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Obscurantists and hate mongers are the reason why Humayun Azad is no longer with us. The
secular people of Bangladesh have lost a great voice and an uncompromising
intellectual of our time. Dr. Humayun Azad did not compromise on his
views, principle, and philosophy. He stood tall against all the
obscurantists including fascist political Islamists; he was ready to wage a
war against them using his mighty pen. The late professor threatened
them and their old-age ideology with his powerful pen. However, the
political hyenas of Islamic origin threatened him by their �blunt� knives.
These hyenas knew that they would not be able to kill the philosophy of Dr.
Azad merely by writing any inordinate amounts of articles. Instead of
using pens, the political Islamists chose to use knives to kill him.
They failed in their aggressive and well-planned attack. Nevertheless,
they did not give up. The hyenas generally do not give up so easily.
The hyenas of political Islam are not exceptional compared to their species,
which live in the jungle. The
political Islamists continued their threats both directly and indirectly.
Newspaper pages were filled with stories that will testify my assertion.
One of the local vernacular newspapers, Inquilab, took the lead in this
villainous effort.
To
inflict pain on the poet cum essayist, the vile gang even tried to abduct his
son and threatened to kill his whole family. All these were happening in
a country where there was a government in power. Unfortunately, a big
part of the government is under the control of the political Islamists in
Bangladesh. Therefore, the hyenas were fearless and were actively
pursuing their agenda to keep Dr. Azad under mental stress. In fact, he
did not get the time and opportunity to recover mentally and physically from
the severe attack that the political Islamists unleashed upon him only 5
months ago. I understand that he left for Germany very recently to do
research on nineteenth century German romantic poet Heinrich Heine. I'm
sure that he was worrying for his loved ones whom he left behind in
Bangladesh. He was worrying for the well being of his wife, for his
daughters, and for his son. In a lonely and desolate environment, he was
passing last few days of his life with no peace in his mind. Certainly,
he was under tremendous stress.
The present and previous conditions might have caused severe pressure
on his health.
The German authorities have pointed out that Prof. Azad may have died
of stroke. Nonetheless,
there is a legitimate concern for those who loves him to find out the real
cause of his sudden demise while he was sleeping. The demand for a
proper postmortem is a realistic one. However, do we need to wait for
the postmortem to know the cause of his premature death? For an
unnatural death, the postmortem is done to carry out subsequent investigation.
In particular, if it is suspected that there were killers behind the death,
then the postmortem lead toward finding and capturing the killers. In
the case of Dr. Azad, there were attacks upon him because of Fatwas by the
political Islamists. The criminals openly declared him Murtaad
(apostate). By this declaration and Fatwas, the political Islamists
encouraged their goons to attack him and continued to threaten him and his
family. The killers threatened him even in the parliament.
Therefore, without postmortem, we should know who the silent killers were.
The defeated political force of 1971 that includes the Islamists is the
killer. Unfortunately, they are now in the cabinet, in the parliament,
and in the administration. We do not need a detail account of Prof.
Azad�s death to discern the fact that the gangs of the political Islamists,
who are doing politics and sharing power under the umbrella of Jamaat-i-Islami,
are the real killer of the renowned academic. The late professor was
disheartened to know that the government as usual had miserably failed to
track down the gang of murderers who attacked him on the fateful night of
February 27, 2004. A
particular ideology is working behind the scene to wipe out the voices of
rationality and freethinking in Bangladesh.
Those ideologues and champions of obscurantism are the real killer of
Prof. Azad
If we don't nip the philosophy of killing and obscurantism, Bangladesh
won't be able to protect the great voice of humanity and intellectual like Dr.
Humayun Azad. Let us grieve the premature death of a great soul.
But at the same time let us be duty-bound to fight obscurantism and
hate promoting in our motherland.
Dark days have indeed engulfed Bangladesh.
Unless we take actions through writing, giving seminars, and staging
debates, there is no hope for this hapless nation of 140 million people. -------------------------------------- Dr. Shabbir Ahmed writes from Jacksonville, Florida |
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