File photos of Taslima Nasreen and Moeen Ali.
Bangladesh-born writer Taslima Nasreen stirred a major controversy on social media on Tuesday when she remarked that English cricketer Moeen Ali would have joined terrorist outfit Syria if he wasn't a cricketer.
Her tweet read: “If Moeen Ali were not stuck with cricket, he would have gone to Syria to join ISIS”.
The 58-year-old author later clarified that her remarks were sarcasm and she also stands against fundamentalism and it surely didn't sit well with Moeen's father Munir Ali, who in a column for English daily Indian Express, expressed his dissatisfaction at the 'vile poisonous' remarks made by Taslima.
“In her ‘clarifying’ tweet, where she described her original remark as sarcasm, she also says she stands against fundamentalism," Munir wrote. "If she looks into a mirror, she will know what she tweeted is what is fundamentalist – a vicious stereotype against a Muslim person, a clearly Islamophobic statement. Someone who doesn’t have self-respect and respect for others can only stoop to this level.”
Munir, who revealed that his father came to the UK from Mirpur in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and his mother is English, said he is angered about the whole episode and will like to let his feelings be apparent to Taslime on her face.
“Truth be told, I am really angry, but I know I would be playing into the hands of people like her if I let my rage get out of control. If I get to meet her someday, I will tell her what I really think of her on her face. For now, I would ask her to pick a dictionary and see the meaning of sarcasm.
“It’s not what she thinks it is. It’s not spewing vile poisonous stuff against someone you don’t even know and then retracting it by saying it was sarcasm. Of all the people to pick on for her agenda, I can’t believe she has chosen my son. Everyone in the cricketing world knows the person he is,” he added.
