When the fundamentalist Supreme Leader of Iran issued essentially a warrant for Salman Rushdie’s killing, and all who published him, it served as a colossal stress test of rights and protections in Western societies. In places, it began to buckle, with politicians, intellectuals and even fellow writers prevaricating, isolating and even condemning the writer for, in their minds, bringing murder upon himself. In a sense, Rushdie was doing what writers of note have always done – he was venturing out and testing, whether intentionally or not, how sturdy the ice was underfoot. As it turned out, it was more fragile than anyone had admitted, and soon cynics within the West would notice.
