[Posted here from the Mailing list 'uttorshuri'
URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/uttorshuri/ ]
o o o
Selectivity of "Freedom" Chokes People's Free Voice
Farida Majid
2004, New York
A friend of mine, a British man working in EU-Bangladesh Govt.'s
joint program, Adorsho Gram, recently went to Modhupur on a tour.
He was taken to the forest area, which was a joke, since the
hillsides are denuded of trees. On top of one of the scraggly
hills he noticed some unusual sheds that did not look like local
people's dwellings. He asked his guide about them, and the guide
told him, "They are the Al-Qaeda training camps. The local madrassah
boys are sent there for extra-curricular activities." The casualness
of the answer reveals that today's Bangladesh must be the only
country after Taliban-run Afghanistan where Al-Qaeda training camps
can run freely and openly, and apparently, with the approval of the
authorities concerned.
After the gruesome attack on Dr. Humayun Azad, when the whole horrified
nation, and the Bangalees in the diaspora, knew exactly who would want to
choke the voice of this writer, the news reports flashed about "unknown
assailant". At press briefings the Home Minister hinted at possible
"personal enmity" as if Humayun Azad was a drug dealer or a Mafia
godfather, not a popular professor of Bangla at Dhaka University who also
happens to be a prolific scholar and a creative writer, and the author of
over 70 books. It is quite clear that there is protection by the government for the
freedom of "unknown assailants" attempting to shut up the freedom of speech of a
writer who dared write a fictional account of their criminal campaigns of
terror in the name of religion.
Starting from Sheikh Mujib, there has not been a single Muslim Bangladeshi
politician who did not pander to or court religion in order to appeal to
the "religious sentiments" of the majority of the population. The Military
Dictatorship of Ziaur Rahman illegally doctored the 1972 Constitution,
scrapped the clauses that prohibited political parties based on religion,
and legitimized the Jamaati party without so much a thought that
Moududibadi ideology of the Jamaati Islami party does not represent the
tenets, principles and practices of the Muslim majority of Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina would court Golam Azam, and would go on several Haj and Umrah
to please the Jamaati leaders thinking she is pleasing the voters or as the
slogan goes: the "religious sentiment" of the majority. Not a single
politician in Bangladesh today has either the guts or the necessary
religious knowledge that neither Jamaat, nor the other Islamist parties
represent the "religious sentiment" of the Muslim majority of the country.
I had no idea of Humayun's new novel, Pak Shar Jamin Shaad Baad, not having
read it while it was being serialized in the literary section of the
Ittefaq last year. I saw Humayun at the Boi Mela in early February in
Dhaka, signing books at the stall of Agami Prokashoni. He was genuinely
happy to see me since he was not aware that I was in Dhaka. As soon as I
heard of the title of his novel, I said, "Forget Pakistan. That was more
than fifty years ago. Those days are over. Today's fundamentalists are more
vicious, violent and dangerous than ever before."
Humayun flashed a smile, the rows of his teeth glowing bright in the dim
lit stall of the Boi Mela. "Read all about it, It is all
there!" he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, handing me a copy, signed "Priyo Farida
bondhu."
Yes, indeed, it is all there. Humayun has vividly described this venal
group, who call themselves Jihadists in his novel, and who combine Islam
with the vilest of profanities imaginable. He has also described their
affinity with the ruling parties in the administration that is perfectly
credible, if not proven. No doubt, even after the outpourings of people's
protest against the dastardly attack on Humayun, the Bangladshi politicians
will go on supporting the Islamist extremists by way of catering to the
"religious sentiment" of the people. Will they never know that protesting
against criminal activities in the name of religion is the most profound
"religious sentiment" any community can possibly express?
In one sense, Humayun's novel has done all good Muslims of Bangladesh a
favor. Unlike the politicians of Bangladesh, and unlike Taslima Nasrin, it
shows a difference between ordinary, law-abiding, believing and practicing
Muslims, and the growing foreign-ideology-based Islamist menace fattened by
the ignorant religious politics of the ruling party (whichever of the two
major parties it may be). It is not very likely that Humayun's assailants
would be arrested, arraigned, tried and given due punishment any time soon.
THEY have the freedom, the freedom of impunity. Al-Qaeda can freely recruit
students from local Madrssas as expressions of "religious sentiments."
Ahmadiya's publications can be seized by the Govt., and banned, because it
believes in respecting a small group's false claim of "religious
sentiments" on behalf of an entire population. Hindu women are raped, and
Muslim women are coerced into wearing a foreign-looking hijab in the name
of religion. But, when people's voice, express anger against injustice -
carrying their true religious sentiments - it is completely ignored.
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