# Salman Rushdie attacked onstage - Breaking news {2022-08-12} **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** breaking-news\ **Created:** [August 12, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564 "2022-08-12T15:49:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/21 "2022-08-13T03:11:17Z")
Soon aftermath. ![49,770 votes and 2,316 comments so far on Reddit](https://preview.redd.it/lq7508ys5bh91.jpg?auto=webp&s=0a61e74a2bc4897c0681e7db133cf8078a112647) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/22 "2022-08-13T05:45:40Z")
I remember Rushdie spent years in hiding because of the fatwa. It limited a significant part of his professional life. It took a lot of courage to make public appearances again. Sending best wishes and support for his recovery. > **[Police identify Salman Rushdie attack suspect as 24-year-old from New Jersey](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/12/salman-rushdie-attack-suspect-identified-hadi-matar)** > > Hadi Matar, 24, in custody after author of Satanic Verses was stabbed at literary event in western New York ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/23 "2022-08-13T06:29:34Z")
So why didn’t he have adequate security? Security should be able to protect someone from a knife attack in the situation described. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/24 "2022-08-13T07:51:45Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > I also hope that he lives many more years before dying a peaceful and natural death - the biggest middle finger possible toward the anti-intellectual brutes who sought to extinguish him before his time. hear, hear. Very well put. “living well is the best revenge”. This should be a wake-up call and a timely reminder to those who seek to weaken freedom of expression and artistic freedom itself. A point that I have no doubt, Salman will make loudly and at length when he is once able to make use of that freedom. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/25 "2022-08-13T08:18:33Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > So why didn’t he have adequate security? Security should be able to protect someone from a knife attack in the situation described. Security is expensive and restrictive. Some people choose more risk and freedom over greater safety. Also, as I mentioned it can be expensive and I have no idea of the state of Mr. Rushdie’s finances. Also, no security is perfect. That’s why we’ve had US Presidents sometimes attacked, injured, or even killed. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/26 "2022-08-13T08:28:04Z")
IIRC Rushdie apologized but the fatwa was never ended? Only the head cleric in Iran can do that. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/27 "2022-08-13T09:50:51Z")
I’ve found [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/12/tsunami-outrage-salman-rushdie-satanic-verses) which explains it quite well. He apologised but didn’t mean it, he probably did it for practical reasons (to try and not get himself or his colleagues killed, seems like a reasonable reaction) the clerics didn’t care anyway as an apology is meaningless to them. He later bitterly regretted making any apology at all and states that he does not regret writing and publishing the book. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/28 "2022-08-13T10:01:50Z")
Thanks to **Novelty Bobble** for the fine link. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/29 "2022-08-13T10:58:51Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I’ve found [this article](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/12/tsunami-outrage-salman-rushdie-satanic-verses) which explains it quite well. Yes, thank you Novelty Bobble. ---
**Author:** ![paulmarkj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@paulmarkj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulmarkj)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/30 "2022-08-13T11:47:14Z")
I’ve read a lot of Salmon Rushie’s books, and they are as good as the critics say. _Midnight’s Children_ is a worthy winner of the Booker Prize, in fact, _Midnight’s Childre_n won the Booker of Bookers, (ie: best of the Booker winners). In my very humble opinion, he and Kazuo Ishiguro are the best authors of the last 100 years. The only reason I haven’t read Satanic Verses yet is because it is never in any book stores, I guess beacuse of the Fatwa, and that annoys me because it means the Fatwa has won. By coincidence, a documentary about Rushdie was on TV on Thursday, (Arena: A Tall Story - How Salman Rushdie Pickled All of India]([BBC Four - Arena, A Tall Story - How Salman Rushdie Pickled All of India](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00crqwl)) - not sure if its available outside the UK) and also a film version of _Midnight’s Children._ The film was billed as: "“Two newborn babies are swapped in a hospital.” That’s like describing King Lear as “A man is old so he retires”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/31 "2022-08-13T11:56:43Z")
So the attacker, Hadi Matar, is 24 years old and from New Jersey. He was not even born when the Butcher Khomeini spoke his fatwa, nor when he finally died in 1989, not even when in > 1997, a reformist Iranian president, Sayyid Mohammad Khatami, took office and began signalling that he would no longer actively seek to execute the fatwa on Rushdie, or encourage anyone to kill him, as part of an opening to the west and a restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain. > (from **Novelty Bobble** ’s article) Quite frankly, I am sorry for him. He is sick in his mind. Now he will be used by the sickos from the other extreme to stoke the flames of intolerance and the situation will likely escalate further. This is awful. Still I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison. Or in a very well guarded psychiatric ward. At least it looks like Salman Rushdie will make it. ---
**Author:** ![paulmarkj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@paulmarkj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulmarkj)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/32 "2022-08-13T12:01:51Z")
He apologised but later said he regretted apologising. ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/33 "2022-08-13T14:40:57Z")
If you have a bit more time, I suggest you read his memoir about the fatwa period. It’s called Joseph Anton (his code name while in hiding) and is as good as his fiction. Rushdie is truly gifted and an artist with the English language. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/34 "2022-08-13T15:06:07Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > (…) > In my very humble opinion, he and Kazuo Ishiguro are the best authors of the last 100 years. > > The only reason I haven’t read Satanic Verses yet is because it is never in any book stores, I guess because of the Fatwa, and that annoys me because it means the Fatwa has won. > (…) [Looks to be available on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670825379/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vamf_tpbk_p1_i1). Around $25 for hard cover, $15 for paperback, $5 for Kindle. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/35 "2022-08-13T15:13:16Z")
Now that it looks like he’ll survive I’ll also post this link to a BBC political show [“Question Time”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEVA4EAP_S0). Worth watching because it is relevant as a study in how some outwardly respectable and liberal people can tie themselves in cringing, cowardly knots and forget what they are supposed to stand for. It does contains a Pre-PM Boris Johnson plus Christopher Hitchens (again) being furious and eloquent which is always fun. If you watch carefully you can almost see the point where Shirley Williams coughs up a kidney through embarrasment. I remember watching this live and being amazed that she said what she said. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/36 "2022-08-13T18:37:22Z")
Rushdie really is a terrific writer. Hope he can live a long and happy life once he recovers. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/37 "2022-08-13T18:57:58Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > So why didn’t he have adequate security? Security should be able to protect someone from a knife attack in the situation described. **[From CNN:](https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/13/us/salman-rushdie-attacked-saturday/index.html)** > The [Chautauqua] institution’s leadership had rejected recommendations for basic security measures, including bag checks and metal detectors, fearing that would create a divide between speakers and the audience, according to two sources who spoke with CNN. The leadership also feared that it would change the culture at the institution, the sources said. Someone made a very, very bad judgment call. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/38 "2022-08-13T19:00:04Z")
I looked it up on Amazon and I see there are already at least four “books” about the stabbing. So I guess Amazon still has that exploit where you can get paid to publish nonsense books that have inflated page counts? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/39 "2022-08-13T19:26:01Z")
> [@paulmarkj](#): > > The only reason I haven’t read Satanic Verses yet is because it is never in any book stores, I guess beacuse of the Fatwa, and that annoys me because it means the Fatwa has won. Easily available on Amazon, both paper and e-book ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564/40 "2022-08-13T19:47:40Z")
Not everyone likes to shop at Amazon and some may prefer to support their local bookshop. Another option may be to have a local bookshop order the book for you. Regarding the fatwa, it’s my understanding that the current Ayatollah reaffirmed the fatwa within the last few years, so it’s very much active. There is also a large bounty for Rushdie’s death. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/salman-rushdie-attacked-onstage-breaking-news-2022-08-12/969564.md?page=3)