Katey Dyck of Philadelphia waits with family at the Greenbelt Metro station as they prepare to attend the Jon Stewart rally on the Mall.
Does anyone recognize the flag at the lower right of the sign?
(Via The Washington Post)
Michael Ezra adds:
Nick Cohen laments that Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens was a featured act at this rally. He reminds us:
Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity yesterday featured Yusuf Islam aka Cat Stevens singing “Peace Train”. Islam/Stevens previously showed his commitment to peace and sanity by saying that death was the appropriate punishment for Salman Rushdie’s “blasphemy”.
Lucy Lips adds:
Hmm. On Cat Stevens…
I thought of doing a post on him, but I think a short [erm, now rather lengthy] comment will do.
Cat Stevens is one of my very favourite artists. I divorce my enjoyment of his music – which is very personal, and which of course now can be re-read as a quest for divine purpose, which ultimately led him to Islam – from his later conduct, and indeed his endorsement of the killing of Salman Rushdie. I do this, much as I enjoy the work of Eric Clapton, despite the fact that he expressed – and apparently continues to believe in – the following:
“I think Enoch’s right … we should send them all back. Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white
“I used to be into dope, now I’m into racism. It’s much heavier, man. Fucking wogs, man. Fucking Saudis taking over London. Bastard wogs. Britain is becoming overcrowded and Enoch will stop it and send them all back. The black wogs and coons and Arabs and fucking Jamaicans and fucking (indecipherable) don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man. We are a white country. I don’t want fucking wogs living next to me with their standards. This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for fuck’s sake? We need to vote for Enoch Powell, he’s a great man, speaking truth. Vote for Enoch, he’s our man, he’s on our side, he’ll look after us. I want all of you here to vote for Enoch, support him, he’s on our side. Enoch for Prime Minister! Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white!
There is a good summary of Cat Stevens’ repeated expression of the desire to see Salman Rushdie killed on Wikipedia (apologies Michael Ezra and Kammo). The most nuanced expression of this view was expressed on the Hypotheticals show, where he was asked to imagine a hypothetical situation in which he encountered Salman Rushdie in a curry house. In that situation, Cat Stevens, having now adopted his Yusuf Islam persona, refused to be drawn on whether he would attack the man, then and there. However, he did say this:
Robertson: You don’t think that this man deserves to die?
Y. Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Y. Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Y. Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes.
[Some minutes later, Robertson on the subject of a protest where an effigy of the author is to be burned]
Robertson: Would you be part of that protest, Yusuf Islam, would you go to a demonstration where you knew that an effigy was going to be burned?
Y. Islam: I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing
There’s a video of the show here.
Yusuf Islam also made the following two statements:
1. “He must be killed. The Qur’an makes it clear – if someone defames the prophet, then he must die.”
2. “Salman Rushdie or indeed any writer who abuses the prophet, or indeed any prophet, under Islamic law, the sentence for that is actually death. It’s got to be seen as a deterrent, so that other people should not commit the same mistake again.”
In some ways, it makes it a little better that Yusuf Islam restricts himself to talking about the duty of a citizen in an Islamic State. In other ways, the fact that he clearly desires the creation of such a state makes it much worse.
I do not know whether this is Yusuf Islam’s present view. He has mellowed on some issues – for example, he now accepts that string instruments are permissible. Really, I think Jon Stewart ought to ask him. It would make for a great show.
They could have Sir Salman Rushdie on as a guest too. Here’s his take on the issue:
Cat Stevens wanted me dead
However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme “that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ‘I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing’.”
He added that “if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ‘I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is’.”
In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he “stood by his comments”.
Let’s have no more rubbish about how “green” and innocent this man was.
Salman Rushdie, New York
Otherwise, the Rally looked fantastic. I would have loved to go.
