"We are in danger of losing the battle for freedom of speech," Mr. Rushdie said. It is being recast as a Western imposition, not a universal human right. Respect is being redefined as agreement, and censorship disguised as a virtuous defence of diversity. His own fatwa, he said, was "a rejection of the idea of fiction as a form" and "the beginning of something that was going to spread around the world."
The Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 fatwa against Rushdie forThe Satanic Verses was the first shot fired by militant Islam across the bows of the complacent West, and most of us caved. We seem to be going on caving. Rushdie, more than most, knows where this could lead. Will we listen to him?
