Most of the world's eyes right now are on New York where Salman Rushdie, known for his Islam-critic publication Satanic verses, was stabbed in the neck at a literature event. And whoever is not paying close attention to this event, and the reactions to it really should be as it strikes right at the heart of the most important topic of our time.
Are we free to speak our minds in the modern world without reason to fear for our life or safety?
24-year-old Hadi Matar getting escorted away from the event after stabbing Salman Rushdie. Photo by AP.
In case you've missed the news, it was during a guest lecture at the education center of Chautauqua Institution in New York, that a man now identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar stormed the stage and stabbed Rushdie both in the torso and in the neck. Thankfully, it seems that Rushdie is not facing life-threatening injuries, but that he will likely lose eyesight on one eye, as well as sustain some liver damage and nerve damage to one arm.
The local police have so far stated that “the motive is unknown”... Who are we kidding?
Of course we know the motive…
Everyone knows the motive. For 34 years, Rushdie has had to deal with serious death threats for the so-called crime of blaspheming the “religion of peace”. This has been from lone wolf individuals all the way up to the head of Iran, whose leader 33 years ago issued a fatwa on Rushdie asking for his execution. This fatwa has so far never been revoked, instead, others have increased the bounty on his head to approximately $4 million in recent years.
Of course the attack is linked to Rushdie's publication and the perceived notion in a worryingly large portion of the Muslim world that "blasphemy" and critique of the faith is a valid reason to take someone's life. Is anyone going to pretend to think that there's an equal chance that we'll learn that the attacker was an atheist, a christian, or a buddhist?
Salman Rushdie has lived with constant death threats for 34 years since his publication of "Satanic Verses" in 1988.
Photo by AP.
Our cowardness
The second most tragic thing here is how people like Rushdie have had to shoulder the burden of standing up for free speech by themselves. Every time there's been an outrage following some silly Danish or French cartoons or other literature offending Islam, mainstream media has decided not to share the images or passages deemed "offensive". Similarly, many public figures have tried to dance somewhere in the middle, making points out of how free speech is important, but that we also "should not offend"... The effect of this should be obvious: It results in the risk being carried by the few who decide to speak up for free speech against those who makes threats of violence against it, which in turn gives a victory to the fascists who then succeed in silencing their critiques who don't want to face either death or a life in fear of it.
I expect to see no significant changes following this tragic display of the poor state of free speech. Instead, I expect to see more petty statements about how there are no problems with religion, only with "extremism". As if the two can be separated.
A reminder of how free speech is still under attack
Free speech is, of course, a topic close to the hearts of many people on Hive, as enabling and protecting it is one of its most important value propositions. And we are, of course, all in our rights to treasure it. Free speech is nothing less than the cornerstone of our 21st-century societies, as well as a fundamental right to allow us to succeed in our own individual pursuits. But while most of the focus on the topic from the Hive community's point of view has understandably been on online censorship and big tech, we should not forget that being banned on social media is almost a luxury compared to facing attempts of assassination. Cancel culture sucks, but stabbing culture is worse.
My own motivation to enable and protect free speech dates back some 13 years. Few things have made me more outraged than seeing the suppression of secular groups, as well as other minorities, in theocratic countries. Especially when seeing how platforms like Facebook and Google would bend over backward in accepting the discrimination demanded by authorities in the middle east aiming to ban so-called blasphemy in the mild form of nonconformity.
Seeing the events this week has thus been a very powerful reminder of why this is a battle worth fighting, and that there is still a lot more work to be done. If anything, it only makes me want to put in more effort to make this blockchain a success, and see to that those who can benefit from its use are introduced to it.