On conservatives, liberals and the people in between
[Dedicated to my friends- Avijit Roy, Mehul Kamdar, Austin Dacey and Audrey Manning. I like you, as you all are non-believers like me; but I love you, for your intellectual honesty. –J.A.]
-Jahed Ahmed
1.
"They deserve it." I was astonished and shocked when a fellow non-believer and a former Muslim said it about the atrocities and killings of ordinary Muslims in Gujarat . Do forsaking beliefs and myths of one's religion necessarily mean- an intensified hatred toward even the ordinary members of that religion? I was thinking. The person I quoted was not a sadist. He is polite, intelligent and holds a Ph.D. from a reputed American university.
Another true incident: "This Malu,"—a demeaning term often used by some Bangladeshi Muslims to allude to Hindus—he continued, "needs a lesson." The gentleman (if you call him so) is known as a secular 'activist and journalist' among Bangladeshis in New York
This story I heard from the noted Journalist and secular activist, Mr Shahriar Kabir. A 'secular' woman of Hindu origin came to visit her 'secularist' Muslim friend, also an woman. "Bhabi, this beef that YOU guys cook," she said, "really tastes great." "But you know, Boudi, WE can never cook vegetables like YOU folks do," the 'secular' Muslim woman responded.
Did these women target each other deliberately? Most likely, no; but one thing is clear: racism, chauvinism and bigotry have many layers. A modern and secular person may have, at a sub-conscious level, traces of racism and bigotry alive in his mind which may be manifested only on certain occasions, as we have seen in the second and third example above.
In another direction, a person might have abandoned and cut off relations with the religion of his birth and its doctrines, but while doing so, he might have developed, what is called in psychology, a 'reverse prejudice'—the concept that people of his former religion are the worst among all (as we saw in the first example). The person may have become an atheist but is not free yet. He is, as in Roseau
In our day to day life, we see people known as progressives, modernists, or rationalists, but, occasionally, some of them turn out to be not significantly better than their counterparts: The racists, the chauvinists and the religious bigots.
To the contrary, I have seen people who openly practice their religions and its rituals, yet they have no problem in befriending with people of other faiths, or those with no faith at all.
Does this mean that the secularists and the liberals are all hypocrites, and all the believers are benevolent and honest people? We'll deal with this question using examples.
2.
We form opinions of people, categorize them into a particular groups that are already known to us and put labels on them without realizing—whether a generic noun would do justice to the beliefs and the characters of that individual. Our pre-conceived notions and criteria of good and evil, childhood experiences, etc play a bigger role in this than any solid rationale although we claim our judgments to be a rational one.
A few months ago, the New York Times had published an interesting article, backed by research, on how we often commit blunders when we judge people based on indirect communications: e-mail, chat, telephone conversations. The employees of a company were asked to submit reports of some clients based on online communications. The same group of employees later met the same group of clients in a personal setting, and was asked to submit their second opinions. The report was more accurate and effective when the employees met their clients in a personal setting than by knowing them through online communications.
On a personal level, it happened to me more than once: My judgment and opinion of an individual that I came across online had radically changed when I met him/her in person at a later time.
One might, however, argue: Is there any guarantee that meeting a stranger through direct communications is the best way to know him/her? Or, what if it is not possible to meet someone in person?
In either case, knowing a person thoroughly remains always a daunting task; yet it is possible that we could make our judgment of others a better one, if we minimize the risk of oversimplification and overgeneralization—a common fallacy seen among educated and uneducated people alike.
A few examples might make sense here.
3.
We often mistake intelligence for honesty and benevolence. A person with education and rhetoric could be impressive and smart but NOT NECESSARILY honest, benevolent or open-hearted. To the contrary, there are plenty of people among us with or without a fancy degree; yet they are honest and open-hearted.
I strongly believe this to be true of people across all races and religions.
Dr. Jiten Roy, a newcomer to the Mukto-Mona Online Forum, has come up with an assertion that most secularists, liberals and communists of Indo-Bangla origin are 'cowards and hypocrites.' To emphasize his view, he has quoted Michael Savage—an American nationalist and a conservative radio-host—who said, "liberalism is a kind of mental disorder."
For Dr. Roy, an honest nationalist or a conservative (such as Michael Savage) is better than 'hypocrite' secularists and 'coward' liberals —a category where he puts most liberals of Indo-Bangla origins. Liberal Hindus and communists, in his opinion, are those 'cowards' who, having abandoned their own religion and culture, praise those of others in order to gain 'cheap popularity.'
Dr. Roy identifies himself as an honest 'conservative' and a 'nationalist' who would like to remain loyal to the interests of his adopted country (America
Dr Roy has made another interesting assertion. Most 'desi' (here, Bangladeshi American Muslims), as he thinks, support Barack Obama because of his Muslim lineage.
It would be naïve to assume that Dr. Roy, an educated gentleman as he is, said this blindly or out of plain bigotry since it is not uncommon to hear such or, similar allegations about liberals and secularists from other people as well. In Bangladesh
As has been mentioned, we love to judge the world based on our individual experiences. Knowledge derived from personal experience leave a bigger impact in our mind than many truths and facts that we read in books or hear about from others.
It may not be easy to adopt the 'forget and forgive' policy—for instance—for a minority Hindu from Bangladesh who—in the face of constant threats, suppressions and tortures— might have been forced to migrate to the neighboring India, leaving behind the land of his ancestors.
Similarly, the concept of a 'secular India India
What, however, is quite alarming in Dr. Roy's argument is that, while he seems quite angry at the liberals and secularists of Hindu origin who refuse to identify themselves as a Hindu even in a cultural context, Dr . Roy
Clearly, one might accuse Dr. Roy's of maintaining a double-standard. He enjoys seeing in another religion what he doesn't want to happen to his own.
I do not think that such attitude is unique. Dr. Roy, indeed, reminds me of some interesting examples.
There are some 'secularists' among Muslims who would appreciate my anti-superstitions and anti-bigotry stand as long as I exclude Islam in my critique and scrutiny of religions.
Then I met 'secularist' Christians, who seemed impressed by my rational and freethinking attitude toward Islam but it was not long before I let them down by my equally acrid critique of Christianity.
In a very similar way, I came across Jewish 'liberals' who appeared dismayed by the 'terror of Islam' and Muslims, but who think of Palestinians as a bunch of Muslim 'terrorists' who are brainwashed by the Quranic promise of seventy virgins in the heaven. Israel 's massacre of Palestinian men, women and children, on the other hand, to them, is the inherent rights of Israel
Does this mean- there are no honest liberals, secularists or freethinkers among the people of faiths i.e. those of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Jewish descent? A big NO would be my answer.
4.
A communist, a capitalist, an atheist, a fundamentalist, a secular humanist, a conservative or a liberal—they are just words. And a single word, it does not matter how potent it is, can not be sufficient to describe an individual's world-view.
For example: In terms of belief in God, where would I place Spinoza or, say, Galileo or Einstein? They were not atheists, nor were they believers in a conventional sense. And I would not call them 'agnostics' as they clearly had a belief in mind. The only difference is their concept of God was not the one that would interfere with the laws of nature.
Let us take an example from Indo-Bangla sub-continent.
Long before the advent of the words such as the 'feminist' or the 'feminism', Lalon Fakir, a Bangali mystic of the late eighteenth century British India with no formal education, had said*1:
"Circumcision tells a Muslim from others,
But what is the mark of his woman?
The Brahmin is known by his thread,
How do I tell who is a Brahmani?"
Should I call Lalon a liberal, a conservative, as we know that Lalon did have faith in God. Here is what he said:*1
"God is bound by chains at His devotees' doorsteps,
Hindu or Muslim, he little cares.
An ardent devotee is one intoxicated with love—"
5.
Some people would say that, a few Muslims or a bunch of Hindus—or a few Jews or Christians being good is not good enough to call all Muslims or all Hindus, or all Jews, or all Christians good. "An exception is never an example," they would argue.
"Well, why do you then cry about Muslims being discriminated against in the post 9/11 USA USA
"If this is so," I quip, "tell me, how a minority Hindu in Bangladesh , or a minority Muslim in India
We have the right to debate on or criticize a person's behavior, or social-political and religious beliefs, whether s/he is a Hindu, or a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew. But dismissing a person's credentials for being a Hindu or a Muslim is a kind of racism and hence, it must be condemned.
If we fail to maintain this honesty, we are neither a liberal, nor a conservative; we are just hypocrites.
And the world would be better off with such hypocrites being lesser.
-----
March 14, 2008
About the author: Jahed Ahmed is a humanist activist and writer based in New York
*References:
1. Songs of Lalon, Translated & introduced by Samir Dasgupta; (Dhaka : Shahitya Prakash, 2000)
2. http://www.racismnoway.com.au/classroom/prejudice.html
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