25 June, 2007

Salman Rushdie in short skirts

"When did the poisonous habit of blaming the victims of crime for their suffering spread to Britain?” asks Johann Hari. Citing Salman Rushdie’s case as an illustration of this, he writes:

[A]cross the political spectrum, people have reacted by blaming Rushdie for being the victim of wannabe-murderers. “He cost us £10m!” sneers the right-wing press in unison. You might as well say the Soham victims Holly and Jessica “cost us” millions because we had to investigate the crime against them; it makes as much sense.

Ah, the critics say, but he brought it on himself. He wrote things he knew were “provocative”. George Galloway, completing his journey to the theocratic far right, has sneered that his novel is “indeed positively Satanic”, and said “he turned 1.8 billion people in the world against him when he talked about their prophet in a way that can only be described as blasphemous.”

This is exactly analogous to saying a woman wearing a short skirt is responsible for being dragged into an alley and raped. It is also flecked with a form of soft racism, since Galloway assumes all Muslims are excitable children who can only react to querying of the Koran with attempted butchery.

Dead right. “Don’t offend people and make them angry.” “Don’t wear short skirts and arouse potential rapists.” Same difference.

And this tendency is common in India as well. Pioneer editor and Hindutva fascism apologist Chandan Mitra took exactly this approach during a talk show on the Baroda issue, asking why Chandra Mohan had to make paintings with a religious theme. In another talk show on another subject, another apologist asked why MF Hussain didn’t paint his mother nude. But then, in a country where giving offence is a crime, why should we be surprised that Chandra Mohan and Hussain were being treated as the culprits?

My posts on the Baroda affair: “Fascism in Baroda.” “Only live in fear.” “The Hindutva Rashtra.” Also read: “Don’t insult pasta” and “Fighting against censorship.”