Let’s sing for Bangladesh!

My heartfelt thanks to Tarek Fatah for writing a heart touching piece about Bangladesh.

In a tiny country on the other side of the globe, far away from the glare of celebrity TV anchors and big-shot correspondents in jungle khaki, a revolution is unfolding, but not if you watch CNN, BBC or CBC.

For two weeks now, hundreds of thousands people from young men and women, aging former guerrilla fighters and grandmothers who still carry the scars of violence, have occupied the Shahbag Square in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The collective anger of a nation, simmering for over 40 years below the surface, finally erupted this month.

The roots of this resentment lay in the genocide of the Bengali people that started in March 1971 by the Pakistan Army and its accuses jihadi collaborators, the mullahs of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The military-sanctioned massacres did not stop until nine months later in December that year when the Indian Army intervened and the Pakistan military promptly surrendered.

From the ashes of a war and three million dead people choking its rivers, the new country of Bangladesh emerged…

For the first time ever in the Muslim world, there has been a popular uprising against the fascism of Islamist parties. One would have expected the western intelligentsia to be thrilled at this development and for the media to report from the square, but the Walter Cronkites of the world are no more.

Back in the 1970s when ratings was not all that mattered to the super stars of the time, George Harrison and Ravi Shankar played for our conscience at the memorable ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ in Madison Square Garden. And then there was Joan Baez who let out a wail in the midst of a genocide. Her song rallied millions:

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

Bangladesh, Bangladesh

When the sun sinks in the west

Die a million people of the Bangladesh

Today too, the sun sinks in the west,, but no one is singing for Bangladesh anymore.

‘For the first time ever in the Muslim world, there has been a popular uprising against the fascism of Islamist parties.’ Nothing can be better than mass protests against fascism and barbarism. I am not really supporting the execution of war criminals as I am against the death penalty. If you do not want to do anything but to cry for the death penalty, you can cry as much as you want. The people who are for abolishing the death penalty will not lend you their shoulders to cry on. I support the banning of Jamaat-e-Islami. In Bangladesh, it is nothing but a terrorist organization. The religious terrorist organizations should be banned if we want true democracy, human rights, women’s freedom and freedom of expression.

The Shahbag movement should be led by secular progressive people. If the political parties hijack the movement, they will definitely ruin it. All the political parties in Bangladesh made the fascist Jamaat-e-Islami their allies in the past. It is foolish to trust them.

George Harrison died. The great people of the ‘concert for Bangladesh’ are not here. They are not singing for Bangladesh. But we, humanists, secularists, and dreamers are still alive. Let’s sing for Bangladesh! Let’s make our dreams come true. Let’s encourage people of Bangladesh to make their country a secular country without poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, superstitions,a country without religionism, fanaticism, fascism, barbarism, a country without crimes and corruption!

Water!

Wow!

As little as five years ago, no one had detected water in the samples returned from the Moon. The advancement of instrumentation, such as secondary ion mass spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, has made it possible to detect tiny, but measurable, amounts of water in the mineral grains from Apollo samples.

In a new paper, researchers show that they have detected significant amounts of water in the samples of the lunar highland upper crust obtained during the Apollo missions. The lunar highlands are thought to represent the original crust, crystallized from a mostly molten early Moon that is called the lunar magma ocean.

According to Hejiu Hui, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame<, "The presence of water in the early Moon needs to be reconciled with the favored formation scenario that had been supported by the volatile elements and isotopes in the samples, such as Zinc. "It's not 'liquid' water that was measured during these studies but hydroxyl groups [developed from water that did exist in the lunar magma ocean] that was distributed within mineral grain. We are able to detect those hydroxyl groups in the crystalline structure of the Apollo samples." The hydroxyl groups the team detected are evidence that the lunar interior contained significant water during the Moon's early molten state, before the crust solidified, and that they may have played a key role in the development of lunar basalts. "The presence of water," says Hui, "could imply a more prolonged solidification of the lunar magma ocean than the once popular anhydrous moon scenario suggests."

Now, I can close my eyes and see the moon crowded with people. People from the moon flying space shuttles to Earth to visit their grand parents. It will not happen in my life time. But I feel great when I think that someday it will happen.

Political Islam in Bangladesh

jamaat

Jamaat-e-Islami was founded at Islamia Park, Lahore in 1941 by Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi as a movement to promote Socio-Political Islam. 75 people were present at its first meeting. Now it is one of the largest Islamic political parties in the world. Maududi’s ideology influences Islamic groups around the world including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

In Bangladesh, Jamaat-e-Islami is nothing but an Islamic terrorist organization. It kills whoever opposes Islam. It is true that Jamaat-e-Islami uses Islam to protect themselves. It is also true that Islam supports the ideology of Jamaat-e-Islami, encourages everything whatever Jamaat-e-Islami is doing, like murdering infidels, killing and torturing non-Muslims, stoning women to death for being engaged in unIslamic activities, building missionaries for the spread of Islam etc.

You know about the barbarism of Jamaat-e-Islami. Don’t you? You do not know the fact that if you do not like Jamaat-e-Islami, you won’t like Islam. You think ideologically Jamaat-e-Islami and Islam are different, but they are not. Islam approves everything Islamic terrorist organizations do in the name of Islam. To find out the similarities between the doctrines of Jamaat-e-Islami and Islam, you have to know Islam properly, you have to read the Quran and the Hadith minutely and you have to interpret everything correctly.

Jamaat-e-Islami is not a political party of peace as Islam is not a religion of peace.

February 15

So many things are happening these days. If you ask me about the last week , I would tell you the stories of an asteroid and a meteorite. One fell to Earth, another didn’t.

1. ‘An asteroid passed safely by Earth on Feb. 15, 2013. Its closest approach, about 17, 150 miles above the Indian Ocean.

2. Meteorite crash in Russia causing explosions that injured more than a thousand people.

We are almost nothing or too small in the universe but we are lucky because we can now at least say what things are flying by and what falling to Earth. Not only that, we can see them flying or falling. And unlike our ancestors we know very well that they are not messages from god.

Bangladesh! A fucked-up country! (Warning: Violent image)

rajib

Rajib Haider Shuvo, a 26 years old architect, one of the organizers of the Shahbag movement, a talented young atheist blogger was brutally killed by the Islamists last night. His throat was slit. His criticism of Islam was far milder than my criticism of Islam which were published 26 years ago in Bangladesh. He wrote blogs under the pen name thaba baba. I wrote my anti-religion articles and books in late 80’s using my real name. Thaba baba was killed. I survived but I was forced to leave Bangladesh 20 years ago. I would surely get killed like Rajib if I lived in that country. I was on the top of the hit list made by Islamic terrorists.

Bangladesh is a hopelessly pathetic country. A pure fucked-up country. The country has been controlled by the Islamists. The society has been rottened by the Islamists. The people have been manipulated by the Islamists. Atheists get killed. A few weeks ago, another Bengali atheist blogger, Asif Mohiuddin, was brutally stabbed by the Islamists. He quite brilliantly mocked Allah and Islam. Asif is now fighting for his life. No doubt, Bangladesh sucks.

The Islamization of Bangladesh started in the mid ’80s. Most people remained silent for decades. Now some young bloggers and online activists started a country-wide awareness campaign against war criminals. A very few of them are against Islam and Islamists. Their Shahbag movement could turn to a positive political movement for a secular democracy. But Islamists already have shown their strength by stabbing and killing enlightened bloggers. It will definitely scare many people at Shahbag.

A war is needed in Bangladesh, a war between two different ideas, secularism and fundamentalism, between rational, logical thinking and irrational blind faith, between those who strive to go forwards, and those who strive to go backwards, a war between modernism and barbarism, humanism and Islamism, between innovation and tradition, future and past, between those who value freedom and those who do not.

Will an uncompromising fight against Islamists be possible in a already fucked-up country?

Let there be light.

Professor Miguel Nicolelis and his team, from Duke University, North Carolina, have used Infra-red light (which rats can’t see)to trigger brain implants and signal a rat to move in a demonstration of brain interface controls. The infrared sensors gave rats the ability to detect the normally invisible light. The research could help us to one day replace someone’s damaged senses, such as giving sight to blind people.

More details here.
Blind people will be able to see. What else do we need?

If rats can be given sixth sense, humans can be given sixth sense too.

I wish someday people would be able to just stop talking nonsense.

Shahbag is a new Tahrir Square

Shahbag1

After Arab Spring, Tahrir revolution, and the victory of Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists in Egypt, I am not impressed by the crowd. Bangladesh’s Shahbag is now like a tiny Tahrir Square. Facebook and Twitter generation gathered at Shahbag to demand death penalty for Abdul Kader Mullah, the war criminal. He raped and killed people during Bangladesh liberation war in 1971, more than 40 years ago. The war criminal gets life imprisonment, but the Shahbag crowd is not happy, wants death penalty for him. As more people join the crowd, Shahbag starts asking death penalty for all war criminals. The fact is, all war criminals are Islamists. They did not want to be separated from Pakistan, a country based on Islam.

The Shahbag crowd is desperate to execute an old war-criminal-Islamist. What would they do to the millions of growing young Islamists in Bangladesh? I questioned. The crowd has made it clear that they are not against Islam or Islamists, they are against criminals, rapists, and murderers of 1971. The Tahrir crowd was against Mubarak but not against Islamists. The Shahbag crowd is quite similar to the Tahrir crowd. The Shahbag crowd is against war criminals but not against Islamists.

Four hundred thousand Islamists gathered in the streets demanded my execution by hanging in Bangladesh in 1994, much bigger than today’s Shahbag crowd. In 20 years, Islamists have gained their strength quite a lot. The Bangladesh government filed a case against me on the charges of hurting religious feelings and threw me out of the country. No government has shown courage yet to allow me to enter the country since then. Since then no people, no organization, no media protested against the heinous crime committed by the fundamentalists and the state against an innocent writer.

I believe if Islamists now want to have a public meeting in Bangladesh, they will be able to make 100 times bigger crowd than the Shahbag crowd. More people go to Madrasas than to facebook or twitter or blogs. More people are brainwashed to be Islamists than to be non-Islamists, more people are conservative, religious than progressive and enlightened. Much more women are veiled now than before. Now much more men go to mosques to pray than before. I lost hopes I had for Bangladesh many years ago. I probably should have new hopes, because young people at least are fighting against war criminals, a bunch of rapists and mass murderers, who have been forgiven, given opportunities, adored, respected, empowered by the worthless politicians and military since the independence of Bangladesh. I sympathize with young people at Shahbag, I can show my solidarity, but I can not support capital punishment for anymore, not even for the biggest enemy of mine, for whatever crimes they commit, not even for my assassin. I strongly believe everyone has the right to live. Bad ruling systems, bad societal systems, bad education or lack of education make people bad, corrupt, criminal, extremists.

I asked a Shahbag revolutionary, ‘Abdul Kader Mullah is now 64. He will die in prison while serving life sentence. Why are you asking for his execution?’
He said, ‘He will be freed by the next government.’
I said, ‘Then you should start protesting again the way you are protesting now. There will be second Shahbag!’
He did not like my arguments, so he called me bad names.

If those war criminals or Islamists want to kill a person, that is me, not the Shahbag crowd. They know very well who their real enemy is. They hounded me for decades. I am against all kinds of religious fundamentalists, against Islamists, against war criminals, but I am also against the death penalty. People in an uncivilized corrupt country drowned in Islamism get crazy to hang an old man. By killing Abdul Kader Mullah along with all war criminals, you will not be able to get rid of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, patriarchy, misogyny, corruption, Islamism – your real enemies. Until you fight your real enemies, none of your revolution is a real revolution.

Disposable Penis!

Have you ever heard of disposable penis? It exists.

Chromodoris-reticulata

It is Chromodoris reticulata. It loses but re-grows and re-uses its penis. You don’t believe me? Please read it.

The little sea slugs are “simultaneous hermaphrodites”, they have both male and female sexual organs and can use them both at the same time.

Sea slugs are not the only animal who lose their penis. Orb weaver spiders also lose their penis after sex. They lose penis, but it grows again. Why do they have to lose penis if it has to regrow? A very valid question. Scientists say:

‘In the first act of copulation the penis may be used to remove any sperm left by any competitors that its partner has mated with.
With the first penis and the rival sperm then abandoned – the second penis can be used to inject the sea slug with another dose of its own sperm, ensuring that their genes are the ones that are passed on.’

What if humans had disposable penis? Most likely men will not have disposable penis until women seriously sleep around. How much I wish to see men’s disposable penis!

CNN and Asteroid

CNN anchor sounds like Sarah Palin. She asked a stupid question to Bill Nye the science guy, ‘did global warming cause the Asteroid that will soon fy past Earth?’ Bill Nye did not laugh, but others did. Some said, ‘Makes me wonder if a basic intelligence evaluation should be required of reporters. Pretty dismal demonstration of current news dialogue.’ ‘The last time I saw a picture of Al Gore he looked like HE was the asteroid.’ ‘had this been a fox news anchor this article would be longer and nye would have been more d!ckish.’ ‘You can tap dance around her lack of intelligence all day long, but you can’t fix stupid.’ ‘Wow I applaud Nye for not laughing out loud and embarrassing the host. I doubt I could constrain myself like that.’ ‘Must resist urge to make any stereotypical jokes about blonds and their intelligence.’ ‘This is why people trained only in journalism should never cover science issues. Surely there are scientists capable of reading copy?’
The anchor asked a stupid question. True. Sometimes they do on behalf of stupid audience because the stupid audience feel comfortable and continue watching TV! You can forgive the stupid anchor if a brilliant guy is chosen to give a brilliant answer.

You can question like Sarah Palin but you should not answer like Sarah Palin. If you do, you CNN will lose your credibility, and become just FOX news.