There is no right to practice secularism and atheism in Bangladesh, a South Asian country with a population of 160 million people, more than 90 percent are Muslims! No room or space here for a secular debate on Blog, Facebook, Twitter and others social media! Seculars, who collectively dreamt of a secular homeland, are so much helplessness, suffering and agony in heart.
A generation is living here under machete Islamic terrorism. They have had to live with the constant fear of death on its mind.
Secular blogging, writing,
facebooking and twitting can get anyone killed. But Bangaladesh is a secular country by birth. Present Government is committed for secularism.
The regime in power remains undisturbed, politicians silent in the face of 'atheist killings'. Even, a number of arrest warrants have been issued by different Dhaka courts against former minister Latif Siddique for hurting the countrymen’s religious sentiment by making controversial remarks on Hajj and Tablig on 2014.
It's saying, 'Political Islam' in Secular Bangladesh! It has spread in Bangladesh in a big way under Military rular Zia, Ershad and Khaleda Zia's BNP led four party alliance rule.
'Political Islam' is the mask of Islam, is a real reflection of fascist thoughts and ideas. Its ultimate objective and aim is to ascend to the throne of power through appendage of reactionary power.
They have selected Islam as a weapon to achieve that objective. Secular bloggers have stopped writing, some have changed their online identity, while some are trying to leave Bangladesh.
Some bloggers have packed their bags and fled abroad. Despite the fact that the country’s constitution guarantees freedom of speech, these writers fear that they too will be the next targets for Islamists. The political environment has been unconducive for an informed debate on the role of religion and personal faith in the public sphere. Intellectuals and theologians in Bangladesh have failed to step up to initiate a conversation on this issue. Secular writers are not smugglers, killers, rapists or traitors.
They simply write blogs, books and express opinions. Some of them write on Facebook walls and many of them have demanded justice for war crimes in 1971. But the irony is that their opinions are seen as heinous crimes, so they are being killed or exiled.
Groups of young bloggers, writers and activists are fleeing the country and heading for Europe. Already nine bloggers have been murdered here, two others left with serious injuries.
Islamists are not only a threat to secularist, freethinkers and atheists, but also to ethnic and religious minorities, to feminists and to democratic values. The number of atheists living in Bangladesh is not known. There has never been an attempt to ascertain the number of people who rejected Islam.
As a journalist, I know many people are atheists in Bangladesh. They hate Islam. It's their personal belief and civil rights. They demand that Islam is the worst religion. But they publicly could not tell it. They contain a mask of Islam to survive. Some of them want to educate the society about the dangers of an extremist form of Islam. Besides, most people in this country are against of both blasphemy and religious fundamentalism.
They don’t support any form of extremism. Ever since the independence of the country back in 1971, atheism has remained as a taboo in the country. Atheist journalist Daud Haider was forced to leave the country in 1974 for writing a poem criticizing religion. Another atheist writer, Taslima Nasreen, fled Bangladesh in 1993 following massive protests by Islamists demanding her death after she made some critical comments about Islam.
Dr. Humayun Azad was a great icon of the atheist movement in Bangladesh, a professor of linguistics and literature, whose books changed the lives of many. His book, 'My disbelief', is a landmark in the history of Bangla publication on the subject of atheism and religious extremism. On 27 February 2004 Dr. Azad became the victim of a vicious assassination attempt by assailants near the campus of the University of Dhaka during the annual Bangla Academy book fair, where secular Blogger Dr. Avijit Roy and Rafida Ahmed were attacked on February, 2015. In 2005, its beginning of Bengali blogging .
Just over 11 years ago two bloggers set up a website in Bangladesh called 'Mukto-Mona', which translates to 'Free-thinker' from Bengali. There have long been freethinkers and atheists in Bangladesh, but to this point none had spoken out in such a way.
'Mukto-Mona' really was a social revolution allowed to take place due to new globalised technology, the internet. Since that time many other bloggers added their voices and other Bengali language freethinking sites have been created. In 2013 an extremist Islamist group called ‘defenders of Islam’ in Bangladesh listed 84 of those freethinking bloggers on a hit list.
However, after the 2013 Shahbag protests, a movement that came out against the continuing influence of Islamists who opposed the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, bloggers called upon the government to guarantee the secular nature of society. A few of their number were atheists.
This is turn led to Islamist fundamentalists targeting 'some new enemies' of Islam. Islamic militants continued their so called Jihad against secular Writers, Bloggers, Journalist and other religions such as Hindus, Christians, Buddhists in the name of their Islam.
Militants declared it many times that 'Islam teaches that non-Muslims are less than fully human. Muhammad said that Muslims can be put to death for murder, but that a Muslim could never be put to death for killing a non-Muslim'.
According to the extremists, 'the Quran never once speaks of Allah's love for non-Muslims, but it speaks of Allah's cruelty toward and hatred of non-Muslims more than 500 times. So they want to kill non-believer in the name of their jihad.
He, who writes for minority issues and in behalf of their rights, he also atheist, accoding to the extremists.' Secularists said, 'atheism is merely a stepping stone towards humanism, which challenges religious power and threatens the current political system, which in turn is heavily dependent on people's religious fervor.
In Bangladesh a trend of attacking Islam and its Prophet with indecent and very offensive words in the name of atheism is gaining popularity. It offends not only religious people but also ordinary Muslims. There is a widely held but mistaken perception in Bangladeshi society that atheists are anti-religious. Fundamentalists always project atheists as anti-religious.' Bangladesh was born after a war over religion.
In 1947, British administrators created the mostly Muslim nation of Pakistan, dividing it into eastern and western halves with India in between. In December 1970, a moderate, secular party led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, father of the nation, a native of what was then Eastern Pakistan, won nationwide elections. But Pakistan’s military rulers annulled the vote, and troops opened fire on demonstrators.
Militias loyal to the regime, including those affiliated with an Islamist political party called Jamaat-¬e-¬Islami, began house-to-house killings of intellectuals, scholars, university students, Hindus and others. After a nine-month war, in which as many people died, the East emerged victorious and declared itself the independent nation of Bangladesh.
Hasan Shantonu is a Journalist, a media researcher, writer, columnist. Dhaka, Bangladesh; he can be reached on:
hshantonu@yahoo.com
Twitter: (@hshantonu) Facebook: Hasan Shantonu
SOURCE:Hasan Shantonu
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