hullabaloo in the human jungle; international gorilley run amok

All this hullabaloo reminds me of another earlier incident involving that notorious offender of Islam, that bastard type-of-fish Salman. No, no, it's not the famous incident of the Satanic Verses that I refer to, but rather its aftermath, though the incident itself is also very interesting. For two reasons, the first of which: Here, everyone has seen the cartoons and knows what the offence is - but what was everyone complaining about earlier? They all burnt the book instead of reading it! Syed Shahabuddin, that fringe lunatic, had a great line to this effect: I don't need to read filth to know it's filth!. The second reason was how the original protests began in India and spread elsewhere, and how the slogan-shouting and banner-waving of members of the 'secular' Congress Party first alerted Khomeini and his ilk to the the threat of Rushdie.

Anyway, the aftermath. Some time after the book and effigy burning fires had died down, a new provocation arose. The creative geniuses of the Pakistani film industry had hit back at Rushdie with a super hit new film in which he was the master-villain: Internatinal Gorilley. Someone wanted to show it on TV in England, but the censor board refused. The movie was so offensive and defamatory to Mr Rushdie, the board concluded, that he would have every right to sue anyone in England involved with the movie for libel.

What hypocrisy, don't you agree?! Where was the freedom of speech now, where was that right to offend? All those intellectuals had stoold up for Salman, but would anyone stand up for International Gorilley?

Someone did. That infernal bastard Salman himself. He personally wrote requesting that the movie be given the okay for screening, arguing that if he had the right to offend others, others too were free to offend him. And so thanks to the villain they hated, the angry fanatics of England were able to have a great evening watching him get killed on screen. Oh, why can't we all get along like that, and kill each other in movies instead of real life!

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will I write here about International Gorilley, and how I bonded over it with a video-shop owner in Lahore? Maybe.