She will desist from repeating such venomous writing
Sometimes the disgust surges like bile.
Amid continued protests, the pressure on the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin is continuing to mount, as a prominent Muslim cleric today called for her to apologise for her “anti-Islamic” writings.
He didn’t call for her to, he ordered her to, in no uncertain terms.
[T]he offer to remove the paragraphs from new printings of the bestseller was not enough for Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of New Delhi’s Jama Masjid mosque, who suggested earlier today that Indian Muslims should “not tolerate the infamous authoress Taslima Nasrin on the Indian soil” unless she offered a written apology for what he called her “anti-Islamic publications”.
“The apology must bear her assurance that in future she will desist from repeating such venomous writing that may have any inkling of blasphemy,” he said in a statement. “India is a democratic nation and the constitution here neither does permit any citizen nor allow any foreign national to be irreverent to the tenets of any religion,” the cleric continued. “The entire responsibility of the consequences shall rest upon the government of India,” Bukhari warned.
That’s good, isn’t it – India is a democratic nation and thus it follows as the night the day that it forbids citizens and foreigners alike to be irreverent to the tenets of any religion. India is a democratic nation and therefore it has no truck with any pesky notions about people’s freedom to say what they think. But in case his audience doesn’t get the message, he finishes up with a nice flourish of threats. What a despicable man.
Wow. No one does ‘pushy, condescending jerk’ quite like a cleric throwing a hissy fit over his favourite clutch of occult idiocies bein’ offended, do they?
I’m not given to such proclamations as his, myself. But were I to do so, I figure it should probably have to go somethin’ like: ‘Citizens of Earth should not tolerate this pushy, condescending jerk on their soil unless and until he personally kisses each and every one of our asses for being such a pushy, condescending jerk, grovels appropriately and assures us he will never again open his mouth for the rest of his natural life except as necessary for the consumption of food and water and the breathing of air–the latter, naturally, only if necessary due to nasal blockage…”
Sheesh. Y’know, mebbe I should call a press conference, see if I can’t get that out there… I do think I’ve heard just about enough from arrogant twits like that, now.
I think this guy is confusing democracy with “Islamic Democracy”. Just ask Shirin Ebadi, the Noble Leauriatess, on Islamic Democracy. According to her, if 50%+1 vote to have an Islamic state, then that is democracy – and the rest can sulk.
A dear friend of mine lives in New Delhi. He finds it a matter of considerable shame that such nonsense goes on there. He also sighs at the fact that India’s development is being hindered by the appalling image madness like this gives the West of his country. Tragic.
“if 50%+1 vote to have an Islamic state, then that is democracy”
Well it is. Maybe not a liberal democracy but a democracy all the same. You appear to be using the US definition of ‘democracy’ which is synonymous with ‘good’ rather than ‘majority rule’.
G. Tingey strikes again.
‘What did you expect?’
As posted numerous times here and on:
angryastronomer.blogspot.com
thesharpener.net
hurryupharry.bloghouse.net
telegraph.co.uk/opinion
blogs.telegraph.co.uk
etc.
Yawn.
Well it keeps him off street corners, where he tends to get harried by religious nutcases who motivate him to send off even more e-mails…
“Taslima’s autobiography Dikhandito (Split Into Two) could also be two apt words use to describe the way she is by the authorities been presently treated.”
Yes, the disgusting behavior of them is revolting.
Democracy! How are you, indeed?!
PM: It is not a conceptual mistake to conceive of or define “democracy” as more than simple majority rule, nor is a richer conception of democracy simply an aberration of the US. I know, this isn’t actually your definition, PM: You were just pointing out that there is some technical accuracy to Shirin Ebadi’s 50%+1 conception of an “Islamic Democracy.” But I think it’s worth pointing out exactly how limited and technical that use of the word “democracy” really is.
In practice, every democratic nation in the world recognizes to some degree that genuine government by and for the citizenry is characterized by limits on the power of government – even if a majority can or does in fact want the government to have some particular power. The legal and institutional guarantees of those limits can be changed or violated, of course, but that doesn’t mean those guarantees aren’t essential to democracy. For a recent example, Venezuela is a democracy now, but if they had voted in favor of the constitutional changes pushed by Chavez, they would have become something other than a democracy. A democracy can become some other form of government, and that change can even happen through voting, but just because there is a vote doesn’t mean there is a democracy. The USSR had elections, and sometimes there was even more than one party-nominated candidate on a ballot – but it was still a oligarchic totalitarian dictatorship, not a democracy.
Even the Magna Carta, as early and limited it was in establishing any sort of limits on tyranny (and hardly an establishment of democracy itself), guaranteed more limits on state power than this stripped-down tyranny-of-the-majority definition of “democracy” Ebadi is selling. Well I’m not buying it, not even as a proper use of the term “democracy.” A theocratic oligarchy of clerics (and imams and ayatollahs and whatever) is simply not a democracy, no matter what percentage of people are willing to live under it.
There is a word for the kind of system where, whatever a majority wants, it gets: ochlocracy. Mob rule. These nutters are a well-organised and scripturally-sustained mob, but a mob nonetheless…
Taslima herself made a serious error in conceding ground to the fanatics and bullies by agreeing to revise one book. Fatal error, really. There’s no way now that she is going to get that peaceful, stable life in Bengal she obviously yearns for. It is not just one book they told her, quite logically. It is in fact all of them, every single one she has ever written and all the future ones she might write. There’s no arguing or negotiating with fanatics. I feel very sorry for her but to acquiesce to censorship in this instance wipes out 16 years of resistance and courage.
And it is not just blasphemy or commentary on islam that is forbidden her. Her initial offence was writing about the persecution of hindus in Bangladesh. Her most recent offence was being too frank about her sexual affairs with some rather well known bengali figures. In fact, apart from her personal disbelief in islam (not sure that she is even a full apostate), Taslima was not much of a blasphemer to start with.
Now back to more interesting matters. Yes, it’s very unfortunate about Nasreen’s attempted concession. Also somewhat surprising…she must have known the bullies would never leave her alone. They never do. Bullying is their life.
In fact…bullying is the other side of submission, isn’t it. ‘Islam’ means bullying.
I’ve just been brooding over bullying this morning before getting on the computer; organizing material for the book, I was struck by how much of it is simply about bullying. Endless endless bullying. It’s so depressing…
Seven posts up ^ should have read: ^ three apt words used ^
“Endless endless bullying. It’s so depressing…”
Yes! Yes! Yes! And endless, endless stoning to death…”First burying her waist deep in a pit, they stoned her with more than one hundred stones. Islamic fundamentalists then issued a fatwa and offered a reward for Taslima’s death.”
Because she had the guts to write about what these barbarians did to one young woman. They will not be satisfied until the very blood is also drained out of Taslima. It is such a shame that she had to cave into to them. But she has obviously been left with no other alternative.
It is ‘do’ or ‘die’!
G, well if you choose to define ‘democracy’ as meaning ‘liberal democracy’ then that is up to you. But concepts such as the ‘tyranny of the majority’ show that it isn’t just some idiosyncratic definition of democracy that I am using, indeed the very point of liberal democracy is to ameliorate the limitations of democracy as minimally defined and instantiated.
I was pointing out that it is a noticeably US affectation to decide, as you also seem to have done, that ‘democracy’ must be taken to mean ‘liberal democracy’ with the consequence that this or that system of government can now be declared not to be a democracy, when the criticism being raised being that it is not a liberal democracy (with all that entails).
It is an abuse of language for rhetorical purposes.