Il mondo secondo Hitch

Consiglio vivamente la lettura di questa intervista "The world according to Hitch" finché siete in tempo (dal 21giugno il contenuto potrà essere visionato a pagamento). Hitchens, per dirne una, è colui che ha ospitato Salman Rushdie nel suo appartamento nel periodo della fatwa. Riporto qui un passaggio dell'intervista:

The reality that totalitarian dictatorships like those in Iraq and Serbia could continue into the post--Cold War era hit him hard. "You may think you can give up politics but you can't, it won't give you up. Politics will come and find you." And the trials, at the same time, of his close friend, author Salman Rushdie, made him aware of the creeping threat of jihadism.

Feb. 14, 1989, as Mr. Hitchens describes it, was a day that changed his life and moved him further from the leftist camp. That was the day Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran issued his now infamous fatwa against Mr. Rushdie for his depiction of Muhammad in his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses. The ayatollah's edict included a $3 million bounty and ordered Mr. Rushdie's execution. It was only partially rescinded in 1998.

"It wouldn't have made any difference if he wasn't a friend, because here is the religious dictator of a foreign state offering money in his own name for the murder of a writer of fiction, who is not even an Iranian living in exile. This is the most frontal assault on all the values of free expression that make my life possible and my living possible."

Se leggete questo post dopo il 21giugno e siete interessati scrivetemi e vi farò avere il testo integrale.