An eye for a hurt feeling

We look back with horror at the idea of an eye for an eye. At that Old Testament belief that vengeance was the best form of justice. And yet in our unforgiving era of cancellation, we face something even worse. Now it’s an eye for a hurt feeling. An eye for a bruised ego. Behold the new photo of Salman Rushdie, the first to be published since he was brutally attacked in New York state in August last year. He’s wearing glasses with the right-hand lens blacked out. That’s because he’s blind in his right eye. A man felt offended by a novel Rushdie wrote 35 years ago, and he took one of Rushdie’s eyes as compensation.

Everyone should look at Rushdie’s face following the medieval assault on him last year. Those who use the word ‘Islamophobia’, who believe criticism of Islam is a moral ill society should not tolerate, should be forced to look, so that they might see the wages of their ideology. The photo appears in the New Yorker alongside an interview with Rushdie by David Remnick. Rushdie was stabbed around a dozen times. He has scars on his face.