BBC religious-programming commissioners seem to love two topics above all else: LGBT+ issues, and liberal currents on the edge of Islam. Both came together in Heart and Soul’s intimate report from a devoutly Muslim community of hijras — transsexual and intersex women — in rural Bangladesh (World Service, on Friday).
In 2021, the residents formed a tiny neighbourhood of 40 homes to provide security and mutual support after experiencing employment discrimination, verbal abuse, and sometimes violence in wider society. The community’s headwoman said that she had seriously considered taking her own life when she was younger, but, after praying to God, found that she was sent the strength to keep going.
After the community was established, with support from the now ousted secularist regime of Sheikh Hasina, the pious headwoman organised Qur’an classes with the local imam, who, in turn, became a defender of their rights in public — for his pains, facing ridicule, harassment, and even ostracism by members of his own family.
When trans women started worshipping at the village mosque, they were spat at and jostled, and the imam was deposed for supporting them. Since last April, there have been two mosques in the village; a second one was built, led by the removed imam, again with government support.
During the events of last August, when Hasina’s government — itself no great respecter of human rights — was overthrown, the hijra district was attacked by a mob of Islamic extremists. Yet villagers defended them this time; in the local community, the transgender women have steadily gained acceptance. But, with Islamism and transphobia on the rise in post-revolutionary Bangladesh, clearly this remains a very vulnerable group of people.
Libraries have long been a vital part of Christian infrastructure; so The Forum’s exploration of their future in a digital age (World Service, Saturday) was timely.
Through our phones, we now all carry an “infinite micro-library” in our pocket, which means that demand for libraries’ core function of lending physical books has collapsed — something reported by a listener from even as poor a country as Zambia. The shift to e-books causes specific problems for libraries, which are tied into expensive restrictive contracts in terms of lending and copying, compared to the print age.
Libraries have also been calm workspaces for young people growing up in chaotic homes — places where the lonely could find company, and the lost could find directions. All that is now threatened.
But the true problem of our age is how to navigate through the vast quantities of dross to useful information: a 20-terabyte hard drive available from Argos can hold all the words in all the books in the largest library ever built. Yet, every day, the Internet Archive scoops that much new material from the web before lunchtime.
