What Barack H. Obama Can/Should But Likely Won't Learn From Salman Rushdie

In his memoir Joseph Anton, Rushdie 'fesses up that he made some humongous mistakes during his years in hiding. The biggest of all, perhaps, was the time he showed up in person at a kangaroo court of British Muslims in the hopes that that would lead to Iranian powers-that-be being persuaded to rescind the fatwa that had made his life a living hell. When that exercise in abject ingratiation/humiliation didn't work, and he was hated at all the more, he came to a sudden, stunning realization:

He was beginning to learn the lesson that would set him free: that to be imprisoned by the need to be loved was to be sealed in a cell in which one experienced an interminable torment and from which there was no escape. He needed to understand that there were people who would never love him. No matter how carefully he explained his work or clarified his intentions in creating it, they would not love him. The unreasoning mind, driving by the doubt-free absolutes of faith, could not be convinced by reason. Those who had demonized him would never say, "Oh, look, he's not a demon after all." He needed to understand that this was all right. He didn't like those people either. As long as he was clear about what he had written and said, as long as he felt good about his own work and public positions, he could stand being disliked...

He was learning that to win a fight like this, it was not enough to know what one was fighting against.  That was easy. He was fighting against the view that people could be killed for their ideas, and against the ability of any religion to place a limiting point on thought. but he needed, now, to be clear of what he was fighting for. Freedom of speech, freedom of the imagination, freedom from fear, and the beautiful, ancient art of which he was privileged to be a practitioner. Also skepticism, irreverence, doubt, satire, comedy and unholy glee. He would never again flinch from the defense of these things. He had asked himself the question: As you are fighting a battle that may cost you your life life, is the thing for which you are fighting worth losing your life for? And he had found it possible to answer: yes...