The author Salman Rushdie has warned in an interview that what is described as the Left-wing ‘cancel culture’ is a threat to literature as well as freedom of speech. Mr Rushdie was responding to the notion that that authors should write only ‘what they know’ or should run the of risk being ‘cancelled’. Rushdie, who is the Booker Prize winner pulled no punches when he said that he would not accept that ‘there are areas in which censorship is acceptable’.
Rushdie added: ‘I’ve always seen democracy as a public square in which everyone is arguing… The ability to have the argument is what I would call freedom because in countries that are authoritarian the first thing rulers try to do is to shut down that argument.’
Rushdie, who is an Anglo-Indian author has, for a period of time, been a steadfast defender of free speech. This has particularly been the case since his his own life was under threat for many years after Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ruling against him in 1989 after he published his his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.
Rushdie’s most recent activism saw him join more than 150 signatories of an open letter to the US magazine Harper’s which voiced its displeasure at ‘cancel culture’. Rushdie told Times Radio : ‘If you can only write about a gay character if you’re gay or you can only write about a straight character if you’re straight, very rapidly the form of literature becomes difficult to continue with.’
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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