“God is
great; hang the atheists.” (Chant of some of hundreds of thousands in
Bangladesh’s capital)
Humanity
has progressed so far in rational thought and freedom, so much so that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and
observance.” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 18). It is a basic
human right to be able to believe what you want, to openly believe what you
want. I, as a female, am allowed to vote; I can ride a bike in public (whether
I would or not is another story altogether :P); I can wear what I like. We have
come to acknowledge that if a woman gets raped it is not her fault for dressing
too provocatively, or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it’s
the assailant’s fault for being a sick in the head.
However, there are places on this “utopia” that
are stuck well over half a millennia ago.
There are some truly disgusting scum of the
earth who have “hurt the religious feelings of the
people by writing against different religions and their prophets and founders
including the Prophet Mohammed,” (deputy commissioner of the Dhaka police,
Molla Nazrul Islam). These horrible atheists have actually had the audacity to
be atheists. How dare they blaspheme? They should be put to death.
(Sarcasm in case you couldn’t tell).
It saddens me that although we live in a
time where we can find other planets we could inhabit, or discover entire
species, there exist societies who are so insecure about their beliefs, so
childish in their hatred of freedom and liberty, that they would demand death
in hordes of hundreds of thousands to for these people for seeking out their
own answers.
What’s worse is that no one is doing
anything about it. There are apologists who condemn the protection of these
people because they wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. These men are
people, and they are being denied the right to live simply for not believing in
god (or at least not believing in the right one).
"I've come here to fight for Islam. We won't
allow any bloggers to blaspheme our religion and our beloved Prophet Mohammed." (Shahidul Islam, an
imam at a mosque outside Dhaka who walked 20 kilometres.)
Being
born into any religion/culture is not an excuse for justifying the condemnation
of a basic human right. I am not an “Islamophobe”. I think we should all be
free to believe what we want. I don’t believe in any supreme being, but there
is very high chance that you, the reader, do. And that is exactly how the world
should be. What I do not agree with, however, is the primitive belief that some
people are less worthy of life than others simply because they don’t agree with
us.
So, believe in [insert deity(s) here],
don’t believe in [insert deity(s) here], I honestly don’t care. Just don’t, for
the love of humanity and all that we have achieved, kill for your beliefs.
