Promoting fundamentalists Khaleda is playing a dangerous game

Author: Editorial
Publication: The Statesman
Date: February 5, 2003

Close on the heels of cancellation of football matches in Bangladesh between a visiting Indian women's team and local women's clubs comes the news of another cancellation - a fashion show in Dhaka featuring Indian models. Both were the result of threats by newly- floated Islamic fundamentalist groups which consider participation of women in fashion shows and games obscene. The fact that Indian participants were asked to return home for security reasons indicates how audacious such outfits have become. But this should surprise no one. Obscurantist and religious outfits are being openly patronised by Begum Zia's BNP - Jamat-I-Islam coalition government. Jamat calls itself a fundamentalist party and flaunts its "fraternal ties" with its Pakistani counterpart. Not surprisingly its MPs have demanded demolition of statues in public places, abolition of Bengali new year celebrations and issued fatwas banning screening of films and staging dramas considered un-Islamic. Begum Zia allowed fundamentalists to police the literary and cultural world. During her earlier 1991-96 rule she encouraged Islamists to hound Taslima Nasreen, declaring her an "infidel" and fixing Taka 50,000 on her head for "un-Islamic" writings. As partners in her government, they feel emboldened to pronounce in the presence of her ministers that the country's leading intellectuals will be liquidated the 1971 way. The threat is real. Three years ago even Sheikh Hasina as prime minister could not guarantee security for high court judges who in a landmark judgement declared fatwas illegal. Security agencies suspect that Islamists are behind all the 10 bombings which since 1998 have claimed over 100 lives and given Bangladesh the image of a violent country. Interestingly, targets of attack were entertainment centres, Kadiani mosques, Christian churches, Bengali new year celebrations and cultural and political functions of Leftists all of which they want banned. Before the last parliamentary poll they openly chanted "we are all Taliban, Bangladesh will become Afghanistan". Recently Begum Zia quietly ordered the release of eight west Asians "recruiting youths for training (?) abroad."

Mujib and Hasina cannot escape blame for politically rehabilitating Islamists and making them respectable. Mujib started it by granting amnesty to the Jamat whose killers were responsible for the 1971 genocide. President Ziaur Rahman not only facilitated the return of senior Jamat leaders who collaborated with Pakistan during the liberation war but also gave them pride of place in his government. He encouraged them by banishing secularism as a state principle. In 1996 Hasina to dislodge Begum Zia from power allowed Jamat to join forces with her. Her government has helped them to spread, consolidate and flex their political muscle. So what Indian women footballers and fashion models faced recently in Bangladesh may well be the shape of things to come.
 

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