightily, and have proved them- selves exceptionally law-abiding. Their de- sire to keep themselves to themselves, to preserve their own culture, languages and religions is not resented. Most people, for instance, would be happy to see them running their own schools. The Rushdie book, and Muslim reactions to it, have had a shattering effect on this peaceful rela- tionship. The spectacle, which everyone must have seen on television, of Muslim youths (and some middle-aged men) attacking unarmed police in and around Westminster recently did more harm to race relations in Britain than anything since the big inner-city riots. It is fair to say that publication of The Satanic Verses has led directly to the creation of more racial hatred in Britain than any other single publication in our history. Now this is ironic, because it seems to be clear that Rushdie's book is not covered by the race-relations legislation, and Muslim attempts to argue that it is have got nowhere. That, in itself, is a devastating indictment of the law as it stands and the race-relations industry as it functions. It indicates that the people who framed the law and who set up the apparatus for enforcing it had altogether too narrow a view of what in practice threatens good feelings between people of different races in the same community. They seem to have believed that, in Britain, the only trouble would arise when whites protested about the settlement of large numbers of dark- skinned immigrants. The law was, in prac- tice, framed to meet that contingency and no other.
It was never clear whether this specific law was necessary in the first place. The Common Law, with various statutory underpinnings, exists to deal with any kind of incitement to riot or conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. There may be a case for a particular statute providing penalties for writings and speeches liable to arouse hatred. But this ought to apply to all kinds of rabble-rousing. It is anomalous that while it is unlawful to use words calculated to provoke race-warfare, people seem to be allowed to preach class-warfare with impunity. Incitement to class-warfare, a stock-in-trade of union and Labour Party extremists for decades, regularly provokes violence, as Scargill's coal strike, in which half a dozen people died and many more were seriously injured, abundantly testi- fies. You have only got to look at the racks of newsagents which stock publications from the political fringes to find many instances of writings deliberately framed to incite one section of the community to hate another.
Singling out the race issue is thus illogic- al. It is not effective either. It has led to the prosecution of a few vicious or ignorant white racists but it has not stopped a good deal of racist literature, usually in the form of handbills or pamphlets bearing no prin- 'I think you're being totally unreasonable - my first wife let me come home completely drunk for years.' ter's address, from circulating. The fact that it is clandestine or samizdat streng- thens its appeal in the big city housing estates where racism is most likely to exist and which feeds on the belief that 'they' are suppressing the truth about the race problem. In short the law has not really dealt with the irresponsible element it was designed to curb. What it has done is effectively to suppress any kind of re- sponsible debate about race which does not fall within the narrow limits laid down by the race-relations industry itself. No re- spectable writer wants to be branded a racist, now an extremely damaging accusa- tion, and will not therefore run the slight- est risk of a prosecution which an original contribution to the debate might invite (there are plenty of delators around). So the subject is simply avoided, except by the industry itself, which has a strong vested interest in keeping the debate closed. Here we have the outstanding case of political censorship in Britain today.
Then along comes Rushdie, who enor- mously exacerbates Britain's race problem without breaking the law, thereby proving it an ass. He has also demonstrated what we should have known all along, that you cannot separate race, religion and culture. It will not work to say it is wrong and unlawful to insult a man's race but quite all right to spit on his god and insult the religious beliefs which form the biggest single element in his culture. In most societies the three are inextricably inter- mingled. We have an outstanding example on our own doorstep, in Ulster, where violence springs from a racial and cultural conflict of which religious belief is the external manifestation. The Indian sub- continent is a mass of such syndromes, some of which are now installed here. The left intelligensia, which insists fanatically on Rushdie's right to publish, has not yet grasped this fact. It believes race is taboo but religion is fair game. That position is not sustainable. Either it is wrong to impose any kind of censorship on what people write or say, and leave the consequ- ences to the existing general law, or specific restraints should apply to religion as well as race. That is the question to which parliament should address itself.
In the meantime, a compromise should be reached. Rushdie and his publishers have made their point about freedom of publication — if, in the circumstances, it was worth making — and should now cease to publish the book. The Iranian govern- ment has likewise made its point that people cannot publicly insult Islam without risking serious consequences and should withdraw all its threats. Profits from the book, stained with blood as they are, should be put into a fund for the families of those killed in the various riots which publication provoked. Then Rushdie can come out of hiding, and sensible people can sit down and decide how we can avoid such a demeaning and costly row in future.
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