With the controvery that has wrapped the knighthood awarded to Salman Rushdie, people in the west who question the award forget that he wrote one of the greatest books of the 20th Century, Midnights Children. The knighthood isn't being awarded for writing Satanic Verses but rather for his body of work which includes some of the best novels in the english language.
Disregarding the protest of the Muslims or inflaming them is clearly no way forward but then neither is rescinding the award.
Its clear there are certain things that get under Muslims skin: the war in Iraq, the status of the Palestinians, the state of Afghanistan, the war in Yugoslavia and those are all things we in the west need to address. Rescinding the knighthood will in no way alleviate any of these festering grievences. Regardless of whether the award is rescinded or not, we will all hear about the award for years to come as a point of insensitivity to Islam, as a point of how the west does not understand Islam. Or the plight of Muslims.
It could well be that the west may not understand Islam but in turn, Muslims do not understand the west either. To westerners, this is purely an issue of freedom of speech. Muslim belief does not extend freedom of speech to matters relating to the prophet Mohammed but again, that is a cultural issue which needs understanding on both sides. Rescinding the award would send the signal that the misunderstanding is a one way street when there's clearly work to be done on both fronts.
The best that can be hoped for under the current situation is for a muslim cleric of high respect to try to explain what freedom of speech means in the west. People who are already enraged and burning effigies will not be sated but at least its a step forward. We should also ask from the Muslim community what can be done in cases like this in the future. Its clear that we need to take their views into account before rather than after such incidents are played out.
