So, it has finally arrived! It was a chilly day yesterday in Colorado and it got chillier as I was sitting there listening to an audiocast purported to be from Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the current nattering Nabob of Terror! Because my grasp on classical Arabic has become rusty and the person was ranting and raving in Arabic tinged with Egyptian accent, here is what I got. “Bangladesh is an illegitimate country formed by conspiracy of the elites (ahem, who might that be), the government of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan all colluded in the creation of Bangladesh. Now they want to enslave the Ummah”. The audio huffing and puffing went on for about 34 minutes and the gist is that the guy very much like the so-called ‘good’ Muslims would do Jihad in Bangladesh; pretty please!
Aside from the whole host of issues about inaccuracies, hyperbole, little and big white lies in the madman’s diatribe, the question that we should ask is what gives this guy an avenue to pontificate about the Muslims of Bangladesh and their chosen way of life? I will admit that the guy has chutzpah but the government of Bangladesh and its destructive opposition party gave this creature and his groupies an opening.
It is all about transparency, um, lack of it. The secretive and in the middle of the night attack on the Hifazat rally in Motijheel area last year has created a victimhood narrative among the Jihadists and the ordinary people in Bangladesh and elsewhere. The story that is spinning around is the army, police and thugs associated with government attacked a peaceful gathering of religious and simple people. They killed thousands of simple religious people who were unarmed and swiftly disposed of the bodies. Never mind that there exist scant little evidence of a massacre or any evidence that an efficient government organisation exists that can dispose bodies of 2,000, nay 5,000, ah nay 10,000 people between 2 AM and sunrise. In the digital age it is virtually impossible to scratch the paint of a parked rickshaw without someone taking a video of it. No such thing exists that I can locate. But, no one trusts the government narrative either, of three people dead and somewhat uneventful and peaceful dispersal of an illegal gathering. The ministers and various government mouthpieces stick to the “Talking Points” even after they have been proven to be utterly false and laughable. For evidence, look at their handling of the Padma Bridge corruption debacle and the myth of a valid election that plurality of the populations supported.
What we forget is that, there is an odd romantic edge to the Jihadi victim neighbourhood. In my youth it was left wing politics with secretive cells, reading of Mao pamphlets (not that we understood anything without the cultural context) and quoting from Das Kapital at the age of 10 to impress girls. Now the narrative is deadly. The Jihadi narrative has the power of victimhood, the shine of religiosity and the money of the Saudi despots. A lethal mix. Into this mix wades the lying and half-truth telling ministers and MPs that just feeds the fire. All that does is keeps the cauldron boiling and eventually produces more and more radical Jihadists where there should be none.
There is a vast difference between being religious and being an intolerant despotic mullah who will cut off your head just because you do not agree with the Holy High Rollers in all the colours and permutations. I know deeply religious people and they do not wear their religion on their sleeves. A few years ago, I was driving a couple and their two sons from the north of Denmark to Copenhagen. We stopped at a gas station and they took out their prayer mats and rolled them out on grassy patch and said their Maghreb prayers. I was embarrassed and somewhat offended by the fact that they were not paying any heed to the people watching them in amusement. So, after we started again I asked them why they could not wait till we got to our destination. My friend said, “There is no guarantee that we will get to the destination ever and I do not want to arrive at my God’s feet without saying the prayers. If I made you uncomfortable, I am deeply sorry”. I turned beet red and felt very humbled. Here was a man who I have known from my childhood who has grown up to be a religious person and I have stayed with my agnostic views of things. But, he is willing to let me be and willing to say sorry for real or imagined slight but he has never tried to preach me. Never told me that the Hell is waiting for me; he just let me be. This man has a deep connection to God and he is a religious man. On the other hand, someone like Zawahiri is a born bully and he thinks has a direct speed dial to God and somehow “Allah the merciful” wants to bloody his hands with the blood of Bangladeshis to get them to accept Zawahiri’s version of Islam. I think not!
How one tells the story can determine whether or not we can nip the Jihadists in the bud. I will agree there should be no compromises with the head cutting mullahs. However, unless there is a real serious opinion building, transparency and legal head cutting Bangladesh will reap the whirlwind of death and destruction. The country can ill afford a protracted war and bloodshed without sending it back to the Stone Age. As my niece Sabrina told me last week, now is the most dangerous time as simple religious people may become enthralled by the victim narrative spun by the head cutting mullahs. I think she is right.
There is a parallel place where lack of transparency and legal proceedings are beginning to pose a deadly scenario. In Egypt, the ouster of the Morsi government has been quite strange and unique. The Egyptians came out by the millions (biggest rally in human history) against the Morsi government. But, the actual ouster was a lie filled military excursion. Following the ouster and imprisonment of Morsi, the military killed a whole bunch of people doing a sit-in near their Cairo headquarters. The Muslim Brotherhood says 5,000 died and Army say 34. There are videos of about 12 people who have been shot in the rally. Never mind, the numbers fluctuate between 34 to 20,000. Shades of Motijheel, no? Because Muslim Brotherhood is now a “Terrorist Organisation” according to the military, the response that is shaping is entirely un-Egyptian and deadly. Few weeks ago someone strapped on a suicide vest and killed some three soldiers near their camp. Sinai based Ansar beit Al Maqdis has blown up a military helicopter with a shoulder fired missile and two of its member waded into a police training camp and killed 198 police and military personnel. The Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim barely survived a bomb attack on his motorcade. Egypt is teetering on the brink of an all-out civil war. All of these could have been avoided if the military immediately created a transparent roadmap for fair and free elections and started a dialogue with the Brotherhood as well as its opponents. There is still a chance that that will happen, but every day that military spins a farfetched story, every day the goal of a prosperous and peaceful Egypt slips away.
In Bangladesh, we need to deal with the Jihadists without giving an inch. However, that does not mean we exclude the religious issues. The Jihadists should not be allowed to form their own little victim narrative and play it again and again and amplify it in the process. The government and the opposition including Jamaat-e-Islami should come together now and denounce the head cutting mullahs but also set up an independent commission to inquire into the Motijheel mayhem. Only when the truth has been told and the people of the country understand that religious freedom is not attacked but guaranteed, when we figure out a way to take Quamai Madrassas into our educational system, then and only then can we have a policy of zero tolerance for the head cutting mullahs. The Bangladeshi system has lifted millions upon millions from poverty and religion has got to do nothin’ with it.
Let us make clear distinction between the religious and intolerant head cutting mullahs!
Source: Bd news24
