Sep 2, 2022
Salman Rushdie Stabbed 10 Times — Am I Next for Being Queer?
Does hope really make a difference?
I’m visiting Israel with my son, and while here, I’m taking the time to read legendary Bible stories with him, something I haven’t thought of for decades. My son isn’t so interested in the bible. His mind is more oriented towards another mythology: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s hard for Moses to compete with Captain America. Even the other Avengers can’t help getting a little faint around him.
The historian Yuval Noah Harari taught me something interesting about myths and legends. His position is that Homo Sapiens outlasted other human species because of our distinct capacity for abstract thought. That capacity was manipulated by skilled leaders who created myths and legends to rally vastly larger tribes than the other human species were able to organize.
We rose to power because of our stories. But where have we found ourselves now?
Librarians are being threatened with bodily harm and accused of child molestation while the libraries they work in are being shuttered. Teachers are being forced out of their jobs. Parents are being threatened with having their children removed and prison sentences. Kids are encountering angry armed mobs while playing and listening to children’s stories. Ministers are calling for gays to be put to death. Politicians are declaring war, invoking a chilling rallying cry: “WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY, WE ARE A REPUBLIC!”
America, what happened to us? Is there hope for our nation?
James Finn recently challenged us to reflect upon hope, where it lives for us these days and how, as individuals, we continue to find and have access to it. But does hope really matter?
Psychiatrists consider the absence of hope to be a sign of clinical depression, but isn’t hope itself a sign that something’s amiss?
When a person feels really well, they don’t have hope, they have faith. Faith, now synonymous with religion, is a characteristic we are all born with, a conviction that things will go as planned and work out. Faith is a spiritual resource which we can rely on to keep us moving forward, taking one confusing unknowable step after another towards progress and evolution. Faith feels so good. But sometimes Faith gets KO’d, and then we have to rely on its weaker sidekick Hope to save us. Hope will fight for us, but once it’s in the ring, what’s it battling? Hopelessness. Hope signifies that the battle with hopelessness has begun, and we feel the impact of those engagements as they compete for our attention.
I’m thinking about my own childhood now, full of stories from my parents’ personal histories as refugees during a time of unrest and upheaval. Some historians would call my parents freedom fighters, some would call them terrorists. That’s the thing about history; it depends on the storyteller. Either way, their message to me was clear: courage breeds hope. And when there’s no faith available, hope steps in to fill the void. Hope isn’t that strong, but it’s valiant. Growing up, those stories seemed like ancient history, a time when people still rode around in horse drawn carriages, used wash boards and fetched water from wells. They were magical and unimaginable enough to have taken place in biblical times for all it meant to me. And yet here we are again.
Salman Rushdie’s recent attack caused me to reflect upon something I’d never put together before. Decades ago, he wrote a story. This other random dude, “K” we’ll call him in the spirit of “Q”, who lived somewhere far away from Salman didn’t like what he heard about that writing. I’m guessing K never actually read Salman’s story. But he didn’t like what he heard. This K had a lot of followers, so he told his followers, people who didn’t know K or Salman, that Salman should be killed because he wrote that story. After that, people tried to kill him, and Salman had to go in and out of hiding to stay safe. That continued and then, a few weeks ago, a guy stabbed him 10 times. And that’s it. That’s Salman Rushdie’s story. He’s a storyteller somewhere in the world telling a story. Just like me, right now.
In our nation, for years we discussed how Islamic Fundamentalists like the people who went after Salman Rushdie were fanatics, hell-bent on oppressing personal freedom through terror and violence. They hated and feared the American way, our openness and liberalism. Today, there is a new growing branch of so-called fundamentalists calling for violence, terror, and oppression. They’re called Christian Nationalists. And what are they threatened by, really? Our colorful, creative stories. So, they’re banning our books and white washing others, because apparently Moses has trouble competing with drag queens as well.
When I first came out as gay to my family, my mother was having a hard time with it and commented to a relative, “OK, he’s gay, but does he have to wear a sign?” It’s ironic, thinking about the symbols Jews and Queers had to wear during the Holocaust, the yellow stars and pink triangles on their clothes and the tattooed numbers on their forearms. Their signs. I’m not sure what sign she was talking about exactly, but I’m thinking it was disclosure. My mother was afraid of my stories.
My parents couldn’t have imagined that nearly a century after their struggle, I’d be channeling the lessons they taught me about hope and courage into the battle for progress through my queer identity. But that’s where the world has led us.
I truly hope I won’t have to live like my parents, taking up arms to live freely. That’s why I’m telling this story, a whisper among courageous storytellers. Our stories are as powerful as any army. It’s strange how scary it is to open up publicly, sharing myself with the world of strangers. It’s not comfortable, it’s not fun. But I’d rather open up publicly, face my discomfort and tell my stories today than bear arms tomorrow. If my story encourages one other person to tell their stories, maybe the world will get better. Maybe a mind will be changed. If I’m silent, somebody else is going to tell my story. In that version, I’m just another Queer witch, enchanting children with my glitter-infused fairy dust.
And we know what happens to the witches in those other stories.
One day a few years ago my son said to me, “Aba, I think it’s great that you created gay pride.” I laughed and said, “I didn’t create gay pride.” He stared up at me, genuinely perplexed and responded, “well, but you added a lot.”
I hope so.
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, “LGBTQ Hope and Joy Are Antidotes to Fear”.
