LETTERS
Intolerant Islam
Sir: Richard Webster's attempt to defend the Muslim position on The Satanic Verses affair is no doubt well meant ('On not burning your enemy's flag', 16 June). But his argument is a good deal less than convincing.
Mr Webster places his argument within the context of Islam as a tolerant, peace- loving and entirely sinned-against religion. This bears little relation to historical truth, as anyone who has considered the estab- lishment of the faith through military conquest, and the period before the Cru- sades, can attest. Indeed, many of the abiding characteristics of Islam can be seen by simply observing its nature in those parts of the contemporary world where it holds sway.
To attribute public anxiety about British Islam to 'racialism', as Mr Webster does, is an offensive distortion. No doubt the racially prejudiced have been comforted by the spectacle of a minority group behaving disgracefully. But the well-disposed, too, have been dismayed. Mr Webster tries to play down the fanatical nature of the protest by referring simply to book burn- ing. But that will not do. Muslims not only burnt books. They hanged and burnt Rush- die in effigy, and many of them sought to incite his murder. The skin colour of the miscreants is irrelevant. It was the actual, observed behaviour which caused such public outrage. If white people had be- haved in this way, they too, would have been rightly condemned.
By seeking to explain away the Rushdie affair in terms of Western anti-Islamic sentiment and racism, Mr Webster is mis- perceiving the reality. As someone who worked in the middle of a Muslim area for nearly six years, I believe the key issue is this: can Muslims, particularly those who want Rushdie murdered, i.e., the fun- damentalists, ever feel at home in a society marked by a tradition of restless intellec- tual enquiry, pluralism, free speech, and secular institutions and ways of thought? A society, moreover, where virtually nothing is sacred, and where the state long since gave up trying to protect the former privileged position of religious faith. Mus- lims are here and remain from choice. They have implicity rejected life in a Muslim society in exchange for Western material advantage. What the Rushdie affair should have brought home to them is the price they have to pay for this.
Mr Rushdie is a British citizen. He has been neither charged nor convicted of any offence. Yet he remains a captive in his own adopted country, because of the edict of a foreign tyrant. That is an outrage. British Muslims should be campaigning for Rushdie's release, condemning the fatwa (which, according to many scholars, is doubtful legality), and proclaiming their support for free speech, rather than the banning of the paperback edition of the book. Some brave British Muslims whom Mr Webster ignores — have publicly acknowledged this.
In his thoughtful study of this issue, 'A Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the rage of Islam', Malise Ruthven says, . . . . the anti-Rushdie campaigners have seriously damaged the interests of Muslims in Britain.' They have also seriously dam- aged our prospect of creating that inte- grated, harmonious society all people of goodwill so earnestly desire.
Ray Honeyford
14 Wragby Close, Bury, Lancashire
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