A Little Courage: A Lot of Hypocrisy

By Allan C. Brownfeld

On the surface, the controversy swirling around the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence for author Salman Rushdie is a straight-forward one, involving freedom of speech, terrorism, and religious extremism. All men and women of goodwill, whatever their religious beliefs, must abhor the notion of murdering a writer because of his views, however offensive. To defend free speech for ideas with which we agree, after all, is no sacrifice.

Yet, this affair is filled with hypocrisy—often of many layers. Those directly involved, and those who have spoken most boldly in this matter, raise as many questions about themselves as they do about those they are condemning.

First, consider the Ayatollah Khomeini himself. He has not denounced Mr. Rushdie's book only because of its characterization of Islam, but has declared it to be an American and CIA plot, although the author is a British subject and the book was published in England. Indeed, the book was in print many months before the Iranian leader saw fit to threaten the author. Khomeini, it seems, was motivated as much by politics as by religion. One goal seems to be heading off a push by some more pragmatic Iranians to end Iran's isolation and rebuild its shattered economy by expanding ties with the West. By suggesting that the Rushdie book is part of a Western "plot" against Islam, efforts at US-Iranian reconciliation are made more difficult.

And consider Mr. Rushdie. He has wrapped himself in Western beliefs of freedom of speech and of religion, yet he has repeatedly expressed his own contempt for the West. The government of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which now protects him, has been one of his key targets. Rushdie has accused the Thatcher government both of support for racism and of limiting free speech in Britain, and Rushdie is an enthusiastic supporter of non-Islamic Third World tyrannies, such as the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

Mr. Rushdie has wrapped himself in Western beliefs of freedom of speech and religion, yet he has repeatedly expressed his own contempt for the West.

The ayatollah may consider Salman Rushdie an agent of the United States, but Rushdie himself seems to have contempt for the US. He wrote: "It was hard to believe that such an administration [that of President Reagan] could claim moral superiority over the likes of Miguel d'Escoto [Nicaragua's foreign minister]."

The battle lines in the Salman Rushdie case make little sense. Here is a left-wing, anti-American supporter of some of the Third World's most squalid regimes being labeled an agent of "US imperialism" by an anti-American, squalid Third World regime.

Our belief in free speech and freedom of religion is, of course, deeply offended by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his primitive mindset. Iran is clearly an outlaw nation, financing and training groups which are invo