The attempted assassination which Salman Rushdie was victimized reminds those who seemed to forget that the fundamental freedoms of a modern society, as to create and express themselves, are constantly threatened around the world by totalitarian ideologies.
These hateful and contemptuous ideologies with regard to these freedoms are based on political or religious theories whose self -proclaimed legitimacy raises questions. The case of Salman Rushdie obliges us to question the place of the religious fact and the sacred in our modern world.
If freedom of conscience gives everyone the right to think what they want from the origin of the world and its creation, the revealed truths of religions cannot impose their precepts on the whole of society. However, we have seen, for several years, that religious practices are becoming more and more intrusive, authoritarian, when they are not threatening. This drift seriously infringes the subtle balances of democratic societies and installs a climate of insecurity, intimidation and violence which is no longer acceptable.
Any critical discourse on religious dogmas, even the most tenuous, immediately falls under the threats of death, and the citizens, fearing for their lives, prefer to give up their freedom to express their disagreement. This renunciation also affects the world of arts and creation, which has integrated this violence and prefers to approach other, less deadly subjects. “No one would dare to publish the satanic verses today,” we have long heard about the work of Salman Rushdie.
Creativity without limits and incessant insolence
This is the purpose of religious fanatics: dissuade, by terror, to create works that dispute their dogmas, however based on little, namely some visions of great mystics.
Can our modern societies build around texts written by exalted minds? Nothing is sacred. The paradox is that today the mobilization to condemn the attack on Salman Rushdie seems stronger than that of the artists to continue to produce works which will perpetuate the vision of the author of the Satanic verses. Because after all those who have already been murdered, like Theo Van Gogh, and those who get stabbed for conferences, like Salman Rushdie, who will remain to continue their reflection and their fight?
If global warming endangers living organisms on earth, religious intolerance and unbridled mysticism threaten spirits by stifling them under prohibitions and irrevocable sentences.
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