To Sir with luck

Sir Salman Mustdie......err...I mean Sir Salman Rushdie. That 3 letter word suffixed to the writer's name has caused an uproar and triggered protests in many parts of the Muslim world. Born to Muslim parents in Mumbai, the controversy he stirred will always be remembered generations after he's gone. And now a knighthood to boot?

UK has honoured a novelist, who will always be remembered as The writer with a death sentence over his head. I guess it's UK's right to honour him, no matter how trivial his works were to me. Apart from The Satanic Verses, for which he was sentenced to death, and whose sentence can not be repealed as the guy who sentenced him in the first place, Ayatollah Khomeini, is dead, I am hard-pressed to name his other literary works. I have yet to read The Satanic Verses and I have no inclination to do so at all.

My perplexed mind is still trying to understand the justifications for his knighthood. Granted, I'm no literary expert but to be given a knighthood for "Services to Literature" would mean he had to do something really grand. Probably, something on par with what Sir Isaac Newton achieved. Not only do I feel that he falls short of a deserving knighthood, he is nowhere close. Islamic-sensitivities aside, I can't think of his supposed services that warrants a knighthood apart from his sacreligious book. If controversy is the name of his justification, then UK deserves all the backlash it is geting right now.

Then again, I am a little surprised at the reactions coming from all over the world. Yes, I agree that it is deplorable and untimely that UK has decided to award him the knighthood. However, the reactions to the award are equally uncalled for and does nothing to alleviate the problem. What I mean to say is that in the face of Islamic extremism, such reactions are only playing into the hands of extremists. It is a widely accepted fact that extremism is misguided but still Muslims around the world are prone to such knee-jerk reactions. I'm sure Salman is sitting somewhere in London, drinking his cup of tea and having hearty laugh at all the furore that surrounds his knighthood.

I say let Salman get his knigthood. So what if some buffoons think he is a deserving recipient of such awards? It only serves to dilute the prestige of such an award when someone as controversial as Salman gets that award. Furthermore, it's not like he could command more respect or he'll get richer. I couldn't care less about it not because I don't care that my Prophet is slandered but I think there are bigger issues for us to worry about than some so-called literary giant's knighthood.

To Sir Salman Rushdie, good luck dealing with all the hatred and anger and possible assasinations attempts.