Taslima Nasrin is an internationally known feminist writer from Bangladesh. Living in exile since 1994, she has become one of the Muslim world’s most vociferous dissidents. Her ammunition is language, so much so that Nasrin invented the word “meyebela” — girlhood — because while Bengali assigns a word for boys’ lives, it ignores those of girls. Meyebela is the title of Nasrin’s latest book, a memoir about growing up female in a Muslim country. She recently spoke with author, broadcaster and former Herizons columnist Irshad Manji, who is writing a book on reforming Islam.

Irshad Manji: How has Bangladesh responded to the word, ‘meyebela’?

Taslima Nasrin: Actually, I created that word when I used to write columns for the big newspapers in Bangladesh. One of my columns was entitled, “My meyebela” or “my experience as a girl.” After introducing that word, people started using it.

Manji: How is it that in a very male-dominated society, you managed to get a voice in the media?

Nasrin: Circulation increased! All the editors wanted me to write because letters showed there was popular interest from women. Also, from men. They found it shocking. Before me, women would write love stories or advice on childcare and cooking. I wrote something different. Even the fundamentalists — male chauvinists who hated me — they used to read me.

Manji: A fatwa, a legal statement in Islam, issued by a mufti (or a religious lawyer), was issued against you in 1993. Why?

Nasrin: My comments about religion made people angry. I said that Islam oppresses women. I criticized verses in the Koran that treat women as sexual objects. And I argued that we don’t need religious laws. Three death warrants were issued against me, amounting to about $5000. The money itself was not important to the fundamentalists who wanted to kill me — blind faith was.

Manji: How did you wind up living in Sweden?

Nasrin: Since 1990, I was physically confined to my house, but I kept on writing. In 1994, hundreds of thousands of fundamentalists went to the streets and demanded my death. They called a general strike, which paralyzed Bangladesh. For seven days, merchants couldn’t open their shops. There was no school, no bus, no train, no planes, nothing. To kill one person, the whole country shut down, which meant that people went along with the fundamentalists.

On top of that, the government charged me and denied any opportunity for bail. If I had felt that prison would be safe, I would have gone to jail to stand up for my beliefs. But there was too much outrage; the prisoners would have killed me. My lawyers couldn’t do anything. So the writers’ movement, the human rights movement, appealed to other governments to shelter me. The European Union said okay.

Manji: What’s life like in exile?

Nasrin: I used to have [around-the-clock] security. After a few years, I found no need for it. My address is still a secret because the hand of fundamentalists can be very, very long. They took some of my family members into custody and interrogated them about where I live. But even my relatives had no idea.

When I first went into hiding, I took refuge in the home of total strangers. At that time, if I was found, the family would have been killed along with me. Like Nazi Germany, you know? Today, after so many years, I walk the streets of Sweden and visit friends. I have a cat, which I love very much.

Manji: Does that mean life is “normal?”

Nasrin: I have never mentally settled into exile. I have tried to visit my father in Bangladesh but the authorities won’t renew my passport. I live with the dream that one day I will return permanently. I have even asked my family to leave everything in my house exactly the way it was — my books, my clothes, my papers, my pictures, the pen on my desk. Exile is a bus stop for me.

Manji: Yet you remain creative. Why did you write Meyebela at this time?

Nasrin: Life in exile makes you nostalgic. I was thinking of my past and asking, “Why has this happened to me?” I thought I would learn something from writing this. What I realized is that, even as a child, I did think differently. I had lots of questions and I expressed them. I think most women knew that they were oppressed, but accepted the system. I asked one question: Why? Why should we be slaves? We are human beings.

Manji: What allowed you to ask that question out loud when so many others kept it to themselves?

Nasrin: I thought it was natural to ask “why.” I don’t understand why they accepted being beaten by their husbands, being prevented from going outside without permission, being forced to marry somebody and stopping their studies after marriage. I know that this is a very, very difficult situation because if you divorce your husband and try to be independent, you’ll be called “prostitute.” But, you know, I don’t care what people call me. Maybe that is the difference. If you want to be a human being, a good person, you first have to be bad in this society’s eyes.

Manji: What has changed for the better in Bangladesh since your girlhood?

Nasrin: [Long pause] Not much. In some ways, it’s even worse now. Because during my childhood, Bengalis were fighting for independence [from Pakistan] and had Pakistani Muslims as their enemies. The Muslim identity of Bengalis was not that important. Now, there is no outside enemy. So Bengalis are oppressing Bengalis and using Islam to do it. Today, the enemies are at home.

Manji: In Meyebela, you make it clear that there is nothing more precious for a woman to protect than her honour. In the Muslim world, what does a woman’s “honour” mean?

Nasrin: Chastity. That she should not be touched by other men. Especially in war, Muslim men rape Muslim women because women are supposed to keep the honour of the family. If women’s minds are destroyed, honour remains. If our hands or legs are destroyed, honour is protected. If anything enters the vagina, everything is destroyed — the life of the woman, the life of the family.

It is perversion. But it is not a perversion of Islam; it is a reflection of Islam. The Koran says women are like fields and men can use them as property. Prophet Muhammad himself enjoyed captured women. He passed them around to his soldiers, too.

Manji: Moderate Muslims say that plenty of other verses treat women with dignity, and fundamentalists ignore those elements to suit their own agenda. Don’t the moderates have a point?

Nasrin: Ultimately, not even a liberal interpretation of the Koran can lead to equality because there are hundreds of very negative verses and they outnumber the few verses that can be interpreted positively. I think the fundamentalists are more honest about Islam than the liberals are.

Manji: Is it at all possible to be a feminist and a practicing Muslim?

Nasrin: No, no, no. Not at all. If you are a Muslim, it means you are obeying Allah’s words, which are totally against women. If you are a feminist, it means you support women’s rights and you cannot be religious. Actually, I don’t understand how women can be religious because religion is made for men, for their own pleasure. Most of Hinduism’s gods are female, but look at how women in Hindu society are treated. Reform efforts by Muslims should focus on removing religious laws.

Manji: What you’re talking about is secularism — the separation of church and state. How do you respond to those who say this is a Western “colonial” approach to Islamic culture?

Nasrin: Westerners often support Islam in the name of multiculturalism — “We don’t use the veil, but in their culture, in their religion, they do.” Have they bothered to ask why women even have to veil themselves? The veil is a sign of oppression. Some people try to portray female genital mutilation as culture. Does that mean it should be followed? I love my culture — my food, my music, my clothing — but I never, ever accept torture as being culture.

Manji: You’re challenging misguided Western guilt…

Nasrin: The real conflict is not between the West and Islam, or even Christianity and Islam. It’s between secularism and fundamentalism, between irrational blind faith and a rational, logical mind, between innovation and tradition, between past and future, between those who value freedom and those who do not.

Manji: And both camps can be found in the Muslim world?

Nasrin: Yes! I come from the Muslim world, don’t I?

Manji: But by your own admission, you’re unique.

Nasrin: There’s a vibrant secular movement in Bangladesh, but it’s the fundamentalists who have momentum because they get financial help from rich, Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. Let’s also look at Western donors — when they give money for “cultural education,” where does the money go? To madressas [religious schools] and those madressas are making what? Ignorant, foolish fundamentalists.

Manji: So what is a realistic way in which the West can support secularism in the Muslim world?

Nasrin: Western countries who are helping poor Bangladesh should be clear that money will not go to fund religious schools, because it’s not culture but a monster that will grow.

Manji: The fact that we in the West have plurality of thought — does that make us morally superior to the contemporary Muslim world?

Nasrin: No country is ideal. There are still many women suffering in the Western countries. But in some places, women are suffering much more. It doesn’t mean the cultures of these places are inferior. I find some things about Eastern cultures much better than the individualism of the West — hospitality, kindness, generosity. We have to take the good things from every culture. But never, never, consider torture as culture.