0 
Salman Rushdie: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
| Length: | 45 min |
| Released: | 1998 |
| Ages: |
High School College Adult |
Buy Online Streaming
This eloquent film on Salman Rushdie brings into sharp focus the conflict between freedom of expression and religious conservatism. The film opens with a short reading by Rushdie in his richly modulated voice from Haroun and the Sea, a book he wrote for his son a year after after he went into hiding. The film goes on to show the bookburnings and protests that Satanic Verses provoked thoughout Moslem communities all over the world, but most shockingly in Bradford, England.
Bradford is the Islamic capital of England. There are forty mosques and many Koranic schools. Many of its inhabitants support the fatwa of Ayotollah Komeini and express their disgust at the book. Rushdie reminds us that books do not injure people; one can always close a book if it offends. In response to being labeled blasphemous, he says "this is a crude, fascist term to shut people up." At a conference on censorship, secrecy and democracy, author Gunther Grass says "no one should claim a monopoly on the truth."
Bradford is the Islamic capital of England. There are forty mosques and many Koranic schools. Many of its inhabitants support the fatwa of Ayotollah Komeini and express their disgust at the book. Rushdie reminds us that books do not injure people; one can always close a book if it offends. In response to being labeled blasphemous, he says "this is a crude, fascist term to shut people up." At a conference on censorship, secrecy and democracy, author Gunther Grass says "no one should claim a monopoly on the truth."
Middle East Studies Association, 1997
