RE: [ALOCHONA] FW: Blow to Religion-based Politics in Bangladesh

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From:	qrahman@aim.com
To:	alochona@yahoogroups.com
Subject:	RE: [ALOCHONA] FW: Blow to Religion-based Politics in Bangladesh
Date:	Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:04:40 +0600

Dear Alochok Farida,

 Secularism in Indian sub continent was very different and complex than what you  are projecting in this forum. Removing "Bismillah" will not ensure safe environment  for minorities. Rather we have to turn ourselves into a group that uphold law of  the land. 

Remember "Golden age of Jewish civilization" came when Muslims use to  follow sharia law in Spain. It is plain wrong to assume all things "Islamic" are  bad (Or all things Islamic automatically makes everything perfect!). Thomas Freedman of NY times coined the term "Islamist" as negetive and we  have been debating among ourselves without looking into this "Flawed" context.  We should stand united against violence and lawlessness. We should  not stand  against Islam.  Bangabandhu was a man of wisdom. During 47 he was part of Muslim League because  situation null such stance. During 71, he took up the cause of protecting  Bengalis. He NEVER stood up against Islam.

even communists from India understand religion is a big part of our culture and history. So they kept the right balance for India while 

promoting socialist system in many parts of India. 

---Quazi

  -original message- Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] FW: Blow to Religion-based Politics in Bangladesh From: Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> Date: 21/02/2010 1:07 pm      This tiresome practice of first citing the West for a model to look UP to,  and then looking DOWN upon the West as Godless because they are SECULAR seems  pointless. Actually, it points to an "inferiority complex" of both the deshi  Islamists and the secularists who never understood the complex historical  development of Secularism in the West. European secularism is a relatively  recent phenonmenon, and American secularim is only Constitutional.      Secularism in the Constitution of Bangladesh is more appropriate, and naturally  more fitting to its cultural and civilizational heritage than it is to the  Constitution of the United States of America.              It is us, nurtured in the great Indian Civilization, who enjoyed  secularism for all those gloriously prosperous centuries while Europe was mired  in religious strife and bigotry.              Finally, please stop citing Christian Democratic Party of Germany as an  IDEAL of religion-based political party.  In the European political party the  name indicates 'democrats' who happen to be Christians as opposed to being  communists or something else. But BD-Jamaat claims to be the SOLE purveyor of  Allah'r Ain and resorts to killing other Muslims if they don't agree with their  political agenda.              Farida Majid  =========================   To: alochona@yahoogroups.com From: azizhuq@hotmail.com Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:08:30 +0000 Subject: RE: [ALOCHONA] FW: Blow to Religion-based Politics in Bangladesh        Most European countries have religion based political parties (Christan  Democratic) yet Europe is most secular. While America has no major religion  based political parties (at least by name) still religion plays a great role in  America.    There are three Jamaths (Islamic groups) in Bangladesh (JMB, JIB and the TJ).  One is, most probably, banned. So, when one goes down the other will come up.    It will be interesting to see the direction Bangladesh takes.       farida_majid@hotmail.com Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:30:03 -0500 Subject: [ALOCHONA] FW: Blow to Religion-based Politics in Bangladesh                A very good summing-up without any frills.            I would clarify only one thing.  The notorious Fifth Amendment did not  include the placement of "Bismillah" in the Preamble of the Consitution.   Therefore the repeal of the Amendment does not by itself remove "Bismillah".   There has to be another Parliamentary gesture to clean up the Constitution of  any sign of preference for a particular religion.                Farida Majid                         Blow to Religion-Based Politics in Bangladesh Friday 05 February 2010  by: J. Sri Raman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed       Here is some disconcerting news for all disciples of neocon gurus, who had  discovered Islam as the enemy of democracy and the successor to the "evil  empire" of the cold war era. An Islamic country of 160 million people, under an  elected government, is witnessing important but ill-noticed moves to abolish  religion-based politics.   On February 2, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh struck down a nearly 11-year-old  constitutional amendment that had allowed religion-based political parities to  function and flourish in the country. The ruling had the effect of restoring the  statutory secularism, which Bangladesh adopted in 1972 after liberation from  Pakistan and lost five years later following a series of military coups.   It may also have the effect of inspiring at least a debate on the issues in  Pakistan, the other Islamic country of South Asia. It may also have a ripple  effect, helping to raise the issues subsequently in sections of the rest of the  Islamic world.   This only carries forward an old battle. The logic of Bangladesh's liberation  war itself led the nation's founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to place its  linguistic identity above the religious. The reverse of the same logic drove  religion-based groups in the the pre-liberation East Pakistan to side with  Islamabad in the war.   The first constitution of Bangladesh, under Article 38, placed a bar on  religion-based parties and politics. Mujib, as he was popularly known, and most  of his family were assassinated in a coup on August 25, 1975. A series of coups  since then culminated in the country's takeover by Maj.-Gen. Ziaur Rahman in  1977. In April 1979, the Zia regime enacted the infamous Fifth Amendment to the  constitution, paving the way for the return of religion-based parties and  politics.   Article 38 of the original constitution proclaimed: "Every citizen shall have  the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions  imposed by law in the interests of morality or public order." But it clearly  added: "Provided that no person shall have the right to form, or be a member or  otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other association or  union which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or  pursues, a political purpose."   As revised under the Fifth Amendment, the Article said: "Every citizen shall  have the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable  restrictions imposed by law in the interests of public order or public health."  The amendment scrapped the original Article 12, which enshrined "secularism" and  "freedom of religion" in the supreme law of the land.   Earlier, by a proclamation, the martial law regime made other major changes in  the constitution as well. The Preamble to the constitution was preceded by the  religious invocation, "Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim" (in the name of Allah, the  Beneficent, the Merciful). In the text of the Preamble, the words "a historic  struggle for national liberation" were replaced with "a historic war for  national independence." The phrase mentioning "nationalism, socialism, democracy  and secularism" as the "high ideals" in the second paragraph was replaced with  "absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah, nationalism, democracy and  socialism meaning economic and social justice."   Article 8 of the original constitution - laying down nationalism, socialism,  democracy and secularism as the four fundamental principles of state policy -  was amended to omit "secularism" and replace it with "absolute trust and faith  in Almighty Allah." In repeated pronouncements, Zia also substituted  "Bangladeshi nationalism" for the "Bengali nationalism" of the Mujib days that  stressed a non-religious identity.   Lt.-Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who staged yet another coup and ruled  Bangladesh during 1982-86, carried Zia's initiative forward by making Islam the  "state religion" through the Eighth Amendment.   The battle between the secular and anti-secular camps continued through all  this, and became more open after the country's return to democracy in 1991. The  Awami League (AL), headed by Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has always  fought for abrogation of the Fifth Amendment. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party  (BNP), founded by Zia and now led by his widow Begum Khaleda Zia, and its allies  pursuing religion-based politics have remained uncompromising supporters of the  amendment.   The AL and its allies scored a legal victory in August 2005, when the country's  High Court held the amendment unconstitutional. The court said: "These changes  (made by the Fifth Amendment) were fundamental in nature and changed the very  basis of our war for liberation and also defaced the constitution altogether."  It added that the amendment transformed secular Bangladesh into a "theocratic  state" and "betrayed one of the dominant causes for the war of liberation."   The government in Dhaka, then a coalition of the BNP and the religion-based  Jamaat-i-Islami (JeI), moved a petition in the Supreme Court against the ruling.  The order was stayed and the issue of the amendment was put on the back burner,  where it stayed for four years.   Then came a major political change. A year ago, on January 6, 2009, Hasina  returned as prime minister after a landslide electoral victory. In early May  2009, the AL government withdrew the old, official petition for staying the 2005  court ruling. The BNP-JeI alliance was quick to react. BNP Secretary General  Khondker Delwar Hossain and three lawyers from the JeI rushed to the Supreme  Court with petitions seeking to protect the amendment. Their petitions have been  thrown out.   The JeI and other religion-based groups did not endear themselves to the  country, as the results of the last general election showed, with their violent  activities. The serial bombing they carried out across Bangladesh in 2005,  taking a heavy toll of human lives, did not help the BNP return to power through  the ballot box. The period 2001-06, when the BNP-led alliance wielded power,  witnessed "unprecedented" atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities,  according to Bangladeshi rights activist Shahriar Kabir. The victims included  Hindus, Ahmediyas and other communities and the atrocities ranged from killings  and rapes to destruction and desecration of places of worship.   After the Supreme Court's verdict, Law Minister Shafique Ahmed has said that all  religion-based parties should "drop the name of Islam from their name and stop  using religion during campaigning." He has also announced that religion-based  parties are going to be "banned." The government, however, has disavowed any  intention to remove the Islamic invocation from the Preamble of the  constitution.   All this has already drawn attention in Pakistan, which has continued to suffer  from religion-based politics despite its popular rejection in successive  elections. Veteran Pakistani columnist Babar Ayaz, in an article captioned  "Amendments for a secular constitution" in the Lahore-based Daily Times, talks  of the clauses in Pakistan's constitution, introduced by former dictator Zia  ul-Haq "who considered himself a kind of religious guardian of the country."   Noting the moves in Bangladesh, Ayaz adds: "Pakistan may not be able to ban  religion-based political parties in the near future, but it should move towards  expunging the ridiculous constitutional clauses mentioned above ... It would be  a long and hard struggle, but it is doable."   Bangladesh is in for a long and hard struggle, too. The BNP has threatened an  agitation against the changes. It is likely to combine this with a campaign  against India (under whose pressure Hasina is alleged to be acting), and New  Delhi can be counted upon to keep providing grist to Khaleda's political mill  with Big Brother-like actions widely resented in Bangladesh.   There are also limits to which a constitution alone can counter religion-based  politics. The far right's activities in India, proud of its staunchly secular  constitution, furnishes just one example.   The significance of what is happening in Bangladesh, however, cannot be  belittled either. It demonstrates the far greater role popular will can play in  combating religion-based politics than cluster bombs and drones.            Your Mail works best with the New Yahoo Optimized IE8. Get it NOW!.      Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft's powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.      Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.                            _________________________________________________________________ Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469229/direct/01/ 

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