Repetitions of History

In last week's New Yorker, an article written by Salman Rushdie described his time in hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini declared fatwa against him, sentencing him to death, for writing the novel The Satanic Verses. The article is interesting in general but what really stuck was Rushdie's opinion that a lot of the offense and anger that was ginned up was done so for various individuals' and groups' political gain. In Mr. Rushdie's words:

The book that he had written would vanish and be replaced by one that scarcely existed, in which Rushdie referred to the Prophet and his companions as “scums and bums” (he didn’t, though he did allow the characters who persecuted the followers of his fictional Prophet to use abusive language), and called the wives of the Prophet whores (he hadn’t—although whores in a brothel in his imaginary city, Jahilia, take on the names of the Prophet’s wives to arouse their clients, the wives themselves are clearly described as living chastely in the harem). This nonexistent novel was the one against which the rage of Islam would be directed, and after that few people wished to talk about the real book, except, usually, to concur with Hermione Lee’s negative assessment.

In essence, much of the Muslim world was taking offense from a nonexistent book as they did not bother to read the real book, which was respectful of Islam. Then various leaders decided to take the deliberate misconception and utilize that to strengthen their own power bases. As stated by Rushdie:

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was on a state visit to China at the time, and it was speculated that destabilizing her administration had been the demonstrators’ real aim. Religious extremists had long suspected her of secularism, and they wanted to put her on the spot. Not for the last time, “The Satanic Verses” was being used as a football in a political game that had little or nothing to do with it. 

 What is striking is the similarities between the context of Salman Rushdie suffered through and what is currently occurring with the protests over the recent, inflammatory YouTube film "Innocence of Muslims." While, unlike "The Satanic Verses," the latter is clearly meant to be inflammatory, the exaggerated response seems to be the same. In a post-Qaddafi world, there is still a power vacuum that various factions are filling and, in a predominantly Muslim country, raising the ire of the electorate seems a good way to solidify a power base. A new football in the same political game. Further, much like the threatened violence that Rushdie faced, the protests launched against "Innocence of Muslims" was used as cover for a horrific terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi; an attack in which a dedicated public servant, U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens lost his life.

I guess, despite the "Arab Spring," the more things change, the more they stay the same.

P.S.: I planned to go on about how the purposeful break from reality was also analogous to the entire modus operandi of Fox News, but I don't feel like going on a rant today and, as bad as that network is, they should not be compared to terrorists.

IMAGES: Google Images taken from somewhere else; and Google Images via Newsweek.