“These Hifazatis are Sylhetois, Noakahila and Chittagongians” thundered my friend Bablu from Los Angeles in one of his episodic Facebook posts which are typically unencumbered by the thought process. If we agree that the “Hifazatis” are just as he says they are then some 25% of Bangladeshis are Hifazatis! This got me thinking as to who are these people who apparently have come from nowhere and apparently with foreign help (if you believe the Madame Prime Minister) and has stormed the political centre stage. So, as it is my way, I started digging and digging. And I was startled by the discovery that the leadership and cadres of the Hifazat movement have been politically active in Bangladeshi society from day one! They have been in the mosques, they have been influential regional mullahs, they have been teachers in madrassahs, one or two had marched with Maulana Bhasani and so on and so forth. The fact is that, they are not foreign implants but they are us.
Before you go off and scream, “I am not part of those toothless, skull cap wearing, paan eating, flip-flop marching, unwashed masses”, please do examine why and how the Hifazat movement became a force to reckon with and that too so quickly. I submit that Hifazat-e Islam is tapping into the deeply ingrained social and religious fears and anxiety. What the young hot heads at Shahbagh never understood is that Bangladeshi Muslims at their very core are a religious people. The religiosity is sustained by the fear and anxiety that is propagated by the ignorance of actual teachings of Islam and mash up of cultural and pseudo religious superstition.
The Shahbaghis pushed a button little too far down. The result was all the fear and anger that has been bubbling for years have surfaced in the form of the Hifazat movement. The Hifazatis reacted to the loss of their world. You may have noticed that they reserve their most virulent outbursts towards women. They want the women to go back to the kitchen and stay there. I believe one of their leaders even said that he wants to meet the woman only at night in bed!
Their biggest fear is they are losing economic power to women. Not the Mem Shahib women in the big cities. To the Hifazatis, the Mem Sahibs are lost causes and evil beings to be probably beheaded when they come to power! For now, the Hifazatis are angry at the women who work at the garments factories and make Tk 5,000 per month. The earning power of women that has come about due to the phenomenal growth of garments industry has changed the power equation of the traditional Bengali society. The madrassah educated mullah has very little chance of earning the equivalent of a garment worker. However, the perception remains that a madrassah graduate or for that matter any man regardless of earning, his contribution to the family finances is superior to the woman. But when the purse string changes, those perceptions hit hard against the reality of economics and earning power. These are deep changes that happened and are happening at a colossally fast pace.
There is the popular myth that the traditionalist tend to nurture which portrays the garment worker woman a floozy, a woman of lose character, etc. But, the reality is that these women work hard, die sometimes at the hand of callous factory owners to provide food for the family. I have met many of them and they never think politically, they never think that this job will give them independence or buy them fancy anything. If they are unmarried they send most of their money to their parents and if they are married and have children then the money goes to the children. These women are heroic beings and the confluence of globalization has given them a chance to provide for their families as opposed to be victims of passivity and on reliance on dua only! But by simply living they have changed the world of the very traditional men.
I have watched over the last 15 years how the non-working political mullah class was building up resentment against these changes. I saw that every time I went for a prayer in the village mosque (yes, in Sylhet) or listened to the sermons on Fridays or during Eid. They are all certain that “Gazab” is just around the corner! Most of the “Gazab” is upon us due to the behaviour of “behaya” women! There is a deep seated strain of anxiety that these changes have brought about. The flawed International Crimes Tribunal, the disorganised rhetoric of the Shahbagh Movement all simply scratched the itch so hard that it has become a full blown national wound.
The 13-point Demand List (maybe more than 13 by now) aims to take Bangladesh back to an alien world. It would be wrong to say back to the 14th century. The area that is now Bangladesh never had a strict Taliban like system. Even the hierarchy before Islam came to town was tolerant and flexible. Islam gave people suffering under the yoke of caste system a way out, albeit, at the point of the sword. But the cultural mash up stays. We look at people as something less than us if their economic station is below us. I think no one thinks twice when people in the lower economic strata are treated poorly. For example, I was at my nephew’s wedding in January. This was a big multi-day affair. As we went from one event to another I listened to the organisers and parents talking about having a separate place for the drivers to eat. One of them was very proud that they are organising a sit down dinner for the “drivers” as opposed to take-away-boxed dinner. I realized that this sort of compartmentalised treatment of the less fortunate was part of the modern day Bengali zeitgeist! No one gives it a second thought. So, if there was a Shahbagh style protest to treat the “drivers” just like any other guest I am sure many will be offended. The cultural norms are part of fabric of the society and it takes time to change. Violent changes beget only violence and not any abiding change.
So, what about the Hifazatis, a.k.a. the Sylhetois, Chittagnagians and Noakhaila? Let us acknowledge that the Hifazatis are no different from the rest of us. They have a very different worldview and they feel their worldview is under attack. I understand the sentiment without accepting the same. The only way to stop from slip sliding into the abyss of the bloodshed and communal hatred of yester years are number of conscious steps to get everyone to participate in the economic growth that Bangladesh is experiencing. Here are a few suggested steps:
- Ensure at all costs that women are free to work. A good 50% of the population must maintain their economic freedom. This is one place where there can be no compromise.
- Change the madrassah curriculum to include basic skills and industry specific training.
- Recruit some madrassah students into industry and commerce as opposed to simply banishing them behind the domes of the minarets.
- Stop the ill thought-out and juvenile Shahbaghi Movement which festers on because some of kids want the fame and notoriety. They have no understanding that they are being used in the Great Game of no holds barred Bengali electoral politics.
- Cut off all outside funding, especially Saudi Wahhabi funding, for the madrassahs in Bangladesh. The Saudis are like the Death Star from the Star Wars movie. They destroy civilizations unless it conforms to their worldview.
We can take these steps and they will go a long way towards bringing some much needed peace back. Most importantly though we really need to acknowledge that the Hifazatis are not an alien force but just a part of us. We need to understand their fear and anger and create an inclusive society. However, we also need to acknowledge that there is evil in the world. If the extremists use Hifazat or any other movement then they need to be stopped hard. Bangladesh has come a long way from the blood red days of 1971 to go backwards.
Source: Bd news24
Thanks to the writer for his very incisive and erudite writing. His suggestions deserve good appreciation. But did the Hefazatis really ‘want the women to go back to the kitchen and stay there?’ Did he go through the explanation the Hefazatis give about their demand relating to women? I think that point went amiss. What Hefazatis want, as far as their explanation is concerned, is that they want women and girls’ ‘free-mixing’ and indecent, immodest moving about. They made it clear that millions of girls and women working in different sectors including the garments industry were not going beyond the line of decency. Actually they did not have that ‘opportunity’ because they are already vulnerable targets of their employers and wayside teasers. They did not oppose girls/women’s getting education. They want, as they explained, a society that won’t allow ‘permissiveness’ where renting out a woman’s uterus cannot be a free choice. If girls/women’s movement with modesty and humility, as a Muslim girl/woman must do is ‘pushing them backward to ‘dark age’, the critics’ knowledge of ‘dark age’ is very much questionable. We are well-aware what’s going on in the so-called civilized world in the name of ‘women’s lib’ or ’emancipation of women’.