Taslima Nasrin
From Philosopedia
Taslima Nasrin [also Nasreen] (25 August 1962– )
Nasrin, who was born in Mymensingh in what then was known as East Pakistan, is the daughter of Dr. Rojab Ali, a government physician and practitioner of the Sufi tradition of Islam. Her parents and her family members were all raised as devout Muslims.
In 1984 she graduated in Bangladesh with an M.B.B.S degree (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery). On the Indian subcontinent, the degree represents having passed a five-year program in a medical college and hospital , after which one does internship in a hospital for a year. In short, the degree is like an M.D. in the United States and elsewhere. Dr. Nasrin could have but did not specialize as a surgeon, which could have resulted in an F.R.C.S had she gone to the Royal College of Surgeons in Britain.
After graduating as a doctor and practicing medicine, she also wrote poetry. Five years into her medical career, she wrote newspaper columns. As a doctor, she treated many 7-or 8-year-old girls who had been raped by male relatives, many 50 or 60 years old, a crime she had also experienced, raped by a relative when she was young.
In her writing, she exposed the sorrow oppressed women universally were experiencing. They were being raped, were victims of drug traffickers, had acid thrown on them, were killed over dowries, and treated as an inferior sex. At first, her editors did not censor her, but when powerful interests were affected by her criticism, her editors' offices were attacked and it became more difficult for her to write freely in her works and speak without being verbally, even physically, attacked.
Typical of her writing is her journalist's account of how the Qur'an prescribes purdah but that doesn't mean women should obey it. In a March 2007 article she suggests discarding the burqa.
Contents |
Late News, 2009
In January 2009, FANNY welcomed Taslima to New York, where she has applied for citizenship and hopes to live in the city. A dinner at Fedora's in Greenwich Village was attended by FANNY co-directors Dennis Middlebrooks and Warren Allen Smith along with friends.
In October 2008, the homeless Dr. Taslima Nasrin remained in Sweden until she could find a place to reside in New York City. New York University will grant her a year's residency as a visiting scholar when she finds a place and moves permanently to the United States.
In mid-March 2008, concerned that her high bloodpressure was not being properly treated, Taslima was forced to choose between dying "caged in a room with two wide-eyed lizards and many black ants" or giving in to the Indian Government's pressures. She sent a press release that against her own wishes she had to leave for medical reasons. Landing the next day in London's Heathrow, she refused to say where she was heading - an Indian reporter thought she was going to Canada. Even after receiving the initial medical help in an undisclosed Swedish hospital, she remained "in an undisclosed place." Friends report that she is much relaxed now, her blood pressure and eye problems are being treated. She had an invitation to speak in July to feminists at the 10th International Interdisciplinary Congress, "Women's Worlds 2008," in Madrid, Spain, and to Mikhail Gorbachev's World Political Forum in Torino, Italy, in November.
In 2009, after speaking on feminism at Indiana University, Taslima is in New York City, where she has a resident scholar's office at New York University.
Other:
- "India Tells Bangladeshi Writer to Stay Hidden or Leave" was the headline in the 15 February 2008 guardian.co.uk
- In short, India - although a secular democracy - has called her a "guest" and not subject to its constitution. She remained confined in a room in an undisclosed place, her only company being a television and her laptop.
- At the end of January 2008 and because of her diabetic condition, she was admitted to a hospital because of her high blood pressure. News reports suggested that she was receiving helpful treatment.
- On 22 January 2007, Nasrin was forced by extremist Muslim fundamentalists to flee from her apartment in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She was taken by India's government centre "for her protection" to an undisclosed place in the Delhi area." "Protection" has meant, to some observers, a violation of her human rights in that she is not allowed to leave her room. Alone, as she has described except for "two lizards with wide eyes" over in the corner, she was confined up to the end of 2007.
- On 22 April 2007, Karan Thapar of CNN's IBN News asked Taslima if she is trying to change the world. Yes, Nasrin responded, then did not back down when asked the pointed questions that followed. The journalist, in fact, asked what many would find embarrassing questions, and Nasrin responded firmly, truthfully, and inspiringly. "If France's Voltaire, America's Susan B. Anthony, or England's Bertrand Russell were alive, they would be inspired," wrote Warren Allen Smith, who has edited much of what she writes in English.
- On 5 May 2007, Nasrin described in India's online Wall Street Journal why, when a child in a patriarchal world, she had had an intense desire to change herself into a boy.
- On 9 August 2007, Nasrin was attacked at a publication party for one of her latest books at the press club in Hyderabad, India. Lawmakers and members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party, threatened her with a chair, hurled a leather case, threw bunches of flowers and other objects while some shouted for her death. Organizers pushed them back, and Nasrin escaped unhurt. In the melee, one of the protesters slapped her, witnesses said. Police reportedly detained the 100 protesters, including the three lawmakers.
- As of January 2008, she remained in confinement. To find whether or not she will be granted an extension of her visa or what is being written about her, she consults Google News on her laptop, the only item she took upon leaving Kolkata.
- Upon receiving the Simone De Beauvoir Award in Paris, she was unable to attend. For visitors including journalists to see her, she must ask (and is often turned down), she is taken in a vehicle with dark shaded windows to another undisclosed place where she is interviewed by someone who also is taken there in a vehicle with dark shaded windows, after which both are returned, never having known where they have been. Intellectuals around the world have objected according to The Hindu Times and other journals.
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy in mid-January 2008 proposed to confer the prestigious Simone de Beauvoir award on her during his visit to India. Indian government officials suggested some other approach, perhaps arranging for her to receive the honor by traveling somewhere else. The Times obsered "that the government is likely to renew Nasreen's visa."
- On 17 February 2008 when her visa expired, India extended the visa but did not state for how long. Ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna had said while announcing the extension of the visa, "It is incumbent on those who are welcomed as guests in India that they remain sensitive to India's traditions and do not conduct themselves in a manner that either affects our relations with other countries or cause hurt to our secular ethos."
- When Nasreen was told that since she chose to be a rebel and hence should pay the price of her outspokenness, she said "I didn't choose to be a rebel. I only chose to speak the truth. I was targeted because the extremists needed a lone person to target."
Late News, 2010
At a March 2010 conference of atheists in Melbourne, Australia, Taslima received a standing ovation when she spoke about her life as an exile from her birthplace.
Videos
1.
- The video shows Dr. Nasrin being attacked in Hyderabad by West Bengal legislators, none of whom has yet been charged, fined, or jailed.
2.
- The video shows an Indian reporter who with cameraperson was smuggled into a room in which a clearly traumatized Taslima Nasrin is being asked about her treatment by the Indian officials. She refuses to speak out against those who have imprisoned her by having caged her in West Bengal and an undisclosed place near New Delhi for about 7 months! She says only, "I don't want to leave India."
3.
- The European media extensively covered Taslima's problems. This video is in French, shows her being burned in effigy, and is a balanced news report of her experiences.
Death Threats in 2007
Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, on 22 March 2007 sent the following to His Excellency Mr. Kamalesh Sharma, Indian High Commissioner, India House, Aldwych, London Wc2B 4NA:
- Death threats to Ms Taslima Nasreen
- We write to seek your assistance in connection with news reports about a threat to Taslima Nasreen who is one of our Society's Honorary Associates. We read in the international press that a bounty has been placed on her head by a Muslim cleric in India, Taqi Raza Khan, the president of the All-India Ibtehad Council. Mr Khan is reported to have promised to pay the bounty to anyone who will cut off Ms Nasreen's head.
- We accept that the national executive of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board do not support him as he implies. We also recognise that many Muslim leaders have condemned this incitement to murder.
- We understand that communal relations are a sensitive issue in India, but we ask that you do all in your power to (a) protect Ms Nasreen from these threats and (b) to bring the full force of the law to bear on those who threaten and incite murder and terror.
- We were honoured to host a conference in London only last week at which Taslima Nasreen spoke so eloquently about her life as a woman trying to accommodate her religious background with her desire to live fully in the 21st century free from threats to her human rights, especially her right to life and freedom of expression. India is modernising very quickly and we are thrilled to see its progress. Please encourage your government to put an end to these terrible threats and menaces, and allow Taslima to live unmolested and in peace.
- Ms Nasreen is a woman of great courage, fortitude and integrity. If India were to grant her citizenship, as she desires, she would be a credit to your great nation.
- Yours sincerely,
- Terry Sanderson
- President
Protests to the Government of India also have been circulated:
In November 2007 after being physically attacked in August by three Muslim members of Hyderabad's parliament, Dr. Nasrin for her safety was forced to move from Kolkata to New Delhi. On 21 November 2007, The British Broadcasting System reported that "police in Calcutta used tear gas and baton charges to control crowds calling for her Indian visa to be cancelled. Rioters blocked roads and set cars alight. At least 43 people were hurt. More than 100 arrests were made. Critics say she called for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights, something she denies. . . . Wednesday's trouble in Calcutta began after the predominantly Muslim All-India Minority Forum called for blockades on major roads in the city. The group said Ms Nasreen had 'seriously hurt Muslim sentiments.' Many Muslims say her writing ridicules Islam. The army was called out and a night curfew imposed."
Books by Taslima Nasrin
Poetry
- Shikore Bipul Khudha (Hunger in the Roots), 1986
- Nirbashito Bahire Ontore (Banished Without and Within ), 1989
- Amar Kichu Jay Ashe Ne (I Couldn’t Care Less), 1990
- Atole Ontorin (Captive In the Abyss), 1991
- Balikar Gollachut (Game of the Girls), 1992
- Behula Eka Bhashiyechilo Bhela (Behula Floated the Raft Alone), 1993
- Ay Kosto Jhepe, Jibon Debo Mepe (Pain Come Roaring Down, I’ll Measure Out My Life for You), 1994
- Choto Choto Dukkho Kotha (Little Bites Of Agony), 1994
- The Game in Reverse: Poems and Essays by Taslima Nasrin, 1995
- Nirbashito Narir Kobita (Poems From Exile), 1996
- Jolopodyo (Waterlilies), 2000
- Khali Khali Lage (Feeling Empty), 2004
- Love Poems of Taslima Nasreen, 2005
- Kicchukhan Thako (Stay For A While), 2005
- Homecoming, Phera, 2005
- All About Women, 2005
Essay collections
- Nirbachito column (Selected Columns) 2004
- Jabo na Keno jabo (I will not go; why should I?)
- Noshto meyer noshto goddo (Corrupt prose of a corrupt girl)
- ChoTo choTo dukkho kotha (Tale of trivial sorrows)
Novels
- Oporpokkho (The Opposition), 1992
- Shodh (Revenge), 1992)
- Lajja (Shame), 1993
- Nimontron (Invitation), 1993
- Phera (Return), 1993
- Bhromor Koio Gia (Tell Him The Secret), 1994
- Forashi Premik (French Lover), 2002
Autobiography
- Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood), 1999
- Utal Hawa (Gusty Wind), 2002
- Meyebela, My Bengali Girlhood - A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World, 2002
- Ka (book)|Ka (Speak Up), 2003
- Dwikhondito (Split into Two), 2003
- Sei Sob Andhokar (Those Dark Days), 2004
- Ami Bhalo Nei, Tumi Bhalo Theko Priyo Desh (I Am Not Fine, But you Stay Well My Beloved Country, 2006
Banned Books
- Lajja, (Shame, 1993) - banned by the People's Republic of Bangladesh
- Amar Meyebela, (My Girlhood), 1999) - banned by the People's Republic of Bangladesh
- Utal Hawa, (Gusty Wind, 2002) - banned by the People's Republic of Bangladesh
- Ko, (Speak Up, 2003) - banned by the High Court of Bangladesh
- Dwikhandita (Split In Two, 2003) -banned by the Communist government of India's State of West Bengal
- Sei Sob Ondhokar (Those Dark Days, 2004) - banned by the People's Republic of Bangladesh
Lajja
Lajja is a Bengali word that means "shame." The word connotes the same meaning in Sanskrit, Hindi, and other languages of north India. Originally written in Bangla (Bengali), the book was published in 1993 and has been banned in her native country, the name of which changed in 1971 from West Pakistan to Bangladesh.
The book is dedicated "to the people of the Indian subcontinent" and commences, "Let another name for religion be humanism."
In short, she finds that organized religions are not what they seem to be, and she is particularly critical of the Old Testament's laying down the concept of patriarchy as one of its main tenets. A social system in which the male is the head and descent is traced through the father's side of the family by definition makes females secondary and inferior beings. Let religion be humanistic, she pleads, for females are a part of humanity.
The plot pertains to the lives of four Hindus, members of the Dutta family, who are living in Bangladesh. Sudhamoy is the father, Kiranmoy is the mother, and the children are Nilanjana (his sister's pet name is Maya) and Suranjan, a son. Far away in Ayodhya in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a mosque called Babri is demolished in 1992, and this leads to riots and hatred in Bangladesh as well as in Ayodhya. The novel shows how each of the four reacts to such news, the father feeling that Bangladesh will not harm the Hindu minority and his family, the mother faithfully supporting the father, the son being apathetic, and the daughter becoming angry at her brother's lack of concern for the family's safety. What happens is that as a Hindu minority they were not fairly treated, nationalism became an issue, and the country's secularist approach in government became threatened.
Attacks on Nasrin
Nasrin was attacked in print after writing Lajja (Shame), and hundreds of members of the Council of Soldiers of Islam demanded her death. Religious fundamentalists complained that she had depicted Bangladesh’s Hindu minority as having been picked out for revenge by Muslims after the 1992 incident in which a Hindu mob had destroyed the ancient mosque.
A reward of 50,000 taka (£850) was immediately offered to anyone who would kill the thirty-one-year-old former gynecologist, for she could no longer practice medicine.
In December 1993, 5,000 zealots marched through Dhaka, demanding her death. A general strike there resulted in clashes in which one man was killed and more than two hundred were injured.
“She is worse than a prostitute,” complained Maulana Azizul Haque, the mullah who has called for her execution. “She demands ‘freedom of the vagina.’ She says that if a man can have four wives, a woman should have the right to four husbands. Even within marriage, she says a woman should have the right to other men. This is against the Qur’an and Allah. It is blasphemy!”
Although quoted as having said that “the Qur’an should be thoroughly revised,” she countered that her purpose was to suggest that “we have to move beyond these ancient texts if we want progress,” a comment which deepened the controversy.
Muslim militants say "Nirbachito Kolum," a collection of some of her newspaper columns, is blasphemous, and they publicize her separation after a few years from Bangladeshi poet Rudra Mohammad Shahidullah. Meanwhile, some publishers who fear Muslim fundamentalists stopped picturing pigs in children’s books, horse-riding and ballet are kept out because they are symbols of the wealthy, and witches are excluded for fear of satanism and the occult.
Nasrin's Views
Nasrin has been a bold advocate of sexual freedom in her newspaper columns, poems, and novels. Like Salman Rushdie of India, who rallied prominent writers to support her feminism, Nasrin was forced into a life of hiding. She fled to Sweden in 1994 after the twelve nations of the European Union made a formal offer of asylum to the writer. Once there, she said,
- The fundamentalists are destroying our society. The silent majority is afraid of them. They will do anything in the name of God. The progressives are not so organized, for they cannot bring together 300,000 people at one time.
As for the Muslim clergy:
- The country is infected with them. Their long hair, beards, and robes conceal their insatiable lust for wealth and women.
Interviewed by Mary Anne Weaver for New Yorker (12 September 1994), Nasrin was described as “utterly ordinary,” a shy Marxist professor and poet who became an atheist at the age of eleven or twelve. She reiterated that she had never, never said the Qur’an (Koran) should be revised:
- No, how many times do I have to say it? I’ve said it over and over again. I said that Shariat law should be revised. I want a modern, civilized law, where women are given equal rights. I want no religious law that discriminates, none, period - no Hindu law, no Christian law, no Islamic law. Why should a man be entitled to have four wives? Why should a son get two-thirds of his parents’ property when a daughter can inherit only a third? Should I be killed for saying this?
Bangladesh mullahs, giving no reasons, declared in a separate case that one woman’s second marriage was contrary to Islamic law and the unfortunate lady was led to a fundamentalist stronghold where a pit had been dug overnight. She was lowered into the pit and buried waist deep. Then, slowly and methodically, the woman was stoned - a hundred and one times. Her death was said to have horrified even the Dhaka’s élite. In another town, a woman who was condemned by a fatwa for adultery was doused with kerosene and burned to death. Women everywhere, Nasrin declared, are humiliated and driven out of their villages by fundamentalist mullahs.
Solidarity
In Stockholm, Nasrin remained secreted for several years. “They’ve taken everything from me,” she said. “My innocence, my youth, now my freedom. I know if I ever go back that I’ll have to keep silent, stay inside my house. I’ll never lead a normal life in my country, until my death.”
Asked in an interview with Sara Whyatt (Index, September-October 1994) if she still thought herself a Muslim, Nasrin responded,
- No, I am an atheist. All forms of religion are anachronistic to me. I dream of a world without religion. Religion gives birth to fundamentalism as surely as the seed gives birth to the tree. We can tear the tree down, but if the seed remains it will produce another tree. While the seed remains, we cannot root out fundamentalism.
In The Guardian (14 December 1994) when journalist Linda Grant mentioned that Muslim fundamentalists say that humanism is an import from the West, Nasrin responded,
- Humanism is not western or eastern or southern or northern. It is just humanism. They protest against me, but I am surprised that they don’t protest against inequality and injustice. What I have done is protested against the system which is against women. I have seen that, in the name of tradition, society wants to keep women in ignorance and slavery. . . . I realised from childhood that women were treated as childbearing machines or decorations, not human beings.
A 1995 poem, “Self Portrait,” appears in New Humanist (December, 1995) and commences
- I don’t believe in God.
- I look upon Nature with wondering eyes, However much I move forward
- grasping the hands of progress society’s hindrances take hold of my sleeve
- and gradually pull me backwards.
- I wish I could walk all through the city in the middle of the night,
- sitting down anywhere alone to cry. . . .
It ends
- Throughout the world,
- religion has extended its eighteen talons.
- In my lone brandishing,
- how many of its bones can I shatter.
- How much can I rip
- discrimination’s far-spreading net?
- Throughout the world,
“Taslima,” Salman Rushdie wrote in an open letter published in The New York Times (14 July 1994), “I know there must be a storm inside you now. . . . You have done nothing wrong. The wrong is committed by others against you. You have done nothing wrong, and I am sure that one day soon you will be free.”
In her Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1995, Nasrin said
- Again I dare to write against male-made religion. I believe that women are oppressed by every religion. If any religion allows the persecution of people of different faiths, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, if any religion keeps women in slavery, then I cannot accept that religion. Freedom for women will never be possible until they cross the barrier of religion and patriarchy.
In 1995, she wrote The Game in Reverse. Nasrin has published over 20 books, including Nirbachita Column (1991), which portrays the predicament of women in a male-dominated society.
Humanism
In 1996, Nasrin was elected a Humanist Laureate in the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism. She is an honorary associate of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists and is the Vice-Chair of the International Society for Islamic Secularization. She is an honorary member of the Bertrand Russell Society, having been inspired by his Why I Am Not a Christian, and is an activist member of the society's New York City chapter.
At the 1996 Mexico City conference of humanists, Jim Herrick described her as being “an atheist from personal experience. She grew up in a country where people were forced there by the partition of India on religious grounds. She accepted that religion could cause great art, but said that it also did too much damage. She began to apply her powers of observation, analysis and reason to religion and found she could not accept it at all. She used her writings to expose the crimes of religion, which teaches people to hate one another and glorifies poverty. The position of women concerned her and she questioned why women in the East should be deprived of education. Democracy and secularism should be put in practice throughout the world.”
Like Antigone and putting family above state, Dr. Nasrin alarmed her friends by returning in 1998 to Bangladesh after a forced four-year exile. She returned with her dying mother, whom she had brought to New York City for medical treatment. Upon her arrival, the religious fundamentalists immediately demanded her death. Again she was forced into hiding; again diplomatic overtures had to be made to rescue her for a return to Sweden. Her plight was described in Free Inquiry (Winter 1998-1999), with letters of support from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Wole Soyinka, Sir Hermann Bondi, Steven Weinberg, Sir Raymond Firth, Edward O. Wilson, and Mario Bunge.
Included was an interview, “One Brave Woman vs. Religious Fundamentalism,” by Matt Cherry and Warren Allen Smith, in which she said:
- When I began to study the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, I found many unreasonable ideas. The women in the Qur’an were treated as slaves. They were nothing but sexual objects.
- I don’t find any difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalists. I believe religion is the root, and from the root fundamentalism grows as a poisonous stem. If we remove fundamentalism and keep religion, then one day or another fundamentalism will grow again. I need to say that because some liberals always defend Islam and blame fundamentalists for creating problems. But Islam itself oppresses women. Islam itself doesn’t permit democracy and it violates human rights.
- When I was 14 or 15 years old, I found the Bengali translation of the Qur’an, and I learned what God says in the verses. I was surprised to read wrong information about the solar system in the Qur’an - for example, that the sun is moving around the earth and the earth is not moving but standing still because of the support of the mountains.
- [Religion] does not often teach people to love one another. On the contrary, it often teaches them to hate people of a different faith. Religion also leads people to depend on fate and thus lose self-confidence. It unnecessarily glorifies poverty and sacrifice and thus serves the vested interests of the wealthy few. In all countries and through all ages, conscientious people have exposed these unethical aspects of religion and educated people to see religion with the eyes of reason and logic.
- Nothing will be achieved by reforming Muslim scriptural tenets. What is needed is a change of the sharia, the code of laws based on the Qur’an. I want a uniform civil code that is equally applicable to men and women.
- I am an atheist. I do not believe in prayers. I believe in work. And my work is that of an author. My pen is my weapon.
Amar Meyebela (My Girlhood Days, published as Enfance, au Féminin, 1998, in a translation from Bengali by Philippe Benoît) was immediately banned in Bangladesh because “its contents might hurt the existing social system and religious sentiment of the people and could also create adverse reaction in the country.”
It is not a crime, she has argued, to be inquisitive, to demand that those who are responsible for abominable crimes against women, and the very women who are hurt, must not only think about oppression but also must insist that it be stopped:
- I thought it was natural to ask "why." I don't understand why they accepted being beaten by their husbands, being prevented from going outside without permission, being forced to marry somebody and stopping their studies after marriage. I know that this is a very, very difficult situation because if you divorce your husband and try to be independent, you'll be called "prostitute." But, you know, I don't care what people call me. Maybe that is the difference. If you want to be a human being, a good person, you first have to be bad in this society's eyes. If you're not willing to be "bad," you'll never be a truly strong and independent person
Nasrin's poetry, translated into English, can only hint at what it sounds like and means in her native language. The following, however, does suggest her Bengali style:
- Special Branch guards
- Are on twenty-four hour duty in front of my door.
- Who comes and who goes, when I leave, enter the house,
- They write down everything on a notebook. . . .
- Once I had the body of a queen
- Now it’s lowly, decrepit, an old house
- Plaster falling off
- Sad, but true
Nasrin’s plaintive poetry so appealed to Steve Lacy that he wrote “The Cry,” music based on her biting words that he turned into what he called a “jam opera,” one performed in 1998 in Washington, D.C. He got the idea in September 1994 after reading her “Happy Marriage” in The New Yorker, for he was inspired by Nasrin’s outspoken feminism in the face of Islamic anger concerning her writing. The work in progress, which necessitated protecting her from renewed death threats made by Muslim fundamentalists, was presented in Calais, France, in November 1996. An incident-free world premiere was held in Berlin at the Hebbel Theatre in January 1997, followed by performances at the Women’s Festival in Palermo, Italy, in March 1997, and later in Geneva, Bordeaux, Vancouver, Washington (the United States premiere), and Chicago.
Time (the Asian edition) described her as “one of the 20 most influential women in the 20th century,” and she became noted throughout the world. As of the end of 1999, Nasrin had moved from her hiding place in Sweden to one in Europe. She signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.
She has been called “the most dangerous woman in the world,” for she is a major spokesperson against patriarchy. If patriarchy were to be disbanded everywhere and males no longer took precedence over females as laid down in their Bible, the vested interests of Judeo-Christian-Muslim groups would be in jeopardy and religion would be replaced by something humanistic and in keeping with the times.
Impact
Nasrin is a firm supporter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]. Although it was adopted 10 December 1948 by member states of the United Nations, she is but one of many critics who are shocked that signatory nations are not living up to the declaration's demands that human rights be strictly afforded to all humans.
The Woman Without a Country
In 2005 Amnesty France nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. Although she did not win, in 2004 she won the UNESCO Prize for Tolerance and Non-Violence. She also has won India's Ananda Award; Bangladesh's Natyasava Award; the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought; the French Government's Human Rights Award; Sweden's PEN's Kurt Tucholsky Prize; the Hellman-Hammett Grant from America's Human Rights Watch; Norway's Humanist Award from Human-Etisk Forbund; and the 1994 Freedom From Religion Foundation's Feminist of the Year Award.
In 2009, along with U. S. Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand; lawyer at CUNY School of Law Rhonda Copelon, and Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington, Nasrin was honored by Feminist Press at their 39th Anniversary Gala Reception. She responded to the large group that had assembled:
- I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Feminist Press for honoring me along with such eminent personalities.
- I have been fighting for women's rights and freedom in those areas where women are still considered slaves, sexual objects, and child-bearing machines. Women are oppressed because of religion, tradition, culture, and customs.
- I believe that no woman is free until all women are free. While you and I tonight are celebrating at this gala event, thousands of women right now, in many countries, are getting beaten and raped, are becoming victims of trafficking, and are selling their body only to earn some money to avoid starving to death.
- I have witnessed what miserable lives women in poor countries live. In Muslim countries where patriarchy and religion rule supreme, women are not considered as human beings. Animals are treated better. In rich countries too, I have seen women who are second-class citizens even if they are not physically beaten, just psychologically and socially treated as inferiors.
- I strongly believe that education and economic freedom alone are not enough for women to be emancipated. We need to separate state and religion in every country. We need secular societies with a uniform civil code based on equality. Without fighting misogyny, we will never be able to free women.
- I dream of a beautiful world where no women will be oppressed. Because of my ideals, I have had to pay a heavy price. I have been living in exile for the last 15 years. I have no other option but to live in exile. Probably I will never be able to return to my home. There is no country in this wide world that I can call my home. Do I really have no home? Well, tonight I feel that I have a home. You who are feminists and progressive humanists who believe in freedom of expression are my home. You are my country, my home.
- For a Bengali writer it is difficult to survive in the West, but I am grateful to you for the sympathy, support, and solidarity that you have shown to me.
- Tonight’s honor has made me all the more committed to my, as well as our, cause. My sincere, sincere thanks to all of you.
in Kolkata, 2004
(See Taslima Nasrin's website - its "Late News" is regularly up-dated.)
{CA; E; “An Interview with Matt Cherry and Warren Allen Smith,” Free Inquiry, Winter 1998; Freethought History #13, 1995; HNS2; International Humanist News, March 1994 and December 1996; New Humanist, December 1996; Warren Allen Smith, “Taslima Nasrin: An Interview,” in Humanist in Canada, Summer 1998; Taslima Nasrin, “On Islamic Fundamentalism,” The Humanist, July-August 1996, which is an adaptation of her speech 28 April 1996 at Harvard University, where she was a resident scholar, sponsored by the Humanist Chaplaincy.}
