Paul KeenanThe Church speaks against extremism in Bangladesh, writes Paul Keenan
The Catholic Church in Bangladesh made a bold and inspiring statement at the end of April.
Just days after the horrendous machete killings of Xulhaz Mannan and his companion Tonoy Majumder on the night of April 24 in the capital Dhaka, Bishop Gervas Rozario of Rajshahi – president of the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace – vocally denounced the murderers and the apparent inability/unwillingness of government to tackle the roots of these, the latest in a dreadful litany of killings targeting bloggers and minorities across the country.
“We condemn those who did it,” Bishop Rozario stated, adding that the murders must “be considered a serious failure of the government. The police should act to save the people of the country without religious or political biases.”
At one level, the prelate’s statement can be viewed as an enunciating of the Church’s universality when it comes to issues of social justice, given that Mannan and Majumder were gay rights activists, targeted by their killers for just that reason. Human life was wasted in the most awful fashion, and Bishop Rozario did not hesitate under the weight of ideologies to speak up. But similarly, the prelate did not hesitate in the face of the very dangerous currents underlying these and earlier machete slayings in Bangladesh, making his statement most bold indeed.
Open season
One recent commentator on events in Bangladesh today has described a virtual “open season” on anyone perceived as failing to meet the precise standards set by a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism there.
The roots of this growing intolerance lies with tensions between Islam and secularism which emerged as the country sought to deal with the legacy of its 1971 fight for independence from Pakistan, with the current administration leading the charge on punishing alleged excesses of a leading Islamic grouping, to the dismay of conservatives who view any action against Muslims as an attack on Islam itself.
Moves took a dangerous turn in 2013 when a list of 84 targets for Islamic fundamentalists mysteriously appeared, naming specific individuals deemed to be undermining Bangladesh’s Islamic character. Inevitably, the machete attacks began shortly afterwards against anyone deemed unacceptable to ultra-conservative Islam.
Some 13 fatal attacks have been carried out to date, with secularists, atheists, religious minorities, homosexuals, democracy bloggers and writers considered ‘fair game’ by groups such as Ansar al-Islam, which aligns itself to al Qaeda and which claimed the Mannan and Majumder killings.
That link offers yet another perspective on matters. The rise in attacks on specific minorities can on the one hand be seen as the response to a call in 2014 by al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, for jihad in Bangladesh. As the terror group comes under pressure in other nations, it has repeatedly sought fresh outposts. This, in turn, is but one part of a more sinister story.
More recently, the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) also announced Bangladesh as a new territory for its own version of jihad, viewing the state as an important base for onward expansion into Burma (Myanmar) and India.
That declaration, made last September, piled fresh pressure on those who are, in the eyes of the strategic terrorists, mere advertising campaigns in their victimhood as Islamic State targets them in order to swell its own ranks with approving militants. Worse still, the arrival of ISIS effectively put it up to al Qaeda on the recruiting front, forcing the older group to outdo its rival in scale of attacks and its barbarity in the vile marketplace of ideologies created by the pair.
Evidence
Some evidence of this latter point is provided by those seeking to claim the machete killings. While al Qaeda reaps the publicity of the Mannan and Majumder slayings, ISIS boldly proclaimed, just one day earlier, its part in the killing of Rezaul Karim Siddique, an English professor with Rajshahi University. His crime?
He had established a literary magazine and was working to develop a music school for young people in his area. ISIS abhors music as especially sinful.
Complicating matters all the more has been the reaction to the catalogue of murders from Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Despite international calls for a stronger response from the government, Ms Hasina has all but washed her hands of responsibility to the victims, claiming in one statement that the murders were merely “untoward incidents” while implying that the opinions held by the victims were to blame for the killings, somehow exonerating the government of any role in defending them.
Here, Ms Hasina is playing the political equivalent of spinning plates. Already on shaky ground after questionable elections in 2014, Prime Minister Hasina has been accused of kowtowing ever more to the voices of strict Muslim conservatism within Bangladesh so as to bolster her position. There is nothing new in this.
Following an initial foray into secularism after the nation’s independence, military coups utilised Islam as a means of popular support until it was deemed the nation’s official religion in 1988, meaning all leaders since then have had to tread carefully in power.
But in addition to her appeasing of conservatives, Hasina has also found it useful to point a finger of suspicion at her opponents within the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in relation to the machete slayings. In addition to pursuing war crimes charges – and death penalties – against members of the BNP-aligned fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party, Ms Hasina has also loudly accused the BNP of having a hand in the latest murders, despite the al Qaeda and Islamic State claims.
Politics is a dirty business, but, as America’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper pointed out in February, Ms Hasina’s brand of politics is particularly dangerous. He stressed then that her drive to undermine the opposition “will probably provide openings for transnational terrorist groups to expand their presence in the country”.
And it seems as though this drive is set to continue. At the time of writing, reports from Bangladesh related that another machete murder had occurred, this one involving a Hindu tailor based northwest of Dhaka. The man had been accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed in 2012, though the accusation was later withdrawn.
His murder was claimed immediately by ISIS, yet, when police moved to detain suspects, they nabbed the local leader of Jamaat-e-Islami for good measure. Meanwhile the Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan moved to dismiss the ISIS claim and denied that the group, or al Qaeda for that matter, is present in Bangladesh and local groups which have been banned by the government must be blamed for the murder.
Returning to the statement made by Bishop Gervas Rozario, the complex mix of very dangerous players and political machinations throws into stark relief the very daring stance taken by the prelate.
The bloggers and minorities of Bangladesh have been lauded for their courage in refusing to be silenced by the threat of the blade. Bishop Rozario deserves similar praise.