archive: Bengali Woman Writes Book, Takes Heat
Bengali Woman Writes Book, Takes Heat
Julian E. Barnes
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Title: Bengali Woman Writes Book, Takes Heat
Author: Julian E. Barnes
Publication:
Date:
Bengali Woman Writes Book, Takes Heat
Mina Saha Farah, a Bengali dentist who lives and works in Queens and
has written for Bengali newspapers, insists that when she started out
to write a book last November, she planned it as a critique of
organized religion.
But the final product, which Dr. Farah is spending some $8,000 of her
own money to publish next week, singles out Islam for the toughest
criticism. It argues that a growing fundamentalism is blinding Muslim
Bengalis, preventing them from joining the ''high-tech revolution''
and prospering economically, and relegating women to subservient
roles. ''People should have the freedom to speak and to think,'' she
said in an interview last week. ''We are become more of a mosque-based
society rather than a free-minded society.''
Dr. Farah's thesis has been raised by many Western scholars But what
is different is her role as a well-known member of the city's Bengali
immigrant community. Since February, when word of her book and its
title, ''God on Trial,'' began circulating within that community, she
has been criticized by some immigrant groups whose officials disagree
with Dr. Farah's assessment of Islam.
The book, and the angry pre-publication reaction it has provoked, has
brought into sharp relief divisions between religious and more secular
Bengali immigrants over what role religion should play in America and
how freely Bengalis should criticize Islam or their own community.
''Mina Farah should spend her money and her talents to help her
community, not to divide it,'' said Showkat Ali, the president of the
Bangladesh Journalists Association of North America, who lives in
downtown Brooklyn. ''We all have a responsibility to our culture.''
Dr. Farah, who was born into a Hindu family and married a Muslim, said
she does not consider herself a member of any particular faith. In the
last few months, she said, telephone callers to her home have cursed
her, called her a nonbeliever and made vague threats against her
family. The owner of the city's largest Bengali-language bookstore,
Bishawajit Saha, said he had also received threatening calls, although
he planned to stock ''God on Trial'' at his shop, Muktadhara, on 74th
Street in Jackson Heights, Queens.
''Already some people have called, they say you don't do this,'' Mr.
Saha said. ''I know it is a controversial book but we respect
democracy.'' Mr. Saha said his store was vandalized in 1992 when he
sold the novels of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, an outspoken
critic of Islam.
But Dr. Farah's critics say she should not be compared to Miss Nasrin.
''People might demonstrate and boycott against her, Abdul Quddus
Chaudhury Mohammad, the director of the Muslim Foundation of America,
said of Dr. Farah. ''They might even excommunicate her. But I don't
believe any illicit action will be taken. People enjoy the freedom of
America. People are not going to jeopardize that.'' [This news story
was published in The New York Times on June 6, 1999]
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