Early Friday evening in Chappaqua (New York State), we almost witnessed the realization, a third of a century later, of the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, launched against the writer Indian-British-American in February 1989, for “blasphemy against Islam”.
At the cost of an imposed clandestinity for ten years, of removals and changes of nationality, of a life spent between the bodyguards and the never forgotten fear of the possible attack, the author of the satanic verses has never denied his very strong convictions in favor of unreserved freedom of expression.
Was the knife attack, by a young American of Lebanese Shiite origin influenced by Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran, an “order”? We know that the order to assassinate Salman Rushdie in the name of respect for Islam has never been formally revoked in the country of the ayatollahs…
However, nothing is less certain, because in the current context, Tehran would rather have an interest in managing its relations with the West, while we are still trying, despite a stagnation of several months in Vienna, to revive in extremis the Iranian nuclear deal.
The hypothesis remains admissible: a radical faction in Tehran, without the approval of the president or the supreme guide, could have fomented such an action. Theoretically possible.
But beyond the responsibility or not of a state or a state faction, the question is secondary. Because, in 2022 – the survey will no doubt clarify this point – the motivations that lead to the “Islamo-terrorist” action do not require, and no longer require, a large organization behind it.
Namely: a chain of command and logistics such as we had seen in the large-scale attacks that preceded September 11, 2001, and especially in those of the 10-15 years that followed (France, Spain, Indonesia, Morocco, etc).
For ten years in Europe, we would rather find ourselves, as the Arabist specialist Gilles Kepel theorized – known for his field surveys in the Levant and in the French “suburbs” – in what he calls “atmospheric jihadism”. “.
An ideologically influential, coherent jihadism, which inspires the acts of “lone wolves”… who, although solitary, fit well into this current and claim it.
We find there a radical criticism of the West, of its imperialism, of its colonial crimes, and action within societies: anti-racism, communitarianism, repeated blame against secularism and “Islamophobia”, entryism, struggle for the expansion of Islam, for its visibility in the public sphere, etc.
With a continuum that goes from peaceful activism to terrorism… which others will rather call “rupture”.
After Khomeini’s historic fatwa, Rushdie has become a double symbol. That of the fight for freedom of expression, and that of denouncing radical and political Islam. These two causes are separate, but related.
Even if he received personal support in the face of the threats made against him in 1989 – a year rich in historic events: the liberation of Eastern Europe, the crushing of the Beijing Spring, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini (four months after his fatwa), announcement of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan—this support was tempered by the other aspect of his fight, which inspired reservations, for example when he declared: “We must stop the stupid blindness in the face of the jihadism which consists in saying that it has nothing to do with Islam” (The ObsJune 8, 2017).
A staunch secularist, Salman Rushdie has always opposed specific protections for religions in legislation on freedom of expression, publishing for example – ten years before the attacks on Charlie Hebdo — a collection entitled Free expression is not an offense. He opposed the British government’s plan to introduce into law the “crime of racial and religious hatred”, which was finally adopted with an amendment.
The attack against Salman Rushdie, perpetrated a few hundred kilometers from our home, is a warning about the still current — and universal — dimension of the struggles of this writer, certainly Anglo-Saxon, but rather… “French Republican” in his approach to these crucial questions.
François Brousseau is an international business analyst at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]