you won't find any kind of insults in this book of mine."If I'm elected as the Islamic Guidance minister, I can tell you that I disagree almost totally with the way the ministry is being run .. Islam is not like a small, dark alley in which man .. hits his head against a wall and can't survive. The reason for this was that for about 40 days I couldn't sleep more than half-an-hour at night because I believed it was so important to give an answer to this book ... I wrote a book about Rushdie which was translated into Arabic and English .. yet ... The Imam was still alive when I started writing critically about this book in Etelaat newspaper."My colleagues in the office saw how, after writing this article, I collapsed in the office and couldn't move.
We can be against people's ideas but that does not mean we should be allowed to insult them ... we should criticise him in a respectable way ..."I think that the books I've written show my sensitivity towards cultural invasion. How should I prove my sensitivity? I showed it by writing critically about the Satanic Verses on the very evening of February 14th [1989] that the Imam's fatwa [against Salman Rushdie] was announced over the radio ... we should prepare the kind of environment in which people feel able to express their ideas in different ways in the Islamic Republic. "Here in this parliament, a writer [Dr Abdol-Karim Soroush, a leading opposition intellectual] was talked about, and his name was used without respect. Extracts from Seyyed Mohajerani's speech to the Iranian parliament on 20 August after which he was elected - by a very narrow margin - to be Minister of Islamic Guidance: "Everybody who has accepted the Islamic Republic and our country's constitution and are living as Iranian citizens, must be subject to tolerance ... Rushdie believes that the Government is not hostile to his position Equally, however, there is no sign of a tough new stance "I keep asking for a policy - and there is no policy.". When Rushdie requested a meeting with Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, he was told there was "no need for such a meeting at this moment".To which Rushdie observed: "I can't think when there would be a better moment."Rushdie insists that a tough stance by the European Union - where Britain will be the effective leader, for the next six months - is the only way of forcing Iran to soften its current position.The Labour government preaches the need for an ethical foreign policy, which presumably includes the need not to kill people, according to what books they have written.
He said: `Any time I can do anything for you, don't hesitate to ask'."Come the election, however, Labour's warmth for the threatened author diminished. "At the time when the EU withdrew its ambassadors, it said they would only come back if the fatwa was withdrawn. But they have sent them back anyway."Rushdie, still under threat of assassination because his Satanic Verses offended the Iranian government, spoke of his disappointment that Britain, which takes over the presidency of the European Union in 11 days' time, has failed to offer the moral support that he had hoped for."Before Blair was prime minister, he was extremely supportive. This was the greatest protest vote they could make ..."If the people of Iran were able to make their political will felt, you'd get a very different society."But he seemed resigned to the fact that little has changed, so far. The return of the EU ambassadors to Tehran was itself an indication that the status quo remains in force. In every other aspect of the Islamic republic, they talk about the unity of religion and politics .. The Iranians can always do things when they want to We can get bogged down in areas of theological discussion.
If the Iranian state decides to get rid of this problem, it's able to do so."He was cautiously optimistic about the election of the new Iranian leader, President Khatami. "What it says to me is that people are getting very tired of the rule of the Imam. "People seem very eager to believe that change is taking place - on very scant evidence I've become quite sceptical of gentler announcements. They're often followed by contradictions." He was scathing, too, about the passing-the-buck argument - presented yet again by Seyyed Mohajerani, minister of Islamic guidance - which suggests that a fatwa cannot be overturned because Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued the fatwa, is no longer alive "It's disingenuous. Salman Rushdie was sceptical yesterday about suggestions that the official Iranian position has softened, as Steve Crawshaw found.
"My own attitude is: wait and see," Rushdie told The Independent. And, of course, the more Khatami's men condemn Rushdie's book, the less liberal they appear in the West.. When President Khatami's supporters demand intellectual freedom, his political enemies now suggest that they wish to excuse The Satanic Verses and contradict the word of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Anyone who advocates intellectual freedom may now be linked to Rushdie. Mr Rafsanjani even evinced ignorance of the Khordad's rationale. "I don't know what their motive was," he said, "but the government's policy towards [the Rushdie affair] is the same as before, and one which we have repeatedly announced." A request by The Independent to interview Ayatollah Sanei, was politely declined by the 15 Khordad organisation.The truth is that the Rushdie affair is in danger of reigniting passions among the ultra-orthodox clergy who were defeated in last May's presidential elections.
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