Salman Rushdie believed his life was “very normal again” and that fears of an attack were a thing of the past, he told an interviewer just two weeks before he was stabbed on stage in New York on Friday.
The novelist, who remained in hospital on Saturday, was stabbed several times, including in the neck and abdomen. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said his liver had been damaged and he was likely to lose an eye.
His alleged assailant, Hadi Matar, 24, was charged with attempted murder and assault.
Rushdie, 75, had been speaking at a literary festival at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York state about the importance of America giving asylum to exiled writers when he was attacked.
Matar, who had bought a ticket, allegedly went on stage and stabbed Rushdie before being tackled by audience members, institution staff and two local security officers.
Rushdie had been under a fatwa calling for his death since 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued it in response to the Indian-born author’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses. The Iranian regime has since tried to distance itself from the fatwa, but the price on Rushdie’s head has risen in recent years to more than $3 million.
Many Muslims considered Rushdie’s book blasphemous because, among other things, it included a character they interpreted as insulting the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of their faith.
The Satanic Verses was published a decade before Matar was born to parents who emigrated from Lebanon. But his social media activity reportedly suggests an admiration for Iran and an attraction to Shiite extremism.
Just a fortnight ago, Rushdie had spoken to the German magazine Stern about his safety. The author said his life would have been much more dangerous if social media had existed at the time he wrote The Satanic Verses: “More dangerous, infinitely more dangerous.”
“A fatwa is a serious thing. Luckily, we didn’t have the internet back then. The Iranians had sent the fatwa to the mosques by fax. All this was a long time ago. Today my life is very normal again.” Asked what he feared now, Rushdie said: “In the past I would have said religious fanaticism. I don’t say that anymore. The greatest danger we face right now is that we lose our democracy. Since the verdict of Supreme Court abortion has seriously worried me that the US will not handle it. That the problems are beyond repair and the country will break. The biggest danger we face today is this kind of crypto-fascism that we see in America and elsewhere.
“Oh, we live in fearful times. That’s true even though I always tell people, don’t be afraid. But the bad thing is that death threats have become more normal. It’s not just politicians getting them, even all American teachers who remove certain books from the program.
“Look at how many guns there are in America. The existence of all these guns in itself is scary. I think a lot of people today live with threats similar to what they had then. And the fax machines they used against me are like a bike more than a Ferrari compared to the Internet.”
Police and FBI search suspect’s house after Rushdie was stabbed. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
He said he was glad his books were reviewed in the arts pages rather than the political sections of newspapers.
Stern asked him what his advice was for people who were afraid of where the world was going: “I think something really good is happening in the younger generation: it’s much more inclined to activism. We’re seeing it grow a generation that we urgently need right now, a fighting generation. We need people who organize and people who are ready to fight. Fighters. For a society worth living in. Instead of waiting for things to turn out better. How I also notice that young authors are becoming role models again, instead of the way it used to be, that is, only the dead.”
Questions were asked yesterday about how Matar gained access to the act. Paul Susko, a lawyer based in Erie, the Pennsylvania city where Rushdie is now on a ventilator at UPMC Hamot Hospital, said participants were not allowed to bring food and drink into the room, but that was all.
“There was a screening to prevent attendees from bringing a cup of coffee,” Susko said. He added that “perhaps weapons detection” with wand or metal detectors “would have been more helpful.”
Susko, who came to the event with his son, was in the front row next to the stage where Matar rushed towards the author. “There was no security preventing us from going on stage,” Susko said. “There was no visible security around the stage at the time of the attack.”
Several people in the audience said Matar was dressed in black and wearing a mask. “We thought maybe it was part of a stunt to show that there’s still a lot of controversy surrounding this author,” said witness Kathleen Jones. “But it became apparent within seconds that this was not the case.”
The Chautauqua institution began as a summer camp for Sunday school teachers and became an important center for cultural exchange and dialogue. Hours after the attack, the institution’s president, Michael Hill, said the site had not seen anything like it in its nearly 150 years of existence.
He said: “We were founded to bring people together in community, to learn and, in doing so, to create solutions, develop empathy and take on intractable problems. Today we are called to take on fear and the worst of all human traits: the “hate”.
Hill confirmed that Matar had a ticket to the event “like any other patron would”. He emphasized that the institution is open to everyone, as part of its mission of inclusion.
Asked whether security should have been beefed up with metal detectors present, given the sensitivity surrounding Rushdie, he said: “We are proud of the security we have.”
Talks between state and local police and the institution took place before Friday’s talk, and two police officers were assigned: a state trooper and a local deputy. Eugene Staniszewski of the New York State Police said at a press conference that law enforcement held discussions with the institution at the start of the season.
“There were some high-profile events that had called for a police presence, and thankfully they were,” he said. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul praised the trooper for his actions. “It was a state police trooper who stood up and saved his life, protected him as well as the moderator who was attacked,” he said.
Rushdie had no security of his own. Asked whether organizers should have made efforts to screen attendees entering the venue, Hill vehemently disagreed.
“Our mission is to build bridges across differences,” he said. “Mr. Rushdie is known as one of the foremost defenders of free speech. One of the worst things Chautauqua could do is to stray from its mission.”