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Should Salman Rushdie have been knighted?

jaybe

jaybe

Member
My thoughts are that he's a boring writer who used to work in advertising, hence he's good at getting himself free publicity. Free to himself that is, he's cost our country a fortune protecting him from the fatwa!

Allso, if he cared at alll - he wouldn't accept it. If the threats are carried out - what then?

Your thoughts?
 
If those involved in the decision making feel that Rushdie has done a service to literature then, by all means, he deserves whatever accolade they bestow him with. I'm not au fait with his oeuvre so can't comment on how exciting (or not) his prose is, and the acheivements therein, but can't help feel that it's something that could have come a little later in his career. But, given half the crap that gets honours these days (thinking of sportsmen, mostly), then, yes, he deserves his knighthood.

The money spent protecting him from a bunch of Islamists should not be factored into the knighthood. The award was for 'services to literature' and not for 'denigrating prophets'. If it was the latter, they may have a right to be upset. But so what?
 
I don't know if he deserves his knighthood on the basis of his work as I haven't read any of it, but certainly the decision shouldn't take into account threats from nutters.

It's his decision to accept it or not. If he doesn't want the hassle then that's up to him, but if he accepts it then I have no objection to my country footing the bill for his protection.

I didn't live my live any differently when the threats were coming from the IRA, and they knew how to make a car bomb that actually exploded. I'm not going to change the way I live my life because of this bunch of idiots and it would be hypocritical of me to moan at Rushdie for costing the tax payer money for exercising his same right to live without conceding to threats from bullies.

If you give in to bonkers demands the demands don't go away they just get ever more insane.
 
What is the criteria for knighthood? I don't understand that process at all, but I can't imagine having to choose a candidate based on who is safest to honor.
 
Generally for public service...hmmmmm. I guess that as a writer who has written books that have effected the public at large, through enraging crazed terrorists, he is deserving of it. :D Heck, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Elton John are knighted. What's next?, knighting the remaining members of the Sex Pistols?
 
Stewart said:
Why not, Chris?
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We are defending his right, to write and publish his work, we offer him protection (at great cost to the tax payer) and now we are reward him with a knighthood; yet we did not think it right to publish a few Danish cartoons.

There has to be an ulterior motive for giving him the Knighthood.
 
Stewart said:
Is it because he's black that it irks your bigoted sensibilities?
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He is Asian.

Is this an agree with Stewart forum, or get called names. The idea of a discussion is to air different views. You and Litany seem to have a monopoly on the word bigot.

You are showing first hand what is wrong with our country. For the last ten years people like you crawl out of the woodwork at any sort of discussion like this and bring up the race issue. Because your view is disagreed with and you are not willing or able to understand another view, you play the race or bigot card hoping to stop you opponent in their tracks and score a few brownie points.

The mature discussion section, I guess, was created for people like you who are unable to hold a mature discussion at all.

Stewart said:
Oh, by the way. I don't see what Rushdie's knighthood has to do with the publication of cartoons.
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Oh, by the way. My comment was one comment. It seems that you did not understand any of it.
 
Excuse me? Where have I mentioned Rushdie's race?

How dare you make up opinions on my behalf and then slate me for them?
 
For the last ten years people like you crawl out of the woodwork at any sort of discussion like this and bring up the race issue.
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I crawl out of nowhere. I asked you if your disagreement on Rushdie's knighthood was to do with his ethnicity, which is hardly bringing it up at random given some of your other posts on this forum.

Oh, by the way. My comment was one comment. It seems that you did not understand any of it.
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But it didn't make sense. What had the British honours system to do with the portrayal of Mohammad in some Danish cartoons?
 
chris302116 said:
Don't try and cover your tracks by misinterpreting what I said. I am referring to the word bigot as you well know.
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I'm not covering any tracks, I really can't follow your posts. It's the ranty way you type. Yes, in a different thread I said you post like a bigot. You're still posting like a bigot. Stop posting like a bigot and I'll stop thinking of you as one.
 
Stewart said:
I crawl out of nowhere. I asked you if your disagreement on Rushdie's knighthood was to do with his ethnicity, which is hardly bringing it up at random given some of your other posts on this forum.


But it didn't make sense. What had the British honours system to do with the portrayal of Mohammad in some Danish cartoons?
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The Satanic Verses (1988), provoked violent reactions from Muslims in several countries, so did the cartoons.

It is a double standard to approve one and condemn the other. If we defend the right to print and publish a book in our country regardless of whether it will offend a certain religious group, then we must also have the right to publish a cartoon, make a film or what ever.

If you disapprove of the cartoons then it seems reasonable to disapprove of The Satanic Verses for the same reason.

Knighthoods are given out like sweeties (we know all about cash for honours in the Labour party) and I see no reason why SR should have received one over and about many other writers, unless there were other reasons.
 
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