Bernard-Henri Lévy

On Valentine’s day, February 14, 1989, ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini taught the world a word most people outside of Muslim communities never heard of before: fatwa.

This religious edict, issued in Tehran by the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic and immediately cabled out to all corners of the planet, demanded of every Muslim “to use all they have, their life and riches, to send the blasphemer (Salman Rushdie) to hell”. Thus the de facto dictator of Iran had, as the first leader of a state in modern times, sentenced a citizen of a foreign country to death. But Khomeini went even further than that: he promised, not just a place in Paradise, but also a reward of roughly three million pounds to the killer of the British author. In other words: heaven and earth in one package, as the reward for the “holy duty” to commit a terrible crime.

And what was the reason to demand every believing Muslim to murder a fellow human being? What was Rushdie’s alleged crime? That he in his novel, “The Satanic Verses” was supposedly slandering a very successful religious visionary from the 7th century.

When this news reached me at my home in Stockholm, Sweden, at first I wasn’t sure if this was a bad joke or a sad truth. How could a serious and highly respected religious scholar use Islam to condemn a book he obviously could not read and judge its content for himself, as the novel was not translated yet to any other language and the dying old ayatollah didn’t know any English at all? Above all: how can somebody want to get a writer killed for a book?

Naturally I knew, as this has never been a secret, that death was the driving force of Khomeini´s Empire. Hundreds of thousands of young martyrs walked voluntarily into death, and almost as many were executed in the Islamic Republic. The mullahs love the word death – “death to the traitors”, “death to the whores”, “death to the Zionists” “death the to America”, “death to anybody who is against us”. Their fanaticism is founded, like in the case of Hitler, on hatred.

It didn’t take long time to understand the seriousness of Khomeini’s fatwa, especially as this death sentence was aimed not just against Rushdie but everybody – translators, publishers, booksellers – who had anything to with “The Satanic Verses”.

Within the next couple of days, through the medias, we could all witness how (often illiterate) angry masses in Muslim countries took to the streets in laud demonstrations against not just Rushdie but the West, burning British and American flags and dolls of the author.

However, for me personally, it was a much greater shock to realize that sophisticated writers – such as John Berger, John le Carré, Sibylle Bedford and Paul Johnson among others –, instead of defending the freedom of speech which was under strong attack here, not just turned themselves against and criticised Rushdie, but showed understanding for people who hoped that truth and fantasy could be burned to ashes.

Through Khomeini’s fatwa the Book, as the symbol of every human being’s right to speak and to fantasise, became the centre of the moral and political debate. Many of us realised, time and time again, that writers must not leave to politicians the task of shaping the images of the world.

Alas, Rushdie, forced into hiding, fell in the trap of letting politicians work on a solution of this matter, so that he could get his normal life back. Leading political figures in London advised him to lay-low and promised him to work on his case, with the help of “silent diplomacy”. However, for three years, it was just silence and no diplomacy. Rushdie, isolated from the world and around the clock watched by the Secret Service, slowly started to fade away from the public awareness and become forgotten.

However, in the spring of 1992, he decided to break out from this prison of silence, to meet the world and press, to publicly advocate himself for his case. The first trip outside of England after the death-sentence led him to Copenhagen. This is where I met him and in my capacity as president of the Swedish chapter of PEN-International, I invited him to Stockholm to receive a prestigious literary prize from us, The Kurt Tucholsky Award, for a writer in prison. This prize was given to Rushdie, not just because of his situation, which was prison-like, but also to remind the world the he was first of all a living writer and not a political case.

Couple of week later, in my capacity as chairman for the annual cultural meeting of the five Nordic countries, I invited Rushdie to participate in the gathering in Helsinki in November 1992. I figured that there he could meet and get valuable and much needed support from the cultural ministers of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

At this time only very few people had met Rushdie and even fewer stood by his side and helped his case. In many circles he was treated as a dangerous person, carrying some kind of killer-germ, and – remembering the fact that his Japanese translator was stabbed to death and his Norwegian publisher was shot and almost died – most people were afraid to associate their name with Rushdie’s.

Of course, I was not in the position to give Rushdie a formal invitation to the cultural meeting of the Nordic Council. In 1992 he still had to be smuggled in to every place he visited. Nobody among the cultural ministers and official delegates of this prestigious meeting was informed in advance about my plans. Thus I needed a front figure, a well-know international personality from the literary world, which was pretending to be officially the keynote speaker.
I asked my long time friend Bernard-Henri Lévy to come and play this role.

I choose Lévy, less for his great achievements in philosophy and writing, more because I knew he was brave and deeply engaged, one of the very few people on the European intellectual scene who always stood up and even with the risk of his own life fought for important universal values. Besides I hoped that a meeting between Rushdie and Lévy could add much needed support and strong backing for the British writer.

Lévy played his role perfectly, and people were looking much forward to his speech. We performed a little bit of an innocent theatre act there. I opened the meeting and after a brief introduction gave the floor to the French writer. Lévy did not say many words before our secret guest entered like a ghost from behind the curtain. To everybody’s amazement Salman Rushdie appeared from nowhere, stood there smiling, and gave a great speech about how he – against will – has become a world-class symbol for the freedom of expression.

I guess I don’t have to say that the meeting between Lévy and Rushdie was very successful on every level. It was not just a moment when the foundation of a lasting friendship between two of our most important contemporary writers was laid. Lévy, always well informed as he is, naturally knew the Rushdie case in every detail and was prepared to help in every ways.
However, he has been mislead by the silent years and was like many others under the impression that it was the wish of the British author to lay low and not to cause too much public disturbance around this affaire.

I don’t think it is an over exaggeration to state that the Helsinki meeting between Lévy and Rushdie became somewhat of the turning point in the Rushdie-case.

Naturally, Rushdie hade close friends – Martin Amis, Graham Swift, Christopher Hitchens – who stood by his side all the time and strong supporters like the human rights pioneers from the Article 19 group, Carmel Bedford and France D´Souza. But in my mind there is no doubt about the fact the Lévy fast and decisive action hade great impact in improving Rushdie’s situation.

Back in Paris Lévy immediately took up the case of the fatwa in high political circles around the French president and discussed the matter in a private dinner with Prince Charles and his then wife Princess Diane. When the behind-the-scene-discussions didn’t bear fruit fast enough, Lévy went public and strongly criticized his government for not having done enough in this important matter.

Lévy´s brilliant criticism appeared in leading newspapers and stirred up a great controversy in his native Paris. Nonetheless, the French minister of foreign affaires Roland Dumas, on behalf of the French government, refused to let Rushdie enter France. Of course, this was completely against all EU rules and regulations – the author, a log time British citizen, did naturally not need any visa and could not be barred from entering France.

In this situation Lévy really gave proof of his courage, determination to fight for a just cause and generosity. He invited Rushdie to Paris on behalf of the publication La Regle du Jeu and paid all expenses – tickets, hotel and security – from his own pocket. Thus he put the French government in front of a “fait accompli” and forced it to take its responsibility and ensure that Rushdie was welcome to France.

This brave move changed everything for Rushdie. After Lévy’s very practical and forceful intervention no democratic western government could any more deny Rushdie entrance to its country. It not just opened that way for the author of “The Satanic Verses” to travel freely, but also made it much easier for politicians, intellectuals and lawyers to publicly support Rushdie. Soon an international committee for the defence of Salman Rushdie was established and several chapters of this organisation started up in different countries. A couple of years later, under the ever growing international pressure, Tehran called off the fatwa and Rushdie was a free man again.

Not too long ago I read in the papers that Salman Rushdie is soon going to publish a book about years in hiding and his fight to get back a normal life again. It would not surprise me if a long long chapter would be devoted to Bernard-Henri Lévy’s invaluable contributions in this case.

Gabi Gleichmann

Writer, journalist, Gabi Gleichman was born in Budapest in 1954. He moved to Sweden at the age of 10. After studying philosophy and literature at Stockholm University, he became editor of the cultural pages of Espressen. Former President of the Pen Club in Sweden, he collaborates regularly Aftensposten (Norway). He is a founder of La Règle du Jeu.

Photo 1 : October 1992, Helsinki, first met Salman Rushdie and Bernard-Henri Levy. (c) D.R.
Photo 2 : cover of versets. (c) D.R.
Photo 3 :October 1992, Helsinki, first met Salman Rushdie and Bernard-Henri Levy. (c) D.R.
Photo 4 : October 1992, Helsinki, first met Salman Rushdie and Bernard-Henri Levy. (c) D.R.