AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

14 Unpacking the Politics of Veil in the Context of Bangladesh 169
Western discourse of “modernity” and by linking themselves with such
discourse they try to be a part of the “superior Western culture”. In contrast,
the rigid positions of the fundamentalist Islamists are also based on
the Orientalist construction of superior versus inferior culture, a clash
between ‘Islam’ and the ‘West’. Thus, both are radically influenced by a
fixed knowledge, have no consideration towards difference, do not consider
history and its particular context, and fall in the dangerous dichotomy
of “superior” versus “inferior culture”. Such modernity and antimodernity
projects of both groups create unnecessary complexities in
societies and fail to capture the realities of social life. To avoid such
complexities we need to learn to respect cultural differences; definitely
other knowledge is possible and we have to admit that. To conclude, I
would like to quote de Sousa Santos et al. (2007: xlvii), who bring the
hope of living together with negotiated differences:
The epistemic diversity of the world is potentially infinite. There is no ignorance
or knowledge in general. All ignorance is ignorant of a certain
knowledge, and all knowledge is the overcoming of a particular ignorance.
There are no complete knowledges.
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