{"id":7937564,"date":"2026-01-25T07:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=7937564"},"modified":"2026-01-25T07:51:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T15:51:37","slug":"salman-rushdie-interview-jihadism-fascism-free-expression-sundance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/salman-rushdie-interview-jihadism-fascism-free-expression-sundance\/","title":{"rendered":"Salman Rushdie on Jihadism, Fascism and the Fight for Free Expression: \u2018Everybody\u2019s Gone Crazy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

The remarkable life of novelist Salman Rushdie hit a new peak at the Sundance Film Festival as \u201cKnife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie,\u201d a documentary about the stabbing attack that nearly killed him in 2022, debuted during a weekend of just as shocking U.S. political violence<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unrest in Minnesota was impossible to avoid this weekend and it threw the historic events of Rushdie\u2019s life into sharp relief, from his continuing to write in the face of a 1989 religious death edict to his insistence on chronicling the gruesome violence of the 2022 attack to bear witness to the current risks to artistic freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spoke on the day that ICE agents had shot a man dead in Minnesota who had been trying to protect a female protester, the second such shooting death in two weeks. The conversation necessarily turned to Trump\u2019s assault on free expression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the authoritarian mind, culture is the enemy,” Rushdie told me. “Culture in its broadest sense: universities, journalism, artists, poets, musicians. Culture itself is the enemy because culture encourages freedom. It encourages discussing things and disagreeing and arguing about things and doing new things, discarding old things. Culture encourages freedom.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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#Sundance2026<\/a>: @SalmanRushdie<\/a> argues that authoritarianism and terrorism share a mindset that sees culture as the enemy. He refers to Hamas as a terrorist organization \u201cthat needs to be spoken of,\u201d while also acknowledging \u201catrocities committed by the Netanyahu government.\u201d\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/gHJ6dSeb2o<\/a><\/p>— TheWrap (@TheWrap) January 25, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>