A Closer Look: Reflections On Christopher Hitchens’ Essay “Assassins Of The Mind”

In 1989, a fatwa was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, calling for the assassination of novelist Salman Rushdie due to his perceived blasphemy in his novel, The Satanic Verses. Iran ended its support for the fatwa in 1998, yet libertarians have continued to denounce the oppressive cultures that forced Rushdie into hiding. These libertarians also criticize the lack of strong support provided to freethinkers worldwide when they are threatened by fundamentalists.

Christopher Hitchens, a British polemicist who was educated at Oxford, renounced religion during his student days. He gained fame and notoriety by fearlessly criticizing popular public figures such as Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger. Hitchens later moved to America, where he spent the majority of his high-profile career.

Within his essay, Hitchens passionately defends artistic and journalistic critique, lamenting the self-censorship that allows fundamentalists to gain power in the ongoing cultural war. Hitchens urges individuals and societies not to succumb to the bullying tactics employed by these fundamentalists.

To Hitchens, nothing is more offensive than the fear-based self-censorship that undermines intellectuals and falsely portrays mobs as the authentic representatives of Islam. He warns of the potential for future fundamentalists to utilize nuclear weapons rather than relying solely on fatwas.

Hitchens mistakenly portrays Rushdie as a pioneer due to his Indian background and his use of the English language. The literary world has long celebrated Indian writers in English, including Mulk Raj Anand, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Anita Desai, Dom Moraes, and Khushwant Singh. While awards alone do not determine merit, V.S. Naipaul, of Indian origin, did win the prestigious Booker Prize in 1971.

Rushdie’s novel challenged the notion that any book, including the Quran, is immune to literary criticism or fictional adaptation. Naturally, this provoked conflicts between fanatics and reasonable individuals, blurring the lines between irony and literalism, experimentation and dogmatism.

Hitchens criticizes those who remained indifferent, believing that it was not their fight or that Rushdie deserved his fate, without even reading his mostly harmless novel. He firmly asserts that it is not the responsibility of writers to appease the faithful, and if offense is taken, protests are justified, albeit without resorting to violence.

As a result, extremists have become increasingly emboldened and have systematically targeted various individuals, thereby placing the civilized world on the defensive. This has resulted in publishers, editors, and politicians being forced to consider potential violent reprisals from certain factions within the Muslim community.

Hitchens acknowledges that Rushdie exercised his freedom responsibly. He also highlights the many other victims of censorship, both self-imposed and enforced, across various creative fields such as writing, filmmaking, cartooning, playwriting, music, and journalism. However, Hitchens fails to recognize that the right to free expression is not an absolute and unconditional right; it is derived and subject to certain conditions. Not all expressions are responsible; some are merely provocative or perverse.

When creators intentionally cross these boundaries, society must make a stand. If society fails to act promptly, offenses fester and persist. It is necessary to consider works that are gratuitously pornographic, glorify addiction, sadism, and suicide, or are excessively defamatory and invasive of privacy. Furthermore, instances where activists sacrifice their dignity by sensationalizing their message through bare-breasted protests, or deface art and architecture to express certain ideologies, such as feminism, climate alarmism, anti-racism, or anti-Semitism, should also be taken into account.

Of course, hypersensitive individuals can choose to refrain from reading, watching, or listening to content they find offensive. However, in the digital age of the 21st century characterized by fake news and disinformation, this warning becomes overly simplistic. The widespread availability of text, images, audio, and video clips presents unique challenges. A defamatory social media post can be rapidly reposted across numerous countries within minutes. Inappropriate images of children can be shared through hyperlinks. Pages, posters, or books filled with rumors can be printed, leading to the radicalization of race, religion, or nationality. Even artificial intelligence sources can publish content based on private jokes made by a select few individuals.

Hitchens, in his extensive book “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” often misunderstands the relationship between religion, reason, and scientific inquiry. He erroneously conflates religious totalitarianism and fanaticism with religion itself. If the entirety of Islamic leaders or Muslims desired Rushdie’s death, he would have been killed shortly after the fatwa was issued. The fact that Rushdie was alive and well during Hitchens’ essay writing should have enlightened him to the fact that the issue lay not with faith itself but with the fanaticism it can give rise to.