Rushdie

SHEPHERDSTOWN — When Shepherdstown resident Winnie Bernat decided to attend a lecture, featuring celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie, she never anticipated the event ending in an act of violence. But that’s exactly what she, and several other Shepherdstown residents who attended the event, encountered last Friday morning at the Chautauqua Institution.

According to Bernat, every summer, a group of Shepherdstown residents regularly spend a week at the 501 nonprofit education center and summer resort in western New York. They were all sitting in the audience to hear the lecture on the importance of the U.S. being a haven for targeted artists, which was abruptly interrupted as Rushdie was being introduced, according to Bernat. Twenty-four-year-old Hadi Matar, of Fairview, N.J., rushed the stage with a knife, allegedly stabbing Rushdie multiple times and panel moderator Henry Reese one time.

“The moderator and Mr. Rushdie had just come on stage,” Bernat said. “Mr. Rushdie sat down, while the moderator went to the podium to introduce him. He had hardly uttered two sentences, when all of a sudden there was a mad scramble behind the podium.”

According to Bernat, the lecture was well attended, with about 2,500 people in the audience.

“The 10:45 lectures in the morning are always a highlight of the day at Chautauqua, and I attended them every day,” Bernat said. “That particular lecture was special, of course, because Salman Rushdie was so well known.

“Knowing that there has always been a price on his head, I quickly realized that someone had attacked Mr. Rushdie,” Bernat said, referring to the bounty placed on Rushdie’s head placed in 1989 by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini for writing “The Satanic Verses.”

“The attacker raced onto the stage so quickly, I only sensed him in my peripheral vision,” Bernat said. “[A]lmost immediately, men from the audience had jumped onto the stage and piled on the attacker to stop him from injuring Mr. Rushdie further. Several doctors in the audience also rushed onstage to help Mr. Rushdie.”

The courageous action of those who intervened in the attack, along with the immediate medical care given by some of the attendees, undoubtedly saved Rushdie’s life. As of press time, according to the Associated Press, the 75-year-old novelist has been removed from a ventilator and is awake and articulate once again. He is currently healing from the three stab wounds to his neck, four stab wounds to his stomach, puncture wounds to his right eye and chest and a laceration on his right thigh, according to a report by Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt. Reese is also currently healing from his stabbing wound, which just missed hitting his right eye.

The traumatic experience, while not unexpected due to the $3 million bounty placed on Rushdie’s head over three decades ago, still deeply impacted those in attendance, so much so that the other Shepherdstown residents in attendance at the event declined to comment.

“I think most of us were in shock immediately afterwards,” Bernat said. “For a half hour or so, I was visibly shaken by the experience. I had never in my life experienced such an act of cruelty.”

Bernat was comforted to know that both stabbing victims survived the attack. She said she was also pleased, later that day, to hear the Chautauqua Institution immediately take action to prevent any similar events taking place in the future.

“Chautauqua . . . has immediately taken steps in hopes of preventing such an occurrence again. The attacker apparently carried his knife in his backpack, so now no one can take any kind of package, purse, backpack, etc., into an event,” Bernat said. “Unfortunately, the peaceful atmosphere of Chautauqua has been changed forever.”

The suspect was arraigned over the weekend, to be held without bail on charges of assault and attempted murder. As of press time, the suspect is pleading not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges, according to his attorney.