From: d89-gsk@nada.kth.se (Gani Skepi)
Subject: Re: Diatribe against Rushdie (was: Jihad in Islam)
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:49:30 GMT

In article <14279@pogo.wv.tek.com>, daveb@pogo.wv.tek.com (Dave Butler) writes:
|> 
|> As an minor aside, I would point out that the last interview I saw from Rushdie
|> (either on "60 Minutes" or "20/20"), made clear that he did not consider
|> himself Muslim.  So I have to ask where you got your information that he now
|> considers himself a Muslim.  Do you have a quote from a verifiable source, or
|> is your claim unfounded and apocryphal?

Last time I heard of him was in a Swedish newspaper around half a year 
ago and according to it good old Rushdie had started with the "I'm a 
Muslim, forgive me" stuff again and had met with alot of the leaders 
of the Muslim community in England. Some of these leaders thought that
we should forgive him but others had a diffrent view which made Rushdie 
later on say that he wasn't a Muslim (it wouldn't surprise me if he did 
that the same day). So Rushdie seems to have a big problem with his 
identity..... One day he calims he is a Muslim and the other day he claims
he isn't..... So what is he??? Well, I doubt he even knows it himself....

If you want to I can contact some Br. in England and ask them about it 
and they can check it up for me if it was correct or not. But if you 
think back some years to the time when it all started you will remember 
Rushdie giving statements concerning what a good Muslim he himself is
and that a lot of his Muslim friends think that he was doing the right 
thing e.t.c. e.t.c..... 


|> Lastly Mr Skepi, while it does not bother me that you criticize and
|> rebuke Rushdie for his book, it does indeed disturb me that you state
|> those who insult you or your religion, deserve to be beaten or killed:

Well Mr Butler, it can propably be traced to my childhood.. :-).. 

It depends on who is insulting, why and what s/he is insulting and 
what her/his intensions are...(My God, I knew it. He is a potential woman 
beater!!! :-).) 

If I write a book claiming that *your*, yes *your* mother Mr Butler
is a fucking whore who everybody everywhere has fucked. But she is 
dead and thus can't defend herself against these sick accusations. 
And you tell me to prove it and I answer:"It is *only* fiction, don't 
take it personal!" Would you then say "well you are right and I think 
you have the right to have this view and write a book expressing it" or 
would you tell me to stop selling the crap and publicly say that the 
thing I did was wrong?? I have *no* facts whatever for my accusations 
and your mother can't defend herself as she is dead. 

So I am distributing a book claiming *your* mother to be a fucking bitch 
who like fucking alot, and everyone who knew here testifies she was a 
good person who *never* would do something like that, so I claim it is 
"only" fiction. What would you do??? Turn the other cheack??? I'm insult-
ing *your* dead mother... And then suddenly the media put itself on *my* 
side and claim I have the *right* to say that *your* mother is a whore!!!
What would you do?? Try to imagen yourself into this situation. It is 
absurd!!! You would inevitably reach a stage when you will tell this piece 
of shit (i.e. me in this case) to either stop insulting your mother or else 
you will do something about it. It doesn't matter from whom it is said in 
my book. The question is if it is in my book or not? If it is then what has 
*your* mother to do with my book. If I want to write about something like 
that then I should write that my own mother is a bitch.

Think about it and then come and tell me about *love* and freedom of speach. 
A person don't insult you because of love. S/he does it because s/he want 
you to react. So what should you do Mr Butler??? Kiss me????? 
Give me a break.....

|> I have to state that I find your standard to be repellent and not at all
|> consistent.  Yes Rushdie gave insults to Muslims, but Khomeni gave no less
|> insult to America and Americans, and he too had repeatedly been warned about
|> his rhetoric.  Would you see America as being thereby justified in calling for
|> a holy death sentence against Khomeni? 

Let me put it in this way, do you know why the present Ayatollah (Khameni 
or something like that) isn't so happy about the foreign policy of the USA?

Well the CIA sent him a small beautiful package, he opened it and found 
a cassetplayer. He turned it on and it exploded. There was a bomb hidden 
in it and his arm was damaged. So the CIA sent the guy a bomb to kill him
with.. This is just one small example. So before pointing fingers at me 
calling me this and that take a good look in your wardrobe as a lot of 
sceletons may drop out of it.

Maybe we Muslims shold have done it in the "american way of life" style 
and sent Rushdie a bomb hidden in a TV or something.... If you can do it
and you still consider yourself civiliezed and freedom lovers and this 
and that then why shouldn't we be able to do the same???? Or is that 
acceptable *only* for Americans??? If we did it Mecka and Medina would 
propably get nuked as Hiroshima and Nagasaki where.

The way this must be felt for a Shiite must be the same it would feel for
a Catholic if someone sent the Pope a bomb before he became the Pope. So 
with all respect Mr Butler no Westerner is in the position of pointing at 
anyone and calling anyone diffrent things as the things done by your (our) 
own goverment very often is worse. Unfortunately mostly of you don't seem 
to realize it. 

You invade a small country and kill alot of its citizents just to get the 
right to control a channel wich would go over to that country because of 
an old written agreement. So what do you think about killing people for 
material gain???? Is that ok????? Well appearently it seems so.....
What do you Mr Butler think about the rape on democracy and the freedom of 
alot of things which happened in Algeria when the Islamic Salvation Front 
(whose leaders and followers are executed and tortured today) won the 
election?? What do you think about the response from the countries who 
claim they stand for democracy, freedom of this and freedom of that when 
exactly these things were taken away from the Algerian people by their help? 
I could give you a nice list Mr Butler concerning the doublestandard and 
hypocrysy behind all those beautiful words which we are programmed with
everyday. Many things look very beautiful on the paper but often doesn't 
exist in reality.

Mr Butler, reality *SUCKS*!!!!!

|> And how about yourself Mr Skepi, have you ever given strong insult to another man 
|> and not gone back and explicitly apologized for your insult? If so, then do you 
|> thereby deserve to have your head blown off? Or would you see yourself as merely 
|> giving an honest expression your feelings, which does not deserve punishment? 

I can't recall myself telling someone that his mother is made for fucking 
and throwing over..... 

Ofcourse I have insulted people who *deserve* it as they may have insulted 
me. But insulting someone without any reason in the way Rushdie does and
with his intensions???? 
No....

|> Somehow, from your simultaneous condemnation of Rushdie and support of Khomeni, I 
|> do not see you as judging all strong insults as deserving of punishment, but rather, 
|> only the insults directed as persons with which you agree or admire.  If so, then
|> that is hypocrisy. 

I have a feeling you are referring to the Khomeni stuff again.
The reasons why Khomeni or anybody else sometimes adress the USA in the 
way they do is because of your foreign policy. If your gov. stopped 
putting its nose everywhere and as it calls it "protect its interests"
at the expense of a lot of innocent people, then maybe these people would
say: The USA is a hell of a country, the land of opportunity!!! The land of
this and that....

What you do in your country is your own problem. What you do outside your 
country is not only your problem as it may be my problem the next time it
happens.


Sincerely Yours
Gani Skepi