It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.
Interpretation
The quote addresses the conflict between freedom of speech and religious institutions' influence on that right.
Salman Rushdie's quote highlights a critical issue in society where the fundamental right to free expression—protected by many constitutions—is being challenged by religious institutions. This tension raises important questions about the balance between respecting religious beliefs and upholding the freedom to speak one's mind, suggesting that such freedoms may be increasingly threatened in contemporary discourse.
In practice
During a debate about censorship and its impact on democracy.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge.
One fact stands out in bold relief in the history of man's attempts for betterment. That is that when compulsion is used, only resentment is aroused, and the end is not gained. Only through moral suasion and appeal to man's reason can a movement succeed.
Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
We are not a nation that says, 'Don’t ask, don’t tell.' We are a nation that says, 'Out of many, we are one.' We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes that all men and women are created equal. Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals that we upheld today.
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