According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper: Rushdie furore stuns honours committee.

The committee that recommended Salman Rushdie for a knighthood did not discuss any possible political ramifications and never imagined that the award would provoke the furious response that it has done in parts of the Muslim world, the Guardian has learnt.

It also emerged yesterday that the writers’ organisation that led the lobbying for the author of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses to be knighted had originally hoped that the honour would lead to better relations between Britain and Asia.

It’s an “Alice in Wonderland” moment. If the above story is true, you genuinely have to wonder how the people on this committee could possibly have been living in the same world as you and I during these last several years. Did they think that those fatwas demanding Rushdie’s murder had simply blown over? Did they somehow convince themselves that Rushdie was now proudly looked upon by the Islamic world as a great literary talent, and that there would be rejoicing in Islamabad at the announcement of his knighthood? A world view so completely blinkered — and belonging to supposedly educated people — is terrifying in its implications. Although it also would explain a great deal.

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