u/Hungry-Surprise1752

You won't find women-only buses in the most feminist countries in the world, for example Norway, Denmark or Sweden. Why? Because women there feel safe around men. Only in the most wretched of all places do you need to give women separate transportation for their safety.

Will these buses temporarily lead to less sexual harassment in public transportation? Yes, but it is not a long-term solution. It's easy to unveil some shiny little pink colored buses and act like you've solved misogyny. What's harder is to change our patriarchal culture that tolerates the intolerable against women.

If separating women from men will solve sexual harassment, we should just follow the former Saudi Arabian model, where there was a 'female corner' for women everywhere from restaurants to shopping malls. But did that model actually help women? No, it didn't.

The women-only buses also have that underlying misandry to it. The idea that men are so dangerously irreformable that seperating yourselves from them is the only way to safety.

And who says women are safe with women either? One of the most infamous cases of harassment against women in Bangladesh, the one at narsingdi rail station, was literally about one woman physically attacking another for wearing crop tops. Women in this country are disgustingly misogynistic too.

I'm a bit conflicted on the women-only buses. It might reduce sexual harassment at the moment. You could say, well, this is Bangladesh, not Singapore, so we better do what's practical here. And maybe that's true. But outside of that pragmatism, my ideals can never fully support it.

I keep hearing from people of the Abrahamic faiths that there is no objective morality without God. I understand the argument, but how does the existence of a creator change a thing?

Why does God have the sole right to dictate morality? Is it because he's omnipotent? If so, that's not objective morality, it's 'might makes right'.

Or is it because he's omniscient? His knowledge on factual questions can be tested, but how do you prove that there is even such a thing as 'knowledge' on moral matters in the first place? If you can do so, what's the need for God for morality?

Or is he the Universe's moral arbiter because he's omnibenevolent? But that's simply circular nonsense. It's like saying God gets to decide what's good because he's good. Morality needs to exist before him for him to be good, and in that case, he can't be the source of that morality.

At best, you can say that we should just follow God's desires to save ourselves from hell. But that would be like telling a German living in the third Reich to do whatever Hitler says to save himself from being sent to the gas chambers. It's simply unadulterated selfishness.

Why do Hijabis 'choose' to wear the hijab? Like all other things Islamic, it's the fear of hell.

You can hide it behind pretty-sounding spiritual words or what not, but at the end of the day, no one would care one bit as much about religion if it wasn't for eternal torture.

Raw physical punishment is always more compelling than abstract spiritual attainment. And here's what the punishment for not wearing the Hijab is according to Muhammad:

>"Two are the types of the denizens of Hell whom I did not see: people having flogs like the tails of the ox with them and they would be beating people, and the women who would be dressed but appear to be naked, who would be inclined (to evil) and make their husbands incline towards it. Their heads would be like the humps of the bukht camel inclined to one side. They will not enter Paradise and they would not smell its odour whereas its odour would be smelt from such and such distance."
— Sahih Muslim 2128

If someone held you at gunpoint and gave you a 'choice' to either wear a Nazi t-shirt or get shot in the head, is that actually a choice? Of course not.

When it comes to the hijab, it's a quintillion times worse. Instead of being held at gunpoint, you're being held at hellpoint. You must either wrap a scarf around your neck or be burnt in hell for God knows how long.

If that counts as a choice, what the hell does 'choice' even mean?

When it comes to food, languages, clothes, and etc., you can say that cultures are simply different, not unequal. Pizzas are tasty, so are kebabs. Sarees look beautiful, so do skirts. English is a rich language, so is Mandarin.

However, on important societal values, cultures are not 'just different'. Some are worse than others.

A culture of misogyny is inferior to a culture of gender nequality. A culture of religious fundamentalism is inferior to a culture of secularism. A culture that's anti-free speech is inferior to one that's pro-free speech.

I live in a country with a long running 'culture' of slut-shaming women for showing a tiny bit of skin. Am I supposed to pretend like that's not objectively worse than cultures where women are not judged for wearing what they want to?

Culture is not always cute and harmless. It can be deadly too. We don't need to respect evil just because it hides under the banner of culture.

There are no heroes in Bangladeshi politics. There are only criminals. Bangabandhu is one of them.

Mujib was a dictator. Period. I don't care if it's the 'Jamaati narrative' or not. What's true is true.

He undoubtedly stole the 1973 election. Many opposition leaders were literally kidnapped before they could submit their nominations for the election.

BAKSHAL was Mujib's attempt to recreate a soviet style totalitarian state. Every opposition party was banned. Only four government approved daily newspapers were allowed to run. The fourth amendment practically turned the president into a dictator. According to Amnesty internationals, around 2000 people were arrested under the 'emergency powers' added to the constitution via the 2nd amendment.

And don't even get me started on the 'Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini' he created. Ghulam Murshid once compared it to the gestapo. The JSD claims the number of people the Rakkhi bahini killed is as high as sixty thousand. Journalist Ahmed Musa says the death toll would at minimum be ten thousand. In other words, Bangabandhu probably killed more in 3 years than Hasina did in 15.

Mujib is like Zia. Their crimes were forgotten cause they got assasinated and became 'shahid.' The Awami League and the BNP turned them into gods. Criticizing them is blasphemy, worse than blasphemy.

It's time for the 'twilight of the idols.' The desecration of Bangladesh's most sacred political figures.

The July Revolution was our perfect chance to logically criticize politicians from our past and create a brave new Bangladesh, but what did we get instead? This nonsensical idea that Ziaur Rahman, Khaleda Zia, and Ghulam Azam are the superheroes of our political history while Hasina and Mujib are the villains.

I'm sorry but the history of Bangladeshi politics is the history of villains. This country wouldn't be so messed up otherwise. We need to stop deifying politicians. Or else there is no hope for us tribalistic creatures.

Mainstream politics in this country since forever is about the culture wars. Secular Bengali nationalism vs Islamism. The big difference between the BNP and Jamaat is their views on the culture wars. The problem is that this doesn't make any difference to an ordinary working-class Bangladeshi. At the end of the day, both parties are controlled by the wealthy ruling class. Bangladesh has always been this way. Historically speaking, and even now, most of the parliament is businessmen and if not, atleast a multi-millionaire.

We live under capitalism so it's impossible to escape the influence of business interests. But we need to keep them under control as much as possible. The best examples are Scandinavian countries which heavily tax the rich to fund things like education and healthcare for all.

Neither political side is willing to do this. The biggest reason the July revolution is now widely considered a failure is because of this very reason. Sure, it got rid of authoritarianism, but did it actually improve the life of a factory worker, a rikshaw puller, a poor farmer, in any meaningful sense?

More working-class people died in the uprising than the students themselves. Yet they got nothing out of it. While idiots in parliament are busy debating the liberation war, the common man can't put food on the table cause of high inflation and low wages.

I'm not saying the culture wars don't matter. Of course, secularism is better than Islamism, feminism is better than misogyny, a progressive country is better than a conservative one. But there are things more important, forgotten.

Today, I watched a video on Facebook about a guy who switched from supporting Argentina to supporting Morocco at the world cup cause it's a Muslim country and Argentina is pro-Zionism. Who will tell him that Morocco is one of Israel's biggest Arab allies in the middle east? The Moroccan government doesn't even acknowledge what's going on in Gaza as a genocide.

A while back I saw post by Chatra Shibir endorsed DUCSU member Juma calling some guys' 'nastik' as an insult. The same day, I encountered another post by her of her visit to China, talking about how great China is and what we can learn from them. Except of course most Chinese are atheists themselves and you can't even be a member of the Chinese Communist party if you aren't an atheist.

Just so that this doesn't become a typical rant about the right wing, let me talk about 'secularists' too. Mainstream secularists in Bangladesh see India as our friends. The same India that has a Hindu Nationalist government in power that's doing everything they can to destroy Indian secularism.

Isn't all of this funny? Politics runs in circles. Extremist Islamists will work with authoritarian atheists, 'Secularists' will work with Hindu nationalists, as long it's in their interests.

It's the one word that has generated more confusion around Muslims and Islam than anything else. If you take it literally, it means a 'phobia' or "irrational fear", of Islam. But apparently, it's also about bigotry towards Muslims. This is absolutely nonsensical because you can hate Muslims while liking Islam and like Muslims while hating Islam. One's an ideology, another is a group of people.

All the word Islamophobia has done is allow extremists to guilt trap anyone who dares disagree with Islam by calling them bigoted. I'm sorry but everyone has the right to criticize, mock, and disrespect any religion on Earth, whether that be Christianity, Hinduism, Islam or whatever else. Your religion is not special. Hating ideas is not the same as hating people.

It's like saying disliking Communism means I am bigoted against my friend who's a Communist. It literally makes no sense because Communism is a set of ideas.

There are far better words to describe actual bigotry against Muslims. Something slightly different like 'Muslimphobia' is much better. If we are to move past the 'Islam question' in the West, updating our vocabulary is the first step.

Their website hides books written by authors considered "blasphemous" by Islamists while putting the works of extremists on their front pages.

Take Humayun Azad for example. Despite how famous he is, not one of his books are available on their site. Or consider Kishor Pasha Imon. They took off his thriller novels from the platform after he became an atheist.

They have no problems selling the books of idiotic extremist mobstars like Pinaki but can't handle an esteemed Dhaka University professor who was murdered by those same kind of extremists. The website seems designed to advertise 'Islamic" books to you 24/7.

After using Rokomari.com for a while I've decided to boycott them. All of you should too.

Progressives need to ditch Rabindranath and embrace Nazrul. Here's why.

The pop version of Rabindranath is a god-like figure to Bangladeshi progressives. Learning about him from Grade 8 textbooks would convince anyone that he was a progressive himself.

I, too, fell into the trap of idolizing Rabindranath until I read Humayun Azad's book Nari. Tagore was literally a misogynist. In one place, he basically says that women should stay in the house. According to him, women are great in "love and affection," while men are great in "intellect and talent."

He compares women to the centripetal force that pulls an object toward the center during circular motion and men to the force pushing it outward. The "crisis" of Western civilization, he claims, is that women are "failing" to keep men near the center.

"A man's intellect is like a sword... A woman's intellect is like a penknife... however much you sharpen it, it cannot accomplish great tasks." — Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath was a typical Hindu conservative. In one of his essays, he praises ancient Hindu society for how it maintained the "harmony" of civilization. Yes, the same society where people of different castes couldn't even touch each other. Tagore might have been a great poet, but when it came to socio-political issues, he was a professional bullshitter.

Nazrul, on the other hand, was the first "Shahbaghi" in Bengali history. In fact, he fits the standard caricature of a "Shahbaghi." In his poem Nari, Nazrul asks women to "rip apart their veils" and calls the veil the "sign of a slave." To put it simply, Nazrul was the father of "hijab phobia" among Bengali Muslims. He even supported Kemal Atatürk's government in Turkey, which eventually banned the hijab in public institutions.

In one essay, Nazrul says that one of the things he hates most in the world is Islamic beards. He viewed beards as a symbol of communalism and never kept one in his entire life. If Nazrul were still alive, he would undoubtedly be considered a "cultural fascist" by the likes of Hadi.

Besides the more ornamental of his "Shahbaghiness," he took a progressive stance on just about every issue you can think of. No Bengali writer at the time dared to openly speak up for prostitutes, for example. Nazrul was a fiery leftist throughout his life and always wrote for the opressed.

Nazrul was the most secular Bengali writer. He wrote for both Hindus and Muslims. Besides his Islamic songs, he wrote over a thousand songs dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses. Nazrul believed that the God of Hinduism and the God of Islam were different in name only. One of his children was literally called "Krishna Muhammad."

A progressie who idolizes Rabindranath is on par with an Islamist who idolizes Nazrul when it comes to hypocrisy. What's crazy is that this is the norm. It says a lot about both secularists and Islamists, but especially about secularists. Instead of choosing a man of the people as their icon, they chose a conservative, misogynistic zamindar instead.

Bangladeshi secularism's elitism is what led to its downfall. If progressives want to connect with ordinary people, they have to become more like Nazrul and less like Rabindranath.

When Bangladesh got independence in 1971, every single political party in this country was progressive and leftist. The Awami League and NAP were both Socialist. Secularism was something you couldn't even question in the public sphere. Fast forward to now, and our new generation is the most extremist generation of Bengali Muslims ever.

I come from a family where since 1970 everyone has voted for Awami League because it was the go-to Secular party. But the new generation, i.e. my two cousins of voting age, have switched to Jamaat. The funny thing is, these people aren't even that religious. When one of them got a smartphone for his studies, the first thing he did was go on TikTok and masturbate to some models. Yet this is the same guy who complains about girls in his campus wearing Jeans and crop-tops.

Forget about the grown-up Zoomers. Even little kids have gone nuts. When I was at my grandparents' house for Eid, I told my 7-year-old cousin that I'm giving her ashirbad. She replied, "Why are you talking like Hindus? You could see the disgust in her eyes. Another cousin, who is 9, called Hinduism the worst religion on Earth.

Then there are the absolute maniacs at my school. Keep in mind that this is an expensive English Medium school filled with rich 'educated' kids. Half the students here support Hitler because he killed Jews. One of them was even upset that the Nazis couldn't kill all of them. One of them thinks pre-marital sex should be punished by death. When I asked, if your best friend did it, could you kill them, he replied, "I don't care. The law is the law." Another one is Jihadist who has Iran's dead Ayatollah as his profile picture. When I told him about how the Iranian government killed Mahsa Amini for not wearing the hijab, he claimed that she was a Mossad Agent.

If this is what 'educated' young kids think, what about others? I once studied fulltime at a Madrasa, so I know how bad it is there.

Gen-Z is Bangladesh's first 'digital generation. You'd think they'd become more open minded cause they are in constant contact with new ideas and cultures. But nope, all they do is consume propaganda from lunatics like Pinaki Bhattacharya and swear at random girls on Facebook for wearing 'indecent' clothes while also masturbating to them at the same time.

What the hell is wrong with this generation? There seems to be an epidemic of information and retardation at the same time. How do we even solve this?