“Name”

Leela, I always enjoy your carefully reasoned, well thought out posts! You manage to elucidate the issue at hand (here, the significance of names and what they represent) clearly and logically, while injecting a much needed shot of wit to remind us that cartoons are least amongst our problems. You are a breath of fresh air.

Leela,

I see Addafication has slowed down to a trickle and that you haven’t been writing all that much. I hope this is more because of being busy rather than anything else. I for one have enjoyed your posts, and this one is really a gem since it asks that all-important question: is “preaching” and impinging on the privacy of others a part of our religiosity?

Are we ready for a libertarian reading of Islam? Is that even halal?:)

Cartoonist Mr. Asif is 20 or early 20s. He might have done this non-sense deliberately, to get the publicity to the level of celebrity and/or with the intention opening up some avenues of migration to the free lands
like Denmark, UK, USA etc. I don’t think he was naive as his well-wishers try to portray him. He must have known what percentage of our citizens have profound faith and love in Islam and its prophet. This type event was not first time in 36 years of Bangladesh. We have seen more agitation with Doud Haider’s poem and Taslima Nasrin’s book Lojja. If Mr Arif had been smart [not over-smart!] shouldn’t have committed the same mistake.
I would request the well-wishers of Arif to remember the case-scenario of Mattorajji of Italian Soccer team and Zedan of French team of last world cup. Mattorajji didn’t hurt Zidan physically but what he did was far harsher assult than physical. That compelled Zidan to butt-head Mattorajji. But people later admitted that Mattorajji is the criminal/offender, not Mr. Zidan.
Hurting any single individual physically, financially, socially or psychologically is offence or crime. Freedom doesn’t provide licence to hurt any body in any forms. Here the cartoonist hurt the millions, not single or few individuals.

I’m also critique of most stupid naming system of our subcontinent. There are so many criticisms and stories we hear about oddities
about our naming. For, example, I found a name Abu Khuda meaning father of God/Allah. I believe, people didn’t keep the name fully knowing the meaning. By our tradition we go by Mohammed, Abu, Ali, Ahmed and so on. But the way, Mr Arif did it was not a smart way. It looks too naive or over-smart.

Bitterboy - you say he “might have done this non-sense deliberately”. How is this anything but speculation. Have you gone and asked him? Has he personally come out of detention and told you something? If not, you are basically justifying detaining the man for a month because of some idle speculation of yours. Here’s an analogy that I think you’ll understand. Suppose Saif thinks Bitterboy is mad. Saif has no proof, but Saif bases this on the fact that Bitterboy has a “tt” in the middle of his name, and he once knew this man named Sattar who was also stark mad. Plus Saif bases this on some speculation that Bitterboy is mad because who names himself Bitterboy anyway but a mad man? We can, under your reasoning, only come to one conclusion: “Therefore Bitterboy must be sent to Pabna mental clinic”. What’s wrong with this picture?

And it’s a ridiculous suggestion that he planned this elaborate charade. I don’t think anyone plans on a situation where they are going to receive death threats that might - in the way that some people in our country think - actually be fulfilled.

Speaking to your “psychological” offence or crime argument and how Asif qualifies, I think you must look at my piece on the day of the arrest called “Sheen-Ha-Dal”. It lays the matter out in a very simple fashion. What Asif did cannot qualify as an offence because he did not do anything.

But let’s say I grant you the argument for the sake of the argument that Asif hurt you and others in Dhaka emotionally or psychologically with his cartoon. Isn’t it a little odd to convict Asif for what goes on in YOUR mind rather than what HE actually did. We all do and say things that somewhere along the line hurts someone emotionally. And to be sure, we’ve written stuff here (and you’ve written things in your comments around the blogosphere) that hurts someone at sometime. Heaven help us if we and you would have to be punished contingent on whether someone’s feelings were rightfully or wrongfully hurt.

I want to go back to the statement you make about the profoundness of our love for Islam and the Prophet (pbuh). Bhai - a basic element of Islamic adab (or etiquette) that the Prophet taught was “husn- addhann”, i.e., giving people that one interacts with the benefit of good intentions and the benefit of the doubt unless faced with proof to the contrary. The sad thing is that adab is a scarce resource these days. The profoundness of our love for the Prophet needs more substance and less sloganeering

- Saif

bitteryboy is simply repeating what a commenter named Hasib has said on Zafa’s blog. I replied to him there and I’d direct you to check it out.

Note the game being played here: the comparison is automatically with Taslima Nasrin and THAT should have been an indication for Arif, and therefore, he did it deliberately.

Now we his supporters can argue that a similar joke was published in a Jamaat-backed newspaper WITHOUT PROTEST, and THAT gave the signal to Arif that it was ok to publish such jokes, but who’s listening?

Saif, did you mean “Arif” when you said “Asif”?:)

And before I forget, it’s been a month since Arifur Rahman was arrested. He has spent most of Ramadan and Eid away from his family. He has NOT been taken to any foreign country.

Aagey evidence, tarpor kotha. Not the other way round!

http://dhakashohor.blogspot.com/2007/10/cartoon-saga-one-month-later-some-more.html

Thanks, AsifY bhai. I meant Arif…

Dear addafication,

Please see the word ‘might’ in your quote from my post. So what I said was my best guess. The individual who gets presitigious award for his work can’t be taken as so stupid to fail to think about possible reparcation. That’s why assumption is that his cartoon work was his deliverate mischief. He is a cartoonist and I’m very sure he knows what happened about cartoon publication about Mohammad [sm] in Netherland. Given all these info, when he did that, per my best guess he has some intention.

Many put logic why he should take all the troubles of arrest, death threats and so on if had known it would hurt the muslims and there would be vigorous reacton to his cartoon. But he was ready to risk something like arrest or threat for a better and bigger mula, like that of Daud Haider, Taslima etc to be celebrity of international stature.

Thanks

Saif, nice of you to invoke adab.

I’m thinking about the need for an Akhlaq-e-bangladeshi, the absence of such a project in desh and what the akhlaq of the press (oxymoronic?) could aspire to be.

and floating an Akhlaq and Development Party. Part tabligh, part suffraggette, part ateam and part Royal Society.

what do you think?

I want to be either Murdoch or BA in the a-team!

” In retrospect I do think he could have raised the same question more respectfully and made his motives clear. A cartoon probably would not be the right medium for that.”
- Leela

My sentiments exactly…

He’s a cartoonist. That’s what cartoonists do! Draw cartoons. Not write columns or make speeches. Why is a cartoon any less “respectful” a medium than a column, speech or blog? - Saif

AsifY,
Im not sure if you are butch enough or howlingly mad enough but if it floats your boat, i thing an amphibious vehicle could be arranged.

I want to aquire the virtues of each of the four, im not into the museum culture of freezing movements at their peak and defrosting them in the microwave.

The sincerity, strictness, adventurism and manners of tabligh, the learnedness of the royal society, the light years ahead of the gamedness of the sufragettes and the can-do, am-doing, on the spot engineering solution building character of the A team.

Anyway, its just a collection of dispositions that I respect. You can give BA baracus a makeover and petticoat if you wish. I will be far far away.

Sword of Discourse, saif ul adda
A speech in front of an audience or a single person is the least misunderstandable medium, the closer and more specific the better.
A column, since journalism has about 100 odd years of history amongst us, is the next.
Then cartoons.
then blogs (newest).

and theres the question of symbolic power of an anislamic publishing outfit uttering anything on religion.

Certainly not butch or funky enough to be BA. Definitely nowhere near in terms of bling.

However, howlingly mad can be arranged….

Saif ul Adda - I love it!

As for the “know your audience” argument - I think it would have been impossible for any one to predict that this particular cartoon, phrased as it was, would create the kind of noise that it did before it was published. The problem with the cartoon is that NOONE can show how exactly it insults the Prophet - ’cause it simply does not. One has to twist oneself into pretzels to make a real argument that it somehow does or can even be interpreted as being insulting without doing violence to reason, even if the mind doing the interpretation was unusually emotion or psychologically prone to taking insult . (I am sure Bitterboy and his like could make a valiant effort.) All claims of foreseeability are negated by the ridiculousness of the way things have proceeded. There simply is no way that Arif could have predicted that what he said would be interpreted in the particular way it did because the particular interpretation has absolutely no relation to what he said.

- Saif ul Adda

Saif ul Adda, very soon, will be abbreviated as Saif U Adda.

NTV: “Blogger Saif “OO” Adda ajke New York-e boshe bloggor bloggor korecchen.”

I am tempted to write a Pet Peeve piece about the news channels abbreviating Moeen Uddin Ahmed as Moeen “OO” Ahmed. There’s absolutely no rhythm there…

And then further abbreviated on the blogosphere as “SUA”….:)

howling madness cannot be manufactured, it has to be natural. dont any of the other roles appeal? If all else fails, you could always be the Faceman.

SUA is relatively ok, General Moin YOU ahmed, is sheer idiocy and lamoness, proves to me every time i hear it that the words ‘of the deen’ are too painful for mediaton deshis to pronounce. I wonder if the habit can be reversed.

Dr F gets his deen, why not General M, who is a product of our very young martial tradition and not a proxy for neoliberal economic invasion.

Leela,
the previous vegetal cartoon was not created by the late khatib or by HT, and JIB werent the ones demonstrating. Ignoring the fine structure does set up the ‘munafiq’, accusation nicely. But i dont think they are the munafiqs in the scenario, in fact they are the one’s who exposed them.

Saiful Adda,
I dont need to prove matiur rahman and co’s stance on religion either in its ritual practice or higher thought.. do i? Or am i condemned (by liberal commonsense or by an inappropriate one thousand excuses habitus) to be blind to their habitual denigration, coded and explicit, of religion and religious people and their role as secularist foot soldiers…

Arif bhai i think made two mistakes (rather decisions which i would not have made), working for the PA, and drawing an unfunny cartoon.

I dont know enough about the bro to judge his entire back catalogue but
this is what counts as satire where i grew up.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=de6V90jT4SQ

Fugstar bhai - I would doubt that a young cartoonist from a middle class family in Dhaka has a slate of employment opportunities to choose from. I cannot call Arif’s “choosing” to work at PA a mistake, whatever one thinks of that newspaper’s stance on religion.

The distinction you make between JIB and HT/late Khatib is an important one. The distinction does exist, and it’s not an unimportant detail. But do note that the JIB’s been completely silent, when defusing the situation and protecting Arif was within their power.

- Saif Ul Adda

I have to say that I can’t take credit for “bloggor-bloggor”. This highly original formulation - which I hope will take off in the Bangla blogosphere, and which is pure genius - was created by Rajkoomaree in this Drishtipat post.

http://www.drishtipat.org/blog/2007/10/05/no-more-bloggorbloggor/

I apologize to Rajkoomaree and to readers for not citing properly.

Oh Pointy Sworded one,
Good point on the general lack of opportunities front. you have pirced my gut. But it still doesn’t rest well on my skull and my empathy is incomplete. My limited experience and exposure of media companys in desh gives me the presumptive attitude of .. what did His Mendacity call it again … ‘ideological resemblance’.

I have experience a close one being locked up for years over blasphemy issue in a nuttier setting and the present nationalist blasphemy issue in an allegedly more civilised setting as well. Hope he comes out soon with his iman stronger.

theres a three fold distinction, in terms of establishedness and religious authority; Late khateeb of the central mosque in the land (student of Shayk Ahmad Madani of composite nationalism fame), JIB (established political religious grouping) and HT (small, strange emergence of the islamic left capitalising on the media glare).

How have sangram and naya diganta interpreted it?

leela
HT and Shibbir are like oil and water. HT BD tend to come from spoilt brat and angry type backgrounds, shibbir-jib are more diverse, are made from something else, less shallow and they sing more.

Im not a fan of street protest culture in bangladesh, and appeal to more fine arts students to join protest groups, beautify them and give them a mass makover.

Obviously id prefer a far superior publication than the PA to be how Islamic forces expressed themselves. To defeat materialism, colonised thinking and secularist adventurism with light and in the ways that it understands is the neatest solution in my book.

Fakr You Ahmed
i hear you.

Fakr You Ahmed. Hahahah. Classic. Good one, Fugstar.

I don’t know about the Shibir-JIB being less shallow, Fugstar. Certainly, I have come across young Shibir-types who are extremely articulate and intelligent. But one cannot generalize from the outliers.

i only stated it out loud, i think someone else set that one up.

with ht, its more of a surface transformation i find. theres not too much work on development/adab/akhlaq going on really, maybe thats because its newer though.

With ht its focally the systems (political, economic) of disbelief that need revolutionary change. The books are all about systems and the propagation is more through rhetoric hence the pr heaviness. With the movements, and i bundle together the Muslim Brotherhood and the Congregation of Islam, its more dispositional, appeals less to lazy elitespawn looking for a cause and a quick thrill pill.

In BD opting in carries a real unfashionability and heavy baggage of hate. thats why it think they are less shallow.

i wish i hadnt now.

I think one aspect of Arif’s cartoon that hasn’t received sufficient attention is just how silly the practice of naming all Muslim men Muhammad is. Leaving the mullah’s exhortations aside for a moment, it’s all too common in Bangladesh that a man will be named Muhammad, and yet never use the name in circumstances other than official, because it doesn’t help distinguish him from his friends or neighbours, who may also be called Muhammad, or even his own brothers, who may share the same name. I know a Bangladeshi family where all the brothers are called Muhammad — but of course they aren’t in reality, because they go by their middle names.

So it’s no surprise that some Kuwaitis jokingly (and, granted, in a racist manner) refer to all Bangladeshi men as “Muhammad”. In most of the Muslim world (geographically, not numerically speaking), Muhammad is just one name out of many. That is not at all to say that the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is just one person out of many. His name is obviously respected because of its personal connection with the Prophet. But what I mean is that, if someone’s name is Muhammad (or its variations, such as Mehmet or Magomed), the person is actually called Muhammad by everyone around them. So babies don’t get named Muhammad in droves like in Bangladesh, because, when you shout out “Muhammad,” you want only the person you’re addressing to turn around.

So what’s the use of being called something like Muhammad Salahuddin (just as an example) if everyone is going to call you Poltu anyway? Why not give our kids names that people will actually use (including Muhammad — provided we use it)?