A rchive Date
[ 08-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/adler.html`
Show Parrish the gate, Jean
By CHARLES ADLER -- Winnipeg Sun
March 8, 2003
When Salman Rushdie speaks, people tend to listen. This is a Muslim who has had a bounty on his head since 1989. That's when the most prominent Muslim leader of the day, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religiou`s decree, ordering the death of the novelist who dared write The Satanic Verses.
Fans of Mafia literature would understand the term "sleeping with one eye open." That's how Rushdie lives his life, knowing there are many who would see assassinating him as guaranteeing an express ticket to heaven. Beam me up, Allah. I just killed the lit`tle Indian fellow with the British accent who wrote the "bad book."
The book has a Canadian connection, don't you know. It starts out with two Indian actors falling to earth after an Air India Jet explodes 30,000 feet above the English Channel. Where did the novelist pluck that idea from? The all-too-real event that befell an Air India journey that started in Vancouver and ended with body parts from hundreds of Canadian passengers strewn off the coast of Ireland.
Salman understands terrorism intellectually, personally, emotionally and, I will take my chances here, spiritually.
If you believe that Rushdie's mind is worth paying attention to, take this quote of his to the bank. Rushdie, in a British newspaper says, "America finds itself facing an ideological enemy that may turn out to be harder to defeat than militant Islam: that is to say, anti-Americanism, which is presently taking the world by storm."
Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, like any other politician, wants to be on the right side of history. If you listen to the words of the novelist, maybe she is. Was she not cheered rabidly by the fans of the Mike Bullard show?
Are media e-mail inboxes not filling up coast to coast with stuff like this: "Charles, it's about time somebody said it like it is about the Americans. When Parrish said 'DAMN AMERICANS. I HATE THE BASTARDS,' my heart sang a happy tune. Charles, you better get with the program.
"The arrogant Americans have brought this problem on themselves. The world hates them for thinking they can be the policeman of the world, and for bossing entire countries around when the people in those countries disagree with something the hateful Americans believe in. They think that just because people want American movies, or TV shows, or McDonald's hamburgers that they want all the other junk Americans buy into. The Americans think they have a mission to save the world for freedom and democracy.
"Well who made them God, Charles. Nobody did and Carolyn Parrish knows it and you know it. The difference between her and you, is she is prepared to say what she really feels about the Americans, and you're not."
What you have just read is a composite sketch summing up every kind of e-mail that sustains the Salman Rushdie argument. Anti-Americanism is becoming a very powerful ideology.
In another British newspaper, The Independent, a columnist this week asked the question: "When are the Americans going to get over Sept. 11?"
I don't know, Mr. Pundit. Maybe they will get over it when the Irish get over the English-induced potato famine. Maybe they will get over it when the British get over having to part company with the notion that the sun never sets on the British empire. Maybe they will get over it when the British stop believing that they are the capital of civilization.
Maybe they will get over it when American blacks get over slavery, and when the Jews get over the Holocaust. Maybe they will get over it when the Russians get over what was done to them by the Germans. Maybe they will get over it when the Ukrainians get over what was done to them by the Russians. Maybe they will get over it when Muslims get over what was done to them by the Spanish in the 14th century.
When will the Americans get over Sept. 11? Maybe they will get over it when the prime minister tells Carolyn Parrish to kiss his Royal Canadian and then take a long walk in the snow. And that will happen on the Eleventh of Never.
Charles Adler can be reached by e-mail at cadler@cjob.com. Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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