Western Publishers Submit to Islam

by Giulio Meotti • September 11, 2016 at 5:00 am

For criticizing Islam, Hamed Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house. This is what the Soviets did to destroy writers: destroy their books.
At a time when dozens of novelists, journalists and scholars are facing Islamists' threats, it is unforgivable that Western publishers not only agree to bow down, but are often the first to capitulate.
A Paris court convicted Renaud Camus for "Islamophobia" (a fine of 4,000 euros) for a speech he gave in 2010, in which he spoke of the replacement of the French people under the Trojan horse of multiculturalism. Another writer, Richard Millet, was fired last March by Gallimard publishing house for his ideas on multiculturalism.
Not only did Rushdie's publishers capitulate; other publishers also decided to break rank and return to do business with Tehran. Oxford University Press decided to take part in the Tehran Book Fair along with two American publishers, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley. Those publishers chose to respond to murderous censorship with surrender.
It is as if at the time of the Nazis' book-burnings, Western publishers had not only stood silent, but had also invited a German delegation to Paris and New York.

For criticizing Islam, Hamed Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house.

When Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses came out in 1989, Viking Penguin, the British and American publisher of the novel, was subjected to daily Islamist harassment. As Daniel Pipes wrote, the London office resembled "an armed camp," with police protection, metal detectors and escorts for visitors. In Viking's New York offices, dogs sniffed packages and the place was designated a "sensitive location". Many bookshops were attacked and many even refused to sell the book. Viking spent about $3 million on security measures in 1989, the fatal year for Western freedom of expression.

Nonetheless, Viking never flinched. It was a miracle that the novel finally came out. Other publishers, however, faltered. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. Most Western publishers are now faltering. That is the meaning of the new Hamed Abdel-Samad affair.