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This week, Sir Salman Rushdie’s unflinching description of losing an eye in a brutal knife attack was both moving and disturbing. He spoke of the shock but grim acceptance that it was unfolding on stage more than two decades after he’d come out of hiding. ‘I felt like a time traveller’ He said. ‘Someone coming out of the past to attack me in the present… I thought ‘Oh it’s you’
For 33 years, he’s lived with a death threat when an Iranian fatwa called for his assassination after the publication of The Satanic verses; he was accused of insulting Islam. Because of that, Rushdie has long been an advocate for freedom of expression. He’s now using his book Knife to fight back, well aware that there’s a very thin line from fanaticism to barbarism, and that religious fanatics can justify almost any atrocity to themselves.

As I listened to him, I wondered about the cost of defiance, of standing up for your principles. I think most of us face this dilemma at some point in our lives, when we struggle to stand up for something we believe in; when we’re afraid of what speaking up might cost us in terms of our name, reputation and for some it may even cost them their life. I think what drives people is knowing that while there may be a cost to acting on your principles, there’s a bigger cost in abandoning them.

A few years ago I asked some students if they believed in the principle of equal pay for men and women. Every hand went up. I then asked whether any of them especially the men would do anything, have any concerns if they found a female colleague in the workplace was earning less for doing the same job as her male colleague. Only 4 hands from around 40 students went up. Some from the 90 percent who didn’t, said rather awkwardly that they wouldn’t want to be seen to be making trouble, they didn’t know what they might lose if they spoke out.

Sometimes doing what we believe is right can be the hardest and scariest thing we do. In a world that can be so terribly violent, I think it is up to each of us to take a stand. It doesn’t matter what faith or conviction we bring to public life, kindness and goodness are universal principles. And I think that this is how I understand this challenging Qur’anic verse, “those who believe, be persistent in standing firm in justice, witnesses for God even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives.’ That acting justly is ultimately about making space for others so that we can all live with integrity and without fear.

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