Recognizing the Second Anniversary of Rushdie's Attack

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his views:

``Prolific author, Salman Rushdie, with translations to more than forty languages and winner of multiple prestigious literary prizes, including the 2023 PEN Centenary Courage Award, rewards us with his latest publication, Knife (Meditations After An Attempted Murder). New York: Random House. 2024. He made news around the world when attacked at the Chautauqua Institution, in upstate New York, on August 12, 2022, by a would-be assassin who acted upon the Fatwa of a death sentence issued by Ayatollah Khomeini 33\1/2\ years earlier.

The Ayatollah responded to Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses, which he deemed blasphemous against Islam. Poignantly and ironically, Rushdie was to address that fateful day on creating safe spaces in America for foreign writers in a project, ``City of asylum Pittsburg,'' initiated by Henry Reese and his wife Diane Samuels. The author's attacker was 24 years old and described by Rushdie as ``the A.'', referring derogatorily by the author to the vile attack, thus revealing his profound disgust for the attacker's both act and personality. Interestingly the author had a premonition in the form of a dream of being attacked two nights before the shaking event.

Rushdie's overwhelming hurting, physically and psychologically, of the 27 seconds brutal knifing is captured in his inimitable style, ``He had reached his target, after all; his blade was entering his target's body, over and over again, and he had every reason to think he had succeeded in his endeavor and was standing on the stage of history . . . But then he was dragged off me and pinned down. His twenty-seven seconds of fame were over. He was nobody again.'' Obviously, the author's anger at his attacker who had sought to serve his God at the cost of his victim's life, is tangible. He did suffer from PTSD manifested still in weekly nightmares, and credits writing this book to his literary agent, Andrew Wylie's urging, though reluctant and thinking that his time as an author was over, while expecting the publication of his twenty-first book, Victory City.

We are all better off for Rushdie's positive decision at a trying crossword. Losing one eye and enduring six weeks in two hospitals, he however retained his biting humor, ``Don't worry I'm the champion of draining fluids.'' Celebrating his ``return to the world,'' he likened his joyful leaving the hospital to becoming a US citizen in New York in 2016, though this time surrounded by tight security. Ever pondering the meaning of the knife, the tool through which he was expected to die, the meticulous author offers profound reflections on his own artistic knife that is no less consequential without cutting into human flesh, ``language, too was a knife. It could cut open the world and reveal its meaning, its inner workings, Its secrets, its truths. It could cut through from one reality to another. It could call bullshit, open people's eyes, create beauty. Language was my knife.''

Indeed, the author's heroic speaking truth to power before and after the ghastly attack that almost cost his life dedicated to the best in humanity, posits him with our revered teachers and sages uplifting humanity by pointing at its shortcomings. Rushdie reminds me of my late great friend, Eli Wiesel, winner of the Noble Peace Prize. Surely Rushdie too has earned it and/or the Nobel Literature Prize, for his immense contribution toward a sane world. Speaking on May 13, 2022, in the United Nations on behalf of PEN America on the writers' potential contribution in a troubled world facing the Ukraine war, Rushdie did not mince words, harshly criticizing Putin while praising Zelenskyy.

He also expressed grave concern on the role of white supremacy in turning America back and backwards, the deadly attack at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, yet aiming sharp barbs at his own birthplace India for its religious Hindu-Muslim wars threatening democracy. Regarding himself as non-religious, his deep concern is with religion's proclivity for violence and its need to remain in the private sphere. Reflecting on the September 11 Twin Towers attack, ``An aircraft could be a knife, too.'' He gratefully recalls deceased Egyptian author and Nobel Literature Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, who opposed the Fatwa against Rushdie, prompting an Islamist terrorist to attack him on October 14, 1994, but he survived. This remarkable book's contribution-- testimonial by a great author and humanitarian is both a warning and a celebration.''

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