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| Islamist activists protest in Dhaka on Oct. 21, a day after deadly clashes following a Facebook post that allegedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad. The failure to punish extremists threatens religious harmony. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP) |
An unusual but most welcome calm prevailed at Borhanuddin in Bhola district of southern Bangladesh on Oct. 20.
Tensions had run high in the area
over two days, involving the Muslim majority but also a handful of Hindus, over
a Facebook messenger post that defamed Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
A radical Islamic group, Touhidi
Janata (Movement for Islamic Uprising), vowed to avenge the "hurtful
religious sentiments" and declared a mass protest gathering on Oct. 20.
Biplob Chandra Shuvo, a Hindu man,
was in the eye of the storm for allegedly spreading the messages. He told
police on Oct. 19 that his account had been hacked and two Muslims were quickly
arrested for the crime, allegedly carried out for the purpose of extortion.
Police engaged with Muslim clerics to
assure them that action was being taken and asked them to cancel the impending
gathering to avoid likely violence.
The clerics agreed but failed to stop
Muslims from joining the protesters, who soon became a violent mob chanting
Islamic slogans and demanding the death penalty for the Hindu man.
They vandalized Hindu temples and
Hindu people's homes before attacking police with bamboo and bricks. Officers
fired back — four rioters were killed and more than 100 people, including
police, were injured.
News of the deaths infuriated Islamic
hardliners. In Chittagong, clerics and students from the Hathazari Mosque and
madrasa organized another march and attacked the local police station.
The escalating tension was only
defused after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned of "stern action"
against anyone attempting to create "anarchy" over the situation.
Three men, including the Hindu,
remained in police custody a week later, while police arrested hundreds of
unnamed rioters in connection with the violence.
A new, recurring pattern of hate
crime
The Bhola episode was unexpected but
not unprecedented. Muslim-majority Bangladesh has seen similar communally
charged violence targeting minority communities in recent years.
In 2012, Muslims attacked and
vandalized 19 Buddhist temples, some of them centuries old, and about 100
Buddhist houses in Ramu, Cox's Bazar and Patiya, Chittagong.
The trigger for violence was an image
of a burned Quran posted on Facebook by a Buddhist man. Media investigations
found the account had been hacked and the image doctored.
In 2013, religious extremists
vandalized 26 Hindu houses, attacked Hindu people and accused a grade 10 Hindu
boy of insulting the Prophet Muhammad on his Facebook page. The post was later
found to have never been posted at all.
In 2016, Islamic radicals in the
Nasir Nagar area of Brahmanbaria district vandalized Hindu temples and houses
after accusing a Hindu fisherman of posts on Facebook that denigrated Islam and
the Prophet Muhammad.
Police later found the Hindu man's
account had also been hacked and the image in fact posted from the capital
Dhaka.
In another similar case, Hindus at
Thakur Para area in Rangpur district came under attack in 2017 after a Hindu
allegedly made derogatory remarks against Islam on Facebook.
Although police made arrests on every
one of those occasions, justice is still in limbo in Bangladesh.
The danger of 'silent radicalism'
The failure to deliver justice for
hate crimes has tarnished the country's tolerant and pluralistic image, while
it also reveals the vulnerability of its religious and ethnic minorities to a
small but strong group of religious bigots.
And, most of all, it shows that the
ruling government, despite laudable efforts to neutralize Islamic militancy in
recent times, has been unable to eradicate radicals deeply entrenched in
society.
For years, these "silent
radicals" have existed with the explicit and tacit backing of local
Islamists, Islamist politicians and also foreign funders, including Middle East
countries exporting extremist Islam globally.
The extremists continue to survive
through a network of radical mosques and colleges, numerous Islamic charities,
economic and social enterprises in various areas, all of which contribute to
their ever-growing influence in their areas.
Thus, it is not difficult for them to
manipulate poor rural Muslims, turning them into violent mobs that attack
minorities and even against members of Islamic sects such as Shia and Ahmadis.
Bangladesh has seen three phases of
the rise of deadly Islamic militancy, in the 1990s, 2001 and 2013. These silent
radical elements provided the breeding grounds for lethal militancy that
culminated in the deadly Dhaka café attack on July 1, 2016.
Since 2013, Islamic militants have
murdered about 50 people, including atheist bloggers and publishers, liberal
academics, religious minorities and foreigners.
In response, law enforcers have
killed about 50 militants and arrested hundreds of leaders and operatives in
extremist outfits.
Apart from the crackdown, little has
been done to tackle radicalism at its core, the heart of Bangladeshi society,
except for some efforts to engage in dialogue with religious leaders and
academic institutes against militancy.
Those minimal efforts have also faded
now, but the danger of extremism still lurks.
Bangladesh has been known as a haven
for religious harmony ever since it gained its independence from staunchly
Islamic Pakistan in 1971.
The 1972 constitution guarantees
religious pluralism and religious freedom for every citizen in a country where
most Muslims adhere to a moderate form of Sunni Islam.
Military rulers from 1975-90 amended
the constitution to give it an Islamic flavor, such as by inserting the Islamic
phrase Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim (In the name of Allah, the
most merciful) and recognized Islam as the state religion, but most people
remained committed to a pluralistic and harmonious coexistence.
This commitment is the reason why
Bangladesh has not experienced frequent sectarian violence as have other
countries in the region in recent decades, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
and Myanmar.
Islamic radicals and militants have
cast a heavy blow to Bangladesh's long-held pride of being a country of
moderate Islam and religious harmony.
The government crackdown may have
dismantled militant outfits and networks but the silent radicals are still
quietly at work, pursuing their dream of an uprising and, ultimately, an
Islamic state. It is a silent but strong ongoing movement, but there is no such
strong counter-movement.
Previous incidents since 2012 were
just signs of what the silent radicals could do, but the writing on the wall
has been ignored. Thus, the stage was set for the violence in Bhola.
It shows Bangladesh has failed again.
Whether it is now too late to retain the country's coveted pluralism and
harmony remains to be seen.
END
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