THIS time it was not the Muslims but a British newspaper that was calling Salman Rushdie Satanic. An article by Rushdie in the latest issue of The New Yorker suggesting that Princess Diana died in a "sublimated sexual assault" has won Rushdie few friends. Muslim groups are pointing to the article as evidence of what they have called his "Satanic ways".
These are Rushdie's words in the September 15 issue of The New Yorker that have got him in trouble once again: "Think of it this way. The object of desire, the Beauty, the Blonde (Diana), is repeatedly subject to the unwelcome attentions of a persistent suitor (the Camera) until the dashing glamorous knight (riding in his Automobile) sweeps her away. The Camera with its unavoidably Phallic long-lensed snout, gives pursuit. And the story reaches its tragic climax, for the Automobile is driven not by a hero but by a clumsy drunk. Put not your trust in fairy tales or chivalrous knights. The object of desire, in the moment of her death, sees the phallic lenses advancing upon her, snapping, snapping. Think of it this way, and the pornography of Diana Spencer's death becomes apparent. She died in a sublimated sexual assault."
What The Times described as a "shocking analogy" derives from the book Crash by J.G. Ballard. The film by David Cronenberg of the same title has been intensely controversial and provoked outrage in Britain. It takes a car crash as the ultimately erotic and orgasmic experience in a society driven by desperation and a death-wish; the sexual urge is expressed as a destructive and self-destructive car crash. Many MPs and other leaders have demanded a ban on the film, but it was released for screening earlier this year by the British Board of Film Classification without any scenes cut.
It really is a rather uncanny parallel that Rushdie writes of: "It is one of the darker ironies of a dark event that the themes and ideas explored by Ballard and Cronenberg, themes and ideas that many in Britain have called pornographic, should have been lethally acted out in the car accident that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Al-Fayed and their drunken driver.
"We live in a culture that routinely eroticises and glamourises its consumer technology, notably the motorcar. We also live in the Age of Fame, in which the intensity of our gaze upon celebrity turns the famous into commodities, too—a transformation that has often proved powerful enough to destroy them. Ballard's novel, by bringing together these two erotic fetishes—the Automobile and the Star—in an act of sexual violence (a car crash), created an effect so shocking as to be thought obscene.
"The death of Diana is just such an obscenity. One of the reasons it is so very sad is that it seems so senseless. To die because you don't want to have your picture taken! What could be more absurd? But in fact this frightful accident is freighted with meaning. It tells us uncomfortable truths about what we have become.
"In our erotic imagination, perhaps only the camera can rival the automobile. The camera, as a reporter, captures the news and delivers it to our door, and, in more adoring mode, often looks upon beautiful women and offers them up for our delight. In Diana's fatal crash, the Camera (as both Reporter and Lover) is joined to the Automobile and the Star, and the cocktail of death and desire becomes even more powerful than the one in Ballard's book."
The Times called this a "Satanic version" and captioned a picture of Rushdie saying, "Bad taste day." Rushdie made the analogy with Crash when connections between the film and the actual crash have seemed particularly uncomfortable. "A lot of cinema halls are pulling the film out," a manager with Columbia Tristar, distributors of the film in London, said. "They do not want to show it now because of the car crash that killed Princess Diana."
Muslim groups have begun to wave the article as vindication of their view of Rushdie. "Now perhaps the British public can understand why the Muslims were so outraged by his writing," Jahangir Mohammed from the Muslim Parliament in Manchester says. "His comments on Prophet Mohammed were of a similar nature. If he is not careful, the British will issue a fatwa against him now, not the Muslims." The Muslim Parliament feels the Rushdie article may lessen the hostility their protests over The Satanic Verses had provoked in Britain. They now see, and want, the British to perceive each other as two good brothers wronged by the same Satan.
The article, says Mohammed, "shows total insensitivity to the feelings of others, as the earlier book had shown total insensitivity to the beliefs of others". Freedom of expression "comes with the responsibility not to stir up hatred for others against what you do.
But this monster is taking freedom of expression beyond its limits". And that, perhaps, is the most uncomfortable irony of all: the very people who defended Rushdie's freedom of expression may now try to curb it.
