Though Henry Reese never anticipated being relevant to the topic of hateful acts of violence that the yearly Eradicate Hate Global Summit was designed to help eliminate, he has in many ways become one of the faces of this year’s summit.
Last month, Reese, co-founder of City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, was the moderator of an event at the Chautauqua Institution in New York where Salman Rushdie was stabbed and suffered critical injuries. Reese also was hurt in the attack. As a result, he was invited to speak on the Eradicate Hate Summit’s opening day Monday at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center Downtown.
City of Asylum is a nonprofit that houses writers exiled from their countries for engaging in controversial writing.
Reese said prior to taking the stage, he and Rushdie discussed that it’s a dangerous time for writers and Rushdie said he would be willing to help Reese expand City of Asylum to other parts of the country.
Reese said he then went on stage with Rushdie and the introductions began.
“All of a sudden we just hear a noise and there was somebody coming,” Reese said. “It seemed like somebody was playing a prank in really bad taste because of (Rushdie’s) notoriety from the fatwa.”
The fatwa, an Islamic decree, was issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 condemning Rushdie to death for alleged blasphemy in his novel “The Satanic Verses” which led to violent protests and the book being banned in several Muslim countries.
Reese continued to describe the attack to an audience of several hundred at the Convention Center.
“All of a sudden you discover it’s real. You see blood and it turns into something you don’t remember other than seeing lots of people in the audience very quickly roll to the stage,” Reese said. “It’s like nothing you can imagine happening when trouble shows up and people run toward it.”
Reese said his partner Diane Samuels, his mother and about 30 neighbors were in attendance along with writers from the City of Asylum.
“The writers who come to us are victims of hatred,” said Samuels, who also spoke Monday. “What we saw in full evidence was an example of hatred of Salman Rushdie and I think it makes us all more determined than ever to fight this. Whether it’s a group or an individual, we have to stand against it.”
Summit co-chair and moderator Mark Nordenberg asked Reese how the incident has affected his thinking about the future of his work.
“The question you’re left after an event like this is ‘How do I respond?’” Reese said. “The answer is simple. You should continue to do what you’re doing. You continue reading. You continue buying books. You continue protecting writers and you continue to foster a culture of reading. What else can you do, ultimately?”
