The publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988 sparked a global protest wave and raised pertinent questions about artistic freedom, religious identity and multicultural society. This event will shed light on the Rushdie Affair’s origins and repercussions in both Britain and the Netherlands.  

Kieran Connell will highlight the relationship between the cosmopolitan author Rushdie and the deprived Northern English city of Bradford, where protesters famously burned his novel. He will show how local Muslims saw the campaign as a continuation of their prior antiracist activism – in stark contrast to how they were perceived by the British public. Leo Lucassen’s focus will be on the reception of the affair in the Netherlands. There left-wing secularists felt compelled to turn against state-sponsored multiculturalism and the presence of Islam in Dutch society – thus paving the road for the populist right of the 2000s. Such long-term consequences of the affair will be at the centre of the panel discussion, which will be joined by historian and journalist Lotfi El Hamidi. What can the history of the Rushdie Affair tell us about multiculturalism and diversity today?