Web Write-up Abed Chaudhury

Dear Mr. Khan

Editor Vinnomot:

(At the end could you please include my e-mail address achaudhury@hotmail.com so people can respond to me directly if they so desire.  This will be my last posting on your page)

When I first read your web-page and responded by writing a few comments on what I thought was outlandish and counter-productive for the presumed intent of what you are trying to do, my intention was not to get involved in the sort of mutual name-calling, “who is more scholarly? You or me”,  that is the ambience of your page.  After reading Dr. Jaffor Ullah’s response I went back to what I wrote and I am sorry to say that I did find some comments there that I made in my lack of judgement and haste that would justifiable irritate Dr. Ullah.  My intent was not to make implicit remarks of any sort about his or anyone else’s abilities at all and to the extent that he feels I have tried to belittle him, I apologise.  I am sure Dr. Ullah and others who contribute to your page are capable, educated people with very distinguished careers.

The point is not about elevating ourselves or dropping names or taking credit for this or that act of understanding and competence.  The point is to find a way by which genuine and sustainable modernity could come to our society, in Bangladesh as well as among our people in the Diaspora.  That is my limited goal and interest.  My goal is not to perform exegesis or exorcism or anything grandiose like that on other people.  Every person has his own autonomy and methods for leading his or material and spiritual life.  What I do or don’t do in Science, my professional credential or otherwise is not relevant in this context.  That is why I deliberately avoid using the title “Dr”.  That degree has relevance in a professional sense but is not relevant to my opinion in the matters that I wrote in your page.  And let me say once and for all, the realm of unknown is so vast that our comparative differences of knowledge about things is never significant.  As far as life and universe is concerned we are all blind people trying to map an elephant.

I think what I’ll do is to clarify what I wanted to say, point out where I think I have been misunderstood by Dr. Ullah and then leave it at that.  But as I do that, I must reiterate that if you want your page to nucleate genuine changes you have to reduce the stridency of the people who write in your page.  Change comes from calm reasoned understanding, not from frenzied fulminations.

In the very beginning Dr. Ullah has completely misunderstood the point I was trying to make about “racist and anti-Semitic” view.  I never said anything in your page fell in that category.  I simply made a general statement about the accepted limits of discourse.  Currently in liberal tradition expressions that can be construed as racist or anti-Semitic is taboo.  That was my way of indicating an exception to unfettered opinion.  Dr. Ullah, has concluded that I did not know what “ant-Semitic” was and has gone on to accuse me of saying something that I did not.  The way I would brand some of the postings on your page would be “offensive and tasteless”.  Now of course that is a subjective judgement.  We could discuss the semantics of what is tasteless and what is offensive till cows come home but we all have a barometer of what is tasteless and offensive.  My barometer said that many comments, especially ones directed at the prophet of Islam, especially ones where assumptions were made about how someone’s mind was free or not were gratuitous and offensive.  So that is my opinion, of course.  As anybody who is a student of comparative culture would say, these matters are always a matter of taste.  It is of course your prerogative to create an ambience that others may find distasteful.

I have been a student of Biology for many years now (and that is what we all are, students) and have been a student of cognitive biology for a while.  So I am familiar with Darwinism, Neural Darwinism, biotechnology, genetics, genomics etc.  A few years ago I wrote a book on human genome called Manabgenome in Bangla.  So although dwarfed like anybody else by the awesome extent of what remains unknown I have tried to study and understand Biology.  Darwinism or any other scientific idea or experimental results challenge the literal and specific version of a particular religious belief system.  It has nothing to say about the impulse of belief.  Impulse of belief is like impulse of love, or an impulse of the feeling of beauty, or an impulse towards spirituality.  It is a human condition.  That is why there are more religious people in the world than there are rational atheists.  In fact atheism itself is a belief system, a leap of faith that says that Cartesian rationality is the engine of the universe.  I was trying to make a point about the neuronal propensity for an idealised belief system, not trying to defend this or that brand of organised belief system.  That often comes because of ancestry and childhood indoctrination. 

The propensity of belief is harnessed by this or that religion just like the primal language instinct is harnessed by a specific language.  Just like we speak particular language, although we are capable of speaking any language if we learnt it as a child, so it is that we believe this or that version of religion although we are capable of believing any.  In that view, atheism is not a profound intellectual position but an adherence in the belief system of Cartesian rationality.  Marxism is a belief system based on Hegelian idea of history behaving like an organic being.  These are all models, human constructs designed to understand the unfathomable complexities of the universe. 

I was trying to describe it in a way that I understand.  I was not dropping names at all.  Why would I want to do that?  Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is like second nature to most people I know.  I was trying to make a point by citing that dilemma of how by looking at something we change it.  In a deep level what is says is that universe is ultimately unknowable.  It is a challenge to materialistic certainty.  Professor Salam talked about that in an interview that I read that has been compiled in a book.  He did not keep this sense of wonder out of public view.  In fact Prof. Salam went a step further and said that the sense of wonder that he feels from natural world is also the one he feels when he reads the Quran.  I must say that direct and explicit statement surprised me.   I cited that as an example of how scientists too could steer towards religious mystical feeling.  I know very well that this example does not prove anything.  It simply indicates the frailty and tentativeness of human knowledge.  I was not at all trying to prove or strengthen the validity of the Quran by that statement.  Whether or not one believes in the Quran or any other book is a personal decision of that putative believer.  I do not think that belief can be engineered by argument.  I was trying to establish the validity of a religious paradigm as a valid impulse that is never defeated by science.  Steven J Gould, a leading evolutionary thinker and probably the most incisive theorist of modern biology of current epoch has articulated this view better than anybody else.  Please don’t respond by saying that I am dropping names.  I am sure you have already read Gould and his views about religion.  

I am not a “closet believer” masquerading as a “free thinker”.  I am an open believer of the uncertainty of human mind and I have a strong spiritual religious impulse.  Most people I know including scientists have that.  I believe that, just like a sense of artistic beauty belong to a different paradigm than, say adding two numbers or solving a differential equation so it is for religious impulse.  So it is for taste and respect for tradition, history, folk-lore, etc.  These are not inevitable conclusion drawn from rationality; they are perceived and esteemed heritage of humanity.  Perceived because it is based on the taste and perception of people.  To outsiders who do not share these perceptions such feelings have no meaning.  That is why what is sacred and of heritage-value to one person is a matter to be despised by another.

Founders of religion, such as Ibrahim (peace be upon him, pbuh), Moses (pbuh), Jesus (pbuh), and Muhammad (pbuh) to me fall in this category.  Respecting them is an automatic part of my culture and sense of civilisation.  Just like in contemporary times I respect the Pope, Nelson Mandela and a few others.  It is part of my breeding and culture to respect them just like it is part of me to not trample on a bouquet of flower.  It is an ad-hoc decision based on an assumption that is very human.  And that assumption is subjective.  Other people can decide on their own view about these matters.  But to me, attacking the prophet of Islam in what I perceive as vile language is not tasteful.  It cannot be part of any civilised exegesis.  It is tantamount to spewing hate.  I do not believe anybody’s mind will be changed by this tactic.  I may be wrong.  But based on what I know about human nature I doubt if this strategy will work towards bringing genuine changes in our or any society.

And that is where I differ from many of your colleagues.  I have the feeling that many of you are interested in a “I am more rational than you are” type of mentality not unlike “I am more religious than you are” type that I often see in believers of organised religion. 

People of faith have my respect and understanding.  There exists a robust tradition of interfaith dialog in the world now.  The Catholic Church has played a leading role in it; many Islamic scholars are also part of that dialog.  I think through a shared sense of camaraderie and understanding, all kinds of intolerance and nihilism can be defeated.  There is no question that Muslims must find a tranquil core of sustainable peace and civility in their societies.  But that is a complex process; it is not going to happen through sanctimonious pronouncements about rationality.  That model has already been practised by our Sufi preachers including people like Hazrat Mainuddin Chishti and Hazrat ShahJalal.  What came into being in Eastern Bengal starting from 14^th century onwards was a syncretism whose true significance we have not understood yet.  It is not boutique Islam, for many in our land it is Islam.  In my own way I am trying to talk about this tradition-laden view and resuscitate it.  Not being a conventional scholar of history of human anthropology I am sure I will not do a scholarly job.  But I intend to bring out the essential feature of those times that produced for us a syncretic heritage that combined good ideas of Budhhism, Hinduism and Islam.

From some of the statements of Dr. Ullah it seems that he is upset that I write for “The Holiday” in Dhaka.  I did not know that writing in a newspaper is tantamount to endorsing the view of the editor.  Is it a valid premise of a person who is “free thinking?”.  This brings me to Mr. Narayan Gupta.  (I must say I was devastated to hear about his death from your page)  For the last few years or so every time I wrote something in Holiday he used to write to me with some comments about what I wrote and also commented, sometimes disapprovingly, about the fact that I was writing in “The Holiday”.  For some reason he had a great affection for me which used to move me.  When I pointed out to him that I was a mere column-writer in that weekly, not necessarily an endorser of the politics of its editor he wrote to me the following.  This was his last letter to me and I cite it for everyone who knew him and also to make a point (he has written quickly for an e-mail so please forgive the typos):

“I do apologise for misunderstanding about your ties with The Holiday. One other aspect I forgot to mention. About 3 years ago, on or about Janmasthami holiday, in a signed editorial Mintu Mia called Lord (?) Sri Krishna a womeniser because of his flirting with the Gopinis in Brindaban. And thus there was no logic in setting aside this day as a public holiday in the (almost Islamic) republic of Bangladesh. What a strong logic and venom against someone who is only a mythical figure of a dwindling minority faith. Though there is a blasphamy law in the book, such an outragious statement did now wake up the Bengali sentiment at all. Why should it? After all, are we not products of deceptions after all? And there will always some excuse to kiss the devil? There was nothing against the content of your essay. My discomfort was at the association of such good people with Bohurupees. Same complain is about Mr. Barduddin Omar.”  

I am citing this because what late Mr. Gupta felt about Sri Krishna on that occasion was predicated by what I would describe as a religious impulse.  I have read elsewhere that he was not a religious man, but he clearly did not see Lord Krishna as a cut-and-tried mukto-mona rationalist would.  He considered comments directed against Lord Krishna as “blasphemopus”.  As a deeply sensitive man he harboured in him, as he should, a sense of sanctity and respect for religious icons.

I will not explicitly point out the parallel between this episode and what I originally stated about views expressed in your web-site about the prophet of Islam.  I think intelligent readers can see it.

Since I will not re-engage in what I consider to be a futile banter between incompatible views, I end this with once again expressing my good wishes to you and also to the memory of late Narayan Gupta; I just realised that I will not hear from him again.  May he rest in peace.