A vicious attack on freedom in Durban
Author ZP Dala, one of the featured writers at the Time of the Writer Festival which took place in Durban last week, was assaulted in Overport last Wednesday.
She believes that the attack happened as a result of a comment she made during a festival writing forum for schools in Chatsworth last Tuesday, which featured two other writers. Dala, when asked which writers she admired, answered that she liked Salman Rushdie’s poetic writing style, along with other writers such as Arundhati Roy. A group of teachers and pupils, apparently offended by this, left the forum.
A day later, Dala was followed from the festival hotel and was harassed by three men in a vehicle who pushed her car off the road. When she stopped, two of the men advanced to her car, one holding a knife to her throat and the other hitting her in the face with a brick while calling her “Rushdie’s bitch”.
(The context is that 26 years ago, the leader of Iran – the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – placed a fatwa on Rushdie, calling for his assassination, following the publication of his book The Satanic Verses which was regarded as “blasphemous”)
Dala has been treated by her doctor for soft-tissue trauma, and has reported the incident to the police. A case of assault has been opened.
This is @zpdala after her assault this week. We wish her well & hope her attackers are exposed @Umuzites @jazlaw24 pic.twitter.com/BAY2VLSlVj”
— Steve Connolly (@SAbookman) March 22, 2015
Listen to her account of the attack below:
Rushdie has since tweeted his support for Dala:
@SalmanRushdie Thank you. I have my family and children around me and am recovering.
— ZP Dala (@zpdala) March 20, 2015
Dala says she’s still trying to make sense of the incident: “I’ve decided to move beyond my anger and to try to understand why they would resort to violence based on a very innocent statement about a writer’s writing style.”
But there’s still concern for her safety and the safety of her family. Her book launch was cancelled, and Dala says she was advised not to attend her daughter’s first swimming gala this week, something she was hugely disappointed to miss.
It’s a sad state of affairs when our freedom of expression and our safety is threatened in this way by people who don’t agree with what we have to say.
Dala says she’s a huge advocate for freedom of speech, and she tackles the issue in her writing.
“The strong thread that follows my entire literary career is that we as a community – and by community I don’t mean a sector or an insular Indian community – I mean as a community of human beings, we need to not hide and we need to speak.”
“I don’t think that this [attack] will colour the voice that I want to put out. I will continue to write in the same vein that I’ve always written.”
Listen below to more of Terence Pillay’s interview with Dala:
What are your thoughts?
Comment below, or email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1.
(Thumbnail photo via Twitter.com/SAbookman)