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Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

Book by Salman Rushdie · 5 quotes · Rajiv Gandhi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bombay

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AllRajiv GandhiAyatollah KhomeiniBombayCivil SocietyCultural AppropriationDelhiFanaticismFreedomFundamentalismHuman RightsIndira GandhiMumbaiMyth MakingSalman RushdieSatanic VersesSikhsTerrorism

Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 Quotes

“The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. There are tyrants, not Muslims. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the preceding list -- yes, even the short skirts and the dancing -- are worth dying for? The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them. How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.”

FreedomHuman RightsTerrorismFundamentalismFanaticismCivil Society
Book:Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002
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“Gandhi today is up for grabs. He has become abstract. ahistorical, postmodern, no longer a man in and of his time but a free-floating concept, a part of the available stock of cultural symbols, an image that can be borrowed, used, distorted, reinvented, to fit many different purposes, and to the devil with historicity or truth. Richard Attenborough's Gandhi stuck me, when it was first released, as an example of this type of unhistorical Western saint-making. Here was Gandhi-as-guru, purveying the fashionable product, the Wisdom of the East, and Gandhi-as-Christ, dying and frequently going on hunger strike) so that others may live.”

Cultural AppropriationMyth Making
Book:Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002
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“India was the first country to ban The Satanic Verses- which was proscribed without following India's own stipulated due process in such matters, banned before it entered the country by a weak Congress government led by Rajiv Gandhi, in a desperate, unsuccessful bid for Muslim votes.”

Satanic VersesSalman RushdieRajiv GandhiAyatollah Khomeini
Book:Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002
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