{"id":7827,"date":"2022-08-15T13:16:08","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T19:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/?p=7827"},"modified":"2022-08-15T13:16:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T19:16:08","slug":"let-his-voice-be-heard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/2022\/08\/15\/let-his-voice-be-heard\/","title":{"rendered":"Let His Voice Be Heard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me be clear.\u00a0 I do not know Salman Rushdie.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, I know OF<\/em><\/strong> him, of course.\u00a0\u00a0 He has been one of the world’s most celebrated authors for decades now.\u00a0\u00a0 I have seen him on television, read about him in newspapers and magazines, listened to his interviews. \u00a0 We have some mutual friends and acquaintances, I believe, for the world of publishing is a small one, but we’ve never been in the same place at the same time that I recall. \u00a0 I doubt that he has ever read any of my work, and I am abashed to admit that I have never read any of his.<\/p>\n

Not for any particular reason.\u00a0\u00a0 There are hundreds of authors whose books I keep meaning to read, without ever quite getting to them.\u00a0\u00a0 My unread shelves hold more books than I could possibly read if I lived to be a hundred and did nothing between now and then but read, all day, every day. \u00a0 There are classics of English literature that I know only from the CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED comic books I read in the 50s. \u00a0 There are major seminal works of science fiction and fantasy gathering dust on my shelves. \u00a0 One day, I tell myself, one day.\u00a0\u00a0 There are books I have loved… yet other titles by the same writers remain “to be read.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So my neglect of Rushdie really had nothing at all to do with him, and everything to do with how many books there are in the world, and how few hours in the day.<\/p>\n

Not (yet) having read Rushdie’s novels did not keep me from admiring the man… from afar, as it were.\u00a0 Along with the rest of the world, I read of the turmoil around THE SATANIC VERSES and the fatwa declared against him by the ayatollahs of Iran.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For the “crime” of writing a book that some people did not like, he was forced to spend a decade in hiding, surrounded by guards, wearing disguises when he dared leave his house.\u00a0 Through it all, he displayed courage, compassion, and grace under fire, while holding firm to his principles and yielding not an inch to the haters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In more recent years, the danger finally seemed to have ebbed, and Rushdie was once again able to speak and travel and appear in public.<\/p>\n

He emerged as one of the world’s leading defenders of free speech, which only deepened my admiration for him.\u00a0\u00a0 Freedom of speech is a central pillar of our democracy, and every other democracy in the world.\u00a0\u00a0 There is nothing, but nothing, that I believe in more strongly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And these days freedom of speech needs defenders, for when I look around, I find it under attack everywhere.\u00a0\u00a0 Blacklisting, cancel culture, libraries being closed or defunded, classic works of literature being banned or bowdlerized or removed from classrooms,\u00a0 an ever growing list of “toxic” words the mere utterance of which is now forbidden no matter the context or intent, the erosion of civility in discourse.\u00a0\u00a0 Both the Rabid Right and the Woke Left seem more intent on silencing those whose views they disagree with, rather than besting them in debate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the consequences for those who dare to say things deemed offensive have been growing ever more dire; jobs lost, careers ended, books cancelled, “deplatforming.”<\/p>\n

And now, it seems, attempted murder.<\/p>\n

I cannot begin to express how horrified I am by the attack on Salman Rushdie in New York as he was about to give a speech.\u00a0\u00a0 He was stabbed multiple times by a masked man who leapt onto the stage and rushed at Rushdie before he could say a word. \u00a0\u00a0 The latest report I’ve read says that Rushdie is off the ventilator and improving, but he will never entirely recover. \u00a0\u00a0 He suffered damage to his liver, and to his arm.\u00a0\u00a0 He may lose an eye.\u00a0\u00a0 The attack took place in front of a large audience who had come to hear him speak… ironically, about America as a haven for dissidents.<\/p>\n

The attacker was arrested, and is being held without bail.\u00a0\u00a0 His name is known, but I will not use it here.\u00a0\u00a0 He already has an attorney, and I read that he will plead “not guilty” to the various charges being brought against him.\u00a0\u00a0 When you try to kill someone on a stage <\/em><\/strong>in plain view of hundreds… well, I have to wonder how his legal team will dispute his guilt.\u00a0\u00a0 An insanity defense? \u00a0 The devil made him do it?\u00a0\u00a0 He was just following orders, a soldier of god?\u00a0 Maybe he just did it for the money. \u00a0 There is a considerable bounty on Rushdie’s head, after all. \u00a0 (Would that those who offered that bounty could also be arrested and tried before the World Court).\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps the attacker was drunk, or on drugs. \u00a0 Maybe he’d eaten a Twinkie. \u00a0 No doubt we will learn his motive when the case comes to trial. \u00a0 (Will the trial be televised?\u00a0 Will the public follow it as avidly as they did the Johnny Depp\/ Amber Heard case? \u00a0 Call me cynical, but somehow I doubt it).<\/p>\n

I think we all know what motivated the attack, however. \u00a0 We know what Salman Rushdie did. \u00a0 We have known for many years.<\/p>\n

He wrote a book.<\/p>\n

A book that a lot of people did not like.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I don’t know Salman Rushdie, as I said. \u00a0\u00a0 That cannot be helped. \u00a0 There’s not much I can do for him… except to hope that he makes a full recovery, or as much of a recovery as he can possibly make, given his injuries… or maybe I should call them wounds<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 For that is what they are, wounds received in battle in a war he has been fighting most of his life, a war for freedom of speech, for art, for compassion.<\/p>\n

I don’t know Salman Rushdie’s work either, however… and THAT<\/em><\/strong> is something I can do something about.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I just placed an order for copies of THE SATANIC VERSES, MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN, and several of his other books.\u00a0\u00a0 And I have instructed the managers at Beastly Books, my little bookshop here in Santa Fe, to order every Rushdie title presently in print.\u00a0\u00a0 Beastly is not an ordinary general interest bookshop (Santa Fe has several of those); almost of the books it stocks are autographed.\u00a0\u00a0 They carry my own titles, of course, along with books by the authors who have appeared at Beastly Books and the Jean Cocteau Cinema over the years for signings, interviews, readings, and other events.\u00a0\u00a0 Rushdie’s books would not previously have been on our shelves, no more than those of thousands of other writers who we have never hosted.\u00a0\u00a0 But that’s changing, as of today.\u00a0\u00a0 From here on, we will be stocking everything Rushdie wrote…<\/p>\n

The man who rushed on stage in Chautauqua with knife in hand wanted to do more than murder Salman Rushdie.\u00a0\u00a0 He wanted to silence<\/strong><\/em> him.<\/p>\n

Well, fuck that.\u00a0\u00a0 I say, let his voice be heard.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hope that all of you reading this will join me.<\/p>\n

If, like me, you have never read his books, if he’s only someone you saw on the news, go out and buy THE SATANIC VERSES.\u00a0\u00a0 Or any of his books, actually… but SATANIC VERSES is the one that will make the point most clearly.\u00a0\u00a0 If you already have a copy on your shelves, great… but he has lots of other books, buy some of them.\u00a0\u00a0 Tell your local bookstore to put his novels on their shelves.\u00a0\u00a0 Make sure your local library stocks them.<\/p>\n

If enough of us out there truly believe in freedom of speech, we can send Salman Rushdie soaring up the bestseller lists again.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing would please me more than to see THE SATANIC VERSES rise to #1, decades after its original publication.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing would make the point more clearly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me be clear.\u00a0 I do not know Salman Rushdie.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, I know OF him, of course.\u00a0\u00a0 He has been one of the world’s most celebrated authors for decades now.\u00a0\u00a0 I have seen him on television, read about him in newspapers and magazines, listened to his interviews. \u00a0 We have some mutual friends and acquaintances, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[321,58],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7827"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7850,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7827\/revisions\/7850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}