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“To stop saying the truth and not to write is a form of suicide”

— Photo: A. Roy Chowdhury

Taslima Nasrin: “What is at stake is not the individual Taslima; it concerns an issue: that of freedom of expression, of democracy.”

After the attack at the Press Club, Hyderabad, you reportedly said what you were witness to during the incident was “death.” How has the experience impacted your sense of life?

In one fell swoop life has become more valuable. I encountered death from so close it was almost like paying it a visit. For each millisecond of those 30 minutes the incident lasted I was reconciled to death having finally arrived. What was on my mind was how would the end come — whether through torture or otherwise. When I was subsequently rescued it was like I getting back from the jaws of death. Life to me is living to carry on the fight for what I believe in; death would have meant an end to it.

Indeed. Why else do I live? When I have a life I need to make use of it and make it meaningful. This is not the first time I have been threatened with death. The first was in 1989, in Bangladesh, when I started writing seriously. Since then I have been attacked, verbally and physically. I have had to leave my country, my works have been banned, I am left with living the life of an exile but that does not deter me from my convictions. Such adversities rather strengthen them. But the most recent attack in Hyderabad perhaps was the most horrific.

I am not just a humanist, I am also human. The incident continues to haunt me, like a nightmare. The scene keeps coming back to me in all its horror. When I think of it there is trembling within.

For how much longer do I flit from one country to another, one town to another, I often wonder. I have been doing so for the past 13 years. Fundamentalist forces are not just confined to one place; they are everywhere, their arms are long. And as they perceive me an enemy there is this constant talk of death. There have been regrets that I survived the Hyderabad attack and renewed threats have been made of beheading me. Where do I go? All I want is to live and write the way I am writing.

Yes, I am being provided security, and there are the consequent restrictions. Can I not want to walk like an ordinary person, go to the bazaar, visit friends like everyone else does? In one sense it is difficult leading such a life, in another it makes me more determined, strengthens my commitment to writing. What my words have to say are obviously taken seriously; how else does one explain these attacks on me? The truth hurts and some people are obviously very hurt; hurt enough to turn away from the truth by getting back at me. But to stop saying the truth and not to write is, for me, a form of suicide.

There has been an eternal hate campaign against me — from male chauvinists to fundamentalist forces and religious extremists. I have taken a major risk to speak out against Islamic fundamentalism, but I do so for the singular purpose of enlightening the Muslim community, to show them a more tolerant alternative.

So attacks like the one in Hyderabad have almost become inevitable. I have enemies among the fundamentalists belonging not only to the Muslim community but other communities too.

I have been attacked by extremists belonging to the Hindu and Christian communities as well, by those who are against equality for women. There have been organisations [in Bangladesh in 1991] like one called “Smash Taslim Committee.” Their intent was to pulverise me.

There have also been plans to attack me in other countries, in universities in the USA and the U.K. — for my writings and struggle for women’s rights and gender equality.

Such forces are on the rise across the world. In many cases the governments in power, the politicians, are responsible. Minorities are often kept appeased for political gains, the violence within the community often condoned. Even a section of the intelligentsia, with its talk of so-called liberalism, seems to be providing tacit support to religious extremism in the name of protecting them.

This minorityism ends up encouraging the forces of fundamentalism and conservatism that threaten enlightenment. Unless minorities are integrated into the mainstream they will remain segregated and as long as that is the case there is conservatism and religious intolerance.

The protests could surely have been more strident. What is at stake is not the individual Taslima; it concerns an issue: that of freedom of expression, of democracy. Whether I am a foreigner, “a refugee,” or not is not the case.

The attackers are calling me a refugee but do they think that none will be born in this country to write and speak the way I do?

Some of my colleagues are critical of the attack but they also keep attacking my writings. Why is that so? All my works are statements in favour of secular humanism, women rights, freedom, and gender equality. They speak against the Shariat law. I want to ask them which of my values they take exception to. If they find these values unacceptable then they too are dangerous.

There are intellectuals who often unwittingly play into the hands of advocates of religious extremism. They are only sharpening the swords of such fundamentalist forces. Yet they are referred to as progressives when what they are actually doing is leading society towards darkness, though the manner might be different from that of the fundamentalists who are working towards the same end. When Hindu fundamentalists attack the outcry is lot sharper; when Muslims extremists do so it is muted — all because the Muslim community is considered by progressives and others a minority community, deserving of protection.

When the attackers in Hyderabad rushed aggressively towards me there was a rage in their eyes, a hatred fanned by darker social forces. Perhaps the real enemies are not as easily visible.

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