20.10.2008.
By
Kazi Anwarul Masud( former Secretary and ambassador of Bangladesh)
CONSPIRACY
THEORY AND INTER-FAITH DIALOGUE 1. Definition of political parties from the
time of Edmund Burke as “an organized assembly of men , united for working
together for the national interest” to one that may not accept members from the
minority community and insistent on establishing Khilafat. Indeed the head of
the Hizb ul Tehriri (Bangladesh) publicly announced that “we always want to
oust all governments in all Muslim countries in the world to establish Khilafat
states”. The world is already mired in the militant activities of al-Qaeda
operatives, their latest victims being the carnage at the Marriot Hotel in
Islamabad. The conflict is not only inter-religious or intra-religious, the
hydra headed Medusa has taken under development, poverty, tribal and cultural
differences among people to unleash its fangs of poison. To be banned a
political party does not have to be communal as Jamaat-e-Islami( Bangladesh)
reportedly refuses membership to people from faiths other than Islam . This should be a clear violation of
fundamental rights under the UN and all other bodies.
Way
back in 1951 German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) at the request of then
Chancellor Conrad Adenauer declared the Socialist Reich Party as
unconstitutional on the ground that German Basic Law( Constitution) held that
“political parties shall participate in the formation of the political will of
the people” and that political parties’ main internal structure shall conform
to democratic principles”. FCC also banned the Communist Part of Germany(West
Germany) on the ground that the party advocated the overthrow of constitutional
order. FCC also upheld administrative limitations put on National Democratic
Party in the Holocaust Denial Case. In
the US where the Second amendment ensured practice of all religions the Supreme
Court had struck down as unconstitutional the nondenominational prayer in New
York public schools. Muslims all over the world have been critical of Western
attitude towards Hammas who had won the elections in Gaza. The Western argument rests upon the Oslo
Accord that prohibits advocacy of “racism or pursue the implementation of
their(political parties) aims by unlawful or non-democratic means”. Hammas’
Charter, interalia, declares: “We must spread the spirit of jehad among the
Ummah9Muslim nation), clash with the enemies and join ranks of the jehad
fighters”. Given Israeli occupation of territories since 1963 and its untold miseries
inflicted upon the Palestinians the Oslo Declaration appears to be knit
picking. Because this brings up the question of the right of
self-determination, failing which armed conflict as had happened in the case of
Bangladesh where international jurists resolved the freely expressed desire of
the people of the East Pakistan as the will of the “people” because only the
people, and not ethnic communities, can express such will to be free.
2.
Almost ad nauseam the question of morality is being raised in judging both the
national and international behavior of states and the evaluation of the code of
conduct, more or less uniform in character, prescribed to be followed by the
civilized states have placed morality as the center piece in global theater.
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of decolonisation has been the
imperceptible regression of presumptions relating to “racial superiority and
civilized mode of behavior” of the metropolitan people vis-à-vis those living
in the periphery and the gradual metropolitan recognition that the subalterns,
at least some among them, can be invited to their breakfast, lunch and dinner
table for “civilized” conversation .Whether the condescension shown by the
metropolis towards the periphery is based on morally defensible arguments is
debatable. There is, however, no denying the fact that the world divided as it
is into First, Second and the Third( or even Fourth) worlds does testify to the
great existential divide among the people living in these well defined worlds
where division is more vertical than horizontal and promotion from one to
another is well nigh impossible. A few individuals through diligence and/or
accident may move residentially from the Third to the First world thus forming
a part of the Diaspora who after the tragic events of 9/11 impelling the West
to legislate various forms of anti-terrorist acts are facing “spiraling
progressive alienation” and forced to continually negotiate the parameters of
minority citizenship. As it is from the beginning of history social
stratification or societal division based on wealth, power and status has been
a defining characteristic of civilizations. Social stratification took global
shape with the advent of colonization and poverty began to be distributed among
the people living in the periphery and the wealth of the periphery was shipped
to the metropolis. One of the most bizarre aspect of colonization was the
self-assumed patriarchal attitude of the colonizers towards the colonized and
their missionary zeal to carry on their shoulders “the White Man’s Burden” of
educating the “natives” unable to stand on their feet. Little heed was paid to
the scholars who committed the sacrilege of pointing out that though some among
the “natives” were indeed cannibals but a vast majority of them were adorned
with etiquette and mores which were far superior to the ones the metropolitans
were determined to impose on the periphery. In effect both in their own lands
and in the conquered territories the colonizers were subscribing to the FIRST
PRINCIPLES of Scottish socialist philosopher Robert Owen who thematized that it
was necessary for a large part of mankind to exist in ignorance and poverty to
secure for the remaining part such degree of happiness as they now enjoyed.
During and after the process of decolonization the newly and aspirant
independent countries began to question the hypothesis inherent in the
modernization theory which explained underdevelopment in terms of lack of
certain qualities in the “underdeveloped” societies such as drive,
entrepreneurial skill, creativity and problem solving ability. The articulate
among the freed people rebelling against intellectual dystrophy and sanitized
academic orthodoxy by and large put their faith in the dependency theory which
explained that the continued impoverishment of the Third World was not
internally generated but was a structural condition of global domination in
which the dominant forced the dominated to be producers of raw materials and
food stuff for the industrialized metropolitan center. However the entire
colonial discourse should not be seen through the prism of manicheanism
expressed in binary structure between good and evil because the colonizers were
not totally exploitive in nature but were also donors of liberal values so much
in demand in the world today. On the
other hand even if the subalterns were
to be magnanimous and forgiving for the politico-socio-economic exploitation in
the by-gone days by the advanced countries it is not certain, despite
occasional camaraderie shown by the West through aid to tsunami victims and the
expected financial pledge following publication of the report by the Africa
Commission that the West would sincerely
like the developing countries to move forward at sprinter’s speed. ODA is yet
to be given at 0.7% of the GDP pledged by the developed world decades ago. The
US and EU are yet to get rid of farm subsidies which is many times more than
the assistance given to the Third world. Tariff and para-tariff barriers
imposed by the developed countries on the exports of the developing nations are
yet to be removed. Debts owed by the poorest countries are yet to be written
off.
3.
West’s hesitancy in taking pro-active and coercive measures is understandable
on the ground of possibly being accused of “neo-colonialism” and also because
in pre-9/11 era the nation-states were jealous and zealous in guarding their
territorial integrity against external encroachment. The newly independent
countries defined neo-colonialism as the influence exercised by the
ex-colonialists and super power USA through financial, educational and cultural
institutions, such influence being more insidious and undetectable than when
the colonies were being directly ruled. Besides the unwitting or even willing
collaboration by the compradors(elites brought to power by the ex-colonial
masters after giving independence to the colonies) and the pressure of
globalization prevented the Third World nations from developing an independent
political and economic identity.
4.
Though some Muslim scholars consider the essentialist construction of the
people and the religion of Islam dominant in the western academic orthodoxy as
grossly distorted, yet one must also acknowledge that the deviants of Islamic
religion immersed in their own grotesque interpretation of pristine Islam do
pose serious threat not only to the West but also to Muslims who they consider
to have deviated from the “true” path . Time is past for the Muslim world to
hold on to tortured nationalism by blaming the West for failing to seize the
moment when western technology was on its way to irreversibly change the
contours of global civilization. It is past time for the Islamic world to clean
up the Augean Stable, get its act together and unite with the West and others to
fight the common enemy—terrorism. Islamic renaissance is unlikely to emerge
from the destructive acts of Osama bin Laden. Efforts should be directed
towards achieving “global civic ethics” as recommended by the Commission on
Global Governance echoing Immanuel Kant’s theory of “universal moral community”
that derives from the principle that all people are bound together morally
regardless of their distinctive culture and identity. If it is recognized that
human security is central to global peace then a government’s right to rule
must be weighed against its people’s right to security. In cases if it is found
that people’s security is being threatened under the cloak of religious
activism then the state should assume its responsibility to put ban on such religious
activism which incipiently tries to crawl towards staging a so-called Islamic
Free Election Trap to stage a coup to establish a theocratic state. Devoutly
Muslim Bangladeshis are unlikely to countenance any Machiavellian machination
by religious extremists because Bangladesh has a tradition of secular culture
which is neither atheistic nor agnostic. The government in power regardless of
political expediency is duty bound to arrest any movement towards religious
extremism and ensure freedom of choice to the people.
was
convinced of the irreversibility of the existence of Bangladesh as a sovereign
5.
Global discomfort is evident these days over overt preeminence of religion in
politics some countries. President Bush’s reelection, despite Iraq imbroglio, is
now being believed to have been caused by the rise of conservatism among
Americans and by the strength of “Christian votes”. Political analyst Muqtadir
Khan apprehends that existential anxiety felt by the deeply religious Americans
due to the terrorist acts on 9/11( Alexis Tocquiville claimed that religion was
the first political institution of American democracy) translated into a
political backlash is threatening American secularist and liberal views.
Political Christianity of “born again Christians, conservative Catholics,
conservative African Americans, conservative Hispanics, are concerned more with
gay marriages and abortion than with job loss, outsourcing of jobs, or rising
cost of Iraq invasion. Evangelical Christianity and Pentecostal movement have
not only given George Bush the White House back but also the Republican Party
control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The question that
arises in the minds of the many is whether religion-conservatism has become the
order of the day or the Bush victory is to be regarded as a quirk of history in
an otherwise sequential historical progress of the world towards Francis
Fukuyama’s liberal democracy constituting the “end point of mankind’s
ideological evolution” and the “final form of government” and as such signaling
the “end of history”. But Fukuyama himself has conceded that “one is inclined
to say that the revival of religion in some way attests to a broad unhappiness
with the impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerists
societies”.
6.
Though the Iranian revolution of 1979 which created a theocratic state came as
a rude shock to the Western world it was not totally unexpected because
opposition to Reza Shah Pahlavi was building up for quite some time and
anti-American feeling was bristling among the people for CIA engineering the
ouster of nationalist Prime Minister Mosadegh and the reinstallation of the
Shah to the Peacock throne. Besides the western world was not unduly worried
because the “enemy” was an identifiable nation-state which could be attacked
and fought against. The decade long Iraq-Iran war during which Saddam Hussein’s
regime was fully supported by the West particularly the US was predicated on
the premise that the spread of theocratic political movement could be
contained. The discomfort felt by the
largely Sunni majority Arab states at
the emergence of a Shiia theocratic state in their neighborhood was fully
exploited by the West. Additionally the need for oil and military bases induced
the western countries to ignore the “democracy deficit” prevalent in the Middle
Eastern client states of the West. The threshold of western tolerance for
radical Islamic movement was so high that in its mono-centric policy of aiding
the Afghan mujahedeens through Pakistani Intelligence Services to dislodge the
Soviets from Afghanistan the West failed to see the emergence of brutal Taliban
regime till the tragic events of 9/11 occurred. Oliver Roy sees implicit threat in this brand of modern
Islamic political fundamentalism claiming to recreate new Islamic societies,
not simply by imposing the Sharia laws but by establishing Islamic state
through political action. Islamists see Islam not merely as a religion but as a
political ideology which should be integrated in all aspects of the society.
7.
After Afghanistan Islamic fundamentalism went global with its appeal to a
section of Muslim society based on moral, cultural and political grounds. The
Islamists argue that western culture particularly the one practiced by western
women is essentially degenerative and incompatible with Quranic literalism.
They argue that the values propagated by the West threaten to Islamic purity
and hence their advance is to be thwarted at any cost. Political argument is by
far the easiest to sell to the wayward Muslim population who despite
declaration of piety could have nursed in the darkest corner of their heart a
desire to commit the original sin. The Islamists argue that the reasons for
economic backwardness, political repression and societal dysfunction were
caused by western, particularly American assistance given to the repressive
regimes in the Muslim world. So Osama bin Laden’s deputy Egyptian Ayman
al-Zawahiri faced little problem in becoming an ideologue of hatred to some
marginalized Muslims living at the fringe of an often affluent society. In his
Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, a manifesto on jihad, al-Zawahiri explains
that it is legitimate to strike western
population, not just their governments and institutions, because they “only
know the language of self-interest, backed by brute military force”. The
problems faced by the Islamic secular movements have been compounded by the
iconic presence of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis in literatures trying to
explain the democratic deficit generally suffered by the Muslim world. To
Huntington in Islam God is Caesar, in Confucianism Caesar is God, and in
European Orthodox Christianity God is Caesar’s junior partner. Unhesitatingly
Huntington declares: “The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic
fundamentalism. It is Islam”. Historian Bernard Lewis saw the clash of
civilizations earlier than Huntington in terms of Islamic vs. Christian and
post-Christians and rigid theocratic hierarchy vs. permissive secular
modernism. Lewis perceived Muslim world’s “downward spiral of hate and spite,
rage and self-pity, poverty and oppression” being caused by the Islamic world’s defeat at the
hands of Judeo-Christian civilizations. But in this sweeping critique of Islam
Lewis and others have forgotten that refusal of western hegemony does not
necessarily mean wholesale abandonment of western values. Professor Robert
Hefner correctly asserts that there is no clash of civilizations between
Islamic and Christian world and the really decisive battle is being waged
within the Muslim civilization where ultra-conservatives are competing with the
moderates and democrats for the soul of Islam. In understanding the intensity
of the battle it is necessary to distinguish between neo-fundamentalists with
transnational reach and secular Islam which believes in the subordination of
religion to the state. In this debate one may have to make the difficult choice of whether or not
to ban religion based political parties.
8.
An inconclusive debate remains about the incompatibility of democracy with
monotheistic religions. Robert Dahl in his classic book Polyarchy had set eight
essential requirements for democracy:- right to form and join organizations;
freedom of expression; right to vote; eligibility for public office; right of
political leaders to compete for support for vote; and institutions for making
government policies dependant on vote and other expressions of preference.
Other political scientists have added that democracy must also have a
constitution that by itself is democratic in that it respects fundamental
liberties and offers protection to minorities. Additionally democratically
elected governments must rule within the confines of their constitutions, be
bound by law and be accountable. From historical observations it has been found
that religions place inherent obstacles in the way of democracy. Philosopher
John Rawls found it particularly difficult in a pluralistic society in which
citizens hold a variety of socially embedded, reasonable yet deeply opposed
comprehensive doctrines to arrive at an overlapping consensus. In the case of
Islam some western scholars have found that because of Prophet Mohammed(sm)’s
fusion of military and spiritual authority and because Quranic laws are deemed
to be final the space for democratic debate for the formation of secular laws
does not exist in Muslim societies. Some other scholars however have found that
appropriation of political Islam by Islamic fundamentalists is untenable and
millions of Muslims living outside the Arab world live in intermittent
democracies and they may not become victims of so-called Islamic Free Election
Trap in which fundamentalists use democratic means to get to power only to
abolish democratic practices through legislation.
9. In underdeveloped societies political community are sometimes fragmented into opposed religious, ethnic, racial, and ideological groups, more familiarly known as identity politics, and democratic structure being fragile religion-based politics can invite instability. In Bangladesh, it is believed, that corporations run by religious extremists make an annual net profit of twelve billion taka of which ten percent is used by fundamentalists for organizational purposes like carrying out regular party activities, providing remuneration and allowances to about half a million party cadres and running armed training camps. The number of primary schools since liberation has doubled while that of Dakhil madrasas has increased eight fold. Concern about possible rise of Islamic extremists who look for areas of weakness has been expressed by Western countries. Bertil Lintner, Elizabeth Griswold, Time magazine, Wall Street Journal and others have voiced concern about rising religious extremism in Bangladesh. Indians being our next day neighbor and having been subjected to religion based atrocities, both from within and without, had linked increasing activities of Islamist extremists with then ruling coalition in Bangladesh. If one were to look at the political landscape of Pakistan one can easily find the basis of strength of Muttahihiha Majlis-e-Amal, a conglomerate of religion based parties that were courted by Late President Ziaul Huq till today in order to marginalize moderate political parties like that of Benazir Bhutto. Added to the woes of democracy deficit in Pakistan Brussels based International Crisis Group observed that sectarian conflict in Pakistan was the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces. Cooption and patronage of religious parties by successive military governments have brought Pakistan to a point where religious extremism threatens to erode the foundation of the state and society. The Islamists in Bangladesh who reportedly have transnational links are likely to have links with their fellow travelers in Pakistan and other countries.
10. Though British political philosopher Edmund Burke used the term “terrorism” in the 18th century to demonize the French Revolution, Maximillian Robes Pierre’s “first maxim to conduct the people by reason and the enemies of the people by terror”, and his reiteration that “terror is nothing else but justice, prompt, secure and inflexible”; modern terrorism in one form or another has been a part of human history since 1st century. Of the early religious terrorists (religious terrorism is motivated primarily by religion as opposed to ethnic or a politically ideological terrorist group) the notables were Hindu Thugees, the Muslim Assassins, and the Jewish Zealot-Sciari. The Thugees pursued religious ends by offering their victims to the Hindu Goddess of destruction -- Kali(the Thugees were active from the 7th till mid-19th century India). The assassins killed politicians and clerics who refused to submit to their brand of Islam. Zealot-Sciari, on the other hand, used political violence for religious solution. Though short lived this group waged what they believed to be God ordained war against Canaanites for possession of the promised land. Marxism created its own brand of terrorism subscribing to Italian revolutionary Carlo Piscane’s theory of the “propaganda of the deed” recognizing the usefulness of terrorism to deliver a message to an audience other than the target and draw attention to and support for the terrorist’ cause. Piscane’s theory was put into practice through the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 and of Arch Duke Ferdinand of Austria triggering the outbreak of the First World War. Throughout history, particularly during the colonial period the colonizers resorted to what may be described as “state terrorism” and a segment of the colonized in their yearning to be free embarked upon their own brand of terrorism. One could readily recall the barbarism of the Fascist and the Nazi regimes and the on-going Israeli genocidal acts in the occupied territories as examples of state terrorism In the second category of response to state terrorism one could cite China, Indo-China, Kenya, Malaysia, Cyprus , India, Bangladesh and countless others. In the category of the state sponsored terrorism one could cite the example of Kashmiris trained and armed by Pakistan (denied by the Pakistani authorities) and sent across the Line of Control in Kashmir to conduct terrorist acts in Indian Kashmir. While it is immoral to keep free people in bondage it has to be enquired how expansive the definition of terrorism should be to support armed rebellion. Thus we are faced with the problem of defining terrorism which would have universal acceptance. To cut through the Gordian definitional knot terrorism expert Arnold Schmidt suggested to the UN that if the core of war crimes—deliberate attacks on civilians, hostage taking, and killing of prisoners—is extended to peace times then one could simple define acts of terrorism as “peace time equivalent of war crimes”. The US authorities have been able to agree on some of the fundamental elements of terrorism as follows:- (a) terrorism is the unlawful use of violence against non-combatants, governments and societies, (b) it is used to inculcate fear and/or intended to coerce/intimidate, (c) by sub-national groups or clandestine agents,; (d) in furtherance of political, religious or ideological goals. To Harvard University’s Jessica Stern the “deliberate evocation of dread is what sets terrorism apart from simple murder or assault”. Had it not been for the events of 9/11 perhaps terrorism either of al-Qaida variety or state terrorism would not have brought about the fundamental change in international order. State terrorism by the Fascists and the Nazis got their fitting reply with their total defeat and replacement of these regimes by western style democracies. The disappearances of the colonies, aberrations(like apartheid in South Africa), and defeat of military dictatorship in various parts of the world drew the curtain down on state terrorism. Finally the disappearance of communism persuaded Francis Fukuyama to conclude that liberal democracy constituting the “endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government” and as such constituting ‘the end of history” has arrived. Though free from defects and irrationalities of earlier forms of governments Fukuyama unhesitatingly conceded that today’s stable democracies of the West were not without injustice or serious social problems. Though there can never be any justification for terrorism because the children at Beslan went to school like any other children do every day every where in the world, nor for the genocidal attacks on unarmed civilians by the Pakistani army on 25th March 1971 in the then East Pakistan, massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Sebrenica by Milosevic forces, or the civilians in Rwanda; yet the bombings of USS Cole, and US embassies at Kenya and Tanzania leaving scores dead and wounded did introduce the world to non-state actors who were capable of inflicting great damage to the most powerful nation on earth without incurring much loss to the perpetrators themselves. Such acts fit the terrorists’ agenda because their concerns are generally macro-concerns and essentially political in nature. The violence wrought upon the American people on 9/11 appear to have been partly motivated by revenge (for what the perpetrators viewed as unjust American actions against the Muslims) and the political aspirations of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida – both rejected by the Muslim world. There was therefore no perceptible adverse international reaction when NATO bombed Afghanistan(already a pre-industrial society) to a pulp for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden for trial. War on terror, however, lost its innocence when Iraq was invaded first on the assumption that Saddam Hussein was capable of launching weapons of mass destruction against the West under an hour and later on the ground of his alleged links with the al-Qaida. When both the arguments proved to be false then the ultimate argument of freeing the Iraqis from the clutches of tyrant was advanced. But the legality of Iraq invasion has remained questionable till today since the invasion took place neither in self-defense nor with the approval of the UNSC. Besides, argued Princeton Professor Michael Walzer that as with domestic crimes, use of force would require actual or imminent boundary crossing, invasion or physical assault. Otherwise any use of force by one state against the political sovereignty or territorial integrity of another state would constitute aggression and would be a criminal act. But given the fact that the group of “new sovereigntists” dedicated to defending American institutions against alleged encroachment by international laws and institutions who consider US sovereignty as absolute, illimitable and non-dissipatory and given the fact that so much water has flown down the bridge since Iraq invasion the question of its legality remains an academic issue. Effectively what happened in the UNSC on Iraq despite Madeline Albright’s assertion that US arguments for Iraq war were not persuasive enough for the Europeans to accept or James Rubin’s putting responsibility for American debacle in UNSC on shifts in the US justification for waging the war as demanded by changing situation on the ground; was perhaps most cogently explained by Michael Glennon of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy that UNSC’s failure to prevent the Iraq war was not a failure at all but was due to the incompatibility of the new global configuration resultant of the towering preeminence of the US with the way UNSC was framed to work.
11.
The war of attrition waged by the Sunni Arabs in Iraq against the US occupation
coupled wit the slow progress on Palestine issue do not appear to have produced
the desired result either in Iraq or elsewhere. On the contrary writes Dr.
Peter Warren Singer(of Brookings Institution) that at broader level the US and
the Islamic world stand at a point of historic and dangerous crises as American
description of the “war on terror” is broadly interpreted as the “war on Islam”
by much of the world’s Muslim community. Singer is uncomfortable with Bernard
Lewis’ deterministic view point that Islam as a doctrine rejects modernity and
is thus placed in a “millennial rivalry” with the Judeo-Christian West. In
Lewis’ monolithic analysis of Islam (the terms Arab and Muslim have been
frequently interchanged in the analysis) runs the risk of committing the
mistake made by McCarthyism of
misdiagnosis of the “red menace” rolled into Soviet Union, China and Third
World into one monolithic and inseparable structure .
12.
Some western leaders mindful of furious reaction by many Muslims are more
cautious in identifying the terrorists. Immediately after the 7th
July London bombings Tony Blair told that the British people that “the vast and
overwhelming majority of the Muslims, here and abroad, are decent and law
abiding people who abhor the act of terrorism every bit as much as we do”.
Shockingly, however, London suicide bombers have been found to be mostly born
and bred in the UK albeit of Pakistani and Jamaican origin. Whereas in the past
terrorists were foreigners imbibed with Jehadist mentality, London bombers were
mostly young and the objects of their attack were of little symbolic value
(like the Twin Towers representing American capitalist might). Despite the fact
that the London carnage was lesser
damaging than the Madrid bombing or the Twin Towers the counter-terrorist
experts fear that Jehadist net work span Europe from Poland to Portugal. Dutch
film maker Theo van Gogh was killed by a Dutch of Moroccan descent born and
bred in Europe. Today the Muslims constitute the majority of immigrants in most
European countries estimated at between 15 and 20 million and projected to
double by 2025. These second or third generation children of immigrants “are
the latest, most dangerous incarnation of that staple of immigration
literature, the revolt of the second generation. They are also dramatic
instances of what could be called adversarial assimilation—integration into
host country’s adversarial culture”.
13.. Democracy is a dynamic process, it is
evolving and has not yet reached Francis Fukuyama’s “end point of mankind’s
ideological evolution” and as such constituting the “end of history”. It has been
said that a state’s raison d’etre does not lie in the protection of equal
individual rights but in the guarantee
of an inclusive process of opinion and will formation in which free and equal
citizens reach an under standing on which goals and norms lie in the equal
interest of all. Clearly then an
ethical question would arise as perceived by Italian political scientist Luigi
Bonante while discussing the difference between the individual and the state.
He argues that while the state has sufficient tools to defend its rights and
reject its duties; for the individual as recipient it is much harder to elude
his duties than to achieve his freedom. This asymmetry provides strong argument
for the protection of human rights. The Orwellian tyranny of the majority is
further compounded by increasing activism of Islamists who wish to recreate a
truly Islamic society not simply by imposing the sharia but by establishing an
Islamic state where religious edicts will be integrated into all aspects of
society. US State Department’s Religious Freedom Report of 2002 recognized the
disadvantages faced by the minority community in access to jobs in government,
in the military and in political office. Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(CSIS) report of July last year observed that the Bangladesh government was not
doing enough to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamic
terrorists. Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies in
its Transnational Threat Update before
the 1/11 change over stated: “The current security climate in Bangladesh may
allow terrorist groups to organize attacks using a radiological dispersal
device. Concerns over this possibility are plausible given that radio substance
have proven accessible to terror groups within the country”. If we accept David Held’s( of London School
of Economics) assertion that we no longer live in a world of discrete national
communities but in a world, in David Held’s words, “ overlapping communities of
fate”; then the Muslims in Bangladesh do not constitute the majority community
as they are surrounded by Hindu majority India and Buddhist majority Myanmar
and in the vicinity by non-Muslim South East and Far East Asian countries.
orders
of the Prime Minister that he be arrested. The press has also questioned the
education in South Asia. A report by the Congressional Research Service against the propagation of
“an intolerant arabicised brand of Islam that was alien to Bangladesh’s secular
culture”.*
14.
Democracy is a dynamic process, it is evolving and has not yet reached Francis
Fukuyama’s “end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and as such
constituting the “end of history”. It has been said that a state’s raison d’etre
does not lie in the protection of equal individual rights but in the guarantee of an inclusive process
of opinion and will formation in which free and equal citizens reach an under
standing on which goals and norms lie in the equal interest of all. Clearly then an ethical question would
arise as perceived by Italian political scientist Luigi Bonante while
discussing the difference between the individual and the state. He argues that
while the state has sufficient tools to defend its rights and reject its
duties; for the individual as recipient it is much harder to elude his duties
than to achieve his freedom. This asymmetry provides strong argument for the
protection of human rights. The Orwellian tyranny of the majority is further compounded
by increasing activism of Islamists who wish to recreate a truly Islamic
society not simply by imposing the sharia but by establishing an Islamic state
where religious edicts will be integrated into all aspects of society. US State
Department’s Religious Freedom Report of 2002 recognized the disadvantages
faced by the minority community in access to jobs in government, in the
military and in political office. Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
report of July last year observed that the Bangladesh government was not doing
enough to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamic terrorists.
Washington based Center for Strategic and International Studies in its
Transnational Threat Update before the
1/11 change over stated: “The current security climate in Bangladesh may allow
terrorist groups to organize attacks using a radiological dispersal device.
Concerns over this possibility are plausible given that radio substance have
proven accessible to terror groups within the country”. If we accept David Held’s( of London School
of Economics) assertion that we no longer live in a world of discrete national
communities but in a world, in David Held’s words, “ overlapping communities of
fate”; then the Muslims in Bangladesh do not constitute the majority community
as they are surrounded by Hindu majority India and Buddhist majority Myanmar
and in the vicinity by non-Muslim South East and Far East Asian countries.
15.
The audacity displayed by the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami after the party’s talks
with the Election Commission in his statement that “in fact anti-liberation
forces never existed” when he himself as the President of East Pakistan Islami
Chatra Sangha and as the chief of the infamous Al-Badr back in 1971 helped then
occupying Pakistani army in carrying out massacre, looting and rape is
staggering. The unbelievable comments become more incredulous when one recalls
that the present Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami as President of Islamic Chatra Sangha
directly supervised the formation of Al-Badr Bahini and became its
commander-in-chief. The atrocities committed by the Pakistani army and their
cohorts-namely Jamaat-e-Islami and their offshoots like Al-Badr, Al-Shams and
other collaborators have been documented in many books, journals and reputed
papers. What happened in 1971 was an war of liberation and not a civil war as
claimed by a follower of Jamaat-e-Islami. Unsurprisingly he would rather accept
Hamoodur Rahman Commission’s Report that less than 26000 people died than the
figure of three million killed as mentioned by the Father of the Nation
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. To quote a report on Bangladesh by the
International Crisis Group on Bangladesh( Report no. 121) “Islamists,
especially the Jamaat-e-Islami Party, are often accused of siding with
Pakistanis, joining in genocide and allegedly actively assisting massacres,
especially targeted killing of intellectuals in Dhaka in the last weeks”. The
same report states that as early as April 1971 US officials protested their
government’s support for West Pakistan and argued that “the overworked term
genocide is applicable”. Perhaps, one of the most telling accounts of Jammat’s
collaboration during our war of liberation has been given in a book named
WITNESS TO SURRENDER by Palistani Major Siddiq Salim of the anti-liberation
role played by Jamaat, Muslim League and Nizam-I-Islam. His book is regarded as
a detailed professional account of the war. He wrote that due to the atrocities
committed by the occupation army the Bengali population who were not “very fond
of us before now they hated us bitterly. Hence there was no question of mass
cooperation by the Bengalis.” Of the collaborators Salik said that the elderly
and the prominent among them formed the Peace Committies while the young and able
bodied were raised as Razakars to augment the strength of the Pak army who
numbered 100000 while the Razakar numbered 50000.
16.
Predictably Bangladesh authorities have dismissed Eliza Griswold’s report in
New York Times (January 23, 2005) raising the possibility of Bangladesh giving
birth to the next Islamist revolution. Griswold wrote about the alleged
attempts by Bangla Bhai to bring about Talibanization in some parts of the
country bordering India through violent means. In Griswold’s eyes Bangladesh
politics have never strayed far from violence and thuggery has been a constant
feature of Bangladesh politics and is increasingly so today. Traveling through Bangladesh she concludes
“The global war on terror is aimed at making the rise of regimes like that of
the Taliban impossible, in Bangladesh the trend could be going the other way”.
17.
Bangladesh authorities found the report “baseless, partial and misleading” and
reiterated the government’s commitment to democracy. What is surprising that
dismissal of Griswold’s report notwithstanding Bangladeshi media continues
reporting on the defiance and violence perpetrated by Bangla Bhai and his
cohorts of Jagrata Muslim Janata Banglaesh (JMJB) under the nose of the
governmental authorities and of the government’s inability to arrest Bangla
Bhai despite the orders of the Prime Minister that he be arrested. The press
has also questioned the sincerity of the government to arrest Bangla Bhai and
has endorsed the essence of Griswold’s story by reporting the admission of
JMJB’s leaders that they have been active underground for the last six years to
establish a Taliban like rule in Bangladesh (DS-27.01.05). It is not the first
time that Bangladeshi authorities have been upbraided by domestic and foreign
media and institutions for their inability to contain the virus of religious
intolerance and for its increase in recent days. Eliza Griswold hazards a guess
that it could be because the government is “in any case divided on precisely
the question on how much Islam and politics should mix”. Bertil Lintner’s
article in the Far astern Economic Review (April 2002) warned about the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh. Time magazine and the Asian Wall Street
Journal alleged of sanctuaries being given to transnational Islamists elements.
Zeal of the Islamic fundamentalists found expression in the Friday sermon of
the head priest of a prominent mosque at Dhaka accusing President Bush of being
a “terrorist” while addressing a gathering of people who had gone to the mosque
to offer their prayer, branding two judges of the High Court as enemies of
Islam because they had suo moto given a judgment declaring illegal religious
edicts passed by village priests, and declaring a prominent lawyer of the
country as “murtad” because he was defending in a court of law a case on behalf
of the Ahmadiyya community who are being persecuted by the religious zealots.
18.
Most madrasas are used to educate male students while a few also impart
education to girls. Since madrasa education does not carry much financial
benefits in a labor market demanding non-ecclesiastical skills the students
graduating from madrasas are forced to become madrasa teachers or priests in
mosques. Coming from impoverished families they are forced back into poverty in
a world racing for material advancement. This vicious cycle of poverty and
deprivation may find expression in anti-western feeling particularly in the
aftermath of the decimation of Afghanistan and the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Many madrasa students may find it difficult to understand the venality of the
Taliban regime and of their participation in the 9/11 carnage necessitating
regime change in Afghanistan. To many of them Osama bin Laden is a hero.
Understandably the US Congress keeps itself informed of the madrasa education
in South Asia. A report by the Congressional Research Service (International
Terrorism in South Asia) states that among the approximately ten thousand
madrasas in Pakistan some that have been implicated in teaching militant
anti-western, anti-American and anti-Hindu values. Many of these madrasas are
financed and operated by Pakistani Islamist political parties and foreign
entities. Foremost US analyst on South Asia Stephen Cohen states that the
largest Islamic sects with the greatest control over religious schools are the
Deobandis (as opposed to the Barlevis) who are among the most militant in their
demand for Pakistan to become truly Islamic. Incidentally Deobandi groups were
in the forefront of declaring Ahmadiyyas as non-Muslim in Pakistan. Cohen
believes that the reaction of Parvez Musharraf’s generation of army officers
against Zia ul Huq’s Islamic zealotry in no way represents a rejection of the
limited strategy of using radical Islamic groups as instruments of Pakistani
foreign policy, especially against India. This tour d’horizon of Pakistani
religious extremism was necessary because terrorism, particularly religious
terrorism, is almost always transnational. During his latest visit to South
Asia Ambassador Cofer Black, State Department coordinator for counter terrorism
spoke of Indian allegations relating to terrorist camps in Bangladesh (denied
by Bangladesh authorities) and of the “need to determine exactly the threat not
only to Bangladesh but also the potential utilization of Bangladesh as a
platform to project terrorism internationally”. Noted Indian journalist Prem
Shankar Jha felt that the 8/21 assassination attempt on Sheikh Hasina was
possible due to a combination of political expediency and ambivalence over
whether to ride the tiger of religious intolerance or to confront it”. He
warned against the propagation of “an intolerant arabicised brand of Islam that
was alien to Bangladesh’s secular culture”.
19.
The emergence of religious intolerance in Bangladesh, documented by Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, and US State Department among others, should
be seen in global context. If the Muslims are to prove historian Bernard Lewis
wrong that “Islam was never prepared, either in theory or in practice, to
accord full equality to those who held other forms of worship, and that the
centuries old rivalry between Christianity and Islam is no less than a clash of
civilizations—the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient
rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the world
wide expansion of both”, then the Islamic world would have to adorn itself with
all the traits of modernity. The Islamic world would have to disown death
sentence for writing Satanic Verses, stoning and imprisoning of rape victims,
public flogging, stoning and decapitation of criminal offenders. Globalization
is no longer a choice; it is a reality that all countries have to deal with. In
this game the West has a decided advantage over the Muslim world, particularly
the least developed among them. Countries like Bangladesh will remain dependent
on the developed economies and international financial institutions if they are
to transform their societies into more advanced ones. This quest is fraught
with difficulties that should not be further compounded by inviting religious
extremism, however politically expedient such a move may be.*
20.
Jaamat-e-Islami’s collaboration with the
Pakistani occupation army in 1971 and some of whose leaders being are guilty of crimes against humanity are
undisputed. Jaamat leaders are yet to be
tried because one of the reasons was
that the Genocide Convention
which came into force as international law in 1951 was ratified by only two of
the permanent members of the UN Security Council and it was not until after the
last of the five permanent members ratified the treaty in 1988and the Cold War
came to an end, that the international law on the crime of genocide began. As
such an international tribunal never investigated allegations of genocide in
Bangladesh in 1971. Had it not been so then Jamaat could have found itself on
the dock along with Slovodan Milosevich and Rwandan war criminals, and perhaps,
in future some for the crimes committed at Darfur in Sudan. Christopher Hitchens
in his book The Trials of Henry Kissinger used the term “genocide” as
appropriate for the war crimes committed in Bangladesh in 1971 and castigated
Henry Kissinger for downplaying the aspirations of the Bengali nation for
independence. Susan Brown Miller and Pierre Stephen and Robert Payne in their
books Massacre and Against Our Will and the Archer Blood telegrams to the US
State Department (now declassified) have documented the genocidal acts by the
occupation army and Jamaat’s anti-liberation wings namely Razakars, Al-Badr,
Al- Shams etc.
21.
If the worry of the international community is to safeguard its values and its
way of life against the onslaught by Islamic fundamentalists’ inflexible and
nihilistic war of attrition then care should be taken of Jamaat’s politics in
Bangladesh .One can argue that Jamaat’s representation in the parliament has
been through democratic elections and its inclusion in the government is a
prerogative of the parties which won the elections then the world, and no less
the Islamic world, with intermittent democracy, should be made aware of the
so-called Islamic Free Election Trap in which the fundamentalists use
democratic means to get to power only to abolish democratic practices through
legislation. Fusion of military and spiritual authority and Quranic literalism
as opposed to the concept of the separation of the Church and the State is
intrinsic to Jamaat’s political philosophy. Problem with Islamic political
parties like Jamaat in Bangladesh is “the persistence of ambiguity” suffered by
Islamists almost everywhere. Marina Ottaway and others define this ambiguity as
“tensions remaining between the old goals of creating Islamic states and
enacting uncompromising versions of the Sharia and the new goal of becoming
influential players in a pluralistic, democratic system”. Jamaat’s spiritual
Guru Maulana Maududi described the movement’s purpose “to initiate the deen in
the form of a movement so that religiosity does not become static in our
personal lives, but we struggle to implement this deen and also try to crush
those forces that are against its implementation”. On another occasion Maulana
Maududi declared “we take a person in Jamaat when he understands the meaning on
Kalima-e-Tayyiba and makes it mandatory that he fulfills the minimum criteria
of Islam”. Evidently Jamaat’s philosophy does not allow inclusiveness of other
religions or democratic norms. This partly explains Jamaat’s initial opposition
to the Muslim League’s demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims in British
India, and its opposition to Bangladesh liberation movement can be seen from
Jamaat’s perspective as dismemberment of a Muslim state caused by the
machination of a Hindu India. That the occupying Pakistani army was brutalizing
Bengali Muslims (along with Hindus) was seen as “collateral damage” that must
be borne if the Bengali Muslims were to be freed from the contagion of Hindu
influence.
22.Jamaat’s
current acceptance of democratic pluralism and female leadership in the
stewardship of the country is tactical and was undertaken when Jamaat was
convinced of the irreversibility of the existence of Bangladesh as a sovereign
and independent state. Character of Jamaat-e-Islami is not only apocalyptic, it
is nihilistic. The confessional statements made by the terrorists relating to
terrorism committed on 17th August have proved unambiguously their
connection with Jamaat or its students’ wing at some point during their
political career. Many of these terrorists were trained by Pakistan
Intelligence and the CIA through President Zia –ul-Huq of Pakistan to fight the
Soviet invasion resulting in the placement of brutal Taliban regime that swore
to forsake modernity in favor of a return to a sacred past with disastrous
consequences for Afghanistan and beyond. Effectively Taliban supported Al-Qaida
attacks on the US mainland have practically defined the dawning of a new era in
world politics and placed Islamist extremism at the center stage of
international political conversation.
23.
One suspects that the Western psyche nourished by centuries of opulence may not
be adept to detect the serpentine and subterranean Eastern way of thinking not
borne out of moral vacuity but resultant of interminable struggle with poverty.
A case in point could be the recent advice given by the EU ambassadors that it
is not important with whom the 14 party combine conducts the political dialogue
but that dialogue has to take place to break the current impasse. While the
advice is well intentioned its simplicity beguiles the Bangladeshi mind. It is
so difficult to accord further legitimacy to the governance of the country to a
group which reluctantly accepted the emergence of Bangladesh but may very well
be behind the Islamist terrorism in the country. Perhaps the Europeans, more
than others, are acutely aware of the fact that religion has been often used to
justify violation of human rights by postponing temporal justice to divine judgment.
24.
The claim Bangladesh used to make to be a
moderate Muslim country was shattered into pieces by the 17th August
bomb blasts through out the country. What surprised many was the audacity and
the ease with which the terrorist acts took place with clock work precision
keeping the intelligence and law enforcement agencies completely in the dark.
The incompetence displayed by these
agencies or their inability to force the authorities to listen to their advice
assuming the agencies had prior knowledge of the bomb blasts because the
authorities were reportedly apprehending disturbances by the opposition mourning
the thirtieth anniversary of the brutal killing of the Father of the Nation and
his family members is simply incredible.
Equally puzzling is the possibility as to why the law enforcement agencies were
asked to stand down when nothing untoward happened on the 15th
August. Besides if the serial blasts were planned in mid-April and one of the
key planners was in the country from April 17th to August 20th
and a Kuwaiti based NGO mainly financed the bombings then one must ask the
efficacy of employing such a large number of people at huge expenditure
presumably to spy upon political opponents instead of on enemies of the state.
25.
These days Bangladeshi liberation war heroes, sector
commanders, civil society and politicians appear to have reached near unanimity
in their demand that Jamaat-e Islami, the political party that collaborated
with the Pakistani occupation forces during the war of liberation should be
banned and barred from contesting the elections and all those found
guilty of crimes against humanity should be tried by a special tribunal. The
argument is not only based on acts against humanity perpetrated by
them during the war of liberation but also to prevent the incendiary
nature of religion-based politics in Bangladesh. It now appears that though the
military government in 1976 had repealed the restriction on communal politics
imposed by the 1972 Constitution they and successive governments had not
repealed the Special Powers Act of 1974, still in force, providing for ban on
communal politics and punishment for violation of the SPA. We should, however, be conscious that the
proposed tribunal does not imitate the one that tried Saddam Hussein as many
people believe that Saddam was already prejudged to be hanged before the trial
even began. Our endeavor should be to have tribunals like the International
Criminal Court or the Rwanda Tribunal that would receive international
legitimacy. If political parties are meant to strengthen social coordination
among different interest groups in order to maximize social benefits then
parties like Jamaat that foster dissention and sectarianism among the people
should not be allowed political space in the country. If Bangladesh were to revert back to secular politics which
was one of the country’s founding principles it would not have to compromise its Muslim identity because
the great majority of the people are devout Muslims and do practice religion in their day to day life and Jamaat never got even two
digit popular votes before 2001 elections .
26.
The claim Bangladesh used to make to be a moderate Muslim country was shattered
into pieces by the 17th August bomb blasts through out the country.
What surprised many was the audacity and the ease with which the terrorist acts
took place with clock work precision keeping the intelligence and law
enforcement agencies completely in the dark. The incompetence displayed by these agencies or
their inability to force the authorities to listen to their advice assuming the
agencies had prior knowledge of the bomb blasts because the authorities were
reportedly apprehending disturbances by the opposition mourning the thirtieth
anniversary of the brutal killing of the Father of the Nation and his family
members is simply incredible. Equally
puzzling is the possibility as to why the law enforcement agencies were asked
to stand down when nothing untoward happened on the 15th August.
Besides if the serial blasts were planned in mid-April and one of the key
planners was in the country from April 17th to August 20th
and a Kuwaiti based NGO mainly financed the bombings then one must ask the
efficacy of employing such a large number of people at huge expenditure
presumably to spy upon political opponents instead of on enemies of the state.
27.
Immediately after the serial blasts both President Bush, Prime Minister Blair,
European Commission, and other world leaders condemned the bombings. Being
victims of Islamic terrorism themselves the western leaders warned Bangladesh
anew of the serious situation prevailing in the country which has called into
question the claim of Bangladesh as a moderate Muslim country. However it was
not the first time that the foreigners had warned Bangladesh authorities of the
incipient and stealthy progress of Islamic extremism in the country. In April
2002 Bretil Linter wrote in the Far Eastern Economic Review that after the fall
of Kandahar hundreds of Talibans and al-Qaida fighters had arrived by boat from
Karachi to Chittagong. A few months later Time magazine’s Alex Perry provided
details of southern Bangladesh becoming “a heaven for Jihadists”. Early this
year Eliza Griswold in a piece in The New York Times raised the possibility of
Bangladesh giving birth to the next Islamic Revolution. Indian government have
been incessant in their allegations of Bangladesh providing safe heaven and
materials to the Indian insurgents fighting in the North Eastern India.
28.
Immediately after the serial blasts both President Bush, Prime Minister Blair,
European Commission, and other world leaders condemned the bombings. Being
victims of Islamic terrorism themselves the western leaders warned Bangladesh
anew of the serious situation prevailing in the country which has called into
question the claim of Bangladesh as a moderate Muslim country. However it was
not the first time that the foreigners had warned Bangladesh authorities of the
incipient and stealthy progress of Islamic extremism in the country. In April
2002 Bretil Linter wrote in the Far Eastern Economic Review that after the fall
of Kandahar hundreds of Talibans and al-Qaida fighters had arrived by boat from
Karachi to Chittagong. A few months later Time magazine’s Alex Perry provided
details of southern Bangladesh becoming “a heaven for Jihadists”. Early this
year Eliza Griswold in a piece in The New York Times raised the possibility of
Bangladesh giving birth to the next Islamic Revolution. Indian government have
been incessant in their allegations of Bangladesh providing safe heaven and
materials to the Indian insurgents fighting in the North Eastern India.
29.Pakistani
Intelligence Services (ISI) trying to destabilize North Eastern India from
Bangladesh. Early this year Indian Foreign Secretary Shayam Saran in a speech
at Delhi warned that India would not ignore her neighbors’ conduct “to allowing
the use of their territories for cross border terrorism and hostile activities
against India”. Predictably Bangladesh authorities continued to dismiss these
allegations. People, however, found it difficult to be totally dismissive of a
study conducted by an eminent Bangladeshi economist that corporations run by
religious fundamentalists make an annual profit of twelve billion taka every
year ten percent of which is spent by the fundamentalists for organizational purposes
like carrying out regular party activities, providing remuneration and
allowances to about half a million party cadres, and running armed training
camps. The number of madrashas in Bangladesh is estimated to be 64000( sixty
four thousand) divided into two broad categories—Aliya madrashas run with
governmental support and control, and Dars-e-Nizami or Deoband style madrashas
who are totally independent. Jamat-e-Islami, founded by Maulana Abu ala
Maududi, had grown out of Deoband madrasha system. Jamat from the very
beginning was inspired by Ikhwan ul Muslemin or Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt
with the aim of bringing about an Islamic revolution and creating an Islamic
state. Initially in undivided India Jamat was opposed to the concept of
Pakistan. Later, however, when Jamat came to support Pakistan as the Islamic
state for the Indian Muslims, Bengali nationalism was totally unacceptable to
them. Unsurprisingly therefore Jamat sided with the Pakistani occupation forces
in East Pakistan and fought against the war of liberation. Unfortunately
successive military governments needing an ideological platform to justify
their opposition to Awami League supported and patronized Jamat-e-Islami and
today Jamat and another Islamist party are members of a
Coalition
government in Bangladesh.
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