Salman Rushdie, a point to ponder

I believe that there is every reason to look at Salman Rushdie's knighthood as a deliberate attempt to convey Britain's contempt for all those who think that the sacrilegious literature should not be encouraged, let alone honoured. Salman Rushdi's The Satanic Verses is to say the least, has hurt the feelings of Muslims no end.
Not only have the Muslims but also some noted researchers of religion such as Karen Armstrong termed the Satanic Verses horrendous and blasphemous. Karen has given vent to her disgust on page 331 of the "Battle for God". I have referred to the page number with a view to avoiding hurting the feelings of those who would surely recoil against the unquotable lines of the narrative.
I believe that Britain, having the first hand experience of a number of Muslim countries should not have conducted itself so insensitively and recklessly as it did by awarding its highly prestigious honour to some one who has evidently ridiculed the Prophet and further alleged that the (Holy) Koran had been tainted by satanic influence.
Actually, the Muslim reaction must not surprise any one. Karen in her book attempted a threadbare examination of Christian and Judaic fundamentalism. She has amply discussed the phenomenon of the "Born again Christians" in the USA. There is a sizeable section of Christians fundamentalists who don't believe in the scientific explanations for the creation of Universe.
They go by the chapters of "The Genesis" in the Bible and think that the Mythos instead of Logos should guide human destiny. The West is now lording it over the world and believes that nations resisting international control of their economics were mischievous and hence blocking the way for onward march towards total international control of their trade and hegemony. Some western neo-Liberal intellectuals have gone to the extent of labelling the third world resistance as an anti-human rights approach.
Now one could imagine that the western arrogance and insensivity was not a mere lapse or an act of indiscretion. It is deliberate and symptomatic of its will to ignore the sensitivities of the poor South-mainly the Islamic bloc which takes its religion, rather its Mythos, more seriously than the West.
The danger which the Muslim Societies are facing today is not new.
That's why I have all along maintained that modernity has always been looked upon as helpful to progressive advances towards a knowledge-based future. However, in our sub-continent, the moderns of Urdu literature have tended to regard Mythos as Logos. There has been a deliberate confusion and whimsical conferment of a meaning totally different form the connotation which Modernity has had in its discourse about Religion and Secularism in the West.
I believe that Shams-ur-Rehaman Farooqi, who became the exponent of modernism in Urdu literature in the late 50s 60s, exchanged Logos for Mythos has distorted the concept of Modernity a great deal by expunging it of the connotation of Logos. According to Karen, Logos was the rational, pragmatic and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world whereas Mythos believed in mythical spirituality.
The protest against Salman Rushdi is from those elements who believe in Mythos. But Rushdi's book has also angered those who stand for "Logos" because his views have hurt all those who believe in Reason. How can it be proper for a good writer to have a literary agenda which is serving the anti Third World agenda of Globalisation. It is nothing but to disparage all those who believe in their cultural moorings.
It is unfortunate that Salman Rushdi has been honoured without any regard to the predictable sensitivities of the Muslim World which, contrary to the Western world, still believes in Mythos. I believe that there are societies which, even after opting for Logos, will not be secular the way Christian West has chosen to be.
It is therefore necessary for Western politicians to appreciate the difference between Islam and other religions. A good friend of the Islamic World should understand the difference which could be a key to a more congenial world than we find today.
In my view, Salman Rushdi should be penalised for writing a book which makes a short shrift of the need to inculcate respect for all religions as a basic condition of civilised behaviour.
(The writer is Dean of Management & Social Sciences, BIZTEK University, Karachi.)