Salman Rushdie's knighthood.

“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 [PEN International] had originally hoped that the honour would lead to better relations between Britain and Asia..... The Foreign Office is represented on the main committee [to whih the recommendations of the Arts and Media subcommittee would be forwarded] by the permanent secretary, whose job it would be to raise any potential international ramifications. A Foreign Office spokesman said he was not aware of any request by the honours committee to gauge likely Muslim reaction to the knighthood before the decision was taken.” (Guardian, June 20th)

In an ideal world, awards for literature should be purely for literary merit; and so it is just about understandable that, in the interest of not allowing politics to influence their choice, the Arts and Media Honours Committee should have refrained from discussing any possible political ramifications when recommending Salman Rushdie for a knighthood. But we actually live in a world that is far from ideal, and that might have required the Committee to emerge from their ivory tower and to consider the consequences of their actions. But it absolutely beggars belief that a group which included a director of radio, a representative of PEN International, a former newspaper editor and two civil servants should 'never have imagined' the furious response the award elicited. Equally absurd is the notion that the honour would hopefully lead to better relations between Britain and Asia.. What world have these people been living in? Was the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office asleep when the recommendations from the Arts amd Media came up to the Main Committee? And does he really have to wait for a request (from whom?) to gauge likely repercussions?