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"Will We Become Our Enemy?": Rare Salman Rushdie Address

Renowned Indian British novelist Salman Rushdie is in critical condition and faces a long road to recovery after he survived an assassination attempt Friday morning. We feature Rushdie in his own words, a 2004 speech on freedom of expression at a  PEN America event. "Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant, or will we not?" Transcript.

Down the Memory Hole: Trump’s Strategic Assault on Democracy, Word by Word

Karen J. Greenberg TomDispatch
book cover The very idea that the government can control what words we use and don’t at a university-related event seems to violate everything we as a country hold dear about the independence of educational institutions from government control, not to mention the sanctity of free speech..."

Charlie Hebdo and the Limits of the Republic

Arthur Asseraf Jadaliyya
It is bitterly ironic that Muslims are being asked to prove that they believe in the same values from which they were historically excluded. The Republic has always had a darker side, and the civil liberties that are now idealized emerged in a colonial context where they excluded the Republic’s Muslim subjects.
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