"Though she hails from a middle class Somali family, Hirsi Ali has made a career out of picturing her society as a "moral and intellectual wasteland that is traditional Islam." Similarly, self-publicist Taslima travels with the baggage sticker of Bangladesh being a country where she is persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists and where all her books are banned."
I wonder if it was really a motive to make a career or it was an inspiration that grew out of her intimate examination of her own society. How do we judge Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar? Did he really want to make a career out of picturing her society as a moral and intellectual wasteland? I will welcome any rebel even if that rebel is praised by vested interest groups that are well known as people's enemies. Moreover, I will not make my judgment based on rumors and speculations.
-SC
"Farida Majid "@yahoo.com wrote:
"Farida Majid "@yahoo.com wrote:
There are many in India who have expressed anger over the treatment of Taslima by the CPI (M) Govt. of West Bengal and for appeasing to the small group of Muslim fanatics. Most of the loudest of those have been the Hindutwavadi oriented people. But there is yet another view -- one from Bangladesh from where the Taslima incident originated, when and how it blew out, and with what consequences. Please read the attached piece for a fuller account. Thanks. Farida Majid
What would Taslima Nasrin or Ayaan Hirsi Ali do without the aid Islamists, the Sangh Parivar of India and the Islamophobes of the West provide for their livelihood and their various International awards and monetary grants? Though she hails from a middle class Somali family, Hirsi Ali has made a career out of picturing her society as a "moral and intellectual wasteland that is traditional Islam." Similarly, self-publicist Taslima travels with the baggage sticker of Bangladesh being a country where she is persecuted by Islamic fundamentalists and where all her books are banned.
Ever since 1993 I have written many times (which have been on record in published works) against banning books by Taslima in Bangladesh. Book banning is a reprehensible practice on the part of a state that has a modicum of democratic pretension. Having caved in to every single whimsical and politically motivated demand of the Islamists, all the Govt. spin about Bangladesh being a "moderate" Muslim country seems to be a cruel joke!
To be able to speak one's mind is his/her citizen's rights issue. And I would uphold these rights by all means. Whether or not we make the purely hypothetical assumption that Taslima has a mind is another issue altogether.
The stupid, culturally ignorant things she said about the Qur'an, (such as, it needing corrections, as though ills of the society like abuse of women will disappear with the removal of Qur'anic verses that Taslima had read in bad Bangla translations) have been largely ignored by the intelligentsia at first. Even after the serious death threats from the Islamist thugs the public supported her freedom of speech. Sensible people from all walks of life stood by Taslima while disagreeing with her comments on Islam. She has never had the decency to thank them publicly, then or ever, the ingrate that she is. All she mumbles about is how she is against fundamentalism and superstition.
Salman Rushdie had the intelligence to point out that the dozen or so demonstrators in Mumbai that showed up to protest his visit in January, 2008, did not represent Indian Muslims. Despite the brouhaha, The Satanic Verses is really a pro-Indian Muslim novel. Muslim intellectuals from various parts of the world, especially those from the subcontinent, who had actually READ the English language novel, supported Rushdie during those awful days following the Iranian 'fatwa'. Some of these Muslim writers should be applauded for their moral courage, because they supported Rushdie at the risk of their own lives in their respective countries. I have a long article praising the Rushdie novel published in a book called Law and Literature Perspectives (1996).
It makes me cringe whenever Taslima's name is taken in the same breath with Rushdie's. A prominent Bangladeshi Islamist ideologue has, in fact, written that Taslima is OK, meaning she does not pose a threat to the progress of the long term goal of the Muslim ummah of the Wahhabis taking over Bangladesh. She does not give a fig whether they do or not. Serious Islamists detest Rushdie intensely. He is a cultured person, one of the greatest novelists of our times in any language, and a bit too knowledgeable about Islam. He even studied Islamic history at Cambridge University. Also, it is people like Farida Majid who are pesky and problematic, clamoring against, and deconstructingthe dirty politics of 'hijabization' of Muslim women. I have no hope of gathering prestigious awards from anti-Islamic fanatics in the West though, unless I can devise some dumb things to say against the Prophet and hurl uncivilized insults at Islam.
Mike Ghouse, a progressive Indian Muslim activist residing in Texas, U.S.A., referred to a similar reaction in India when right wing Hindu groups kept taunting about the silence of moderate Muslims supporting Taslima::
"I know several Muslims who want to leave her alone, but she is a tool
for the other extremists to play with. Neither side is honest about
their care and concern for her".
Among "other extremists" are the boorish, culturally insensitive self-proclaimed Deshi secularists whose only 'liberal' credentials are displayed through their blatant Islam-bashing. Counted among these are the Hindu fundamentalists from Bangladesh who regularly showed up at street rallies in New York City on behalf of BJP/ Sangh Parivar waving placards proclaiming atrocities against the Hindus in Bangladesh. It is rumored that in 1992 Taslima was met personally by Lal Krishna Advani, the BJP leader, and was paid handsomely to write her book Lajja, a waif of a novellette depicting repression of Hindus in Bangladesh. Circumstantial evidences are mounting up in support of such a rumor.
In 1992-93, in the aftermath of the Babri masjid debacle, I was deeply involved in anti-communalism and anti-fundamentalism activities along with my Indian friends in New York City. Through a potent, popular 'andolon' under the leadership of the late Mrs Jahanara Imam, the mother of a martyred young freedom-fighter of 1971, we raised the demand for trial of the war criminals of 1971 in Bangladesh. There was overwhelming response from the general masses, and the Jamaati honchos and former Paki collaborators were cornered in popular opinion and refreshed recollections of 1971.
The Jamaati political hoodlums picked up her silly remarks in 1993 and started a riot in Sylhet that quickly spread countrywide. A few members of the public were inadvertently dragged in the melee, but members of religious schools and respectable Alems of Bangladesh did not take part in these political unrests. It was the weak-kneed Govt. that balked under the political pressure of the Islamists, and poor Taslima was whisked out of the country by the Swedish Embassy.
The Taslima incident was just the spark the Islamists needed then to re-ignite their fundamentalist fire. The main actors and directors of these public theatricals were the War Criminals of 1971. The nation has not been able to put the genie back into the bottle from that day to this. No, I will never forgive Taslima for her self indulgence in self-propaganda at the cost of the well-being of a polity. It is patently obvious that she is no more a feminist than the Jamaatis are followers of the true spirit of Islam.
The Islamists of Bangladesh have become politically bolder than they were in 1993, thanks to Taslima's intervention in the path of their trial. Today, in an atmosphere of renewed public demand to try the War Criminals of 1971, they could conceivably let go a chance to stage another theatrical demanding Taslima's public hanging. And, from the unceremonious departure from India, it looks like Taslima's usefulness to Narendra Modi of Gujarat and his political allies, as an instigator of persecution of Muslim minority in India, may have run out. This is a good time to exorcise the curse of Taslima on the House of Bangladesh.
Only one small action is needed. This action is small and inexpensive compared to the initiation of trial of the War Criminals at a Special Tribunal. Both actions can only be taken by the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Lift the official ban off Taslima's books! And do it NOW, and do it without a fanfare.
©2008, Farida Majid
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