Freedom of speech is non-negotiable: that’s what cultural diplomacy organization Liberatum is founded upon, and its awarded its 14th Cultural Honour to someone who believes the same. Salman Rushdie—the Booker Prize-winning, Indian-born British and American author (and CULT100 cover star) famously attacked over his publication of The Satanic Verses—was given the award yesterday evening in London.
The Occassion: Guests attended the ceremony at Town Hall by Bottaccio in London’s King’s Cross. The 14th edition of Liberatum’s Cultural Honour came at a particularly poignant moment for the organization, this year also celebrating 25 years since its 2001 founding by Pablo Ganguli. Since then, it has been a leader in fostering cross-disciplinary conversations about the leading issues of our times. Its programming is where Nobel laureates and Academy Award winners convene, and past Cultural Honour awardees include the likes of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and Chief Raoni of the Brazilian Amazon’s Kayapo people.
The Entertainment: The evening featured tributes to and readings of Rushdie by multidisciplinary Indian artist Bharti Kher and American poet and author Rachel Eliza Griffiths. The author himself also shared words with Town Hall Director Michael J. Harris when accepting the Liberatum Cultural Honour, as British-American journalist Tina Brown deemed him “the most magnificently interesting man on the planet,” noting that “everything out of his mouth was food for thought.”
Memorable Moment: Following America’s 250th birthday, Rushdie spoke to the threat to freedom of speech under the current administration. “There are states in America where one parent can object to a book in the school library and the book will be withdrawn,” he said. “These are not just any old books, these are Huckleberry Finn, Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The books have something in common: they talk about the experience of America from the point of view of the Black community. There is a conscious attempt to erase that part of American history, which is in many ways the original sin of the U.S.: the slave trade. You have a part of the country that is definitely trying to control or change the narrative of American history, especially in this year of its 250th anniversary. It has to be fought against.”
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