Few days ago the British Government honored Salman Rushdie, the West-Celebrated Islam-Bashing Indian writer by making him a Knight.
Now, if Rushdie was a great novelist or even close to that one would understand honoring him with such a venerated title. But given that his only achievement was that he wrote a novel in which he insulted Islam and its prophet in such a way that even the most anti-Islamists would not think of, it is only logical to ask: why was this writer honored in that way?
Not only that, it is more interesting that the media and the JU blogosphere ignored the incident as if nothing happened.
The whole western media got up in arms when Iran arranged for a conference to discuss the "Validity" of the Holocaust. Iran was not insulting Judaism. They were holding a conference to discuss the validity of a terrible crime. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, which one is more of a free speech: to discuss the validity of a crime or to insult a whole religion?
If both are, then why was the outrage against Iran?
Even if Rushdie's writings were free speech, does it deserve an award? a Knighthood?
I don’t think any literary critic even suggested that Rushdie's writings are considered anything more than ordinary. So why was he honored by a Knighthood?
We, in the west, may choose to ignore the whole question, as we did. However, Muslims will not and they are not.
Looking at the whole thing from here, it seems that our ally in the war on terror is undermining our efforts by giving our enemies more ammunition to flame the masses instead of supporting the moderate Muslim-majority.
Things seem to be going in a direction that Muslim extremists claimed to be their "Battle Cry" and that is: The west is out to destroy Islam. Is that what we really want to convey, let alone confirm, to Muslims allover the world?
First, the Cartoons insulting their Prophet, then the Pope insulting their Prophet and their religion and now the UK honors a writer for doing the same.
In any war, one would assume that we would support and encourage the moderates amongst our enemy who oppose the actions of the fanatics in order to undermine our enemy's base. But we are doing exactly the opposite as if we are looking for trouble and for more enemies. If we are, we are doing a fantastic job.