Kenan Malik on Rushdie-(not)-in-Jaipur

       Eurozine prints Kenan Malik's piece from Pandaemonium, To name the unnameable, in which he takes on the recent Salman Rushdie non-appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival (see also my most recent mention, etc.).
       Malik notes:

But if it is not the role of literary festivals to stand up for writers, and to defend their right to speak, especially in these circumstances, it is difficult to know what is. The festival's decision not just to distance itself from Kunzru and Kumar but to threaten others who might be thinking of following suit was nothing less than cowardly.

Contrast the pusillanimity of the Jaipur festival organizers with the response of writers, publishers, editors, translators and booksellers faced with Ayotalloh Khomeini's fatwa in 1989.

       Indeed .....