Sterling on Rushdie

WIRED Magazine's futurist, Bruce Sterling, writes:

"We're all Rushdie now, but, uh, maybe life could be worse."

Sterling is referring to a paradoxical situation: No one has seen much of Rushdie in the last 16 years except Mrs. Rushdie, Padma Lakshmi, who, at least in this article, cooks in leather pants (?)

The fatwa, or religious edict, calling for Rushdie’s execution was issued by Iranian religious leaders, because of alleged blasphemy and apostasy in his novel The Satanic Verses.

From The Telegraph (Calcutta):

THE TROUBLE WITH RELIGION
"Wherever religions get into society’s driving seat, tyranny
results" by Salman Rushdie

"I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me. Religion was a part of my subject, of course -- for a novelist from the Indian subcontinent, how could it not have been? But in my opinion I also had many other, larger, tastier fish to fry. Nevertheless, when the attack came, I had to confront what was confronting me, and to decide what I wanted to stand up for in the face of what so vociferously, repressively and violently stood against me.

"Now, 16 years later, religion is coming after us all and, even though most of us probably feel, as I once did, that we have other, more important concerns, we are all going to have to confront the challenge. If we fail, this particular fish may end up frying us."

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