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Amazon.co.uk16 February 2008
India cowers before religious extremists
Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasrin, has been driven from her home state by Islamic extremists. But the apparent sanctuary of India has turned into a prison. Fearing violence by its own muslims, India has imposed Draconian - and possibly illegal - restrictions on the author’s movements.
It’s another example of religious intolerance. Some muslims felt that Nasrin’s work included “anti-Islamic” sentiments. Within the totalitarian mindset of religious extremism, there is no such thing as free speech. Conformity is everything because any failure to restrict your words - even your thoughts - to the official doctrine risks undermining the faith. Only by bending your will to the dogma do you prove yourself a true member of the community. That subjugation is what faith is about.
The intolerant faithful in Bangladesh rioted. Nasrin was forced to flee. Now, according to The Guardian, she has become a virtual prisoner in India. And all because the Indian Government fears similarly violent outbursts.
And let’s be clear: Nasrin has hurt no-one. All she has done is express ideas. But ideas are deadly to faith.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s a deeply religious man, St Augustine, writing in the fourth century:
“There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing, and which man should not wish to learn.”
This attitude is still very much alive today.
It is one thing for religious people to close their minds. If they choose to live in the swill of ignorance, that is their own tragedy, though they then cannot complain if the rest of us come to regard piety as a synonym for stupidity. But when their intolerance of ideas turns into violent aggression, this is no longer a matter of personal belief. It is a form of censorship and oppression, and these have no place in civilised society.
