Mocking the Enemy: Freud and Rushdie

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 13:47:29 -0400
>To: marxism at lists.panix.com
>From: Julio Pino <jpino at kent.edu>
>Subject: Mocking the Enemy:Freud and Rushdie
>
>This interview reminded me of two tales:
>1. When the Nazis occupied Vienna in 1938 the Gestapo asked Freud to sign a
>letter telling the world he would be well treated after the Anschluss.
>Sigmund rapidly wrote a note that said: "I heartily recommend the Gestapo
>to everybody."
>2. Salman Rushdie savagely caricatured the leader of the Hindu
>fundamentalist group RSS, a chap with the odd last name of Thackeray, in
>his novel, THE MOOR"S LAST SIGH. It's a good thing for Rushdie Hinduism
>doesn't have Fatwas!
>Julio Cesar
>
> >(From John Lacny's egroups Marxism list)
> >
> >Everyone ought to get a kick out of this one. I found this in a transcript
> >of an interview that Salman Rushdie did with Edward Said back in 1986 ("On
> >Palestinian Identity: A Conversation with Edward Said," in Salman Rushdie,
> >*Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-91*, London: Penguin,
> >1991). During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Israelis used to
> >put captured Palestinian guerrillas on the air for propaganda purposes.
> >During the interview from which the following excerpt was taken, the
> >guerrilla turned the tables on the interviewer, satirizing the entire
> >counterinsurgent worldview mercilessly