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"Women's football"
This is my response to Mr. Atif Alam's comment regarding my previous letter. Mr. Alam has completely misunderstood me. I am not one of those ultra-modern deviant women who totally disregard social customs. All I'm saying is that women should not be considered helpless beings in the society. We should be treated in the same manner as our male counterparts.
By the term 'modern' I do not refer to a place i.e. the developed countries. Modernism does not mean anarchy in the name of liberalism. By modernism, I mean a changed dimension the way people think, with more acceptance of the new and different. I have six years experience living in a developed country and know that everyone there does not treat women with respect. If someone in US, UK or any other developed country thinks that women should be confined to the house to cook and look after children, I would still regard him as backward. My concept of modernism includes showing tolerance towards those whose behaviour is not exactly in keeping with the mainstream population. Here I'm not just referring to the gender issue. People of different religion, ethnic status etc should be viewed with endurance. If they are different, leave them be, but why fight?
Coming back to the football discussion, no one was forcing the religious fundamentalists to watch the match. The women were not performing a social evil. A modern man, whether he liked the idea of women playing or not, would have avoided the match venue and let the game go on. But to coerce a match to being abandoned, just because the participants were 'different' from the type that the un-progressive people are used to, is a disgrace for the nation.
Munasir Kamal, Dhanmondi, Dhaka * * *
First of all let's get one thing clear. Sports for women, whether football, cricket or gymnastics are permitted for women in Islam. It is also allowed for women to compete in theirfavourite sport, as long as they follow the wonderful guidelines.
Islam actually permitted women to participate in sports and gave them equal rights over 14 centuries ago. Which is not practised in Bangladesh at all, I am afraid. Those people who say that Bangladesh should be modernised are in fact unaware that if people practised Islam as how it should be, then they would not make these comments. Do most people know that Islam introduced child benefit?
Equal rights, voting and movements for women were introduced in the western world only half a century ago, whereas in Islam it was introduced over 14 centuries ago.
Mohammed N Islam, GtrManchester, UK * * *
In reference to the letter of Mr Shabbir Khan (January 31) I must say I had to smile. It is always amusing when someone takes sarcasm literally.
I did send a response to Mr. Sakahwat Hossain (January 26) who had responded to my earlier letter regarding this issue (January 24).
I found Mr Hossain's response to be that of a knee jerk reactionary type. Hence I responded in a way which I thought would be funny and at the same time, necessary. The groups of people I reviled according to Mr Shabbir Khan are usually people I myself associate with.
Perhaps Mr Khan would be wise to read both of my letters (January 24, 27) and then reflect on the matter rather than leaping to an erroneous conclusion and branding me as a reactionary. Yahya, USA * * *
I was not shocked, but definitely frustrated reading the incident surrounding women's football. Before I had time to express my protest and concerns on what I thought was done by less educated fundamentalist people, I got shocked to read some of the letters written by the readers.
On January 31st, two letters caught my attention. One was from Mr. Shabbir Khan who criticised Yahya's letter. While I agree with Mr. Khan's views, I must point out that when I read Mr. Yahya's letter, I took it as a sarcastic one - it seemed to me that he was pointing out how ridiculous the incident and the letters supporting the incident were.
The second letter that I believe demands a response is the one came from Mr. Atif Alam. U.S.A, has its faults like all other countries and I certainly don't agree with the international politics of the current administration. However, Mr. Alam like many of my fellow Bangladeshis, made a mistake of calling the U.S. morally inferior to Bangladeshis due to "modernity". Morality to some extent may be subjective. However, being citizens of a country that is highly corrupt in all aspects, we hardly have the right to point fingers.
The kind of modernity that people like Mr Alam are afraid of can only make things better. Men have ruled our society for thousands of years and look what we have become. Like it or not, women are becoming more and more independent in every segment of our society, and as they become educated and self-reliant, as they achieve more in professional careers and gain more power over their own personal lives, things can only improve. The high divorce rate that you and many of my fellow countrymen like to quote as a "downside of modernity, i.e., women's empowerment" is merely a reflection of the fact that women are no longer forced to stay in abusive or otherwise loveless marriages. If you think that the so-called "family values" are what keep the divorce rate low in countries like ours, you are naive.
Modernism is not a call for moral collapse, but it is a call for freedom of the individual that does not infringe upon others' rights. Feminism is not a fight for special rights, but a struggle for equal rights and equal protection to the half of the population who were born free, but kept in chains made of normsand customs by the male dominated societies.
WT, Dallas, USA * * *
I am quite surprised by the letter written by Atif Alam, who has found all the negative aspects of US society but failed to show the positive side of it. I too, have been living in the US for the last 15 years and my experience is completely opposite to what he has observed.
The 67% divorce rate which he mentioned, seems high, I think it is more towards 45-50%. But, what he mentioned about the US society, as every moral aspect has collapsed, is farfrom the truth. The people of the US are overwhelmingly honest, hardworking and friendly. If we ignore our assumptions based on the Hollywood and talk shows, but on the basis of personal interactions and observations, majority of them are law abiding and polite. They are very often helpful and very seldom judgmental.
Here, one class is not given different salary based on their nationality. The reason for high divorce is not altogether immorality. If in our society, a woman could have the means to raise their children by herself, without social stigma, the divorce rate in our country would have been higher as well. The only reason for low divorce rate in our society is their dependence on the male and social stigma. We will be fooling ourselves if we feel that, the male in our society, treat our women with more respect than the people in this modern society do. Finally, in this modern society, which is an impending disaster to happen according to the writer, is surviving as one of the society, where there is justice, there is freedom of opinion and human values. I don't see it to collapse anytime soon.
M. Hassan, Plano TX, USA