Yesterday, Mr. Hadi Matar, the attacker who stabbed Mr. Salman Rushdie, was found guilty of attempted murder. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Justice was served. It won’t bring sight to Mr. Rushdie in his right eye, use of his arm’s nerves, all his other damaged internal organs, and peaceful sleep. However, it is Bambi’s prayer that it will bring him increased healing to his heart and soul.
As for Mr. Hadi Matar, he is 27 now. When he will get out he will be Bambi’s age today. It is her hope that the US prisons are more reasonable than France’s prisons where inmates become more radicalized there than in the free world outside.
As reported in an older post shown below, USA-born Mr. Hadi Matar is of Lebanese heritage. Acting on, and surely blinded by, a 1989 fatwa against Mr. Rushdie, as per the Times of India (https://shorturl.at/UdArb), he blinded Mr. Rushdie’s right eye, among other serious physical injuries and psychological trauma.
For those who do not know it, according to Britannica, a fatwa is “a formal ruling or interpretation on a point of Islamic law given by a qualified legal scholar (mufti) in Islamic jurisprudence” ( https://shorturl.at/9K8ds). As a reminder, the fatwa in question against Mr. Salman Rushdie was issued after the so-called controversy over his novel, The Satanic Verses (1988). Apparently because one of the novel’s rows referenced the holy Quran, Ayatollah Mr. Khomeini, allowed himself to issue his famous fatwa that ordered Muslims to kill Mr. Rushdie. How pathetically sad when a man of power speaks in the name of a beautiful, and potentially even more beautiful, religion in such an unwise, inhuman way.
Tragically, a few years later, it was Mr. Matar whose first name means “quiet/calm/peaceful” in Arabic who gave himself the right to move away from peace, reason, and civility as he tried to kill the world-renowned author. Why again? Because a late old man of religion, gave the green light to do so from miles away. Independent of religion, encouraging killing by proxy seems to be an expertise of the current Iranian regime.
Regardless, it is Mr. Matar who ended up forgetting about any personal core asset and/or ethical principle, including critical thinking, common sense, emotion regulation as well as agency, respect for freedom of expression and for humanity. How toxic a radicalized mindset can become. How TRAGIC it is for all its victims, first and foremost for Mr. Rushdie (and the other injured victim)… BUT also for the convicted offender’s parents and for himself lost to his ideology.
To conclude this post, besides music, there is nothing to add except to say the following: Mr. Rushdie, please keep on writing. Bambi did not have the chance to read any of your books yet, but it is her plan to do so as soon as realistically possible, including your so-called controversial novel. Above all, please keep on taking good care of yourself while inspiring us all to be as courageous and resilient. Thank you.
—
