Salman Rushdie: The 60 Minutes Interview (1990) Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:01)
60 Minutes Rewind.

Mike Wallace: (00:05)
Our first story is about a man who is still trying to dodge a bullet. His name is Salman Rushdie and he was marked for death 20 months ago by the Ayatollah Khomeini who declared Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses an affront to Islam. Rushdie, who comes from a Muslim family himself, went into hiding.

Somewhere in London, no one but Scotland Yard knows exactly where, Rushdie holds up in a series of flats, moving to another location every time Scotland Yard’s special branch thinks it prudent that he do so. No one sees him, but the police who guard him day and night somewhere not far from these famous London landmarks. The only way we could get to see him was to be taken to a secret location, which turned out not to be one of his hiding places, but a policeman’s club on the outskirts of London. What are your days like?

Salman Rushdie: (00:58)
Well, it’s difficult just to answer really because there’s not such a thing as a typical day in a situation in which one frequently or infrequently has to move, changes. But by and large, I try and create a day which is like the ordinary working day of a writer as I can. I mean, after all, writers are people who sit alone in rooms.

But at the end of the day?

At the end of the day, well …

That’s when you go out and you have a drink and you sit with friends and you go to dinner and …

Yeah, well, no, I don’t do that.

You go to the tele and …

I go to the television, and I play chess against the chess computer, and I telephone people, and I write letters. I do what you do when you sit alone when you’re isolated and I get through it.

In a strange way, you’re a hostage.

Yeah. I mean, I …

I mean, it’s not Terry Waite or Terry Anderson.

No, I mean, nobody’s chaining me to a radiator.

Right.

But, yes, I mean, I don’t have certain fairly basic freedoms at present.

Have there been any bizarre experiences in your new life?

No. I mean, one of the strange things about being at the eye of the storm is that it’s very still.

Yeah. And protected and insulated.

Yeah, exactly. So it’s bizarre and has been disorienting and all those things. But you have to choose, I think, in the end, whether you’re going to get through something or not, and I decided I would.

This is what sent Rushdie underground, frenzied Muslims rioting and taking to the streets around the world, demanding vengeance for what they believe is the writer’s blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad and his family. When the Ayatollah escalated the drama with his death sentence, Rushdie hit back with his own challenge 20 months ago, in what turned out to be his last public statement before disappearing from view.

And frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book. I mean, a religion that claims that is able to behave like this, religious leaders let’s say who are able to behave like this, and then say that this is a religion which must be above any kind of whisper of criticism, I mean, that doesn’t add up. It seems to me that Islamic fundamentalists could do with a little criticism right now.

You said, “Frankly, I wish I had written a more critical book.” What did you mean?

I don’t know. I suppose that was bravado. What options you have in a situation like that? You can either jibber or you can say something …

Brave it out.

Brave it out. I suppose, that’s always toughing it out. But it wasn’t a particularly accurate remark, I don’t think

You mean that you had no intention or you did not feel that you …

I did not at that moment really wish I’d written a more critical book, no.

I can imagine. It was a very different Salman Rushdie we encountered, different from this proud defiant author 20 months ago, very much enjoying his literary recognition as he boldly read mocking passages about the Ayatollah from his Satanic Verses on British television.

What is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations. Who has not dreamed this dream, of being a king for a day? But the Imam dreams of more than a day; feels, emanating from his fingertips, the arachnid strings with which he will control the movement of history.

Given the nature of the Ayatollah’s following and the promise of paradise to any of the faithful who execute the writer, we were struck by Rushdie’s determined optimism about his ability to work out a reconciliation with Islam.

It’s been 20 months just about, yes. And I mean, I have to hope that the atmosphere is gradually changing. I think there’s various sort of signs that it might be.

Where do you get those signs?

Oh, just in the air. And it seems to me that in this country, I don’t believe that there are very many people actually who are seriously interested in doing me any harm. I don’t believe that so in the United States either. I think most Muslims, like most people, are pretty reasonable. Actually, the world contains very few blood thirsty people.

It was hard passing on this next piece of information to Rushdie. But just two days before in Tehran, I had asked Rajai Khorasani, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Iranian Parliament if he could foresee the lifting of the death sentence.

Rajai Khorasani: (05:35)
It is not going to be lifted. It cannot be lifted.

Because?

Because it is a religious fact which remains there forever.

And there is nothing that Salman Rushdie can do?

We just don’t want … We don’t care whether he can do something or not. It’s not our business. There are plenty of people who are doing wrong things, we don’t care about them. We don’t make any attempt to solve their personal problems. It is his personal problem.

And there’s no apology? There is no amend?

No. No, it’s wrong to speak of an apology. And it is a lesson to many other Muslims who should simply think of what they want to say before they say it.

We ask Rushdie about the passages from his Satanic Verses that have so outraged, Muslim fundamentalists. Yes, but Muhammad backsliding his wives in brothels.

Well, it’s, of course, not his wives in brothels. I mean, let’s be accurate about this. It’s not his wives in brothels.

What is it?

There is a brothel in the imaginary city in which the prostitutes take the names of the prophets’ wives. Meanwhile, it is quite clearly stated the prophets’ wives are somewhere else being perfectly well behaved.

Yes. But it’s in the eye of the reader. It’s in the eye of the beholder. And if you are a faithful Muslim …

Yeah, but let’s be accurate at least about what it is, if I’m accused of calling-

About your intention?

Yeah. But also if I’m accused of calling the prophets’ wives whores, I didn’t do it.

What is there in Islam that has made it such a horror for you?

Well, I don’t think it’s anything in Islam, and I don’t think of Islam as a horror for me either. My entire family are Muslims. Many of my friends are Muslims. I mean, Muslims are no more or less horrifying than any other group of people on the planet. I don’t think it’s anything in Islam that’s created this, so then what created this was a specific event in one country.

But there is something in Islam that makes the man who gets your head a reward. Forget the monetary award, one hears anywhere from two to $5 million for your head, but a reward beyond that, a spiritual reward.

I doubt that you’d find a lot of Muslims who’d think like that. I mean, really. Yeah. I mean, go out on the street and ask him.

We did, right there in London.

Speaker 5: (07:48)
Even today, unless he withdraws the book, he is in grave danger, anywhere in the world, not just here, anywhere in world.

Speaker 6: (07:59)
According to the the fatwā, he should be executed.

Speaker 7: (08:02)
As long as the book is in circulation, in whichever form, and he refuses to withdraw it, his apology in fact is an insult. It’s not an apology.

I mean, it’s not just the nuts.

No, no. I mean, I know that, and what am I supposed to do about it? I am not an enemy of Muslims because after all, they’re my own people. My family are Muslims. And given that, trying to explain the fact that I’m not this kind of creature with horns and a tale that’s been painted, there is actually very little in The Satanic Verses that hasn’t been, in fact, quite commonplace discussion in the Muslim world for hundreds of years. There may be ways in which it’s done which have upset people. And as I say, I mean, I regret it. I’m sorry. But the point is, it’s there. And it is possible, I think to increase that degree of understanding and that’s what I’d like to do.

Speaker 1: (08:57)
The story will continue after this.

Meanwhile, the controversy that the Ayatollah unleashed has turned Rushdie’s novel into a best-seller. Already reported 1.1 million hardcover sales with the paperback yet to come.

Well, so what, I’m supposed to be pleased? I mean, I would very happily exchange my old level of sales and my old life for what you’ve just described as a success.

But a writer who lives with Scotland Yard as his only companion does not have that choice. Your son, how old is he?

He’s 11.

What do you tell your boy?

Well, I try and tell him what’s happening. I mean, it’s …

And he must ask, “Dad, why do these people want to kill you?”

I think we are getting into an area here, which I consider to be a private matter between me and him. And I have tried and I have … It’s that long distance, but I have tried to keep him informed as to what’s going on. And I think that helps him, I hope, to handle it.

And Marianne Wiggins, your wife, is that over?

Yes, that’s over.

What do you do for companionship? Do you have to live a celibate life? I mean, I hate to ask the question, but I’m sure …

Everybody wants to know.

Exactly.

It’s nice to have a break. No, I’m not being serious. Yes, is the answer.

What is your future?

I don’t know. I don’t think in the long-term at the moment. My future is to go on writing books, I hope.

And remarkably, in spite of all, Rushdie has just completed his first book from exile, a children’s book for his son, Haroun.

Haroun, yes.

It’s a beautiful book.

Well, I hope so.

No, it’s a beautiful book. There are three characters in this book that I particularly enjoy, I guess if that’s the word. There is the engaging youngster, who is your son.

Well.

There is you.

Well, there’s a storyteller. Yeah.

That’s the storyteller. That’s Salman Rushdie. And there is the prince of silence, and by God, that is the Imam Khomeini.

Well, I’d resist that reading completely.

He is the prince of silence and he tries to keep the storyteller from telling his stories.

That’s right. Well, the book is a dramatization of all sorts of things. I mean, it’s a war between language and silence, which after all is an old literary project, and it’s a war between light and dark. So it’s a fable about things quite other than Salman Rushdie and Imam Khomeini

I confess, I opened Haroun, and went, “a children’s book,” and suddenly discovered it’s also an adults book. And I wondered if the Imam had conceivably tamed you. He has not.

I don’t know. I mean, if I felt that I couldn’t write as myself, I would stop writing because I value the art of writing too much to do it when I’m censoring myself. If that had happened to me, I would put down my pen and not write again. I have to believe that it hasn’t happened to me, but it’s for other people to judge.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Salman Rushdie: The 60 Minutes Interview (1990) Transcript

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