Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester | February 05
It is 20 years since Salman Rushdie published his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, about two Indian actors, Gibreel and Saladin. Within weeks Islamist groups were accusing the writer of blasphemy and burning effigies of him in the streets. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him, calling for his death, forcing him into hiding for nearly a decade and turning him into one of the most famous authors in the world.
With hindsight, Rushdie says, he realises the fatwa was merely the prologue in a very long novel that is becoming ever more terrifying.
On September 11, 2001, one of his three favourite cities, New York, was attacked, four years later his adopted home of London was targeted by suicide bombers and last year, Mumbai, the city of his birth, was overwhelmed by extremists intent on causing havoc.
The West, he thinks, should have realised the fatwa was just the beginning of a new era. "There was a tendency from everybody to believe that it was an isolated incident rather than an indicator or something wider, to believe that it was all my fault," he says.
He is not worried about the anniversary. "I am sure there will be some nasty noises but there are nasty noises every year." But as someone who has lived much of his life under the shadow of fundamentalism, he believes successive British governments have pursued the wrong policy over religious extremists. "This country became the safe haven for every extremist group in the world. It was idiocy, idiocy," he says.
Rushdie has always been riveted by the disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world, and his latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, brings together the extravagant Islamic Mogul empire and the equally extraordinary Florentine world of Machiavelli.
"I thought the thing that would be interesting was how different the two worlds were. I kept finding echoes. Both cultures were very hedonistic, both trying to choose between a puritanical and secularist view," he says.
There are, of course, striking parallels with the rising tensions between East and West in this century. Rushdie is not convinced that there is a clash of civilisations between Islam and Christianity. "There is a kind of Islam which is at war with an idea of the West but neither the West nor the Muslim world is monolithic," he says.
He watched with horror as flames tore through the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. "Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel Midnight's Children consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did." His voice trails off for a moment. "It is strange that the three cities in my life that I have loved have all been subjected to terrorist attack in the last 10years."
The people of Mumbai showed extraordinary courage under attack, he says, but now the overwhelming mood is of great anger. "There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war. The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle: to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things. (Britain) should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid."
In his view Britain has been far too complacent about the rise of extremism. "Both Thatcher and Blair made the same mistake, which was the so-called Londonistan policy where you allow these (Islamist) groups to set up shop here in the belief that if you do that they won't attack this country and that you can monitor them."
Labour became much tougher on suspected terrorists after 9/11, raising concerns that civil liberties were being brushed aside.
"The War on Terror was always a terrible phrase," Rushdie says. "You are never going to defeat terror. But I sometimes think that liberal opinion in this country doesn't see that there actually are enemies. We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?"
There can be few people who feel the threat of fundamentalism more keenly than Rushdie. He lived with the threat of assassination for nine years but he does not regret writing The Satanic Verses. "Of course I don't, why would I? But I'm pleased that finally it's being read like a book. It used to be taught on politics and religion courses; now it's getting taught on fiction courses."
Some people would think of the time in hiding as missing years but he says: "You never really lose your time because if you are any good as a writer you learn from whatever happens to you. I met a lot of men of power in those years, so when I have to set out to create one I have quite a lot of models in my head."
There are, he tells us, many myths about his time in hiding. "I have read that I slept in 56 beds in three months. But for seven of the nine years I lived in the same house."
He hates the idea that he was sponging off the state, pointing out that he was never given a government safe house. "They told me I couldn't live at home and I had to find somewhere else to live and pay for it."
It is hard to imagine what he did when he was hidden away for nine years. "Like everybody else I played a computer game or two ... Martin (Amis) had these poker nights."
His would, he admits, be an extraordinary autobiography. "I have the Chinese curse of living in interesting times." He was deeply hurt when a former driver tried to publish a book last year in which he made many false allegations including suggesting that Rushdie was suicidal and did not get on with his protection officers. "Somebody tried to make a few bucks by telling a bunch of total lies. One of these days I will have to tell the story because otherwise I am going to be constantly vulnerable."
Rushdie is baffled by the hostility he inspires among some. "People can be very generous or very unfair and you never know which way they are going to go. Many of my friends were extraordinary in that period (in hiding). But there was also this surprising level of media hostility that still goes on. The subtext being: it's his own fault, he made the mistake of living and now he appears to be having a good time. He ought to be sitting inpenance."
The man once forced to be a recluse is now portrayed as a party animal, a favourite for the paparazzi, because he often has a beautiful woman on his arm.
At times he has played to the camera - he had a cameo role in the film Bridget Jones's Diary, and appeared in a music video with Scarlett Johansson - but he remains uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity. "Everybody goes to parties; it's just that when I go to parties they are always in the press." After four failed marriages, he says he has no intention of tying the knot again. "I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again but there is no need to marry." Nor does he want any more children. "I'm 61, enough already." His latest project, however, is a children's book. "When I wrote my last children's book my oldest son was 11. He's 29 now. I have another 11-year-old now who wants a book. I read him the first 15 pages and he liked it."
He is fascinated by the success of the Harry Potter books. "The conventional thought about children's books was to keep them short; J.K. Rowling turned that on its head." Publishers, he thinks, should be more willing to challenge readers, whatever their age. "The whole world is commercial, including publishing. There's been a kind of bestselleritis ... If anyone likes my books, I am happy. I don't mind if they don't."
He is not a fan of misery lit. "At its best it's as interesting as any other form. The trouble is, at its worst it does become this kind ofblurt."
The literary world has changed since he started writing. "In the late '70s to late '80s there was a real desire for originality and a lot of us benefited from that - Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, me."
The man who last year won the Best of the Booker for Midnight's Children says the British obsession with prizes baffles him. "They've become a marketing device, a way of selling books."
The Orange Prize for women is in his view patronising. "This is one world where women can more than hold their own and you don't need to create a ghetto."
He believes longevity is more important than instant success. If he submitted a manuscript to a publisher now, however, he doubts it would be accepted. "I wouldn't like to be starting now," he says. "I was lucky to get published in the first place."
It is 20 years since Salman Rushdie published his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, about two Indian actors, Gibreel and Saladin. Within weeks Islamist groups were accusing the writer of blasphemy and burning effigies of him in the streets. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him, calling for his death, forcing him into hiding for nearly a decade and turning him into one of the most famous authors in the world.
With hindsight, Rushdie says, he realises the fatwa was merely the prologue in a very long novel that is becoming ever more terrifying.
On September 11, 2001, one of his three favourite cities, New York, was attacked, four years later his adopted home of London was targeted by suicide bombers and last year, Mumbai, the city of his birth, was overwhelmed by extremists intent on causing havoc.
The West, he thinks, should have realised the fatwa was just the beginning of a new era. "There was a tendency from everybody to believe that it was an isolated incident rather than an indicator or something wider, to believe that it was all my fault," he says.
He is not worried about the anniversary. "I am sure there will be some nasty noises but there are nasty noises every year." But as someone who has lived much of his life under the shadow of fundamentalism, he believes successive British governments have pursued the wrong policy over religious extremists. "This country became the safe haven for every extremist group in the world. It was idiocy, idiocy," he says.
Rushdie has always been riveted by the disruptions and migrations between the Eastern and Western world, and his latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, brings together the extravagant Islamic Mogul empire and the equally extraordinary Florentine world of Machiavelli.
"I thought the thing that would be interesting was how different the two worlds were. I kept finding echoes. Both cultures were very hedonistic, both trying to choose between a puritanical and secularist view," he says.
There are, of course, striking parallels with the rising tensions between East and West in this century. Rushdie is not convinced that there is a clash of civilisations between Islam and Christianity. "There is a kind of Islam which is at war with an idea of the West but neither the West nor the Muslim world is monolithic," he says.
He watched with horror as flames tore through the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai. "Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel Midnight's Children consummate their love affair in the Palace, as so many of us did." His voice trails off for a moment. "It is strange that the three cities in my life that I have loved have all been subjected to terrorist attack in the last 10years."
The people of Mumbai showed extraordinary courage under attack, he says, but now the overwhelming mood is of great anger. "There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war. The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle: to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things. (Britain) should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid."
In his view Britain has been far too complacent about the rise of extremism. "Both Thatcher and Blair made the same mistake, which was the so-called Londonistan policy where you allow these (Islamist) groups to set up shop here in the belief that if you do that they won't attack this country and that you can monitor them."
Labour became much tougher on suspected terrorists after 9/11, raising concerns that civil liberties were being brushed aside.
"The War on Terror was always a terrible phrase," Rushdie says. "You are never going to defeat terror. But I sometimes think that liberal opinion in this country doesn't see that there actually are enemies. We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?"
There can be few people who feel the threat of fundamentalism more keenly than Rushdie. He lived with the threat of assassination for nine years but he does not regret writing The Satanic Verses. "Of course I don't, why would I? But I'm pleased that finally it's being read like a book. It used to be taught on politics and religion courses; now it's getting taught on fiction courses."
Some people would think of the time in hiding as missing years but he says: "You never really lose your time because if you are any good as a writer you learn from whatever happens to you. I met a lot of men of power in those years, so when I have to set out to create one I have quite a lot of models in my head."
There are, he tells us, many myths about his time in hiding. "I have read that I slept in 56 beds in three months. But for seven of the nine years I lived in the same house."
He hates the idea that he was sponging off the state, pointing out that he was never given a government safe house. "They told me I couldn't live at home and I had to find somewhere else to live and pay for it."
It is hard to imagine what he did when he was hidden away for nine years. "Like everybody else I played a computer game or two ... Martin (Amis) had these poker nights."
His would, he admits, be an extraordinary autobiography. "I have the Chinese curse of living in interesting times." He was deeply hurt when a former driver tried to publish a book last year in which he made many false allegations including suggesting that Rushdie was suicidal and did not get on with his protection officers. "Somebody tried to make a few bucks by telling a bunch of total lies. One of these days I will have to tell the story because otherwise I am going to be constantly vulnerable."
Rushdie is baffled by the hostility he inspires among some. "People can be very generous or very unfair and you never know which way they are going to go. Many of my friends were extraordinary in that period (in hiding). But there was also this surprising level of media hostility that still goes on. The subtext being: it's his own fault, he made the mistake of living and now he appears to be having a good time. He ought to be sitting inpenance."
The man once forced to be a recluse is now portrayed as a party animal, a favourite for the paparazzi, because he often has a beautiful woman on his arm.
At times he has played to the camera - he had a cameo role in the film Bridget Jones's Diary, and appeared in a music video with Scarlett Johansson - but he remains uncomfortable with the idea of celebrity. "Everybody goes to parties; it's just that when I go to parties they are always in the press." After four failed marriages, he says he has no intention of tying the knot again. "I'm not saying I am never going to fall in love again but there is no need to marry." Nor does he want any more children. "I'm 61, enough already." His latest project, however, is a children's book. "When I wrote my last children's book my oldest son was 11. He's 29 now. I have another 11-year-old now who wants a book. I read him the first 15 pages and he liked it."
He is fascinated by the success of the Harry Potter books. "The conventional thought about children's books was to keep them short; J.K. Rowling turned that on its head." Publishers, he thinks, should be more willing to challenge readers, whatever their age. "The whole world is commercial, including publishing. There's been a kind of bestselleritis ... If anyone likes my books, I am happy. I don't mind if they don't."
He is not a fan of misery lit. "At its best it's as interesting as any other form. The trouble is, at its worst it does become this kind ofblurt."
The literary world has changed since he started writing. "In the late '70s to late '80s there was a real desire for originality and a lot of us benefited from that - Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, me."
The man who last year won the Best of the Booker for Midnight's Children says the British obsession with prizes baffles him. "They've become a marketing device, a way of selling books."
The Orange Prize for women is in his view patronising. "This is one world where women can more than hold their own and you don't need to create a ghetto."
He believes longevity is more important than instant success. If he submitted a manuscript to a publisher now, however, he doubts it would be accepted. "I wouldn't like to be starting now," he says. "I was lucky to get published in the first place."
Source: The Australian
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