“I Will Never Be Silenced”<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

by Taslima Nasrin

 

What follows is a slightly adapted version of a speech addressed by the exiled Bangladeshi writer and activist Taslima Nasrin to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on 17 December, 2002. Taslima was a member of IHEU’s UNESCO NGO delegation, 1999–2000.

 

“I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for your having invited me to the European Parliament in commemoration of the anniversary of my having received the Sakharov Prize in 1994. I am proud to be one of the winners of the Sakharov Prize. Receiving this esteemed prize helped greatly to give me the inspiration and courage to go on with my struggle for equality and justice for everybody, whatever their religion and gender.

 

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. This, of course, is the basic human right. But, shockingly, very few people in some countries enjoy this freedom. They are not encouraged to think differently, not allowed to do things differently.

 

I came from a country where religious fundamentalists, including governmental authorities, denied my freedom to have thoughts different from their own. As punishment, they demanded my execution by hanging. I was forced to leave my own country. I had to pay heavily for the sole reason that I believe in human rights and freedom of expression. For more than a decade, I have been struggling to help people understand the importance of freedom of thought, which is an essential part of human rights as well as of democracy. Like me, thousands of fellow sufferers have had the same struggle. Some are in prison, some in exile.

 

The fundamentalists are increasing in number. People, afraid to oppose the fundamentalists, keep their mouths shut. It is really very difficult to make people move against a sensitive issue like religion. Yet religion is the source of fundamentalism. Probably we will not be able to see any dramatic change in Muslim society, for it is in the backyard of modern history. But we should not give up; we have to fight the fundamentalists to create a better world.

 

All religions are oppressive to women. All religions are against democracy, human rights and freedom of expression. So, in the West, we see the separation of state and church. But most of the Muslim countries still have 7th-century Sharia law, in which women are oppressed, human rights are violated and freedom of expression is not respected. Now, secularization of Islamic countries is urgently necessary as well as secular education instead of religious education. We cannot create any good by using bombs.

 

I am not a pessimistic person. I believe that if the silent majority were to protest against those who believe in irrational blind faith and who want to go backwards instead of forwards, who are for tradition not innovation, who oppose individualism and plurality of thought, then the world would become a truly civilized place in which to live. To eradicate poverty and illiteracy, to rid it of dogma, bigotry, and all kinds of obscurantism, to bring light to the darkness, what is urgently needed is worldwide enlightenment.

 

Freedom of expression for some is not enough. We must work for the freedom of expression for all.

 

Human rights for some is not enough. We must work for the human rights of all.

Justice for some is not enough. We must work for justice for all.

 

Peace for some is not enough. All must be free from violence and aggression.

 

I, come what may, will not be silenced. Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death. Come what may, I will never be silenced.”