This year has been pregnant with anniversaries. 400 years ago Galileo pointed a telescope to the heavens and settled forever the question of whether we occupied the centre of the universe. We don't.

200 years ago was born Charles Darwin, the greatest thinker of the second millennium. His magnum opus, On the Origin of the Species, was published 150 years ago.

100 years ago Bleriot flew across the English channel.

70 years ago Hitler invaded Poland and started World War 2.

40 Years ago Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

20 years ago the Berlin wall fell

On a personal note, 20 years ago I "left the left".

20 years ago an Iranian cleric pronounced a death sentence on a British author. That did not shock or even surprise me. Nor did the call of the Archbishop of Canterbury to extend the blasphemy laws to cover Islam, surprise me. I had long concluded that there is no more point in hating a cleric for being a cleric than in hating a scorpion for being a scorpion. They are what they are.

What dismayed me was the failure of so-called liberals to come to the defence of the Salman Rushdie's right to publish whatever he damn well pleased.

"I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring Rushdie's manners, were to waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them". Thus spoke Hugh Trevor-Roper, a leading British historian and, till then, doughty defender of free speech.

Germaine Greer called Rushdie a megalomaniac and said "I refuse to sign petitions for that book of his, which was about his own troubles".

Well, expecting clear thinking from Greer was always a bit if a reach.

Iqbal Sacranie, now Sir Iqbal, said "Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him".

Ironically Salman Rushdie had till then both anti-British and anti-American. He was especially hostile to Thatcher. I found Satanic Verses almost unreadable. It is more about the experiences of South Asians in Western countries than about Islam.

Did 1989 mark the beginning of the end of the enlightenment?

In retrospect I suppose I never was a true Leftie. I was living in South Africa and was against Apartheid. That made me a "Leftie" in the eyes of the then ruling National Party.

I'm not sure I qualified as a "Leftie" in the rest of the world.

Methinks you're being just a teensy bit selective in your quotes, stevenlmeyer.

>>Iqbal Sacranie, now Sir Iqbal, said "Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him".<<

The rest of the quote goes as follows...

"...his mind must be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah"

As you can see, in context Sir Iqbal was feeling sorry for Rushdie. You don't have to agree with the sentiment either, but it is clear he wasn't supporting the death threat.

In fact, to balance the equation a little, here is another quote from the gentleman.

"there can never, ever be justification of killing civilians, full stop." Independent on Sunday 18 July 2005

http://tinyurl.com/mqba3t

And here's a letter he wrote in his position of Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3586703.stm

He urged his colleagues to "...provide the correct Islamic guidance to the community, especially to our youth as to our obligation to maintain the peace and security of our country [and]... observe the utmost vigilance against any mischievous or criminal elements from infiltrating the community and provoking any unlawful activity"

Seems a pretty peacable chap really.

Why did you pick on him, just out of interest?

Was it because the part of his quote you selected could be interpreted as inflammatory?

Incidentally, where did you get the notion that liberals support free speech?

>>What dismayed me was the failure of so-called liberals to come to the defence of the Salman Rushdie's right to publish whatever he damn well pleased.<<

When was the last time a "so-called liberal" leapt to the defence of David Irving's right to speak his mind? Or protested that his work is banned in Canada?

And Argentina, come to that.

Although Satanic Verses is banned there too, which I find amusing.

"Leftie"? There's people around here who think that Rudd's a Lefty - and I'm not one of them ;)

Steven, FYI - 'Compass' on ABCTV tonight (9:30pm, I think it's available on iView too) is about the 'Satanic Verses Affair':

<< 26 July 2009 21:30
The Satanic Verses Affair
20 years ago novelist Salman Rushdie was a wanted man with a million pound bounty on his head. His novel The Satanic Verses had sparked riots across the Muslim world. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini invoked a fatwa, effectively sentencing the writer to death. Rushdie was immediately forced into hiding. This film looks back on the extraordinary events which followed the book’s publication and the ten year campaign to have the fatwa lifted. Arguably this was the moment when religious identities, in Britain and abroad, became more important than ethnic and cultural belonging. >>

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/comingup.htm

I tried to read 'Satanic Verses' years ago, but I never finished it. However, I recall being appalled by the whole affair and signing the odd petition at the time.

You've piqued my interest - I'll refresh myself with the issues by watching 'Compass', and get back to you later.

Steven,
'The end of enlightenment ?' Not in the least. In fact I would suggest your definitions and proofs (perspectives) are (IMHP) some what selectively arrived at.

Specifically many 'liberals'(as you called them did support Rushdi's turgid book and his right to write it.
I note that technology is gaining pace much like computer speeds. I remember being a State GM of a company that sold 'mini ' mainframes ….e.g. the average memory was between 256k and later 1 meg ; disk pack size was 10-100 meg and 80386 chips were the 'powerful board motors' the cost? Then $250-600k each. The point is technology doubles at an ever increasing rate.

The problem is that Human emotions, ability to accept change suffers a massive lag and tends to occur in spurts much the same mechanism suggested in Steven J Gould's 'punctuated equilibrium'. The base levels still remain. Community accepted mores tend to follow the statistical bell curve with 70% approx within a standard deviation either side of the statistical mean.
Let's not forget that neither are people discretely left or right rather they tend to be an amalgam of attitudes from either side.
Labels like leftie are exceedingly subjective and dependant on the individual making the judgement. Hence the National party seeing you as a leftie is fairly meaningless except in their almost Luddite rejection of change at the time.

I would further argue that 'enlightenment' (reality) like evolution doesn't imply a straight line 'advance' to some predetermined Nirvana. To do so implies some pre ordained *absolute* goal and therefore definition of right and wrong.
It is human 'arrogance' a need for self justification that has caused (s) much of current human conflict i.e. my religion is better than yours, my country, footy team, children are better than yours etc.

Personally the nearest I get to a 'fixed' ideology is to admit to a TENDENCY towards secular humanism.

Plenty of lefties spoke out and supported Rushdie's right to say what he wanted, and spoke out in opposition to the ridiculous fundamentalist fatwa. But a lot of that wasn't front page news - - - just not controversial enough. What WAS controversial, was for the conservative press to emphasise the lefties who did not speak out and to give HIGH publicity to conservatives who DID speak out. That sold a LOT of newspapers, and the editors and owners knew it. This happened worldwide, it wasn't planned or coordinated, it was just a GREAT opportunity for the conservatives worldwide to PUSH THEIR BARROWS, and a secondary benefit was the creation of magnificent newspaper sales volumes.

The result?

To this day, we still have people propagating the myth that the left has double standards regarding the Rushdie controversy.

And so the myth continues.