Madam, - The minister for religious affairs in Pakistan, a country which is an ally of the West and a member of the British Commonwealth, has reportedly said that suicide bombing would be a justified response to Britain's decision to award a knighthood to one of its own citizens, Salman Rushdie.
If this is the response from a member of the government in a "friendly" nation, one can only imagine the ferocity of the response from the zealots of the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan.
The minister who made these comments is Ijaz ul-Haq, the son of General Zia ul-Haq, the military ruler of Pakistan who implemented Islamic Sharia law in his country with such punishments as public whippings and amputation of limbs.
The warm and cosy relationship which long existed, and which many maintain still exists, between the Pakistan government and the Taliban has its origins in the policies of General Zia, who did more than anyone else to fight a proxy war for America against the USSR in Afghanistan. Later, this involvement in Afghanistan resulted in his successors, along with their country's Inter Services Intelligence agency, supporting, arming and funding the Taliban as they left Pakistani madrassas and crossed the border. In a week when a suicide bomber, who would no doubt have agreed with the sentiments expressed by the Minister for Religious Affairs, blew himself up in Kabul, killing 25 people, none of these facts should be forgotten.
Of course, some score-settling may be at play here with the Minister attempting to avenge his father's honour, as General Zia was one of the main targets of Salman Rushdie's satirical pen in his excellent novel Shame. When this book was published, although it was not subjected to burnings like its more famous cousin The Satanic Verses, it was immediately banned by the Pakistan government.
The German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine once said: "Wherever books will be burned, men also, in the end, are burned". Looking at the historical thread which runs from the reception that greeted The Satanic Verses to the daily conflagrations and self-immolations in Muslim countries, it is hard to disagree with him. - Yours, etc,
DAVID DOYLE, Gilford Park, Sandymount, Dublin 4.