[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 23, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E752-E753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         RECOGNIZING THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF RUSHDIE'S ATTACK

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JENNIFER A. KIGGANS

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 23, 2024

  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

[[Page E753]]

     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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