Asad on Rushdie

7/28/2019 Asad on Rushdie

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Ethnography, Literature, and Politics: Some Readings and Uses of Salman Rushdie's TheSatanic VersesAuthor(s): Talal AsadSource: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Aug., 1990), pp. 239-269Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/656508 .

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Ethnography, Literature, and Politics:Some Readings and Uses ofSalman Rushdie's The Satanic VersesTalal Asad

New Schoolfor Social Research

It is commonly acceptedwithinanthropology hat the disciplineemergedaspartof the Enlightenmentprojectof writinga UniversalHistory, yet not all an-thropologistswouldagreethatthat nscriptionpresupposesa Westernperspectiveon non-European eoples. Such a disagreementdrawsits force, I wouldsuggest,fromanunderstandingf theprojectas essentiallyrepresentational.However, theprojectconsists not simplyof looking-and-recording ut of recording-and-remak-ing, and as such its discourseshave soughtto inscribeon the world a unityin itsown image.Ethnographies ndprotoethnographies ave, of course, often pitchedthem-selves againstthatpowerfulcurrent,producinga valuableunderstanding f sin-gularworlds, but inevitablyonly with minor social effect. We know that ethno-graphicmodes of representation volved as an integralpartof the greatcolonialexpansionof Europe(andespecially of England),as partof the desire to under-stand-and manage-the peoples subordinatedo it. The implicationsof thatfactseem to me inadequatelyworked out in contemporarydiscussions aboutethnog-raphy.I do not mean to say thatethnographycan be reducedto the politics ofimperialdomination,butthat t is, in variousways, inserted nto(andoccasionally

against)imperializingprojects. Yet having said this, it is necessaryto add thatimperializingpowerhas made itself felt in andthroughmanyotherkinds of writ-ing, not least the kind we call "fiction."In this essay I want to consider a work of fiction, Salman Rushdie's TheSatanic Verses (1988a), for several reasons. First, because it is a textualrepre-sentationof some of the things anthropologists tudy:religion, migration,genderandcultural dentity. Second, because it is itself a political act, havingpoliticalconsequencesfarbeyond any thatethnographyhas ever had. And third,becauseit is generatedby the classic encounterbetween Westernmodernity-in whichanthropologys situated-and a non-WesternOther,which anthropologists yp-ically seek to understand, o analyze, to translate, o represent.In all the recentconcern withwritingethnographieswe have, I think,tendedto pay insufficientattention o the problemof readingandusing them, to the mo-tives we bringto bear in our readings, as well as to the seductionsof text and

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240 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY

contextwe all experience.Inreadingsocial texts we inevitablyreproduceaspectsof ourselves, although his is not simplya matterof arbitrary referenceor prej-udice. We are all already-constitutedubjects, placedin networksof power, andin reproducing urselves it is also the latterwe reproduce.To do otherwiseis toriskconfronting he powers thatgive us the sense of who we are, and to embarkon the dangerous ask of reconstructingourselves along unfamiliar ines. It is,understandably,asierto use ourreadingsto confirm hose powers.In what follows I want to distinguishbetween a numberof readingsof thebook, andto relatethembrieflyto a complex political field in contemporaryEu-rope. That is, of course, my own strategyfor reading,because I am persuadedthat this text is generatedby and is a reflectionuponone very specific political-cultural ncounter-and thatit is so readand used in postcolonialBritain.I shallthentryto reconstruct ome authorialntentions,andplacethem withinthepolit-ical field, and follow thatwith a politicalreadingof somepartsof the novel. Thiswill involve a consideration f the modemcategoryof "Literature"as it operateswithin the text of the novel as well as outside it. It is necessaryto stress thatImakeno claim tohavecaptured he totalmeaningof TheSatanic Verses(whateverthatmay be), still less to describe "the Rushdie affair" in all its internationalramifications.My aim is to intervene n thepoliticaldebatesurroundinghepub-licationof the book by raising some questionsaboutthe ambiguousheritageofliberalismas it affects non-Western mmigrants n the modem Europeanstate,particularlyn Britain.2

A Political SettingLast December, the prominentBritish parliamentarianEnoch Powell re-ferredto his notorious 1968 "rivers of blood" speech in which he had warned

againstthepresenceof non-Europeanmmigrants n Britain:"I am talking," henow declares, "about violence on a scale which can only be describedas civilwar.I cannotsee therecan be anyotheroutcome" (P. Roberts1989:29).Twentyyears ago Powell had advocateda two-prongedpolicy: a complete stop to anyfurthermmigrationof nonwhites, andgovernment-assisted epatriation f thosein Britain. The firstof these has been officially acceptedby both majorparties,the secondhasn'tyet. But for Powell and otherswho thinklike him the situationis now almostirretrievable, he alien presencetoo largeandtoo entrenched,andtoo manyof themBritish-born.A yearbeforethe publicationof The Satanic Verses, the formerBelgian In-teriorMinister,JosephMichel, saidthat n Europe"We runtheriskof becominglike theRomanpeople, invadedby barbarian eoples suchas Arabs,Moroccans,YugoslavsandTurks,peoplewho come fromfar afieldandhave nothing n com-mon withour civilization" (Palmer1988). Such sentimentsareneithervery rarenorconfinedto right-wingpartiesin WesternEurope.Thereis generalizedhos-tility towardimmigrantsof Asian and Africanorigin that finds expression in avarietyof formsrangingfromracialmurder see Gordon1989) to discriminatorylegislation(Dummett1978; Moore and Wallace 1976). But particulardevelop-mentsin recentyearshave made thathostilityespecially sharp owardMuslims.3



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ETHNOGRAPHY,LITERATURE,AND POLITICS 241

To begin with, the overwhelmingmajorityof non-Europeanmmigrants ncontinentalcountriesareMuslims, proletariansof ruralorigin imported o meettheneedsof postwar ndustrial xpansion.InBritain heyform a majorityof thosewho havecome fromthe Indiansubcontinent-that is, thatpartof the immigrantpopulation hat is seen and referred o as being most alien. The salience of theMuslimpresencein Europe s due not merelyto numbers,but to politicalcondi-tionsbothforeignanddomestic.Theemergenceof radicalIslamic movements n the MiddleEast-and mostnotablythe IslamicRepublicof Iran-who openly declare the West as theiren-emy, has fueled long-standingEuropeanantipathies.But the domestic circum-stancesare, in my view, moreinteresting.For increasingly,Muslimimmigrantshave begunto organizethemselves into mosqueinstitutions,and to assert them-selves not as victims but as the heirs of an equal civilization who now live per-manently n theWest. Theydo notsimplyask to be included n the widerpoliticalsociety, they makedetailed demandsof the stateto enable them to live out theirlives in a culturallydistinctive manner.They wantto burytheirdead in theirownway, to have special times andplaces set aside for worship,to slaughteranimalsaccording o properritualrules, to educate their children n theirown schools-orat least in prescribed onditions.4AlthoughMuslimgroups n WesternEuropeare far fromunited(differencesof language, sect, andlocal origincontribute otheir organizationaldisunity) their demands increasingly evoke a unified re-sponse. What the Europeanmajority inds so provocativeis the immigrant'sex-pectationthat institutionalchanges will be made by the state to accommodatethemin theirreligious specificity.TheEuropean ense that these demandsconstitutea kind of perversebehav-ior is largely a reflection of two things: (1) the ideological structureof moderEuropeannation-states,and(2) the alteredsite of theEuropean ncounterwith itsOther.The liberalnation-stateconsists of an aggregateof citizens, each with thesame legal personality, equal membersof and equally entitledto representthebody politic. Religiouscommunitiesbelong, strictlyspeaking,to civil and not topoliticalsociety-that is, to the "private"domainwheredifference s permitted.InBritain,of course,anexception s madeforthe Churchof Englandwhich, sincethe 17thcentury,has had a central nstitutionaland deologicalpositionwithinthestate. The notion (commoncertainlyin Britain)that the populationof a modernation-statemustbe committedto "core values," an essential culturethat mustbe sharedby all if society is to hold together, belongs to a discourseabout thelimits of politicalsociety. It is easier to deploy in discoursesthat exclude partic-ulardifferences han n those whichplausiblydescribewhat the "core values" ofBritishcultureare-especially whenAnglicanism s said to be a majorpartof thatculture.5The corevalues of nonwhite mmigrantsare not-so thehegemonicdis-coursegoes-part of Britishculture,andtherefore o live permanentlyn Britaintheymust-as politicalminorities-assimilate into thatculture.However, it is not thecase thatminoritieshave alwayshadto makethiskindof adjustment.WhenEuropeanswent to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as set-



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tiers, administrators,missionaries,they did not need to adoptthe "core-values"of themajoritypopulationsamongwhomtheylived. On thecontrary, heysoughtwith greatsuccess to change them. But that immigrants rom those populationsshould notpresume o act as thoughthey had a rightto somethingthatpowerdidnot accordthem-that is quiteanother tory. And a storyin which it is theirpre-sumptuousbehavior that needs explaining and correcting, not the posturesadoptedby theEnglish.I don'twant to be takenas sayingthatthere s a single deepdivide in BritaintodaythatseparatesMuslims and non-Muslimsin some simple way. Of coursethere areprotagonistsamongboth who are intenton creatinga single divide, al-thoughthat divide is not conceived in the same way by both. It is evident, how-ever, thatfor some yearsnow a new dimensionof politicshas beenemergingthatis resented n Europe.Nothing that is publishedthere aboutMuslim beliefs andpracticescan thereforebe withoutpolitical significance, not even in a work offiction.As SalmanRushdie nsistedin 1984, in a criticalessay on recentEnglishtelevision serials aboutIndia:worksof art,even worksof entertainment,o notcome intobeing n a socialandpolitical acuum;nd .. theway heyoperaten asociety annot eseparatedrompolitics, romhistory.Forevery ext,acontext. .. What amsayings thatpoliticsand iterature,ikesportandpolitics,domix,are nextricably ixed,andthat hatmixture asconsequences.Rushdie 984:130,137;emphasis dded]

Unlike Rushdie I do not hold that all literature is essentially political, although itis true thatany piece of literarywritingcan become politicized. But there can beno doubtthatThe Satanic Versesis a politicalbook. It is politicalnot merelybe-cause it claimsto speakof politicalmatters,butbecauseit intervenes n politicalconfrontations lready n place, and is consequentlybound to be foughtover inanasymmetrically tructured oliticalterrain.Some British Readings of a Postcolonial Novel

Salman Rushdie is not only the author of The Satanic Verses, he has alsovolunteered its authoritative reading. Thus, in his open letter to the Prime Ministerof India, published shortly after his book was banned in that country, he wrote:The sectionof thebookin question(and et's rememberhatthe bookin question sn'tactually about Islam, but about migration, metamorphosis,divided selves, love,death,LondonandBombay)deals with a prophet-who is notcalled Mohammed-living in a highlyfantasticalcity madeof sand(it dissolves when waterfalls uponit).He is surrounded y fictionalfollowers, one of whom happensto bearmy own firstname. Moreover,this entire sequencehappensin a dream, the fictionaldreamof afictionalcharacter,anIndianmovie star,andone who is losing his mind,at that. Howmuchfurtherfromhistorycouldone get? [Rushdie1988b:A27;emphasisadded]This gloss is not without its difficulties, but it is quite unequivocal: history

(or ethnography) produces a kind of writing whose rhetorical status is quite dis-



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ETHNOGRAPHY,ITERATURE,NDPOLITICS243

tinct from that produced in a novel. Six months later Rushdie supplied anotherreading. "Nowadays," he wrote,

a powerful ribeof clerics has taken overIslam. These arethecontemporaryThoughtPolice. They have turnedMuhammad nto a perfectbeing, his life into aperfectlife,his revelation nto the unambiguous,clear event it originallywas not.6Powerfulta-boos have beenerected. One may not discuss Muhammad s if he werehuman,withhumanvirtues and weaknesses. Onemaynotdiscuss thegrowth of Islam as a histor-ical phenomenon,as an ideology born out of its time. These are the taboos againstwhich TheSatanicVerses hastransgressed. ... It is for this breachof taboo thatthenovel is being anathematized, ulminatedagainst,and set alight. [Rushdie1989a:26;emphasisadded]Why these apparently contradictory readings? Instead of trying to establishthe right reading let's ask, "What is it that motivates the shift?" and seek theanswer not in speculations about the author's mind but in the wording of the textsin altered contexts. Thus the latter piece concludes as follows:Insidemy novel, its characters eek to become fully humanby facing upto the greatfacts of love, death, and (with or withoutGod) the life of the soul. Outsideit, theforcesof inhumanity re on the march."Battle lines arebeingdrawn n India oday,"one of my charactersremarks. "Secular versus religious, the light versus the dark.Betteryou choose which side you are on." Now that the battle has spread o Britain,Ionly hopeit will not be lostby default.It is timeforus to choose. [Rushdie1989a:26;emphasisadded]We can see that the shift is motivated by a sense of the overriding political

priority now being faced: an apocalyptic war between Good and Evil has spilt overinto Britain because The Satanic Verses has dared to challenge taboos set up bythe Forces of Inhumanity.7 This is no time for liberal tolerance. Contrary to whatreviewers8 have said about the book, Rushdie's latter reading insists that its mes-sage is not doubt but conviction, not argument but war. True, there is a represen-tation of religious doubt, but that is a rhetorical tactic-after all, Rushdie hasoften told us that he lost his faith in religion a long time ago. Doubt is neither thebeginning nor the end of an exploration into new forms of moral and politicalexistence. Indeed I shall argue that for many people the book has largely had theeffect of weakening the possibility of a politics of difference in Britain today.Thus Rushdie's friend, the distinguished English feminist writer Fay Wel-don, has responded to his second reading with a vigorous attack on the Qur'an,the central sacred text of Islam, in a pamphlet entitled Sacred Cows (1989), whichhas rapidly acquired a certain fame in its own right. She reads The Satanic Versesas bringing new certainty, a renewed sense of the divine. Not doubt, but an un-compromising insistence on liberal Truth is what she feels Rushdie's work callsfor. We must reject the call for radical cultural differences in our British society.Somewhat quaintly she writes:

Theuni-culturalist olicy of the UnitedStatesworked,weldingits new peoples, fromeveryrace, every nation,every belief, into a whole: let the child do what it wantsat



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home;here in the school the one flag is saluted, the one God worshipped,the onenationacknowledged.[Weldon1989:32;emphasisadded]This reference to a fictional America is of course a condemnation of that immi-grantdifference which seems to threaten the assumed stability of "genuine" Brit-ish culture. The emphasis on schooling as a political function, essential to thetransformation of difference into unity, invokes a basic liberal principle. Individ-uals have the inalienable right to choose, but they must first be authoritativelyconstituted as subjects who will make the right moral and political choices.She is quite explicit that Islam must be debarred from this great work of sub-jective and national construction, though not Christianity, for "The Bible, in itsentirety, is at least food for thought. The Koran is food for no-thought. It is not apoem on which a society can be safely or sensibly based" (Weldon 1989:6).9 Likeso many Britons who have leapt to Rushdie's side, Fay Weldon is aware thatChristian rhetoric can be harnessed in the cause of a secular crusade. 0

"Salman Rushdie," she writes,ex-colleagueof mine in anadvertisingagency, is too humane,too moder, too witty,too intelligent, to lay down rules of conduct" for the humanrace, let alone issuethreats f they are notobeyed, but as a piece of revelatorywritingThe Satanic Versesreadsprettymuchto me like the works of St. John the Divine at the end of our own[sic] Bible, left in, not withoutargument,by our own churchelders, likewise madeprettydoubtfulby thecontents.St. Salmanthe Divine. Too far?Probably.But if intothe weevily mealandthe brackishwaterof ourawful, awful society, this good yeastis dropped,and allowed to fizz and fizzle, froth and foam to good purpose,all mayyet be well and ourbravenew God of individualconscience may yet arise. [Weldon1989:42]Saints are privileged by their direct access to God, and by the certainty oftheir visions. The saint involved here by Fay Weldon is certainly the author of

haunting religious imagery, although the claim that he shares an essential qualitywith someone described as "humane, moder, witty, and intelligent" must seema little puzzling to anyone familiar with "The Revelation of Jesus Christ"-forthe dominant theme in that apocalyptic prose is God's fearful revenge on those"without His seal upon their forehead." And who are they-one may ask uneas-ily-who do not bear the Lord's seal upon their forehead in Britain today?

Perhaps it is people like Zaheera, a young Muslim teacher who has left herauthoritarianfamily in Bradford to make her own life. She has reason to be criticalof aspects of Muslim life-and indeed she speaks scathingly of the recent legalrestrictions imposed on women in many parts of the Muslim world. "I do not wantto see Salman die," she says,

that s immoralandwrong,andanywaynotwhat themajorityMuslimpopulationherewould want. I don't even thinkthebook should be banned.Butrightfromthebegin-ning, I have felt thateveryonewas treating he Muslimprotestas if it was completelycrazy.This freedomof expression-why do we havepornography nd ibel laws, anda law of blasphemywhich only applies to Christianity?How can that be fair? Howcanthey saythis is a multi-racial ountrywhen there s one law forChristiansand one



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for Muslims?And what hurtsso muchis that one of ourown, someoneI reallyusedto admire,someonewho stoodup on television and told the White Britishhow racistthey were, has let us down so badly. [Alibhai 1989]

Significantly, Zaheera employs liberal arguments, grounded in appeals to fairnessand equality before the law, against the unfriendly reactions of the British major-ity-such as those expressed in Fay Weldon's pamphlet. Her sense of "unfair-ness" doesn't connect with any demand for extending the law of blasphemy; itpoints to an old and unresolved anxiety about minority vulnerabilities in the mod-em state. If the freedom of public criticism is in fact restricted by laws that protectthe sensibilities only of the rich, the famous, and the majority, what happens tothe rest, liberal society's "always Others"?It would be misleading to suggest that all Muslims in Britain hold a negativeview of the book. There are some-including some of the most Westernized-who have supported it unreservedly as a celebration of a more progressive culturalidentity. "One of the strengths of The Satanic Verses," observes Yasmin Ali,

whatgives it its authenticityas a culturalproductof cosmopolitanBritain,is that itreflectswith love andsympathy,and an acute comic eye, thejoyful diversityof oursubcontinental riginsandexperiences.The moralandpolitical uniformity hat someofourbrothers ndsistersodaywouldhaveusacceptasthenorm,s a denialof ourexperiences.Ali 1989:17]

ForYasminAli, the book's authenticity s confirmedby the seeming correspon-dence between its images andthe individualreader'sexperience.The possessivepronoun n "ourexperiences" claimsto speakrepresentativelyora collectivity,but which collectivity?The beliefs, practices, and attachmentsof the many im-migrantMuslimswho were hurtby the novel are clearly not included in "our"experiences.Butthejoyful resonance hat the book hasevoked amongits mostlyWestern readers s a pointerto the conditions in which "our experiences" arenormatively efined.Zaheera'sexperiencedoesn'tqualifybecause it doesn't con-formto a secular iberal"literary"readingof the book.12A Hinduprofessorof political theoryin England,BhikhuParekh,relatedtome last summerhow he first read the book with unreservedadmiration.He wasdelightedwith it, he said, for two main reasons:first, because it showed that afellow Indiancould handle the English languagemorebrilliantly hanmost En-glishmen, andsecond, because its treatmentof religion seemed to advertisetheloyaltyof a secularMuslimto a nonsectarian,progressiveIndia. But thenhe re-read the text with "the help"-as he put it-of two Muslimfriends, andfoundhimself making very different sense of it, which he has now set out in a thoughtfulreview (1989). The Satanic Verses, in his opinion, is

An immensely daringand persistentlyprobing explorationof the humancondition,whichonly a rootlessimmigrant anundertake, but t] lies ill atease withtimidobei-sance to thelatest iteraryandpoliticalfashions;profound eriousness apsessuddenlyand withoutwarninginto pointless playfulness. The sacred is interlacedwith flip-pancy, the holy with the profane.Intenselydelicateexplorationsof humanrelation-



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shipsand emotions are overshadowedby an almost childlikeurgeto shock, hurtandoffend. [Parekh1989:31]Like Zaheera, Parekh stresses the liberal value of "fairness," as well as

"compassion and humanity" in the need to understand Muslim immigrant pro-test. But when he speaks, as others have done, of "the first generation of Muslimswho turned to religion to give some meaning and hope to their empty lives" (Pa-rekh 1989:31), one is made uncomfortably aware that in a moder state such un-derstanding and tolerance is often based on the medicalization of its "problem"subjects, that is to say on the categorization of religiously based identity as a con-dition of individual or collective pathology requiring curative treatment. (Whyelse would the notion of "empty lives" be applied to immigrants who havebrought their non-Christian religion with them? Which authority defines theproper content of "full lives"?) There are of course well-intentioned and sinisterversions of this categorization.'3 But in either case the strategy of medicalizingreligious opposition, together with the centralized control of compulsory school-ing, leads to the following paradox: on the one hand liberal political theory insistson the sanctity of individual experience, on the other it requires the state to con-struct and cure it.

Another, and more angry shift than the one undertaken by Parekh, is signaledin this letter by the Hindu Marxist immigrant Gautam Sen (1989:6):

When the crisis over The Satanic Verses firstbroke,my reflexresponse, like that ofmanyblack radicalsand anti-racists,was one of anger. I found myself cursingthebigotsandsigninga newspaperadvertisementn Rushdie'ssupport, houghI felt verydisturbedat the price paid subsequentlywith lives in India and Pakistan. But theevents of the pastmonths have drawnme inexorablycloser to the protestersagainstTheSatanicVerses. All sorts of racists arecrawlingout of the woodworkto clarifyamoreimportantpriordivision betweenwhite societies andblacks, transcendinganydisagreementswithin white society itself. The astonishing flight from elementarylogic in the face of satanic,black, masculineforces by the heavyweightfeministin-telligensia [including Fay Weldon] has been pointedout by Homi Bhabha("Downamongthewriters,"New StatesmanandSociety, 28 July). I was not born a Muslim,butI haveto say thatwe blacksare all Muslimsnow. I feel a real sense of emotionaloneness with the "smelly, dark aliens" who made the utterly assimilatedAsianwoman novelist BharatiMukherji"feel physically and emotionally harassed" bytheirmerearrival n Canada Guardian, 19July).

For Gautam Sen the revised rereading was occasioned by developments in theBritish political context that appeared more threatening to all immigrants, Mus-lims and non-Muslims alike. What obviously alarmed him most was the combi-nation of paternalist and assimilationist attitudes displayed in all their self-righ-teous arrogance by the British middle class.A concern with enforced assimilation is also a major concern of ShabbirAkhtar, an articulate young Bradford Muslim, who has written a passionately ar-gued book on the Rushdie affair. Akhtar finds The Satanic Verses inferior as awork of fiction, and the chapters recounting the story of Mahound deliberatelyinsulting to Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad, he points out, represents for be-



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lievers the paradigmof virtue;an attackon him is thereforeseen by Muslimsasan attackon theirhighest moral and religious ideals. Rushdiehas the right, hesays, to disbelieve in any of the sacredteachingsof Islam, and even to criticizeMuslimsfortheirerroneousbeliefs, butnot to do so in a provocativemanner.Hewants the bookbanned,andsupports he proteststo that end. He is bitterat whathe, like Zaheera,calls thedouble standards f Westernpublicopinion.Neverthe-less, he is not entirelypessimistic.I believe hat he Rushdieontroversys not ntractable. oshow hat t is incapableofrationalesolution ouldbeeffectivelyatal otheMuslim ase.Itis clearlyntheinterestsf the iberal ndnon-Muslimonstituencyopretendhat slamicdemandsconcerning ushdie's ookareunacceptablyoreign o thespirit f Western emoc-racy.Butare thesedemands,properly ssessed, ncapable f beingmet?[Akhtar1989a:123]

His answerto this rhetoricalquestionis thatthey can be met if only Britishpoli-ticiansandcommentatorswere to recognizetheir"prejudiceandunfairattitudes'(Akhtar1989a:124).Whathe wants is not an extension of the blasphemy aw assuch, but an agreement hat the basic identityof Muslim immigrants-like thatof all Britishcitizens-should be legally protectedagainstwanton attacks.While it is perhaps rue thatsuch demandsarenot "unacceptably oreigntothe spiritof Westerndemocracy," it is arguablethatthe assumptionby whichthey arepropelled s regardedas "outmoded" by bourgeoiscivil society. Insultto religious identityis, like insult to individual or group honor, a concept thatmodem law findshardto deal with. This is not merelybecausereligiousbelief isregarded s aprivatematter,but ratherbecauseof itspeculiarnotion of "injury.'"Thusthe law of libel, to which reference has so often been made in this matter,revolves aroundthe question of whether "materialdamage" can be proved-which is why the legal penalty, if applicable,takes the form of financialcompen-sationto theinjuredparty.Freespeechcanbe restrainedwhen it is shownthattheplaintiffsuffersmateriallyas a consequence. Bourgeois law can't cope with theideaof maliciousstatements eading to moral or spiritual njurybecause it can'tlocate andquantifythe damagein money terms. All this shouldbe quiteunder-standable n a capitalistsociety.The realproblemwith the Muslim minority'sdemands,however, may notbe the formallegalistic incompatibilities Akhtar s surely right in insistingthatwherethere's a political will the legal means can be found). Nor is the problemsimplyone of prejudiceagainstMuslims(which certainlyexists). The realdiffi-cultyconsists in the Britishstyle of liberalpolitics, for in Britain,the politics ofrule requiresits immigrantsubjects to struggle with "the baffling idioms andcodes of the white chameleon, which is cunningly Christianyet secular, Con-servativeyet liberal,repressiveyet permissive" (Caute1989:9).14

Postcolonial Literature and the Western Subject's Self-RecognitionManycommentators ave insistedthatmostprotestingMuslimshaven'treadthe book. Clearlymost of themhaven't. However, as pasticheTheSatanicVerses



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drawson a wide varietyof literary exts, reproduceswords andphrases rom halfa dozenlanguages,andalludesto as manynationalandreligious settings.In whatsensepreciselycan Westernreaderswho have littlefamiliaritywith thesemultiplereferencesbe said to have read the book?To demand that the act of "reading"mustalwaysconformto ana priorinorm of skills andknowledges is perhapsar-bitrary.At anyratemostpeoplewho haveused it to commendoroppose particularpolicies in Britainhaven't read it in any conventionalliterarysense either. Butthenthewaythistexthas fed intoverydifferentkinds of political practice s itselfpartof the reading. The Satanic Verses is above all a deliberatelyprovocativerhetorical erformancen analreadychargedpoliticalfield;thatcontexthas inev-itablybecome integralto the text. Since the context is uncontrolled, he attemptto includemoreor less of it in the reading s itself partof the political struggle.Oddly enough, the fundamentalistposition-according to which the text isself-sufficient for arrivingat its meaning-is being taken here not by religiousfanaticsbutby liberal critics. Forexample Penelope Lively, the novelist, refersto a recentessayof Rushdie's:"I think,sadly, itpoints upthe basic confrontation:here is a novelisttryingto explainhis purpose o fundamentalistswho cannot,orwill not, understandwhatfiction is or does" (Hindsand O'Sullivan1990). In thatessay, Rushdieexplains the classic literarydoctrine that fiction (unlike fact) isessentiallyself-contained,and thatif a novel's meaninghas anyexternalauthor-ity, it can only be the imaginative ntentionof its author,not the imaginativere-ceptionof its politicallysituatedreaders.

Fictionuses facts as a starting-place ndthenspiralsawaytoexplore tsownconcerns,which areonly tangentiallyhistorical.Not to see this, to treat ictionas if it werefact,is to make a seriousmistakeof categories.The case of The Satanic Versesmaybe oneof thebiggestcategorymistakes n literaryhistory. [Rushdie1990a:20]But Rushdie'sargumenthere, sharedby innumerableauthorsandliterarycriticswho have commentedon TheAffair, is less decisive than t appears.For once theprincipleof the total self-sufficiencyof the text is breachedby reference to theimaginative ntention of the author,the concept of sharplydifferentiatedcate-goriesis subverted.Thatis why, in the realpoliticalworld, the bourgeois aw oflibel insists on makingthat"categorymistake."'5Quiteapart rom the questionof relevantcontext, the techniqueof literarypastichemakesitpossible for a wide rangeof readers o recognizeand seize uponpartsof anentire text. Those who have been offendedby The SatanicVerses arethusresponding o thefragmentary atureof the text. Butby evokingrecognitionof characters,actions, events, atmosphere, he text also producesa sense of de-lightedconfirmation.16 As in this confession by an anglicizedwoman of Bangla-deshiparents:"Witheach character squealedwith recognition,as a face frommy pastorpresentgazedatme from withinthepagesof the book" (Ali 1989:17).Recognition n itself tendsto be a conservativeact, reproducing he imagesonepossesses in memory.I don't imply by this thatrecognitioncan occuronly ina conservativeproject.Of course t maybe evokedaspartof astrategy orinvitingthe reader o think oneself into a new world. My argument s that in this book



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recognition s used as a device to addressthe middle-classliberal reader andtoconfirmher/hisestablishedpredispositions.The English journalistMalise Ruthvenis undoubtedlycorrectin observingthat"Theragewithwhichthis . .. novelhas beengreetedby a numberof MuslimorganisationsprovesthatRushdiehas toucheduponsome extremelyrawnerves"(Ruthven1989:22-23). But can it not, in the same way, be arguedthat its ag-gressively enthusiasticreception by Westernreadersis proof that among themsome very differentnerves have been touchedby this book? Thatamong themimages arejoyfully recognized because they are alreadyformed in the layereddiscoursesof a commonlyinhabitedhistoricalworld?It is partlyto this phenomenon hat the UrduMarxistpoet Aijaz Ahmedre-ferred hreeyearsago when he observedthat

thefew writerswhohappeno write n English revalorized eyondmeasure.Wit-ness,forexample, he characterizationf SalmanRushdie'sMidnight's hildrenntheNew YorkTimes s "a Continentindingtsvoice"-as if onehasno voice f onedoes not speakin English.17 . . . The retribution isited upon the head of an Asian,anAfrican, nArab ntellectual ho s ofanyconsequencendwhowrites nEnglishisthathe/shes immediatelylevatedo the onely plendourf a "representative"-of arace,acontinent, civilization,venthe "thirdworld." Ahmed 986:5]Oreven, one mightadd,of those figuresof modernity,"the homeless migrant,""the heroic inhabiterof a godless universe," "the self-fashioningauthor."I referto these familiar igures n order o suggestthat therepresentative ta-tus of which Ahmed speaks is not simply accorded to a foreign writerseekingadmission; he writer'stext is constructed rom the startwithin a fieldof moderreading-and-writinghatextendsbeyondthe activitiesof literary igures o includethescope of moder politics;the text acquires ts representative uthorityby tap-ping the networkof images andpowers made availablein that field and not an-other. Among these, of course, are the self-fashioningnarrativesof militantlyatheist readerswho remembera repressivereligious upbringing n Catholic orLow-Church amilies.18And the textualizedmemories-the metanarratives-ofapost-Enlightenmenttruggleagainst he institutionaland moralhegemonyof theChurchnEuropeandtheveryrecentacquisition hereof secular iberties.19Thus,my argument s not thatEuropeanreadersapplaudThe Satanic Verses becausetheyareall filled with an irrationalhatredof Islam, butbecauseit brings ntoplaymetanarratives f Westernmodernitythat conflict with Islamic textualitiesbywhich Muslim immigrants n Britaintry to define themselves. For opposed toWesternstories of progressthere stands the Qur'an, confoundingthe Westernreader'sexpectationsof progressivenarrative-an expectationthat has become(fromCarlyleto Weldon)the indisputablemeasureof an alien text's sense.

Aspects of the Bourgeois Rhetoric of "Literature""Dr. AadamAziz," writes Rushdie(1989a:26) in one of his many expla-nations,

thepatriarchnmynovelMidnight's hildren,oseshis faithand s left with"aholeinsidehim,avacancyn a vital nner hamber.", too,possess hesameGod-shaped



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250 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGYhole.Unable oaccept heunarguablebsolutes f religion, have ried ofilluptheholewith iterature.

Rushdie's narrativeinterlacing of characters from novel and autobiographyshouldalertus to the fictionalways the self is so often constructedn a literature-producingand-consumingworld.20Forthe politicallyengagedreader his delib-eratemerging nvites the reconstitutionof authorial ntention.Clearlythe word "literature" in Rushdie's confession doesn't denotejustany writing that addresses the world. Rushdie doesn't mean that he turned tobooks on politicaleconomy, philosophy,or theology, but that he read and wrote

"fiction," "literarycriticism," and "poetry" for spiritualsustenance. And notjust any "fiction," of course-not the innumerablepaperbacks old by the mil-lion in supermarkets, irports,andrailwaystationsby authors hat "cultivated"readershave never heard of. When Rushdiesays "literature" he means a veryspecific body of writing. His statement,and others like it, obviously belong tomoder bourgeoisculture-not because unbelief is either moder or bourgeoisbut because of somethingelse: the assumption hat the discoursecalled Literaturecan fill the role previously performedby religioustextuality.2'The idea that Lit-erature s the quintessential pace forproducing he "highest" norms of modersociety has become quite familiar to us,22althoughthe genealogy of that idea,which includes higher biblical criticism and Lutheran undamentalism, s lesswidelyappreciatedhan t shouldbe.23Forthatgenealogyreveals aprofound hiftfroma hermeneuticmethod hatwasessentiallyparasiticon apregivensacred extto one thatproducedLiterature ut of an infinitevarietyof publishedtexts. Theemergenceof Literatureas a moder category of edifying writing has made itpossiblefor a new discourseto simulatethe normative unction of religioustextsin anincreasinglysecularsociety.The remarkable alue given to self-fashioning througha particularkind ofindividualizedreadingand writing is entirely recognizableto Westernmiddle-classreadersof "literary' novels but not to mostMuslimsin Britainor the Indiansubcontinent.And since The Satanic Verses as a whole reproducesthat post-Christian pproach o textuality,its seductiveness s likely to work on the formerandnot the latter.Thus it is not mere personalprejudiceagainstIslam that leads Rushdietorepresentt as psychosis(Gibreel'sexperiences),24 uperstition theevents in Tit-lipoor), and chicanery(the story of Mahound).25What is more interestinglyatworkhere is the familiarpost-Enlightenment onceptionof Literature s the le-gitimatesource of spirituality.There is a good reason for presentingAlleluiaCone's mystical experienceon the snow-toppedHimalayaswith sympathy(seepages 108-109). Heroverpoweringsense of the sublimecomes uponher at firstin the form of a temporaryhallucinationof communion with God. The Truthemergeswhen herexperience s narrativized,n her account o the schoolchildren.It is thusthe possibilityof transmuting eligion into Literature hatmakes Alle-luia's narrativeabout her mountainexperience an acceptableform of substitute



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religiosityfor the author-as well as a recognizableone for many WesternandWesternized eaders.The strongly sympatheticcharacterization f Sufyan-"ex-schoolteacher,self-taught n the classical texts of manycultures"(p. 243)-belongs to the sameauthorial eason. For when we read that "secularistSufyanswallowed the mul-tipleculturesof thesubcontinent" p. 246), thathe could "quote effortlesslyfromRig-Vedaas well as Quran-Sharif,romthe militaryaccountsof Julius Caesaraswell as the Revelationsof St. John the Divine" (p. 245), it is the devotion of thislife to Literature hat we are asked to admire.Not life itself, but TheGreatBooksof Civilization(by Tagore, Shakespeare,Lucretius,Virgil, Ovid, andmanyoth-ers)have fashionedthe gentle, unworldlySufyan, andtaughthim the wisdom oflife's sorrows.26 o, too, spoken language(his believing wife's bittercomplaintsabouthis religious laxity) teaches him the evil thatissues fromactualritualprac-tice (hisone-timepilgrimage o Mecca): "whereas formost Muslims ajourneytoMeccawas the great blessing, in his case it had turnedout to be thebeginningofa curse" (p. 290). The practiceof religion is transmuted nto malignutterance,thetruthof languagestandsagainstthe antilife of ritual.The bourgeoisdoctrinethat Literature s the truthof life is repeated n a re-cent lectureby Rushdie(1990b:18):Literatures theoneplace nanysocietywhere,within hesecrecy f ourownheads,we can hear voices talkingabout everything n everypossible way. The reasonforensuringhat hatprivileged rena s preserveds notthatwriterswant heabsolutefreedomosayanddo whateverheyplease. t isthatwe,allofus,readers ndwritersandcitizensandgenerals ndgodmen,need hat ittle,unimportant-lookingoom.27This doctrinehas gained such an ideological ascendancythatthe anthropo-logical concept of culture is now beginning to be thoughtof once again in themode of Literature.To take a very recentexample, James Cliffordwrites:Twentieth-centurydentities olongerpresupposeontinuousulturesnd raditions.Everywherendividualsndgroupsmproviseocalperformancesrom re)collectedpasts, drawingon foreignmedia, symbolsandlanguages. [Clifford1988:14]28

Buteveryday ife is not so easily invented,abandoned,reinhabitedas this notionof culture,modeled on the postmodern dea of an imaginativework of art, sug-gests. Nor does everyonein the moder world have anequalpowerto invent, orto resist the impositionof someone else's invention. To say this is not merelytoremindourselves of the enormousinjusticesof class, race, and genderthat stillexist. It is also to note thatalthoughthe strictlyprivatizedrole of religion in themoder Westernstatemakes it easy forEnglishbelievers andnonbelievers o as-similate it to the categoryof Literature,most Muslimimmigrants n Britainfindit difficultto assimilatetheirpracticalreligioustraditions o this category.The bourgeoisdoctrinethat Literature s, more thanmerely life itself, theverytruthof life, has had aclose connectionwithimperialculture.Onemayrecallheretherecommendation f LordMacaulay,architectof Britisheducation n In-dia, on thebenefits of propagating



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252 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGYthatiteratureefore he ightof whichmpious ndcruel uperstitionsre ast akingflighton the banksof theGanges. . . . And, whereverBritish iterature preads,mayitbeattendedyBritish irtue ndBritish reedom!citedn Baldick1983:197]

How successful this projectwas historically s not thepointhere;what needs tobe underlined s the fact that British literaturewas always an integralpartof theBritishmissionin India.Is it also an integralpartof SalmanRushdie's mission?The Politics of a Partial Text

I indicatedearlierwhenI quotedfromRushdie'scommentson his novel thattherhetorical tatusof the sectionsdealingwith Islam was not entirelyclear. Is it"historicalexploration"or not? I wantnow to addressmyself brieflyto authorialintention,to see whetherthis helps us understandhow form andcontentin TheSatanicVerses articulatewith the political terrain n postcolonialBritain.I muststressthat t is notRushdie'soriginalmotivein writingthe novel that nterestsmehere, but the authorialmotive as constructed n the literary ext and its politicalcontext.If the book is, afterall, aboutthe growthof Islam as a historicalphenome-non, one mightwonderwhether hisobjectis bestpursuedvia thefictionaldreamof a fictionalcharacter,an Indianmovie star,and one who is losing his mind, atthat.Onthe otherhand f thebook's primaryaim is to lampoonthe sacredbeliefsandpracticesof MuslimimmigrantsnBritain,then theliterarydevices employedin The Satanic Verses areentirely apt. Since these beliefs andpracticesarepartof theircontemporary ocial existence, their subversionrequiresa text that is aweapon.And as the weapon is to be wielded in the presenceof a post-Christianaudience-indeed withthe seductionof thataudienceas a primaryaim-it drawsastutelyon thelong traditionof Christiananti-Muslimpolemics, central o whichis the Christian ascinationwith sex in the Prophet's life. As NormanDaniel(1960:102)noted: "it seemedveryobvious to mediaevalChristians hatMuham-mad's behaviourwithwomen alone madeit quiteimpossiblethathe should havebeen a prophet."Severalcommentators ave suggestedthatthe sexualepisodes in thenovel'saccountof the Prophetserve to humanizehim. This may indeedbe so. But theassumptions onstituting hathumanityare themselvestheproductof a particularhistory.Thus in the Christian radition,to sexualize a figurewas to cut him offfromdivineTruth, opronouncehimmerelyhuman; n thepost-Christianraditionof modernity, o "humanize" a figure s to insiston his sexualdesire, to disclosein it, by a discursivestrippingof its successive disguises, his essential humanTruth.29 ikeany imperializingorthodoxy,this humanistdoctrinedemandsof usauniversalwayof "beinghuman"-which is reallya singularwayof articulatingdesire,discourse,andgesturein the body's economy.

(Although n this sense the hagiographical epresentation f Muhammads"humanized" n Rushdie'snovel, the very real contemporaryKhomeini-"theImam"-is heavily mythicized. These two diametrically opposed rhetoricaltransformationsome together n the samepolemicalaim, however.)



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ETHNOGRAPHY,ITERATURE,NDPOLITICS 253

But the elements in Rushdie's armory are not solely Christian. They comealso from that moder tendency which regards the establishment of rules as self-evidently restrictive of liberty. Thus:

Amid the palm-treesof the oasis Gibreelappeared o the Prophetand found himselfspoutingrules, rules, rules, until the faithful could scarcelybear the prospectof anymorerevelation .. rules abouteverydamnthing, if a man farts et him turnhis faceto the wind, a rule about which handto use for the purposeof cleaningone's behind.Itwas as if no aspectof humanexistencewas to be leftunregulated, ree. Thereleva-tion-the recitation-told the faithful how much to eat, how deeply they shouldsleep, and which sexual position had received divine sanction, so thatthey learnedthatsodomyand themissionarypositionwereapprovedof by thearchangel,whereasthe forbiddenposturesincludedall those in which the female was on top. Gibreelfurther isted thepermittedand forbidden ubjectsof conversation,and earmarkedhepartsof the body which couldnot be scratchedno matterhow unbearably hey mightitch. He vetoed the consumptionof prawns, those bizarreother-wordlycreatureswhich no memberof the faithful had ever seen, and requiredanimals to be killedslowly, by bleeding, so thatby experiencing heirdeaths to the full they mightarriveat anunderstanding f themeaningof their ives, for it is only at the momentof deaththatliving creaturesunderstand hatlife has been real, and not a sort of dream.AndGibreel hearchangel pecifiedthe manner n which a manshouldbe buried,and howhis property hould be divided. [pp. 363-364; emphasisadded]

This passage is certainly amusing Biff! Smack! Wallop! stuff, but it is poor his-tory, and poorer ethnography-something most Western readers will be illequipped to identify unaided.Most Islamic rules are contained not in the Qur'an ("the recitation"), whichMuslims believe to have been revealed by God via Gabriel, but in collectionscalled Hadith which contain the exemplary sayings and doings of Muhammad andhis companions. Since Muslims do not consider ahadith to be divinely revealed,Gabriel has nothing to do with them. Of all the rules given in the passage I havequoted, only the rules relating to inheritance are to be found in the Qur'an.

For Muslims, ahadith record the founding principles of a virtuous life; con-versely, every principle of virtuous Muslim practice has a hadith authorizing it.Over the centuries there have been many attempts at putting together authoritativecollections and classifying ahadith, and there are many important differences inthe ahadith accepted by the various sects as authentic. Thus, no Suni collectioncontains a hadith prohibiting the consumption of prawns, a prohibition followedonly by Shi'is. Nor does any Sunni canonical work contain the rules about sexualintercourse that are cited in The Satanic Verses. The question that any informedreader may want to ask is why the rules of Hadith are presented as having beenrevealed by Gabriel, and further, why sectarian rules are presented as though theywere accepted by all Muslims. The answer may well be "Because the dreams ofdemented Indian actors aren't scholarly treatises, they are satire."When we call a piece of writing satire we are, of course, claiming a respect-able status for it. A satire is supposed to deal with prevailing vices, but the"vices" must be recognized as such by those against whom it is directed. Thesatirist need not be a believer, but he must have a firm understanding of the moral



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structure f the people he is satirizing.Otherwisethe writingdegenerates nto asneer. Simplyto representanotherpeople's beliefs and customsas vices isn't initself satire-which is not to say that it is thereforewithouteffect. Indeedderog-atoryrepresentations ave been, throughoutEurope's 19thcentury, an integralpartof imperialpropaganda,and an essentialjustificationof its "civilizing mis-sion." But unlikeaccomplishedsatire,which is a mode of moralengagement,30suchexpressionsof contempt or the beliefs andpracticesof Natives (Macaulay's"cruelsuperstitions")dependfor theirforce on superiormaterialpower.The item that is surely the most startling n Gibreel's dreamaboutIslamicrules is the repulsive explanationofferedfor the way Muslimsslaughteranimalsforfood to makethe meathalal (kosher).Thattheexplanations containedneitherin the Qur'annor in any canonical hadith s of no concern to would-be satire ofcourse-though one mightfeel that as an inventedexplanation t's surelysome-whatfeeble in suggestingthat the Prophet'sreligious practicewas directedatde-liveringsheepandpoultry romphilosophicalerror.Moreimportant,however, isthe fact that most British readerswill immediatelyassociate this item with thenotoriousmediacampaigna few yearsago againstwhat was described as "thatcrueland barbarous" slamicpractice.Thepressureof public opinionresulted na governmentcommission which recommended hat ritualslaughterbe renderedillegal, butfortunately or the Muslims the Jewishreligiousauthoritiesprevaileduponthe governmentnot to follow this recommendation.This seems to confirmthe suspicionthatthe sneeris directedparticularly t Muslimimmigrantsn Brit-ain, a small andpoliticallyvulnerablecommunitywhich is already n some dif-ficultyforits attachment o religioustraditions. n a crusade herecanbe no schol-arly scruples,only the determinationhatlight shall triumphagainstdarkness.31Now of courseRushdieis underno obligationto engage seriouslywith be-liefs and practicesthat he rejects, but in choosing to laugh at them he situateshimselfvery clearlyonthegroundof quiteanother raditionwhich is alreadypow-erfully in place-that of the liberalrulingclass in a postcolonialWesternstate.The readerof The Satanic Verses should not allow herself to be misled by theaccusationsof Britishracismit contains:such accusationsareentirelyconsonantwith a liberaldistressatracistprejudice n contemporaryBritain.32Moresignifi-cant, I think, is this: in deridingthe very idea of rulesof conduct("rules aboutevery damn thing. ... It was as if no aspect of existence was to be left unregu-lated, free") Rushdie invokes the assumptionsof liberalindividualism hathavereached heirapogee in Thatcher'sBritain.Yet neither n politics norin moralityis it an uncontested ruth o say thatbeing unregulateds being reallyfree.33

Political Traces on a Postcolonial LifeFromwhat has been said so far, I do not want to give the impression hatIthinkTheSatanicVersesis to be readentirely-or even mainly-in terms of theauthor'sconsciousintentions.The textof this novel is not in controlof itself. Thetensionsand contradictions t reveals are far moreinteresting hananythingthattakesplace on the surfaceof the narrative.Andthey allow us to make a political



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readingof fragmentsof the novel, as opposedto its politics, which was the topicof my previoussection. Let me illustratebriefly.In the course of a hymnto the glories of Shakespeare,Rushdie'sChamchamakesa strikingremark:"Pamela,of course, madeincessantefforts to betrayherrace andher class" (p. 398). Yet what is apparent o any carefulreader is thatPamelabetraysnot "her race and her class" but her Indianhusband-by goingslumming among immigrants nstead of helping to complete and confirm histransformationntothe authenticEnglishman.Indeed,Pamela is awareof Cham-cha's desperatedesire for the very thingshe rejects (p. 180).But why is her attitudeto her class representedas betrayal?Anyone edu-cated,asRushdie'sChamcha s, at anEnglishpublicschoolmustknowthatuppermiddle-classparentswould not regardas betrayala daughter'sradicalpolitics(mere "youthful idealism" is how they would view it) but her marriage to anIndian. It is inconceivable that Rushdie's Chamchashould be innocentof thisknowledge. Indeed he does know it but can't admit it to himself, so it must besuppressedanddisplaced.ChamcharesentsPamela's unwillingnessto confirmhim as a real Englishgentlemen,and knows that this unwillingnessis relateddirectlyto herrebelliouspolitics. He cringesas she repeatedlysubvertshis attemptsat being English, anddespises her for her left-wing politics. However, this doesn't quite explain hisresort o the bitternotion of "treachery," an accusationnever leveled at Zeeny,the radicalIndianwho mocks him for aping Englishattitudes. Nor why he feelsit is "herrace and herclass" thatarebetrayed,nothimself. ComingfromRush-die's Chamcha,this accusation s entirelyapt, butonly because it covers a com-plex playbetweendesires for self-transformation nd ideas of genetic puritythatis notfully dissectedin the novel.To be an "authentic"Englishgentlemenis to live out a racistideology-toengage in discourses of "generativeessence," a discourse in which "Indians"have a differentplace. As concept andpracticethat ideology acquired ts mostelaboratedevelopment nBritishIndia. In his desire to metamorphose imselfintothatkindof Englishman,Rushdie'sChamchastruggleswith an impossibleideo-logicaldilemma: o become Englishhe mustrejecthis essentialIndianness;mar-riageto anEnglishwomanwill surelybringthefulfillmentof his desirenearer;yetPamelamarrieshim because he is Indianandtherebyadulteratesherdesired En-glishness(heradulterywithChamcha's ndian riendJoshiis merelyaplayingoutof hermarriage s racialadultery),andseeks to reproducea half-Englishchild. Itis thusPamela'ssexual history, not herpolitics, thatconstitutesreal betrayalofChamcha reciselybecause it is a betrayalof an essential(i.e., raciallypure)En-glishness. Yet in the finalanalysis, herbetrayal s simplythe motivatedfigureofhis own impossibleattempts o become thatdifferentspecies, an Englishgentle-man. There is a double displacementat work here: for Chamcha s at once theobjectof betrayalandthe ultimatebetrayer-the self-hatingcolonial.34The finalresolution,you may recall, is thatChamchareturns o India, hisessentialplace, andto Zeeny, his essentialkind:



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256 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGYChildhood asover,andthe viewfrom his windowwas no more hanan oldandsentimentalcho. Tothe devilwith t! Letthebulldozersome.If theoldrefusedodie,thenewcouldnotbe born."Come long,"ZeenatVakil's oicesaidathis shoul-der.Itseemed hat n spiteof allhis wrong-doing, eakness, uilt-in spiteof hishumanity-hewasgetting nother hance.Therewas noaccountingorone'sgoodfortune, hatwas plain.There t simplywas, takinghis elbow in its hand."Myplace,"Zeenyoffered."Let'sgetthehelloutofhere." I'm coming,"heansweredher,and urnedway rom heview. [p.547;emphasis dded]35But this optimisticresolution s only possible afterhis father's deathbringshim a comfortable nheritance n India-an inheritanceacquired, ironically, inaccordancewith rules from the Divine Recitation.36And also afterhis Englishwife, the incarnation f his self-betrayal,has been burned o death,an unnamedcorpsewith herhalf-Indian hildunborn,whose death s recounted n the form ofa casualpolice report pp. 464-465).If the old refused to die, the new could not be born. As an empirical gener-alization his is of courseprettysilly. But as ajustification or destroying he oldin the continuouspursuitof novelty, it is the classic moralityof consumercapi-talism. Rushdie'sChamchadestroyshis own past-his mother,37 is father,hiswife, his friends, his alterego Gibreel, recognizablepartsof London, even hisaffection for England38-and thenforgives himselffor that destruction. In such a

moralitythere is no reason to suppose therecan ever be an end to the cycle ofdestruction,self-forgiveness, andreconstitutionof the subject. Wherethereareno obligationsto the past every destruction s only a new beginning, and newbeginningsareall one can ever have.Chamcha'ssolution to the problemof conflictingidentities, a return o hisrealplace, is scarcely open to many immigrants,althoughthe idea of deportingcolored immigrants o theircountryof origin is one thatright-wingopinion inBritain, ncludingEnochPowell, has always favored. It is the social, economic,andculturalconsequencesof British rule in India, not the mythicizedorigins ofIslam in 7th-centuryArabia, that constitutethe source of political problemsforIndianand Pakistani mmigrants n contemporaryBritain. Indeed the book's ar-ticulationof time is self-consciously mythical-an admiringreviewer identifiedit as "cyclically HinduanddualisticallyMuslim"39-while its central dilemmaandresolutionaredeeplyrootedin historicallyspecificclass situations.It may be arguedthat Chamcha'sreturn o Indiais not the only solution tothe immigrant'sdifficulties. After all, there is Mishal, daughterof the Bangla-deshi caf6-ownerSufyan, who stays on to strugglefor a nonracistEngland.ButMishal,bornand bred n England s already n a crucialsense "English"-in hermannerof speaking,her attitude o her mother,her sexual behavior,her dress,and in her radicalpolitics-even though it must be understood hat in a racistsociety she will not be seen as "English" by the English. (Her petit bourgeoisEnglishness s of course to be distinguished rom the gentleman'sEnglishnesstowhich Chamchaaspires.) Nevertheless, it is Mishal who lives while her immi-grantparents-again symptomatically-are burned o death. The stirringspeechallegedlymade n courtby SylvesterRoberts,aliasDr. UhuruSimba,readsoddly:



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ETHNOGRAPHY,ITERATURE,NDPOLITICS57we arehere to change things. . . . We have been madeagain:butI say thatwe shallalsobe theonesto remakehissociety,to shape t from hebottom o thetop.Weshallbethehewers f thedeadwoodand hegardenersf thenew. It isour urnnow.[p.414]

In the light of an almost systematicdestructionof immigrantdifferencein thebook (apartfrom skin color and a taste for curry)this passage assumes a self-mockingquality.The remarkable hing about The Satanic Verses, consideringwhat's beensaidabout t, is that it isn't aboutthe predicament f most immigrantsat all. Noris it, as some reviewershave claimed, a profoundstatementof the immigrantasuniversalrepresentative f ourepoch. Indeed, apart rom the Sufyanfamily, theout-of-workradicalJoshi, and Chamchahimself, there are virtuallyno immi-grants n the book. True, there is the Cone family, middle-classJewishrefugeesfromPoland:old Otto, the father,commits suicide afterhis comical attemptsatassimilation;his widow Alicia becomes religious, and emigratesto Californiawhere she settles down with a nice man; and the two daughters,Alleluia andElena,each meets withanunpleasantlyviolent death.Endof the Cone family ofimmigrants. s therea patternhere?MostMuslimimmigrantsn Britainareproletarians,argenumbersof whomhave settledin communities n the mill towns of northernEngland.They neitherretire o wherethey came from, nordo they appear o wish to assimilateentirelyto "the core values" of Britishculture. The book's stories do not connect withthepolitical-economicandculturalexperiencesof this population.Whatthey dopowerfullyconnectwith are the highly ambivalentemotionsgeneratedby an an-glicized Indian'sgaze at the rulingclass of imperialBritain.Rushdie'sChamchahas been excluded from entryinto thatclass not merely because of racism, butbecause(he graduallydiscovers)good old England,thegentleman'sEngland,isno longerin place. Responding o Valence's loud-mouthedpraiseforThatcher'sclass revolution, Chamchacomes to this unhappyconclusion: "It hadn't beenChamcha'sway; not his, nor that of the Englandhe had idolized and come toconquer" (p. 270). Yet only a colonialized bourgeois could have worshipedagentleman'sEnglandthatnever was. The decentEnglandthatRushdie'sCham-cha had idolized and wantedto inhabit was also the countrywhose rulingclassconducteda continuous war against its organizedworking classes, against theIrishpeasantry,andagainstthediversepopulationsabsorbed nto its vastempire.Yet significantly,his awakeningbegins not with a recognitionthat his yearningfor the gentleman'sEnglandwas based on illusion, but with a nostalgiafor theEnglandno longer here to receive him. Most Muslim immigrants,having verydifferentclass originsandreligioustraditions romthose of the author,propelledby quiteotheraspirations o migrate, and living now in straitenedconditions-these hadnotandcouldnothaveentertainedheauthor's llusionsaboutEngland.

Some British Uses of a Postcolonial NovelI have said somethingin this articleabout the readingsbut almost nothingaboutthe uses of SalmanRushdie's TheSatanic Verses in the context of Britishpolitics. I shallnow deal with this themebriefly.



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In a sense the most startlinguse of this bookhas been, of course, its publicburning n Bradford.This was done deliberatelyby the Muslims in thatcity toattractmediaattention-and thatit got with a vengeance. Commentators f var-ious political persuasiondenounced this act with horror,comparing t with thenotoriousNazi book-burnings f the '30s. That reactionshouldinterestus as an-thropologists, suggest. Whencharactersn a novel areburned o death(or vili-fied), we are remindedthat it is, afterall, "only a story." And yet a literalistresponsedoesn't seem equally convincingto us when we aretold that the bookburned s, afterall, "only paperandink." The liberalexpressionsof outrageatthis symbolic act-no less than the angerof South Asian Muslims at the publi-cation of the book-deserve to be exploredmore fully thanthey have been, sothatwe can understandhe sacredgeographyof modernsecularculturebetter hanwe now do.

Mypointis that t is one thingfor liberalopiniontorejectthecall forbanninga publication,quiteanother o react withhorrorat the symbolicact of burning t.Therewas, indeed,no liberaloutrageat thepublic burningof copies of immigra-tion laws by dissentingMembersof Parliament ome years ago. Morerelevant,perhaps, s the case of RabbiMordecaiKaplanwho redefinedclassical Judaismin accordancewith modern deas not as a religiousfaithbut as a civilization thatincluded anguageandcustom:"When RabbiKaplanpublisheda prayerbook in1945 embodyingthese ideas, it was publicly burnedbefore an assemblyof theUnion of OrthodoxRabbis of the United States andCanada"(Goldman1989).Therewas no secularoutrageat this symbolicbook-burning.Perhaps he crucialdifferencein the case of the Bradfordevent (apart romthefact that t was perpetrated y Muslimswho mustexpect a generallyunfavor-ablepress in the West) is thatit was the burningof a novel by a famousliteraryauthor.It was "Literature" hatwas being burned,notjust any printedcommu-nication.40And it was burnedby people who did not understand he sacred roleperformedby Literaturen modernbourgeoisculture.

Whatevera full symbolic analysis of the book-burningmay come to looklike,41 t needs to be stressedthat the two expressionsof outrageare not equallybalanced,in that Muslim immigrants like all South Asian immigrants)do notpossess anything ike the resourcesof powerandviolence availableto the Britishstate. True, this double outrage has also become entangled with the issue ofKhomeini'sshockingdeath threatagainsta Britishcitizen. But it is also true thatprominentBritishMuslims havepubliclydissociatedthemselvesfrom the Iranianpronouncement, nd thatthey are tryingto restrain he intemperatedeclarationsof some of theircoreligionists.42 almanRushdie'stragicpredicament-his hav-ing to be guardedby the Britishpolice againstthe possibilityof murder-is cer-tainly partof the story. So too is this fact: the steady stream over the years ofmurders f blackBritishcitizensby whiteracists has neverprovokeda denuncia-tion, by governmentor liberalopinion, of the white Britishpopulation.Nor doordinaryblack British citizens who areconstantlythreatenedby white racists al-ways obtainthe police protection hey need. Theirsecurity evidentlycannot re-ceive the same practicaland ideological attentionthat liberalbourgeois society



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gives to an internationallyamous author.43t is quiteunderstandable,herefore,thatwhenordinaryBritishcitizensare threatenedwith deathby whiteracists,andmurdered, hereshould be no liberaloutcrythatthe foundationsof Westernciv-ilization arebeing attacked-but merely liberalexpressionsof dismayat the vi-olent intoleranceof their lower classes.44It is as a consequenceof theinequality n powerbetweenimmigrantsandthegoverningclasses that the book is being used as a stick with which to beat theimmigrantsn a varietyof politicalarenas-in education,local government,andparliamentaryonstituencies.Thehithertoconfusednotion of multiculturalismsnow vigorouslyattacked n the nameof core culturalvalues rightacross the po-liticalspectrum.For LabouriteSean Frenchthe Bradfordbook-burningandthe Muslimfuryat Rushdie have broughtabout a change of heartregarding he virtues of multi-culturalism:Therehasbeen ittle ime n Britainor themelting-potttitudeso immigrants-es-pecially n the left. Multi-cultural,other-tongueeaching as beenconsideredl-mostself-evidently ood. It wouldproducehe richesof a many-culturedociety.Wellwenowhave t. [French 989:6]

French, ike manyothers on the left and theright,45 egardsmulticulturalism s adisruptiveprinciple.But so too, surely, is the melting-potpolicy. The unhappyhistoryof racerelationsbetweenEnglish-speaking,ChristianmmigrantsromtheCaribbeanwho were eagerat first to be assimilated)andthe dominantwhite so-ciety is evidenceenoughof that.Theclue, it seems to me, lies in the Britishanx-iety about who and what is to be disrupted.If anybodyis to be radicallytrans-formed t must not be the British themselves.ThusHugo Young, the well-known British iberalcolumnist,writes:one claim for which they can be allotted no scintilla of sympathy s the claim someMuslimeadersnow make o destroyBritishreedoms, rescape herestraints fEnglish ndScottish aw. The awprotects sall, includinghem.Theydo notseemtounderstandhat,noryethadcomprehensionhrust pon hem.For hat,and hatalone,one is entitled o suggest o anyonewho doesnot like it thathe might indanotherountry hichmeetshisdemands.f notGravesend, hynotTehran?Young1989:3;mphasis dded]

The intimidating one of this piece, deliveredin imperialcadences, is typical ofmuch mediacoverageof the Rushdie affair in Britain.Peacefulattemptsby im-migrant eaders to petitionfor legal actionbanningthe novel are not merelyre-jectedbutrepresentedn hysterical erms as a bid "to destroyBritishfreedoms."An Asian minority'swish to change the law, and its resort to means thathavealwaysbeenlawful in moderndemocracies parliamentaryetitions,publicdem-onstrations-including the shouting of angry slogans46-and passionateargu-ment in the media) is virtuallycriminalized.But in fact such statementsare notdirectedat illegality in any strictsense, especially as it was commonknowledgethatno arrests orbreachof the law hadactuallyoccurredat thetime. Their func-



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tion is to convey a clearmessage to immigrants:f you don't like anarrangementwhichis a partof core Britishvalues, don't dare to tryandchangeit-just leaveourcountry.This seems eminentlyreasonable-essentially democratic,even. But it isworthexaminingcriticallywhat the assumptionamounts to. British "core val-ues" appear o mean the historicalvalues of the Britishmajority.But they caneasily be translatedas hegemonic interests, so that the demand that immigrantminoritiesconcede withoutquestion existing "core values" if they are to be ac-ceptedas full membersof thepoliticalcommunitybecomesrevealed as a famousbourgeoisruse. If thatprinciplewere ever to be conceded,neitherrace norgendercouldbecomelegitimatepolitics in modem states.It is a well-known but often convenientlysuppressed act thatnot only haveways of life in Britainchangedradicallyover the last two centuries,the conceptofculture tselfhasemergedas thepolitical productofaprofoundhistoricalstrug-gle. There was a time when the values and aspirationsof the English workingclasses-as well as the beliefs andpracticesof NonconformistChristians-werenot included n the secular,humanistconceptof "culture."47The singularityofBritainwas notdefined n terms of an all-encompassingculture.Itwas only withsuchrecentdevelopmentsas adultmale suffrage,a legalizedTradeUnion move-ment,popular ducation,and areformed ystemof city government, hat "Britishculture"-originally "English culture"-began to acquirethe inclusive sense,andlegitimacy,that it now possesses. This continuouswork of historicalcontes-tation andreconstructionneeds to be kept in mind when readingBritishliberalcommentaries boutthe Rushdieaffair.I want to stress thatthispointhasnothingto do withwhetherBritishculture, ike all cultures, s "mixed" or "pure"; it hasto do with whatgets includedand what excluded(how andby whom)in the con-structionof a domainwithin which a legitimatepolitics can be practiced-a pol-itics to defend, develop, modify, or redefinegiven traditionsandidentities.

A Concluding NoteI beganthis essay by addressing he questionof ethnographywhich has re-

centlybecomethe focus of muchanthropologicalnterest,andI want to return oit finally.My discussionof Rushdie's novel is motivatedby the assumption hatthecrucial ssue for anthropological ractice s not whetherethnographies re fictionor fact-or how far realist forms of culturalrepresentation an be replaced byothers. What mattersmorearethe kinds of politicalprojectcultural nscriptionsareembedded n. Not experiments n ethnographic epresentationor theirownsake, but modalitiesof politicalintervention houldbe ourprimaryobjectof con-cern. More precisely, a majorquestionfor anthropologistsconcernedwith theWest's Other n the West is this: How do discursiveinterventionsby anthropol-ogists articulate he politics of difference in the spaces defined by the moderstate?



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In the West there is now an increasing awareness of the ambiguous legacyof the Enlightenment. Two decades ago Arthur Hertzberg assembled a powerfulcase to argue that the modem roots of anti-Semitism lay in the homogenizingthrust of post-Enlightenment "emancipation." Complete assimilation48 or thestatus of despised difference-not to mention other, more terrible,alternatives49-is the only option that the modem nation-state has been able toprovide for its "minorities." Must our critical ethnographies of Other traditionsin modem nation-states follow the options offered by liberal theory? Or can theycontribute to the formulation of very different political futures?

Notes

Acknowledgments.Partsof this article were delivered at the New YorkAcademyof Sci-ences, theUniversityof Connecticut,and theUniversityof Chicago.I have benefited romcommentsmadeby all three audiences.I amgratefulalso to thefollowing individualswhomadehelpfulsuggestions:JamesFaris,U. Kalpagam,KeithNield, RaynaRapp,and NurYalman. To TanyaBaker I owe a specialdebtfor herinvaluableadvice and criticism andforherperceptivereadingof SalmanRushdie's novel which she sharedwith me. This ar-ticle is almost as much hersas mine.'For a courageous nterventionby two anthropologistsat the height of the Rushdie furorsee the interesting"Editors' Comments"in Public Culture,vol. 1, no. 2, Spring1989.2Ishalldeal with thepolitics of culturalconflictin Britain n anotheressay.3Useful nformationon Muslims in Europeis containedin Gerholm and Lithman(1988)andKepel (1988).4Avaluable discussion of English law as it affects Muslims in Britain,particularlyas itaffects theirdemandsregarding ducation,is contained n Poulter(1989).5ThusEliot, who argued,froma conservativeviewpoint, for the inseparability f religionandculturehad to concede that the Churchof England ncludes "wider varieties of beliefand cult than a foreign observer would believe it possible for one institutionto containwithoutbursting" (Eliot 1961:73). Its cultural role was not the consequence of divinegrace,but of the constitutionalprivilegegiven to a religiousinstitution n the British state.However minor that influencemay now be said to be, it is the case thateven nonconser-vatives do not contest the essentiallyChristiancharacterof "British national culture" inany significantmeasure.6Wouldt be unjust o describethis reference o a monolithic "Islam" directedby a "pow-erfultribe" as an opportunisticbid for support n the West? Rushdie himself mighthavedescribedt so before thepublicationof TheSatanicVerses:"it needs to be saidrepeatedlyintheWest thatIslam s no moremonolithicallycruel,no morean 'evil empire'thanChris-tianity,capitalismor communism"(Rushdie1988c:188). It is incorrectandirresponsibleto implythatthere s a unityof doctrineamongeven so-calledfundamentalist egimesandmovements n the Muslimworldtoday. It is monumentallyabsurd o suggestthatbelief inMuhammad's niquenessandin theunambiguityof theQur'anas revelation s theproductof a recentclericalcoup;bothprincipleshavealwaysbeencardinal o Islamicpopular aithandtheologicaldiscourse.



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262 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGY

7Consistencys not exactly Rushdie's strong point. "Most of our problemsbegin," heobserved n a prepublicationnterview,"when peopletryto define the worldin termsof astarkoppositionbetweengood and evil" (originallypublished n the autumn/winter 988Waterston'sSelectionCatalogue,a shorterversion was reprintednRushdie 1989b:1156).Is inconsistency heprivilegeof a writerof fiction-or only of a writerof fantasy?8ForexampleBhabha(1989:35): "The book is written in a spiritof questioning,doubt,interrogation ndpuzzlementwhich articulates he dilemma of the migrant,the emigre,the minority."9This udgment, incidentally, has a long lineage in the ChristianWest. Thus Carlyle(1897:64-65): "I must say, it is as toilsome readingas I ever undertook.A wearisomeconfused umble, crude, incondite;endless iterations, ong-windedness,entanglement;n-supportable tupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any Europeanthrough heKoran.We read n it, as we might n theState-PaperOffice, unreadablemassesof lumber,thatwe mayperhapsget glimpsesof a remarkableman." Thereis a character-istic imperialassumptionhere thata cultivatedEuropeanhas no need to learn to readthetexts of non-Europeanultures.'?Afterall, it was only as recentlyas 1988 thatParliamentegislatedthatobligatorycol-lective worshipin schools had to be of "a broadlyChristiancharacter"(see EducationReformAct 1988, ss. 6, 7). Any parentwho objectsto Christianndoctrinationmustmakea specificapplication o have his or her child exemptedfrom thatactivity(EducationRe-formAct 1988, s.9 [3]).'The imperiousdemand thatall good men and true must now come forward o join thecrusade("Secular versus religious, the light versus the dark. .... It is time for us tochoose") is surelybasedon an implicitrule of conduct?'2Thedifficultiesof constructinga coherentpolitics in the modem state on the basis of"experience" alone has long been recognizedon the left: see, for example, Williams(1979:168-172). While Williams's primaryconcernhere is to rehabilitate he notion ofexperience n the face of Althusserianassaults,he emphasizesits limitationsfor politicalunderstandingn modem societies. Nevertheless, he does not supply the necessarydis-tinctionbetweenexperienceand its expression.For since thereis often a hiatusbetweenexperiencethat can't be adequatelyexpressedand what can be expressedbut isn't quiteadequate o experience,there'salwaysa danger n makinghastyequations(as Yasmin Alidoes)between "culturalproducts"and"authenticexperiences."'3The inisterversions includethose used in Soviet political psychiatry.But also in suchstatementsas the following by the eminent liberal ournalistO'Brien(1989) that in effectrecommend pecific politicaland administrativemeasures:"Araband Muslimsociety issick and has been sick for a long time.""4Inhis article, Cauteprovidesa useful account of dissatisfactionswithin the Bradfordimmigrant ommunitywith thepoliticalrecordof the Labourparty.'5As ndeed do SalmanRushdieand his legal advisers.Thus when the EnglishplaywrightBrianClarkwrote a playalluding o Rushdie'stragicpredicament,he was confrontedwitha veiled threatof legal action:"Mr. Rushdierespondedby leaving a messageon my an-swer-phone ayinghe was appalled hatI would thinkthe play whichpostulatedhis deathcould in any way be acceptable o him, thathe would resist its being performed.As Mr.



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Rushdie s nowhereportrayedor even namedin the play it was easy to changethe title toWhoKilledthe Writer? though t would be disingenuous o pretend heplaywas notpred-icatedon his position). But I was shocked to be in receiptof a letter from Mr. Rushdie'sagentsaying that if we intendedproductionwe should send him a formalnote so thathecould 'establishSalman'slegal rights.' The ironyof Mr. Rushdie'swishing to suppressaplay because it offended him was so obvious thatit became clear to me he could not bethinkingwell" (Clark1990:21).'6The ecognitionsarehighlyseductive,forthrough hemthe readerdelivershis/herassent.Thus PeterFuller in his review of George Steiner's Real Presences in the Guardian:"Iwasdrawnonthroughpageafterpage by thesheer oy of corroboration."'nsuch a readingtherecanscarcelybe anyroomfor thejoy of discoveringnew things-let aloneundergoingtheuncomfortable rocessof questioningone's complacency.7Itnow appears hatSalmanRushdieagreeswith The New YorkTimes:his life's workis"to createa literary anguageandliterary orms in which the experienceof formerly-col-onized, still-disadvantaged eoples mightfindfull expression"(Rushdie1990a:18). UntilRushdie,the divine creator,fashions and gifts an appropriateEnglish literarylanguage,anentireworld of formerlycolonized peoples remainsunable to expressfully theirmani-fold experiences."'SinceFreudwe have learned o askwhethermodemautobiographical arratives reservea puretruthor presentthe truthof interestedsubjects(see Spence 1982). To whatextentaresuchmemories(as opposedto the experiencesthey recount) heconsequenceof directreligiousrepression-and to whatextent the integrativeprincipleof antireligious ubjects?Thisquestiondoes not presuppose hatthe memoriesmust be false, but thatin translatinga remembered hildhoodexperienceof repressive-parents-using-religious-rulesnto "re-ligiousrepression"theadultsubjecthasentereda discoursethatalreadyhashigh value inliberalsecularculture.'9Thismetanarrativeftentakesthehistoryof post-Revolutionary nticlericalism n Franceas paradigmatic,herebysuppressing he muchmorecomplicatedrole playedby religionin England.Thereligiousstruggleof Nonconformistsagainstthe EstablishedChurchwasanextremely mportant ource of social andpoliticalrightsin thatcountry.20Forn interestinganalysisof this modemphenomenonsee Gutman 1988).2'In the Islamictradition he Qur'anis not regardedas literature-adab-in the criticalmodemsense of the term.Althoughsome recentspecialistsof Arabic iteraturehavetriedto approacht as a "litera

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