Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:48:42 -0500 (CDT) From: mfk4301-AT-utarlg.uta.edu Subject: Re: Rushdie As Rushdie is back in the news, it is again fashionable to sing his praises and condemn those 'fundamentalist Iranians'....both of these stances are taken as absolute..there is no middle ground....what is sad about this sorry 'debate' is conducted under that auspices of literature...people seem to talk in absoulte terms about 'Fundamentalists' (ie.'others').... There is no middle ground, thers is no room for the often ignored but nevertheless crucial third perspective on things.... Just because I disagree or criticize Rushdie, it is immediately and, I must point out, rather naively interpreted by a number of people (who sent replies to my first posting) as me being an 'intolerant' person, as someone 'who had decided to hat Rushdie before even reading him' and many other such interpretations.... Has the pressure to jump the bandwagon become so intense that people are unwilling even to consider that there MIGHT be other interpretation apart from their own. Just because others may have a different interpretation from those of 'us' who are blessed with the ability to read naked abuse about other people's basic principles of morality as nothing more than the elusive magical realism or all encompassing postmodernism. And since 'those people' are not enlightened enough to see things Rushdie's way, they are wrong, for how dare they attack someone for defiling thier way of life.... for besmirching thier beliefs.... (whereas in 'our' ..aka 'American way of life'..it is Ok to wage wars and kill thousands of people..).... So, in my humble and 'third-worldist' point of view, before we jump up and stand in line to kiss Rushdie's hand, we should, maybe for a second pause and think that if this man, brilliant writer that he might be, has offended millions of people in all corners of the world, myabe maybe, there is something we are overlooking in his message which may actually be demeaning and isulting to a large and otherwise silent majority...think about it...... Be Welll Furrukh --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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