Cohen is also right about Rushdie. Of course The Satanic Verses is blasphemous. But equally of course, it is not agitprop, it is not an incitement. It is certainly not an incitement to violence. Specifically, Rushdie did not incite violence against Islam. It was the Islamists, a movement of the radical religious Right, who incited violence against him. The world changed with Khomeini's fatwa, Cohen argues. The fatwa was an incitement to murder without precedent; it was not even preceded by a show trial. It redrew the free world's boundaries. And the outcome? A triumph for liberalism, in as much as Rushdie lived, and the book continues to be read. But liberalism also retreated: the threats against Rushdie have paralysed Western culture's best instincts. No young artist of Rushdie's range and gifts would dare write a modern version of The Satanic Verses today, and if he or she did, no editor would dare publish it — or even an anti-Satanic Verses (such as The Jewel of Medina).

Cohen reminds us of Hugh Trevor-Roper's disgusting snootiness at the time of the Rushdie affair: "I would not shed a tear if some British Muslims, deploring Rushdie's manners, should waylay him in a dark street and seek to improve them." And of Rushdie's despatch of John le Carré, who took the "philistine, reductionist, militant Islamist line that The Satanic Verses was no more than an insult". These two men were early joiners of the queue of writers and intellectuals ready to side with the censors against freedom of expression. This readiness has led to the prevalence of what Cohen terms the "post-Rushdie rules of self-censorship". Censorship, he observes, is at its most effective when its victims pretend that it doesn't exist. 

The majority of Western liberals reached this settlement with Islamism, concludes Cohen: they would offer no criticism of the life or teachings of Muhammad; they would treat the Koran as the inerrant word of God; they would not defend Muslim or ex-Muslim liberals or feminists; they would continue to criticise Western governments and other religions; they would never admit to hypocrisy or double standards. On this last point, Cohen suggests, we should salute Grayson Perry for owning up: "[On the subject of Islam] I just play safe all the time." And South Park's Matt Stone: "[You're not liberals who respect Islam,] You're afraid of getting blown up." Cohen concludes that "a prissy nervousness afflicts writers when they tackle people who can afford to sue: plutocrats, banks and corporations, or those who have a reputation for using no-win, no-fee lawyers to sue."