No honours without fire

The decision to award a knighthood to Salman Rushdie shouldn't really arouse the interest of a world political blog. Unfortunately, the burning of effigies in Pakistan and the official complaints lodged by the Pakistanis and Iranians have made this a political issue, and one that is as disappointing as it was inevitable.

Behind the hysteria, there is little substance to the anti-Rushdie argument. The Iranian Foreign Ministry complained of the British government's "obvious sign of Islamophobia", yet what is a greater sources of Islamophobia - Rushdie's dream sequences in The Satanic Verses, or those who murdered and injured the book's foreign translators in the name of Islam?

This honour was awarded in recognition of Rushdie's service to literature. No comment was made either for or against his personal politics, nor those expressed in his works. This important fact has been lost amid the accusations. Few have also noticed that Rushdie's most celebrated work, the Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children, which cemented his place in the canon of twentieth century literature, was written in 1981, fully seven years before the publication of his Satanic Verses. In other words, the honour was not bestowed on him in the spirit of Islamic animosity, but in recognition of a career that has always promoted creative freedom, even at considerable personal cost.

Rushdie's work is also valuable for precisely the reasons it has been condemned - as an expression of multiculturalism which demonstrates both the rough and smooth of cultural integration. His is the most important post-colonial oeuvre in the English language and has made it possible for a further generation of writers, including Zadie Smith and last week's Orange prize winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to find their own voices.

Also worth consideration is the relevance of the ongoing cash-for-honours scandal. The underlying principle behind the investigation has been to ensure that the honours system is both fair and just, and subject to no external financial or political influence. These principles apply equally to Rushdie. By choosing to honour a figure who is subject to such controversy, the judging panel have made it clear that they will not be swayed by radical outside opinion and as such have set a clear example to the government of how the system ought to work.