FREE DE SOUL

Topic: Bengali secular identity vs. religious fundamentalism. Every April, as the Mangal Shobhajatra procession moves through the streets of Shahbagh filled with giant paper owls, tigers, and suns, a predictable debate reignites. Religious hardliners denounce the Bengali New Year festivities as un-Islamic, while secular citizens celebrate it as the heartbeat of our non-sectarian identity. This yearly tension highlights a core cultural struggle in Bangladesh. For atheists and

Topic: Humanism during natural disasters and everyday life. When the monsoon floods drown the coastal districts of Sunamganj or Satkhira, disaster response doesn't require divine command. Volunteers believers and non-believers alike wade through chest-deep water to haul clean water and dry food to stranded families. Yet, a common refrain thrown at atheists in Bangladesh is: "If you don't believe in God, what keeps you from doing bad things?" The answer is simple: empathy. We

Topic: The struggle of educating the next generation in scientific rationalism. As an educator, standing in front of a high school science classroom in Bangladesh is a tightrope walk. When the textbook reaches the chapter on natural selection and evolution, the room visibly shifts. Hands shoot up not with questions of curiosity, but with pre-packaged apologetics heard at local religious gatherings. Science education in our country too often suffers from a fundamental compromi