Fatwa Fury

Taslimanasreen returned to Bangladesh about the same time the more celebrated Salman Rushdie received a semi-reprieve from the fatwa issued against him by the long-gone Ayatollah Khomeini. These kinds of fatwas are a vicious form of controlling society, used by clerics traumatised by changes that are beyond their control. These are cowardly instruments on intolerance which cow down politicians and the bureaucracies they control.

At the moment of going to press, Taslima is still in hiding back in her home country. Having come back to Bangladesh with her father and cancer-ridden mother, she has obviously been moving from safe-house to safe-house, avoiding vigilante action. Four years ago, it was the same fanatic thought-police which hounded her out of the country. Now, after lying low during Taslima´s exile in the West, the religious extremists of Bangladesh are at it again, baying for Taslima´s blood.

That their country has been devastated by one of the worst floods of the century has not diminished the fanatic energy to avenge what is thought to be blasphemy committed. For these men, nature´s ravages do not spell as real a threat to their supremacy in society as the one posed by a female daring to show sympathy to a minority community. How much does the noose Taslima faces have to do with her being a woman? We do believe that the male Salman Rushdie, howsoever grand a writer he may be, would not have whipped up as wicked a reaction as the female writer, who, by some snide accounts, is only a "mediocre writer".

Writing skills are hardly of consequence in the case at hand. The issue is whether an individual can be denied her fundamental rights merely because her views challenge a religion´s orthodoxy. It is also banal to treat the whole affair as one which harks back to the medieval times; this is the here and now. It is clear that modernisation of technology does little by way of enhancing thought, which is why humankind has been continuously and meticulously updating its talent for brutality.

Then there are those who manipulate issues to feed their vested interests. In this case, it has been India´s Bharatiya Janata Party, and to some extent, the West. Salivating when confronted by a Muslim woman who would question her own religion, the overtly Hindu BJP, while in the opposition, pushed sales of Taslima´s novel Lajja (Shame) by translating and distributing thousands of copies. This immediately made her an accomplice with the enemy in the eyes of many clerics. As for the West, while some of the countries deserve due credit for offering asylum to a persecuted individual, the racist lobbies got active in further painting Islam in the devil´s pigment. A classic case of the fundamentalist food chain sustaining itself.

A last word on the Bangladesh government´s response to Taslima´s arrival. It chose to remain mum even as the world was witness to protestors being chased away by the Dhaka cops. When it did break the silence through Foreign Minister Abdus Samad, it pleaded that the "case shouid´be considered from an humanitarian angle". Ideally, there wouldn´t have been any doubts on that count, but knowing that fanaticism and humanitarianism do not really jell, we fear for the life of Taslima Nasreen.