Words / knives
Top: There was a surprising amount of security at a press freedom award ceremony just outside DC in about 1992. After everyone was seated and the doors secured, the advertised speaker (I no longer remember who) came to the podium and announced a change: Salman Rushdie was actually the main event. At the time, the author was “in hiding” and closely guarded after Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a death fatwa on him, accompanied by a $1 million bounty (just in case 72 virgins was insufficient reward). Rushdie gave an impassioned defense of freedom of speech and decried those who would punish or thwart its exercise. He was excoriating, joyful, and witty in turns. And then there were ripe strawberries dipped deep in chocolate at the reception.
Thirty-three years after the fatwa, Rushie had resumed normal life. He was on stage waiting to address an event celebrating freedom of speech when a man wielding a knife charged him and ripped though his body for 27 seconds before being subdued. Rushdie barely survived his multiple wounds and lost one eye and full use of a hand. He wrote about that experience and its repercussions in his newly released book, Knife.
Below: This photo has nothing to do with Rushdie, except that it is of another furious man wielding a blade, in this case, a machete. Turning his pickup onto a Burlington, VT street, he found it blocked by protesters. Refusing to take a small detour around the demonstration, the driver leaped from his truck. Enraged beyond all reason, he threatened onlookers with a machete and demanded his right to pass. The protesters opened the street to let him through.
Each of these angry men—the one who attacked Rushdie and the one who threatened peaceful protesters—was armed with a blade and fueled by a perverted, disproportionate sense of agrievement.
So powerful, Terry--the image of the machete-wielding man in Vermont was a sobering reminder that crazed violence of course happens here as well. The interviews with Rushdie over recent days were illuminating, and I am so glad to have your images and comments to to further illustrate the implications for all of us.
Rushdie has just published a book entitled "Knife" where he recounts and discusses the attack. Earlier this week he appeared on NPR for an interview and to peddle the book. That discussion was quite enlightening and may be available online.