Keeping Friends Close
Hal G. P. Colebatch writes for The American Spectator that the decision to grant knighthood to Salman Rushdie was a major mistake. Firstly, he does not deserve to be knighed for his literary work (he is not that great of an author), secondly, the reasons Blair wants to see Rushdie be knighted is probably not so honorable:
THERE ARE ONLY TWO POSSIBLE explanations for the knighting of Rushdie: either those responsible for the recommendation were ignorant of the inevitable political consequences — fury against Britain by Muslims around the world, attacks on British interests and quite likely on British people in Muslim countries — or they knew those consequences and did not care.
Further, if it is meant to be a hit at Iran, from whence the original fatwa against Rushdie originated, perhaps in retaliation for Iran’s recent seizing of British sailors, it seems not only particularly feeble and ineffectual but actually counterproductive. The government in Iran is facing growing popular discontent and this is the sort of emotionally charged slap in the face that could rally support behind it.
Britain has several thousand troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries they are trying to win over the support and friendship of the population and to be regarded as friends and liberators rather than invaders, oppressors and infidels.
Britain has spent billions and strained its defense budget to the limit to put those troops there. Quite a few have died. The knighting of Rushdie has made their task unnecessarily harder, has made the chances of failure greater, and has put their lives that much more at risk. Because of the Queen’s direct involvement with knighthoods, it has also put the Queen at risk to a new degree.
Hal’s major problem with the decision to knight Rushdie, therefore, is that it hurts the war on terrorism / extremism. The major flaw in Hal’s reasoning is that those who hate Britain do not need more excuses. They have ‘reasons’ enough to hate Britain, most notoriously the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And, o, then there is also this little thing called the British Empire.
Having said that , there certainly is some - perhaps even a lot of - truth to Hal’s point that if we want to win the war against Muslim extremism, we should not insult moderate Muslims. We need their support. This does not mean that we should listen to what extremists say - I’d tell Hal to please ignore whatever it is that comes out of Iran - but that we should listen to what those moderate Muslims actually have to say about this matter. I have not read reactions from these moderates yet - lets first wait and see how they’ll respond before we say that the decision to grant knighthood to Rushdie was a mistake.
