Taslima Nasrin's Blog, page 29

Cyclone Phailin was supposed to kill yesterday. But it was faith that killed. Faith dragged people towards a temple. 115 people were killed. More than 100 were injured. Pilgrimage stampede is nothing new. It happens every year. Hundreds of pilgrims get killed every year. They got killed on the same bridge before. Maybe a better and wider bridge will soon be made. But if the number of pilgrims increases, the bridge will look narrow again. It is 2013. We are getting ready to move to a new planet. Science is doing everything for us to survive, to live longer, to get comfort, to gain knowledge of the universe. But people are still believing in a funny old thing called religion. I have no idea how many years humans need to treat myths as myths, not as truths.

Iranian salt desert

the earth is a living thing

is a black shambling bear

ruffling its wild back and tossing

mountains into the sea

is a black hawk circling

the burying ground circling the bones

picked clean and discarded

is a fish black blind in the belly of water

is a diamond blind in the black belly of coal

is a black and living thing

is a favorite child

of the universe

feel her rolling her hand

in its kinky hair

feel her brushing it clean

Mississippi River Delta

When stiff and sore and scarred

I take away my hand

From leaning on it hard

In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:

I long for weight and strength

To feel the earth as rough

To all my length.





Virunga Mountains

Take earth for your own large room

and the floor of the earth

carpeted with sunlight

and hung round with silver wind

for your dancing place

Snow in Scandinavia

The earth keeps some vibration going

There in your heart, and that is you.

And if the people find you can fiddle,

Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.





Namib desert, Africa

Images of Earth from space.

Poems.

Let’s listen to Banaz.

I do not call it honour killing, I call it misogynistic murder.

Pineapple story.

Jesus and MO t-shirts story.

Atheist,humanist and secularist students are under attack, not in the temples or mosques but in the universities, the institutions of learning of the highest level. They are humiliated, threatened and banned. Instead of protecting freedom of expression the authorities have been protecting a bunch of irrational myths. Nothing is more dangerous than an idea that our secular institutions have to behave like religious institutions and instead of enlightening students it is alright to keep them in the dark.

I have heard his name before. He is thunderf00t. Two zeros in his foot. A strange name though. I did not get time to listen to his arguments when he was fighting against PZ Myers and other Free Thought Boggers. I thought thunder had some kind of intellectual rivalry with FTBloggers but he was not that bad. But I probably was wrong. When Al posted thunderfoo– oops 00t’s new video about a week ago, I watched the video right away and I was shocked. I was really really shocked watching his video on rape. He blamed women for rape. He advised women to take precautions to avoid rape. He didn’t ask men to stop rape. I felt I was listening to a Muslim fanatic, not an atheist or a humanist. Does thunder want women to wear burqas, in order to protect themselves from being raped? It seems so. He also wants women not to get drunk, because that may bring rapes. Women have to give up their freedom if they want to be saved from fellow humans! Wow! Now I realize why PZ dislikes him.

I wrote, ‘thunderf00t is a rape apologist’. That made thunder crazy. He started abusing me and others whoever opposed him. He retweeted all the misogynistic tweets he received from his likeminded buddies. He called everyone whoever disagreed with him ‘rape apologist’. He has been crazy for days. I don’t know whether he gets well now.

I expect atheists to have good qualities because they I believe are the most intelligent and sane people on earth. I expect them to be nice, kind and honest. I expect them to believe in equality and justice. But when I see some of the atheists are misogynists, rapists, rape apologists, animal haters, murderers, war mongers, hypocrites, liars, exploiters, I feel sad. I really really feel very sad.

Nordic countries are going to ban circumcision. Wow, what a good news!

Yesterday, during a meeting in Oslo, Nordic ombudsmen for children, Nordic paediatricians, and paediatric surgeons agreed a resolution urging their national governments to work for a ban on non-therapeutic circumcision of underage boys.

The the children’s ombudsmen from the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland), along with the Chair of the Danish Children’s Council and the Children’s spokesperson for Greenland passed a resolution to: “Let boys decide for themselves whether they want to be circumcised.”

The ombudsmen concluded that: “Circumcision without a medical indication on a person unable to provide informed consent conflicts with basic principles of medical ethics.” They found the procedure “to be in conflict with the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, articles 12, and 24 (3) which say that children should have the right to express their own views and must be protected from traditional rituals that may be harmful to their health.”

Dr Antony Lempert, a GP and spokesperson for the UK Secular Medical Forum (SMF) applauded this historic resolution and urged the UK and devolved Governments to work towards protecting all UK children at risk of forced genital cutting.

He said: “This important statement by the Nordic child protection experts is grounded in common sense. Children’s basic rights to bodily integrity and to form their own beliefs should not be overridden because of their parents’ religious or cultural practices.”

Dr Lempert argued that, “with an increasing awareness of serious irreversible harm caused to boys and girls from forced genital cutting it is time for the genitals of all children to be protected from people with knives and strong religious or cultural beliefs. There can be no justification for healthy children to be forcibly cut. All children deserve society’s protection from serious harm.

The world should learn from the Nordic countries how to ban non-therapeutic, nonsense circumcision of underage boys. Children’s rights must be protected. We adults do not have the right to impose our superstitions, religious belief and madness on our children and abuse, or mutilate them. It is a nasty crime against children.

Many societies banned and attempted to ban circumcision since ancient times. Doctors have been opposing circumcision. A ban on circumcision is urgently necessary to protect children’s right. By the way, there is no doubt that all forms of female genital mutilation must be banned everywhere.

The human right to bodily integrity is more important than the human right to freedom of religion. Religious tradition is a poor excuse to subject a baby to circumcision. People started practicing circumcision long before the birth of monotheistic religions. The risks of circumcision are many, infection, necrosis, gangrene, BXO, urinary tract infection, urinary retention, meatal ulceration or stenosis, urethral fistula, hypospadias or epispadias, lymphedema etc. Circumcision also affects sexual function and desensitizes the penis. Seriously, how many diseases do we need to ban circumcision?

Michèle Causse was a French author and lesbian theorist. She was one of my best friends. She always contacted me but I never got much time to contact her. When finally I decided to email her, I heard that she committed assisted suicide. She went to Switzerland to do it, she did it to protest against France for not legalizing euthanasia or the right to die. Michèle was vocal for the right to live as well as the right to die. She gave her life to show her support for euthanasia. Not everyone can do it.

I support euthanasia but Michèle’s suicide brings tears to my eyes. Wish I could stop her from having that bitter barbiturate. Wish I could tell her, ‘no, not now’. It is so hard to say goodbye to those extra ordinary people who contribute a lot to change the world and whose brains are still working well. I am dedicating this blog to Michèle Causse, a great human being, who died for a great cause. I salute her with great respect.

Let’s read some of her words that she wrote for me.

Date: Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:22:31 +0200

Subject: France culture

Dear

Thank you again, I may be French but I feel in tune with your ” radical”

approach ( I will never compromise, I will never be silent). And also, as a

WRITER, I do understand how your Bengali language is missing.I felt the same

way while living in Tunisia, in Rome, in the Caraibs, in New York, migrant

in Canada. I went crazy at times, shouting in French on some lonely beach of

Florida where sharks used to …swim. Taslima you are brave and ” poetry” is

a word full of meaning when you talk, even early in the morning, defending

strongly “laicite”. Please, remember me, I am yours.We feminists shall keep

you alive and (possibly)well. Michèle

I feel a visceral( and rational ) reject of all religions, as you

know.unfortunately we know how women get trapped into it.While male priests

rape their children.

Michèle CAUSSE

Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:45:28 +0200

Subject: “Precious”

Dearest

On the 8th of March it was so great to see you on tv ! The only gratifying

smile of a difficult feminist moment.

While women in Toulouse were marching in the streets to ask for nights

without violence , they were immediately attacked by the police: those who

were supposed to protect them viciously battered them but were finally

obliged to get back to their police station. There, all girls united until

an arrested young woman was freed. The head of a woman association had a

broken finger!

This is just a story from a small province town.Imagine the rest!

To see you in New Delhi gave us the happiness you must feel in spite of he

precarious state of your staying there. When I read that maybe you will not

be able to stay after August, desperation got over me.I feel so strongly

your need for flavors, odours, colours.For a language which has its

fragrance.

Your sentence:”men get 364 days of the year and the only day women have in

their favour will be a day in which they will be persecuted as usual.” Oh

dear, you could not be more exact.It seems that 8th of March infuriates men

in a particular way.My expectations were greater in the 70′and I will never

have theses feelings again.Except when I hear you because you are the voice

of these years! The genuine and intelligent fury we had, the concepts we

battled against:” We spit on Hegel” etc etc…

Dear Tas my lima your Michèle

MICHÈLE CAUSSE

Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:46:08 +0200

Subject: New(?) year

My very dear,

hope this year will bring you back to the land you need

and which needs you.

When I have the blues I go to your site and I look at the pictures of all your friends,

all your travels, all your prizes. And I feel much better. You deserve all

you have and will have. Yours.Timidly. Michèle

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:09:49 +0200

Subject: You yesterday

Maybe you looked yesterday at the Public Senat transmission which was an

homage to you ( in the presence of ni putes ni soumises and Caroline Fourest

and two women in politics).They were appalled at your situation and

certainly ashamed for the politics which do not permit you to lead a proper

life .At least I know now that you are in France and maybe less unhappy than

somewhere else. We saw images of Afghan women who burned themselves to death

rather than enter a forced marriage and other atrocities.The only moment of

real feminism in action was in Africa where young women called tantines

teach younger men and women some kind of rudimental sexuality;for instance:

don’t let your mother flatten your breasts!!!! At any step we meet different

horrors which condemn women to lead a pariah existence. I thought of you the

whole evening, as I do so often.Thanking you in my heart for being who you

are…Please stay with us.We will not let them trample you.I kiss you

motherly…if I may

I am still in Toulouse. Wish to see you for the festival.

Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:56:05 +0200

Subject: Hope

Hope you are now safely in France. Please, stay with us for a while.I think

of you with pain when I see the conditions of Bangladeshi fighting

desperately against flood and becoming climatic refugees without knowing

where to go, how to eat and live.What will they become?They are so proud and

brave.Their earth, their rice being literally ruined by the salt of the sea.

And your own sadness, your own condition .Go and see this terrible

film: Slumdog millionaire. It might remind you that, maybe, it is better not

to be in India….in spite of nostalgia…

Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2008 16:09:49 +0200

Where are you ???? The newspapers say you are in India. Or back to Sweden?

PLEASE, let us know you are OK and writing as much as your health and the

Bangladesh disaster permit. We are under the Pope’s presence in France and

it is very difficult to feel the way we did in the seventies…I wish I

could in some way give you positive news. But Time has not come yet. I think

of you and dream about another India. Michèle

Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 17:31:49 +0200

On internet I read all your interviews to the French newspapers.I was

flabbergasted! So happy. You were so radical, so much to the point.I had not

read anything like that since 197O. I wish I were given the opportunity to

say what you flaunted to the faces of the interviewers.I wrote a commentary

to l’Express.Believe me, only you can make declarations like that. It looks

as if you were not afraid of anything and were the only person in the world

who cannot care less about the consequences of her brave and rare nude

truth. I share everything you say.Thank you. We would be orphans and

voiceless without you. I kiss your bravery.

Michèle CAUSSE

Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 11:22:24 +0200

Subject: Hurrah

A friend awoke me early this morning to tell me you were speaking on the

radio. Finally, at last, I heard you, your small voice saying what had to be

said and heard .But do they hear ? Do they feel the way you do the incoming

threat? I am sorry to know you are not happy in Europe and yet I understand

so well. Your voice is most precious to these Indian women who are becoming

so eager to free themselves, with their pink saris and wood batons. You

belong to them, they belong to you.Sisters. I kiss you tenderly and as usual

admiratively. Michèle

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:20:51 +0200

Darling you,

Taslima I am afraid to tell you what I think as an ex immigrate to Canada. When a country like India does not want you anymore except in conditions which are not even decent for an animal, one must go away,one must choose one=B9s own life ,even if ,apparently, this life is not conform to your choice ( staying in Calcutta). Believe me, if you decide to go away, to immigrate, you will come back to India as a hero.You must not accept your present condition because they will not change it. On the contrary, they may become sterner. I have a pessimistic view about men wanting any good to women.

Even among the best intellectuals. Don’t be stubborn in this precise moment,be clever: you go away and you wait for some time. According to my own experience:some day you will be back to your own place, with great peace and honour. When you least expect it. If you carry on this day by day suicide and agony, we lose you and you lose yourself. Humanity ( I will not say mankind) will miss you too much. Loneliness is not a strength. You must form an alliance with those who share your fate,in spite of differences.You must smile again, and write and walk peacefully in places which will enjoy and help your creativity.

There is in the world a conjuncture which is not good at all. Women in the eastern countries are more and more severely constrained and ill-treated.

You can write for yourself and for them only if you come to a country. I know how desperate one is far from one’s country .But you are in no country at all in this moment. You must see your friends and people who support you. Listen to them ,to their advices. Let them pamper you.This sad period has to come to an end. I kiss you and please, don’t think I write like a vanquished person.On the contrary.Be very subtle.Pretend you want to go away.And be happy if they let you go away!!!!

I send you the green of my field so that light come into your room. Love

Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:13:21 +0200

Dearest among dears,

This is the text, very short, I am sending to the institutions you note.Please let us know your present condition. It is hard to imagine you in the same place!!! We love you.

Honour yourself by honouring the dignity and talent of the internationally known and highly praised poet Taslima Nasreen.

French Writer Michèle Causse

Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:51:12 +0200

Subject: FW: les infos de France Terre d’Asile no 2

-At least an extension, at least they are ashamed, but what about

your freedom??? Living where you want ? Can one feel really relieved? With

all my heart. Michèle

Let’s support euthanasia. Let’s make euthanasia legal. Let’s make Michèle’s dream come true.

Iranian lawmakers passed a law that allows men to marry their adopted daughters.

Parliamentarians in Iran have passed a bill to protect the rights of children which includes a clause that allows a man to marry his adopted daughter and while she is as young as 13 years.

Activists have expressed alarm that the bill, approved by parliament on Sunday, opens the door for the caretaker of a family to marry his or her adopted child if a court rules it is in the interests of the individual child.

Iran’s Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists which vets all parliamentary bills before the constitution and the Islamic law, has yet to issue its verdict on the controversial legislation.

To the dismay of rights campaigners, girls in the Islamic republic can marry as young as 13 provided they have the permission of their father. Boys can marry after the age of 15.

In Iran, a girl under the age of 13 can still marry, but needs the permission of a judge. At present, however, marrying stepchildren is forbidden under any circumstances.

If you follow religion, religion will drag you backwards, you will end up in the darkness of ignorance.

“This bill is legalising paedophilia,” Sadr, a human rights lawyer warned. “It’s not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but this bill is legalising paedophilia and is endangering our children and normalising this crime in our culture.”

She added: “You should not be able to marry your adopted children, full stop. If a father marries his adopted daughter who is a minor and has sex, that’s rape.”

“With this bill, you can be a paedophile and get your bait in the pretext of adopting children,” Sadr said. Some experts believe the new bill is contradictory to Islamic beliefs and would not pass the Guardian Council.

An initial draft of the bill, which had completely banned marriage with adopted children, was not approved by the council and it is feared that MPs introduced the condition for marriage to satisfy the jurists and clergymen. This is why Sadr fears it can pass the council this time.

Shiva Dolatabadi, head of Iran’s society for protecting children’s rights, has also warned that the bill implies that the parliament is legalising incest. “You cannot open a way in which the role of a father or a mother can be mixed with that of an spouse,” she said, according to Shargh. “Children can’t be safe in such a family.”

Execution of juvenile offenders in Iran has also been in spotlight in recent years amid confusion between the age of majority – when minors cease to be legally considered children – and the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which is 15 for boys and nine for girls under Iranian law.

Some experts believe that the new bill is contradictory to Islamic beliefs. But they are wrong. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, married his daughter in-law, his son’s wife. He justified his marriage by saying that his son was his adopted son, not real son. It means you can fuck your adopted son’s life if you want. If you can do that, you can fuck your adopted daughter’s life too. If the prophet can marry adopted son’s wife, it is perfectly alright for Muslims, the followers of Muhammad, to marry their adopted daughter. Muhammad would not have stopped marrying Zainab if she were his adopted daughter.

Muhammad married 6-year-old Ayesha. So, Islam even allows men to marry children. The Hadiths are all about Muhammad’s sayings. If you want to be Muslims, you have to believe in the holy Quran and the holy Hadiths. It is as simple as it is. And if you do this, you have to be misogynist, rapist, pedophile, immoral men and spineless, voiceless, submissive, misogynist, masochist women.

Pakistan bans science text book on pretext of it provoking ‘sexual desire’.

The government of Pakistan’s Punjab province has banned a science book for Grade VI students of a chain of elite schools for containing material that could provoke “sexual desire”.

The text book used by the Lahore Grammar School was banned after authorities received complaints from parents.

“We have banned the book after receiving complaints from parents,” provincial education minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad told PTI.

The science book had material that could provoke “sexual desire”, which could not be tolerated, he said.

“We will not allow anyone to teach our children with material which is against our social values and religious beliefs,” Ahmad said.

An inquiry was underway to ascertain why “objectionable” contents were included in the science book, he said.

The Punjab government also took cognizance of the same school’s decision to replace Islamic Studies, a compulsory subject, with Religious Studies in Grade VI.

“The new subject contains material which may mislead and confuse the minds of children,” Ahmad said.

“Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan is quite clear about the provision that no Pakistani citizen should be taught a religion other than his own religion – Islam,” Ahmad said.

The authorities of a country where hating and killing in the name of almost anything is a norm are afraid of people having sexual desire! It is always better to make love than to make war. Isn’t it?

If they don’t allow their children to learn anything which is against their social values and religious beliefs, they will not let them learn science and feminism because science is against religion and feminism is against patriarchal social values.

They prefer to teach their children religion. Then what happened? Most of the children become religious fundamentalists or religious terrorists.

Short-sighted politicians are the enemies of their countries.

Once upon a time, we were proud of Turkey for its secular ideas. We used to read a poem that was in our syllabus. The great Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote a poem congratulating Turkey’s great leader Mustafa Kemal for dismantling the Turkish caliphate and the powerful Khilafat movement.

‘Oi ksepechhey pagli ma-er damal chheley Kamal bhai,

Oshur-purey shore uthechhey shamal shamal tai.

Kamal, tu ne kamal kiya bhai !

Ho Ho Kamal, tu ne kamal kiya bhai!’

(Yonder, brothers, the raving mom’s indomitable

son Kamal has become enraged

That’s why, in the abode of demons, there is an uproar

‘Be ware,’ ‘Be on guard’!

Kamal, you have achieved unbelievable success, brother!

Ho Ho, Kamal, you have achieved unbelievable success, brother!)

The secular Turkey is now walking backwards towards the dark ages. It sentenced a renowned pianist Fazil Say for his tweets and sayings based on his belief in atheism.

World-renowned Turkish pianist Fazıl Say, who was sentenced to 10 months in prison for blasphemy in April, was again sentenced to 10 months by an Istanbul court today in a retrial.

Say had received a suspended 10-month prison sentence on charges of “insulting religious beliefs held by a section of the society,” for re-tweeting several lines, which are attributed to poet Omar Khayyam.

Say’s lawyers had demanded his suspension be canceled. His demand had been accepted by the court, and the court had paved the way for Say to be re-tried.

The 19th Istanbul Peace Court sentenced Say to 10 months in prison but since Say has no criminal record, the court suspended the sentence and ordered supervised liberty.

If Say does not commit another crime within two years, the case will be dropped.

The pianist will be able to appeal the verdict at the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Say was convicted after retweeted the several lines attributed to poet Omar Khayyam: “You say its rivers will flow in wine. Is the Garden of Eden a drinking house? You say you will give two houris to each Muslim. Is the Garden of Eden a whorehouse?”

Turkey should release Fazil Say unconditionally and now. Turkey should respect everyone’s right to freedom of expression. Turkey should know that everybody has the right to blaspheme. Blasphemy should not be considered a crime in Turkey.

Turkey was an ideal country progressive people used to be proud of. But no one now is proud of Turkey. Not anymore.