Rushdie attack is ‘symbolic,’ shows America needs to protect free speech: Muslim scholar
Muslim scholar Dr. Qanta Ahmed weighs in on the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie and emphasizes the need to protect ‘language,’ free speech.
In response to the attack on author Salman Rushdie, Friday, Muslim scholar Dr. Qanta Ahmed emphasized the importance of protecting "language." On "Fox & Friends Weekend," Sunday, Dr. Ahmed criticized identity politics and cancel culture for challenging free speech and threatening to silence Americans, urging Americans to protect language or ‘be rendered speechless.’
SALMAN RUSHDIE OFF VENTILATOR AND TALKING AFTER STABBING ATTACK, AGENT SAYS
DR. QANTA AHMED: I'm very worried that now that we see this event right here in our state just a few hours away, a symbolic assassination almost occurred. We're very grateful to the doctors who are saving the author's life, but we are increasingly stripped of language to speak about it. We know that when some of our most vocal members of Congress, who like me, are Muslim, make overtly anti-Semitic remarks to criticize them is now labeled as Islamophobia in the United States. And that's a barrier that the Democratic Party themselves have not confronted. We also know we're living in a culture where identity rules are above everything. And so people are afraid even to label, for instance, the execution of four Muslims in New Mexico by another Muslim, which is probably sectarian killing as something related to these ideologies. Without language, we will be rendered as speechless as potentially an iconic author almost became recently. And we're so glad to hear that Salman Rushdie can actually speak, which is a relief that he's off the ventilator and able to speak. So if we give up language, then only the language that Islamists say okay is allowed.
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