Freethoughtblogs now hosts Taslima Nasreen.
She’s awesome. Excuse us while the whole network preens in her reflected glory.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Freethoughtblogs now hosts Taslima Nasreen.
She’s awesome. Excuse us while the whole network preens in her reflected glory.
Now if y’all can only find the glitch that keeps her blog from being listed on the home page and in the sidebar.
OH YES! Taslima Nasreen is one of my favourite authors of all time.
A tireless activist and her post on Rushdie is just awesome.
Nice work PZ!
Louis
Hip Hip Hooray! Taslima has joined Freethoughtblogs!
It is great that Freethoughtblogs has added another great blogger to their ranks!
A blogger has shown up who I’ve heard of outside the blogosphere.
Now this will be interesting to read! She is an atheist feminist somewhat in the style of Riane Eisler, so I doubt that I will find any of her books in the public libraries in Mississippi, but I will spend a little money to buy them.
She’s a birdbath? O.o
Dropped in to say howdy, saw some good stuff there. Glad to have her with us.
I am sorry, but I cannot concur that she will be an asset to this site.
Having read her first article comparing herself and her struggles to other more “privileged representatives” that had to suffer a fatwa under Islamic law, I am stunned that such a whiny and self congratulatory article – my sufferings are worse than theirs, so there, I am a better victim – would be acceptable.
kraut, thanks for apologizing for trivializing the enslavement and exploitation of females by the patriarchy for the last six thousand years. Yeah, yeah, we know, that didn’t/doesn’t happen; the gals are just paranoid and so they whine in that childish, annoying manner.
to the thewhollynone
“In his personal life, Rushdie is highly conceited; I am its exact opposite. Rushdie is gallivanting with one young woman after another, his playthings many years his junior. His senile pranks are not considered pranks; rather, he is regarded as a strong, virile, bodacious lover-boy – an object of envy to many younger men.”
What does this have to do with “thanks for apologizing for trivializing the enslavement and exploitation of females by the patriarchy for the last six thousand years.”
It is nothing but a mean spirited personal attack. And not lacking of self praise, for sure…I am the better victim, look at me.
“Eventually, I have been ousted from India. Salman Rushdie was celebrating freedom of speech by cunningly ignoring my glowing history. He can do whatever he wants”
Petty jealousy, nothing else.
“Rushdie was amongst other European authors who wrote an open letter for me during those desperate period when I was forced to live in hiding after the Bangladesh government filed a case against me on the charges of blasphemy. Finally, when I was expelled and living in exile, I heard that Rushdie apparently got furious after reading my opinion about him published in Das Spiegel, a German magazine. In that piece, I expressed my disappointment at Rushdie’s begging for forgiveness to Mullahs in response to the fatwa, which I thought was decidedly cowardly.”
Rushdie supports her, and she blames him for cowardice? And she is astonished about his non approval for her actions? Did she ever investigate his reasons for what he did? I assumme Galileo to her is nothing but a fucking coward either.
Not everybody behaves like an oak – the smarter ones play the willow.
“Because, despite my insignificance, I hold my principles very dear” faux humility if there ever was a sentence displaying it.
” Many of those who consider Rushdie a good writer have not read his books. Many of those who call me a bad writer have not read a word of my writings.”
Yes, I consider him a great writer and I have read several of his books, including the Satanic Verses.
But not enough of displaying her victimhood as opposed to Rushdie as the better one, now she goes after someone else too:
“Thereafter, I went through all of Hussein’s paintings minutely, seeking to find if he had ever mocked any religion other than Hinduism, especially his own, Islam. I found zilch. Instead, he has used the word ‘Allah’, written in Arabic, on his canvas with much respect and care.”
Her own writings portray her as a petty, spiteful, hateful and deeply hurt woman, who directs her hurt at everyone not 100% agreeing with her.
I have no use for such one in a place like FTB.
Good thing noone’s asking you then. Feel free to go elsewhere.
I think it’s a little sad that you quoted an overt description of a misogynistic double-standard in play and then had the nerve to ask that question.
P.S. How dare this woman disapprove of people conflating her with people she disagrees with? Doesn’t she know that those men are clearly her betters? She ought to be complimented by the comparison, not stand up for her own principles! And how dare she say anything about what she’s sacrificed for those principles? It might make some man feel inferior, and we can’t fucking have that! Stand back, ladies, kraut is the sole fucking arbiter of your modesty.
If that wasn’t clear enough, the drift of what I’m saying is, fuck off, you asshole.
While I wouldn’t agree with kraut, the amount of self-praise in Taslima Nasrin’s opening post was embarrassing. Nor does the long history of women being enslaved and exploited mean we should not criticise individual women – even immensely brave and talented ones like Taslima Nasrin.
“If that wasn’t clear enough, the drift of what I’m saying is, fuck off, you asshole.”
Ah, thank you for your kind invitation.
I know, it is so wrong to criticize the symbols of true …whatever it is they are true to.
Even if it means to defend pettiness and spitefulness and back stabbing.
Criticism is one thing, but kraut advocated SILENCING the woman, refusing her the forum in which to speak, even though he is not forced to listen or to read her blog. We have had a bit too much of that attitude from the patriarchy to tolerate it.
“but kraut advocated SILENCING the woman, refusing her the forum in which to speak”
Now read very carefully what I wrote and ponder the meaning:
“I have no use for such one in a place like FTB.”
See that I at the beginning? Look again, it says I, very clearly.
And then it is “have no use”..that means I, not you, because I don’t know what use you have for someone like her, have no use for her opinions and statements.
Again, I do not advocate to shut her up, I just say with postings like that and the recent posting about sex slavery, completely evidence free and pulled out from somewhere but not rational thought, she writes at the wrong place.
She can write all she wants and spout nonsense as long as the day is light and the night is dark, but at a site that has some commitment to rational thought and opinions and statements based on evidence…naah, I think she is as wrong here as maybe Loftus was.
From the responses to my posts and the mental gymnastics engaged in to construe motives out of rather thin air shows a certain herd mentality that I have especially encountered at PZ’s site, where uncritical hero worship often seems par for the course.
kraut, uncritical hero worhip is not coming your way, so don’t bother to duck.
Here’s how I feel about the self-praise:
1. I wouldn’t have written it that way. But I also haven’t done what she has, and I know damn well I wouldn’t have handled it with the bravery she’s shown.
2. The points that she was making – namely that she is being conflated with men she disagrees with in a way that is markedly sexist, and that calling her the female version of these men is somewhat insulting when her actions have cost her more than theirs have – are both important to make and difficult to make without some measure of self-praise.
3. The social conditioning to undervalue our own achievements, though it affects all of us, disproportionately affects women, and therefore I think that it’s dangerous ground to criticize a woman for not being sufficiently self-deprecating about her achievements when they are real. Hence I prefer to leave it alone. Usually I wouldn’t snap at people for not doing so, but kraut went further than you did, as you acknowledged. Kraut went so far as to kvetch about her “whining” about her very real victimhood, to use “hurt” as an insult in respect to someone who has been targeted by misogyny, bigotry, and violence, and to call her “jealous” for describing and calling out the imbalanced responses to her and to Rushdie. He also insulted her for not bending to pressure, which is just slimy.
Ick! If you’re going to kick around the antifeminists’ strawman, I hope you’ll take a shower afterward.
You know what I think is funny? While I’m not saying it’s wrong to criticize people because they’re symbols of things, you’d look like a real idiot if you’d finished the sentence. I can see why you chose not to. “The symbols of true resistance to religious bigotry and misogyny at great personal cost.” Hard to say that with a sneer, isn’t it?
She has every right to reject any grouping her with others that is not justified. She even has the right to go farther than just rejecting this comparison and attacking those pesonally that supported her – but I have the right to reject her because of this behaviour.
She choose to combine personal attacks on two fellow travelers – in her mind and in reality not so fellow after all – by sliming them, by referring to their sexual behaviours, by praising her own unbending stance and pissing on those who do not take that stance for whatever personal reasons to enhance her own standing.
She in this posting and the recent one about sexual slavery comes across as a person who is behaving similar to any fundamentalist that I have ever read – absolutist, not bothered about evidence, righteous, digging in the mud of the personal flaws of those that do not 100% agree with her.
Her suffering is in part the result having chosen to be unbending and rather breaking than compromising.
This choice is hers to make, and she can fault others for not making the same choices.
In doing so however I have every right to reject her stance and her propensity to denigrate and kick to the curb those who do not follow her example.
“The symbols of true resistance to religious bigotry and misogyny at great personal cost.” Hard to say that with a sneer, isn’t it?”
True resistance can take on many forms. No, I have no problem sneering at those who use their suffering as a weapon against those who she thinks are insufficiently “true ” to the cause, smearing them in the process.
I have no problem when she using her suffering as a weapon against her real oppressors.
She could have easily avoided the personal attacks and just lay out the differences between her and those she was compared to.
No, she had chosen to to differently, and for that I fault her and really dislike her.
You’re fucking victim-blaming slime. Into the killfile with you, scumbag.
In light of the utter lunacy of the last post by cassandra I have come to question the reality of Mrs. Nasreen’s claims of victimhood.
Mrs. Nasreem had chosen to oppose the status quo in the countries that violate basic human rights.
By doing that she must have been aware – knowing the historical reactions to any such attempt – of the consequences, and was willing to suffer the same.
A victim to me is someone who is attacked and violated against by simple being – a person of colour, a women, gay, whatever.
If you chose to oppose that status, you are no longer an “innocent”, you are a player and an opponent who willingly engages the forces lined up against you. You are an opponent, a fighter. A fighter loosing is not a victim, it is someone who just lost a fight. It is acceptable, and tragic, but you are not a victim because you had chosen to fight.
It seems a particular western, especially North American attitude to colour all that loose a fight as victims, thus making the term meaningless for those who are truly victims – by just being what they are having to suffer discrimination and being violated against – and diminishing the fighter for rights and against oppression, pushing him into the role of the hapless victim that as a fighter he never was.
Mrs. Nasreen diminished herself by casting herself into a victims role.
Mrs. Nasreem choose the manner of her fight fight, and had to expect the reactions. Casting her into the role of a victim just makes her out to be a clueless idiot.
Ah, we see, kraut She’s a “loose” woman. Had to get that in there, did you! Goodness, but you are a male chauvinist caricature, trotting out all the tired old arguments for why females should just be quiet and accept victimization unless they want to speak out and die, and in that case they are no longer victims so don’t deserve sympathy or attention. Kind of a lose/lose situation for females, don’t you think, kraut? Somehow I think that was the intention of the patriarchal men who invented that tired old argument thousands of years ago.
If I were you, I wouldn’t be talking about someone being a “clueless idiot” because the wind might blow that fowl feces right back in your face.
” but you are a male chauvinist caricature, trotting out all the tired old arguments for why females should just be quiet and accept victimization unless they want to speak out and die, and in that case they are no longer victims so don’t deserve sympathy or attention.”
Does not make sense to further argue with someone suffering severe reading comprehension, or that their ideological blinders are so tightly wrapped around their head that not ideas and arguments can be comprehended and rationally argued against hat deviates from their preconceptions.
“someone being a “clueless idiot” because the wind might blow that fowl feces right back in your face.”
This statement shows clearly when compared to what I actually said:
“Casting her into the role of a victim just makes her out to be a clueless idiot.”
that the poster is unwilling to rationally dispute the statement but relies on slander, twisting the statements made to confirm to the ideas of his/her ideology
In any case – further discussion on this Fox News level slander is unproductive.