Stop appeasing thugs and book burners

The government’s ‘anti-Muslim hatred’ definition is a sop to the fundamentalists

Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

Photo: Jamie Kennedy, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I am old enough to remember the Satanic Verses controversy in 1988, when fury erupted across the Muslim world because Salman Rushdie had written a work of fiction which ‘blasphemed’ against the prophet Muhammad.

Copies of the book were set ablaze by Muslim protesters in British towns and cities, while the Iranian ayatollah put a contract on the author’s head, and the novel’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death.

The affair was notable for the cowardice of certain sections of the British establishment. Some public officials appeared only too willing to appease the book burners. The deputy leader of the Labour party called for the publication of the paperback to be cancelled, while the archbishop of Canterbury demanded the government widen blasphemy laws to cover Islam. The priority, it seemed, was not to defend freedom of expression but to protect the sensibilities of religious believers who claimed to have been offended.