Moral Courage and Truthfulness: Kazi Nazrul Islam

The work is an elaboration of a short play about the vital importance of truthfulness in the lives and well-being of individuals as well as societies. It argues that the relative absence of this value from social and public life, despite its acknowledged importance, is because people lack the moral courage necessary to embody it in their personal, social, and professional lives. Examples of moral courage and the difference its absence or presence makes is pointed to through examples in politics, religion, sports, and social movements, with examples varying from Dietrich Bonhoeffer confronting Hitler to Simone Biles's stance against the Olympic establishment to the Mothers of de Plaza de Mayo resisting the military government of Argentina to Daniel Ellsberg's defiance of the Pentagon and US government in general. The work also demonstrates how a very short work of literature involving the life and deeds of a person with no apparent distinction can have profound universal significance. The lowliest among us is capable of moral courage.

The Bangladeshi author of the play is a genius who merits further study.