Salman Rushdie, a world-renowned author and University Distinguished Professor, returned to Emory on Sunday evening (Feb. 15) to deliver his final public lecture as an Emory faculty member in Glenn Memorial Auditorium.
The lecture, hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Provost, was titled “The Liberty Instinct” and focused on what Rushdie calls the human beings natural “‘instinct’ for freedom.” Rushdie visits Emory and lectures each year as part of his role as University Distinguished Professor.
College Dean Robin Forman introduced Rushdie, who was greeted with a standing ovation as he walked onstage in the packed auditorium.
Calling the lecture “bittersweet,” Forman reminded the audience that this year marks Rushdie’s final year as a University Distinguished Professor and thus this would be his final lecture on campus as an Emory faculty member.
Forman also announced that Rushdie had accepted University President James Wagner’s invitation to deliver the keynote address at Emory’s Commencement ceremony this year on May 11 and that the Emory Board of Trustees voted to award Rushdie with an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University.
“Even here [in the United States], the classical values are being tried in the First Amendment by this new timid culture.” — Salman Rushdie“These are not good days,” Rushdie said of the current state of freedom in the world at the start of the lecture.
“How do ... cartoonists lie dead in Paris?” Rushdie asked, referring to the Jan. 7 attacks on the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Rushdie then commented on a separate shooting that occurred on Saturday, Feb. 14 in Copenhagen.
“And, just yesterday, there was an echo of that terrible event in what one ... referred to as their fairy tale country, a place where they were not expecting such things,” he said. “In Saudi Arabia, a blogger can be whipped for stepping very mildly out of line. In India, supposedly democratic India, girls are arrested and jailed for making comments about their politicians on Facebook ... in Turkey, in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Iran, fundamental freedoms not only to speak, but even to go to school if you are a girl, are under attack.”
Rushdie said he that was struck by the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders, specifically the “speed with which” many people found it easier to blame the victims instead of abhorring the mass murders that took place.
“How depressing it is that, in a quarter of a century, nobody has learned anything?,” Rushdie said.
Rushdie identified a new, modern danger to freedom of speech. He calls this danger a “new timidness” in our culture, or a fear of offending people.
“Even here [in the United States], the classical values are being tried in the First Amendment by this new timid culture,” Rushdie said, citing the cancellation of the Vagina Monologues by Mount Holyoke College for fear of discrimination against women without vaginas.
The Huffington Post reported on Jan. 16 that Mount Holyoke College had cancelled plans to perform the “Vagina Monologues” because it is “not inclusive enough.”
“[The cancellation] would be absurd except for that it actually just happened,” Rushdie said.
What concerned Rushdie, he said, was that the “danger to free expression is beginning to be greatest where it is most accepted,” meaning educational institutions, such as college campuses.
If anyone on an American campus today tried to start a magazine like Charlie Hebdo, they couldn’t, Rushdie said. He added that not only administrators but also students would not allow a magazine like that to exist on campus because “large numbers of young people have accepted the argument that offending people is wrong.”
Throughout the lecture, Rushdie cited the importance of defense of free speech of people who offend you.
Later in his lecture, Rushdie discussed the idea of freedom of speech on a global scale.
Rushdie noted that even countries committed to freedom of expression define it differently.
The problem, according to Rushdie, is new type of advocate of free speech: “the but-brigade,” otherwise known as, according to Rushdie, those who would say, “We believe in free speech but...”
For Rushdie, believing in free speech excludes any “buts.”
“The point when you discover if you believe in free speech is when someone says something that offends you,” Rushdie said. Rushdie ended his lecture by calling the audience to action.
“This is who we are, free men and women who are born free but everywhere in chains,” Rushdie said. “It’s up to you to break those chains wherever you find them. It’s in your hands. The future is yours. Don’t screw it up.”
Laney Graduate student Miranda Wojciechowski, who is a Masters student in English, said she thought Rushdie’s “humor and insight were a remarkably eloquent call-to-action, as always.”
“Human rights, censorship, the liberty instinct are all such broad disembodied concepts, but Rushdie has a real knack for combining vast rhetorical statements with tangible events and relatable anecdotes,” Wojciechowski said. “One of the most powerful aspects of his lecture was his condemnation of political correctness and academic carefulness in the midst of an audience of college students and faculty.”
As part of his annual visit to Emory this month, Rushdie will also attend a number of events and classes, including the 15th annual “Twelfth Night Revel” celebration and poetry reading on Friday, Feb. 20, at the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library according to a Feb. 3 University press release.
For his second public event on Tuesday, Feb. 24, Rushdie will join a panel discussion on “Disability Rights as Human Rights” alongside Emory English professors Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Benjamin Reiss and Stony Brook University Visiting Philosopher Eva Kittay.
— By Annie McGrew, Asst. News Editor
