Arise, Sir Salman

So, the furore this week surrounding Britain’s allegedly troubled relationship with Islam is that Salman Rushdie appeared in the Queen’s birthday honours list and is to become Sir Salman Rushdie. The nonsense starts with the fact that those named on which are not chosen by the Queen nor is it issued on her real birthday, so it is neither her honour nor her birthday, but I digress.

Salman Rusdie achieved great fame by being sentenced to death (in absentia) by the late Ayatollah Khomeini, whom I imagine was nicknamed “Laughaminute” by his friends. This “fatwa” is now not officially sponsored by Iran but a good proportion of the allegedly devout (for which read violent nutters) support it. Put it this way, I’d not want to live next door to the Rushdies nor be on the same flight as him.

He won the major UK prize for literature before he wrote the Satanic Verses, a book that I am reliably informed is not very good. It’s hardly unusual for an author of his fame to be given an honour of this sort. The government of Pakistan has angrily demanded that the Queen retracts the honour because “The move is part of a campaign being waged in Europe and the West to hurt the feelings of Muslims”. No, boys and girls, it’s called free speech. Pakistan should feel entirely welcome to give whatever honour it bestows on any author who writes a dull book that allegedly defames Christianity, the Queen, homosexuality and anything else that I consider to be part of my culture and personal make-up. That’s why England and Pakistan are separate nation states. We pander far too much to the affected brittleness of others, be they Pakistani or Welsh speakers.

Once more I feel principally concerned that the sort of tiresome, deeply predictable flag burning and affected hysteria reflects very badly on the vast majority of calm, sensible Muslims. I imagine a great many of them today are thinking “not in my name”. At least, I hope so. I am actually quite pleased that whoever decided to give this UK honour to a UK citizen rightly disregarded as irrelevant the opinions of an hysterical, posturing, ill-informed group of head cases. We should not refrain from giving an honour in these circumstances any more than we should choose to bestow an honour on Martha Stewart because a lot of Americans believe she’s a great person.

Islam appears to me to attract far too much attention from a crazy minority whom we all need to stand up to. This is straightforward bullying, dressed up as a more reasonable request for respect for the religion of another. The British high commissioner had been summoned to the Pakistan government’s offices for a good dressing down. That is their right. I really believe that Pakistan’s high commissioner to the UK should be summoned to Buckingham Palace, where I heartily encourage the Queen to exercise her right (being head of state and thus above the laws of the land) to bend over and show him her arse. Go on Liz, I dare you.