RUSHDIE ON PORN AND WAR

Salman Rushdie, long a target of militant Islam and that crap airline Air Canada, argues in a new book that a society's acceptance of pornography is a benchmark for measuring its civilized qualities. The Times of London (direct link unavailable, search at site for full article) reports:

The writer Salman Rushdie, who was put under a death sentence for insulting the prophet Muhammad, has raised the stakes with an essay in praise of pornography.

Rushdie argues that a free and civilised society should be judged by its willingness to accept pornography.

His views, to be published alongside images of American porn stars in a book called XXX:30 Porn Star, are likely to infuriate Christians and Muslims alike. Iranian hardliners recently renewed a death sentence on him after the original fatwa was lifted.

In an extract from his essay, The East is Blue, to be published this autumn, Rushdie implies that Muslims are avid consumers of pornography because of the segregation of the sexes.

He writes: "Pornography exists everywhere, of course, but when it comes into societies in which it's difficult for young men and women to get together and do what young men and women often like doing, it satisfies a more general need."

My experience in the Middle East would support this. Not only was there an awful lot of material that 'was not work safe' being viewed behind closed office doors - many of my male colleagues were somewhat obsessed with finding and discussing porn. In the absence of real contact with females, the void is filled by the internet and smuggled pin-up calendars. That is not healthy.

According to Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, the book's photographer, Rushdie supports his argument with statistics about the volume of porn traffic on the internet in Pakistan.

The libertarian arguments in Rushdie's essay on pornography represent a provocative twist on a debate he began three years ago to define what aspects of western society should be defended against the ideology of Muslim terrorism.

In the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda attack on America in 2001 he insisted that the "fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings" and asked: "What will we risk our lives to defend? "Can we unanimously concur that . . . even short skirts and dancing are worth dying for?" He claimed that fundamentalists were against "pluralism, secularism . . . sex".

Rushdie's view on this is one I tend to share, and is part of a broader argument about what I feel the west is fighting for. The war on terror is a war about preserving freedom and spreading liberty.

For Rushdie, a person who had to live in exile from society, he specifically wants the freedom to be unoppressed by others' social and religious views. But Moreover, he's also argued that war can be justified if it's a broader war against oppression.

I have been long turned off by the Democrats in this campaign - both by the scramble to the protectionist left and the hostility expressed toward Lieberman during the primaries. But I still have my reservations about the Bush team.

I have a lot of respect for Rummy, Condi, Wolfie and even Powell. Despite some of the setbacks in Iraq, I doubt the Democrats could put together a team even half as competent or focused.

Still, there's that one guy who really bugs me.