Despite death sentence, Rushdie spreads message

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Author Salman Rushdie told an audience Monday in Warriner Hall’s Plachta Auditorium how he continued to spread his message despite his life being endangered.

“I learned how to tell if a car was following me,” he said.

The lndian-British author of “The Satanic Verses” spoke Monday in front of a near-capacity auditorium.

Nancy Robinson, administrative secretary for University Events, said 775 people came to the event.

Rushdie had a fatwa, or religious death sentence, placed on him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the former supreme leader of Iran, for writing “Satanic Verses.” The sentence is still active.

Rushdie spent nearly a decade underground in hiding, appearing in public rarely, all because what he wrote caused controversy in the Muslim world, he said.

“It is wrong to dictate to artists the imagination of where they should go,” Rushdie said.

So Rushdie has traveled to spread his word to the masses because he believes the novel is the true way to spread the news.

“It used to be, in the case of (Charles) Dickens, that the novel brought the news,” Rushdie said. “I think it might still be the case. When I turn on the news, I don’t see much news on.”

However, Rushdie reiterated the impact novels have on society years after they are written. Without books, history is remembered differently, he said.

“It’s very difficult to think of the Napoleanic Wars without reading ‘War and Peace,’” Rushdie said.

In America today, novels are becoming less significant, even with free expression, he said. This is a hard age to write in because characters do not control their own destiny, he said. People are traveling all over the world in a short time.

This has caused characters to be overridden by context, he said, and made writing more difficult.

Rushdie was finally able to free himself from the shackles of his book when he realized that nobody was ever safe, no matter what they did.

“There is no such thing as security,” he said. “The moment you understand that, it sets you free.”

His “moment” came when President Ronald Reagan was shot. Rushdie said he realized that if even the most protected man in the world is not secure, nobody can be.

Rushdie has since started living in New York, where he is frustrated with a whole new idea – the election.

“I don’t recall a time when people thought so poorly of the United States,” he said. “I speak to you as someone frustrated who doesn’t have a vote. Don’t screw it up this time.”

He was encouraged by the Democratic nomination of Barack Obama and believes his election may lead to a better standing for America in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Students who attended the event thought Rushdie was a charismatic speaker.

“It was interesting to see his point of view on other peoples view of America,” said Kelly Johnson, a Breckenridge senior. “I thought (Rushdie) did a great job making it light-hearted, despite the serious nature of what he was saying.”

In the end, Rushdie did not want to cause controversy.

“I want to write books that make people think and ask questions,” he said.

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