The cowardice of calling for The Satanic Verses to be banned

Let us imagine that a book which Catholics find insulting is published in Britain, and a prominent Polish bishop calls for the author’s death. Catholics march on British streets, burning copies of the book. One of its Latin American translators is killed. A conference is held in Italy, where one of the attendees has announced that he has plans to publish the work, and the hotel is attacked and thirty-seven people die.

No one would deny that Catholic Poles in Britain face some exploitation, and some marginalisation, and even some violence. People could debate the merits of the book and whether its content is needlessly insulting. No one, though, would claim that these considerations even approach the importance of opposing an aggressive, indeed murderous, international attempt to bully people into silence.

This, of course, is just a fantasy. Artistic works that offend Catholics have inspired no such reaction. When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, though, the Ayatollah Khomeini called for the author’s death, Muslims marched on British streets burning copies of his book, its Japanese translator was killed and a Turkish hotel that was playing host to a literary festival was attacked.