Following is a comment posting that I like on the following article:
By Nabeel Ashraf Ali
The fact of the matter is – the government is cowering down in front of Islamist rise, not really protecting Islam. It is doing what it does best – dirty politics. I prefer the term "dirty-politics" as opposed to only "politics", since I would like to reserve that for politics that can potentially be beneficial for humankind.
There is absolutely no interest in the government with regard to resist or encourage Islamic Revivalism. In fact, I don't think there is anybody seriously looking into the matter with any academic interest whatsoever. All they are interested in is how to get to and remain at the helm of power, just like the other parties (including the war-crime party). That is all. Nothing more – nothing less.
Therefore, let's do a bit of historiography of Shahbah here for the sake of clarity:
1. The current government's mandate stands on trying the war-criminals which is engineered to buttress it claim as the only party on the side of the spirit of 71. However, for the lack of any other real developmental plans for the country, they want to hang on to this issue as long as they can.
2. The rise of Shahbag, like it or not, was sparked by a suspicioned fear – the fear that the government might have done some underhand dealing with Jamat-e-Islami, which resulted into an imbalanced verdict. Understandably, the government was apprehensive about it.
3. It took the government a few days to swallow the directness of Shahbag, but they wanted to turn their uneasiness into their strength. So they did their "politics of dirt" nicely in the following weeks by co-opting the movement. The unsuspecting leadership at the Shahbag movement caved in, and suffered major blows of the pertinent questions of being partisan and so on.
4. Shahbag has withstood the criticism and is still battling the surge of it, while the government had to take a back seat – yes, the reason for them taking the back seat, as they were in the beginning, was clear insistence of the Shahbag fighters, especially expressed in the purest of them – Shaheed Rumi Squad.
5. The government wanted to own the movement and show that their demand was supported by the public as well, but they didn't expect it to grow so much, which is a problem for them, since they didn't have the honest desire to do it – they only wanted to "linger this on" and play the voter-politics with it. This is why Chhatra League has been absent since Shahbag has been pushing the government to respond to their "ultimatums."
6. Instead of "supporting" the cause, the government therefore, is now trying to "dismantle" the Gonojagoron Moncho. Part of that dirt is their activity with regard to the bloggers. They didn't give a rat's ass to Rumi Squad, they didn't accept the demands our Imran has been screaming about, while they have been trying to appease the Islamists, knowing very well that they are supported, guided, and financed by the very criminals and their criminal parties who are being tried now!!!
7. Lack of ideological footing is only glaringly clear!
8. In the middle of all this – we now have a fight that we all are fighting (and yes, leaving our primary fight to dust!!!) in between the Muslims and the atheists. How sweet – note the dichotomies for an illustrative understanding of what has been going on:
a. War-criminals v. General Population demanding justice
b. Jamaat-Shibir v. Awami League
c. Jamaat-Shibir v. atheist bloggers demeaning the prophet
d. Islam v. Atheists
b. Jamaat-Shibir v. Awami League
c. Jamaat-Shibir v. atheist bloggers demeaning the prophet
d. Islam v. Atheists
Only a blind would not see that it has been point (a) that got morphed into the rest… that is where Jamaat did its politics of dirt, while Awami League only played along.
We need to stress that it is about the first point – and nothing else.
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And my (S. Bain) comment's on Mr. Ali's comments:
I like the logical and well-articulated analysis by Mr. Ali.
However, we need to realize that neither Awami League nor Jamat-e-Islami could play their dirty power game involving 'protecting Islam' if Bangladesh did not have enough idiots to fall for it. The idiots include not only the illiterate mass, but also academically highly qualified (I do not call them educated) people.
Just imagine, for example, a Ph.D. in a science subject going to the bathroom in a professional workplace in the USA taking off his shoes and socks, and washing the feet with water before praying to his God! This person does not have the sense that the real instruction from his prophet was to be clean before praying, as opposed to doing it the way it was done some centuries back. This example can be called "an innocent stupidity." But with this level of reason power, a lot of human beings can be extremely dangerous in a lot of situations.
Obviously, changes generally come from the elite among any group of people. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, and for many other backward countries, (a lot of) the elites are too idiotic when it comes to their religion.
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