Against Literalism—’The Satanic Verses’ Fatwa at 30

This is not a simple matter of West versus East (Rushdie would have much to say about such a simple demarcation), but a matter of civilisation versus barbarism, wherein the artists, secularists, writers, and reformers of all colours and creeds must make a united stand against the authoritarians and narrow-minded fundamentalists of all kinds and in all places, whether they be Islamists, righteous far-leftists for whom "dissent" means "impure," windbag religious reactionaries, or white nationalists.

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