Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 40 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

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

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?

Taslima Nasreen

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