INCONCLUSIVE STATEMENTS WITHOUT INFORMATIVE ANALYSIS

Shabbir Ahmed

USA

E Mail : shabbirahmed2000@yahoo.com

In NFB (July 23, 2001), Mr. K. Rahman expressed his displeasure over criticism of a politicized religion. He did not rebut any issue raised by the critics of the fanaticism and extremism caused by a particular dogma. Mr. Avijit Roy (NFB, July 27, 2001) and Mr. Aparthib Zaman (NFB, July 27, 2001) provided detailed analytical information to rebut the points raised by Mr. Rahman.

In this essay, I would also like to answer and rebut Mr. Rahman’s points that are appearing not at all logical in my evaluation. Of course, I wouldn't differ with him at all where I would find his expression quite logical. At the beginning of Mr. Rahman's short essay, he appeared to be a bit rational by asserting the needs for modifying doctrinal issues in the religions. He wrote:

"Religions in general have many doctrinal and interpretive issues that, when analyzed by our present understanding of the concepts such as civility, justice, and equality of women, may deserve a good discussion, clarification, and even modifications as appropriate."

By the above statement, Mr. Rahman agrees with the fact that the religious doctrine does not propagate values/concepts of civility, justice, and equality of women, etc. in a time-invariant fashion. Unlike many dogmatic believers, Mr. Rahman thinks that the doctrine needs to be modified as deemed appropriate. This is indeed praiseworthy because I think, by saying this Mr. Rahman is ready to discard any ruling that is discriminatory, full of hate, full of curse, and unjust according to moral and ethical standard of this time.

In fact, many freethinkers wouldn't consider spending time to bring conflicting issues into surface if the conscious believers like Mr. Rahman were raising their voices to modify, discard, and update religious rulings according to the values and needs of the present time. However, most of the believers are using their energy to suppress the freethinkers instead of using their energy and time to update and upgrade their religious values. None of these believers come up with a concrete proof to invalidate the brutal activities/rulings of Talibans, Iranian Ayatollahs, Sudanese Mullahs, and Saudi Ruling elites.

The brutal, inhuman acts are carried out using the name of Islam. The only thing some of the religionists (or defenders) say is: "this or that is not real Islam." They do not explain by answering "why and how." On the other hand, we read many inconsistencies, contradictions, conflicts, brutalities, etc. in connection with the politicized religion.

The religionists didn't and still don't realize the need for resolving any of these issues. They are rather interested more about identifying anyone as so-called "Islam-basher" than addressing the conflicts/contradictions. Like many other Islamists, Mr. Rahman criticized NFB as a hotbed for the critics of Islam by ignoring the issues. He wrote:

"NFB has long been a hotbed for Islam bashers and their ungrounded propagandistic assault. One simply cannot take all these seriously mainly because of time constraint and yet one will not bother to give importance to such nonsense."

Mr. Rahman is wrong in his conclusion that NFB has been a hotbed for Islam bashers. How can he say this? If it were true, then how could he able to propagate his views? Did he write to rebut and analyze Islamic principles? Didn't he focus on bashing freethinkers and critics of Islam? How other Islamic thinkers (Chintabids) of his likes could propagate their bashful views against freethinkers in NFB?

In fact, NFB is allowing free flow of information from all sides. That's why NFB is unique and deserves praise and support. This is the only Internet Daily Newspaper (published from Bangladesh) making history in allowing free exchange of views. Many serious issues affecting billions of people on the earth are being discussed in NFB forum. If Mr. Rahman doesn't bother and thinks the issues are nothing but nonsense, then, why did he write in NFB? Isn't it a conflicting stand? He used an oversimplified approach in his essay. According to him:

"Atheism in its institutional form appeared in communism and they committed mass murder and genocide wherever they went, be it Russia, China, Cambodia or Vietnam. The total murder of Russian and Chinese communist revolution is more than the total death of first and second world war together."

He is right in his observation that most of the hard-line communists were probably atheists. But, he should know that all the atheists were not communists. There are millions of atheists (supports capitalistic economic system) still live in the capitalist countries. Communism is a political and economic system envisioned by human beings. There were brutalities and political hostilities among communists and non-communists. There are flaws in communism. For communism, there was no divine book revealed from God. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were not prophets. None of them claimed to be a prophet.

Anything (or everything) in communism can be scrutinized, denounced, and rejected if it does not satisfy the ethical and moral standards of human beings of any time and place. We would not hesitate to reject it if it were supporting killing by stoning, killing by beheading, polygamy, beating wives, killing Jews, etc. Stalin, Polpot, Mao, and other communist dictators did kill their political opponents.

The people of many countries and the civil societies of the world will evaluate, criticize, and denounce the acts of the dictators. Similarly, non-communist military dictators such as Pinochet, Yahya, and others will also be denounced by the civilized world for their genocidal crimes. So, it is a very shallow approach for anyone to justify the killings in the name of a God-Given religion by comparing with the killings conducted in the name of a man-made political system.

Above all, atheism is not a mandatory or a necessary part of communism. In Bangladesh, Haji Danesh was a hard-line socialist but he was a believer and performed Haj. Similarly, Maolana Bhasani was a pro-China socialist but a believer in Islam. So, the attempt to label all the communists as atheists is a distortion of the real picture. In fact, authoritarian rule under fundamentalist regimes (in Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Kuwait) in the name of Islam have many similarities with the dictatorship under hard-line communism. Both of these regimes don’t allow opposition, open discussion, and freedom of speech. Killing the opponents and dissidents are the common matters in both these societies.

The values of human lives are trivial to the fanatic supporters of communism and the politicized religion. Observing the fanaticism of the communists, a good number of the supporters of socialism separated and identified themselves as "Social Democrats." They supported socialism, democracy, human rights, multi-party democracy, and freedom of speech.

The repressive regimes of communists under one-party rule didn't survive in many countries of the world. But, the socialist parties with the agenda of both socialism and democracy are still in power with popular mandate in many Scandinavian countries and in other parts of the world. Will the politicized Islamists learn the basic principles of human rights, freedom of speech, and democracy? Do their scriptures teach them to kill the opponents (apostates/non-believers) or to allow them to express their views freely and fearlessly? What would be the answer to these questions from Mr. K. Rahman?

Mr. Rahman compared the number of murders in communist world with the number of murders in Second World War. About fifty million people died in the Second World War. Six million Jews were killed because they were Jews. They were believers and they received a book from God before Christanity and Islam came onto this earth. The atheists didn’t kill them at that time. The killings by the communists all over the world are not really documented.

How did Mr. Rahman arrive at his conclusion without a good statistical data? The Pakistani military and their Razakar cohorts killed, raped, and tortured innocent Bangalees in 1971 in the name of protecting Islam and Pakistan. About three million people were killed. In Iran, many people were killed without giving them scope for self-defense in the name of Islamic rule. In Afghanistan, killing innocent people is a daily routine work of the Talibans. Is Mr. Rahman aware of the number of killings in the name of establishing and protecting Islam? How can he ignore all these killings carried out by the believers of Islam (to establish Islam) by highlighting the killings carried out by the communist and/or military dictators of the world? At the end of his short essay, Mr. Rahman wrote as follows:

"Do not talk about one who knows himself a Muslim but talk about one who professes and practices his faith. You bet he will not be a thief or liar. The same cannot be said for a devout atheist who will work only for his material interest."

In the above statements, Mr. Rahman made some additional gross and crude assertions that someone who professes and practices his faith will not be a thief or a liar. How can he arrive at such a conclusion? Isn't this conclusion based on his wishful thoughts? Don't Golam Azam, Matiur Rahman Nizami, Maolana Mannan, et al. profess and practice their faith? I am sure they do. Then why do they lie about their role these days in killing innocent civilians in 1971? Didn't many believer Razakars torture and steal valuables of many innocent Bangalees? How did Maolana Mannan acquire so much wealth and establish newspaper business in Bangladesh?

Mr. Rahman thinks that the devout atheists work for material interest. Everyone (believer or non-believer) needs to work for material gains in this world to survive. Not only atheists, believers also spend much of their times acquiring materials in this material world. Many of the economically affluent believers earn and spend enough to enjoy in this world. They even have greed to earn more and want to get comfort like in haven in this world. Most of them have a good colorful vision of haven. They use their concept of haven to create a man-made replica to enjoy right here in this world.

So, atheists only work for material interest is another irrational/illogical conclusion of Mr. Rahman. It is the economic system that compels all of us to work for material gains to ensure and secure our survival in this world. In this effort, the politicized religionists of a particular religion are not behind at all.

The material gains (legally) by anyone shouldn't be the finger pointing issue here. It is irrelevant to focus on an individual or on a group of people about what they do legally for surviving in this material world. The focus should be on the conflicting issues of a politicized dogma. Many people of many countries are going in a down-gradient direction under the repressive regimes based on the spirits of this dogma. Are there any inconsistencies in this doctrine? If not, then the defenders should propagate authentic information and enlighten us through their in-depth analysis.

Like many others, Mr. Rahman avoided complex path of analytical exchange. Instead, he took an easy path of criticizing the critics of the politicized dogma for no good reasons. This type of criticism will not let the defenders succeed in defending their politicized dogma. Bashing the freethinkers will not be an effective tool these days to conceal the conflicts/inconsistencies/brutalities in the religious doctrine. After all, the readers are well informed, thorough, and enlightened these days of twenty-first century more than anytime in the past.

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