speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Struggle for Respect
hostile, set them straight. ... I have no doubt that eventually the
message will get through, and he will be free. 53
More than three years after the fatwa an anonymous consortium
published an American paperback. Rushdie withdrew his acceptance
of Islam. "After three years of having my life smashed about by
religion, I don't feel like associating myself with it. I'm fighting for
my life against it." 54 Contemporaneously Iranian leaders reiterated
the death sentence, under the headline: "A Divine Command to
Stone the Devil." Rushdie was rebuffed when he visited Washington
to seek American support. White House Press Secretary Marlin
Fitzwater declared: "There's no reason for any special relationship
with Rushdie. I mean, he's an author. He's here. He's doing
interviews and book tours and things authors do.. . . We have often
said that we want better relations with Iran." Rushdie disavowed
pecuniary motives: "The purpose of the paperback is to make a
point about First Amendment rights . . . ." Shortly thereafter an
Indian historian's call to lift the ban on The Satanic Verses led to
student protests, which closed his university, the country's leading
Muslim institution. 55
IV. Negotiating Respect
These stories about pornography, racial hatred, and The Satanic
Verses share a common core. They concern values that inspire deep
emotions: fury at the sexual objectification of women versus conviction
that sex is irreducibly ambiguous; racism versus equality; the
truth of Islam versus religious scepticism. Each confrontation implicates
more fundamental controversies: group and individual, particular
and universal, tradition and innovation, authority and
freedom—antinomies that have haunted humankind for millenia.
Each side views its values as absolute while vilifying its opponent's
as an antithesis for which no synthesis is possible. This Manichaean
struggle allows no compromise; anything less than total victory is
ignominious defeat.
If values constitute the manifest content of these stories, however,
respect is their subtext. Women are demanding respect from producers
and consumers of pornography, who make them instruments
of voyeuristic pleasure. Racial and religious minorities are asserting
equality against racists and anti-Semites who defend their own
superiority. Muslims are asserting equality with Christians, immi-
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