The Crisis of Identity: Bengali, Islamic or Islamist Extremism?

Abstract

Bangladeshi Muslims—who represent roughly 90 per cent of the population—hold ambivalent views about their national identity, as discussed in this chapter. Until the Partition of 1947, they had been delusional about their ethnonational identity, believing that they arose from Turco-Arab, Iranian-Afghan or Central Asian Muslim settlers in India. After the creation of Pakistan, however, they began a pilgrimage to Bengal, considering it their ancestral home. While the emergence of Bangladesh marked the victory of secular nationalism against Islam-oriented nationalism in Pakistan, Mujib’s reliance on secularism and socialism turned off most Bangladeshis, especially Muslims. Hence, the rise of political and spiritual Islam in Bangladesh! The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the main reasons behind Islamization and its impacts on society, politics and the economy of the country. It also assesses the impact of state-sponsored Islamization and false-flag operations against so-called Islamist terrorists under the Hasina government since 2009. Political Islam is primarily a result of global politics during and after the Cold War. To begin with, the West encouraged political Islam, which included “jihad” against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. As the Soviet Union’s defeat did not empower the poor and backward Muslims, many of them carried on their version of “jihad” globally. The West’s demonization of Islam and Muslims after 9/11 further agitated Muslims. Bangladesh was no exception. The Middle East’s exposure to Bangladesh’s semi-literate and poor Muslims as wage workers from the 1970s onwards had Islamized them culturally. It explains why lower-class Muslims are Arabized and their women are hijabized in mass numbers. For the sake of legitimacy, elected and unelected governments, political, business and professional elites, and bureaucrats also championed ritualistic Islam. It is simple hypocrisy that makes them embrace Islam in order to be respected. The cultural Islamization of Bangladeshi society is not synonymous with the rise of political Islam or Islamist terrorism. In Bangladesh, Islam has become a part of people’s identity without transforming them into God-fearing, ethical individuals. As a matter of fact, the government uses Islam for legitimacy, and people use it for identity. Governments and citizens alike espouse Islam without committing to any Islamic ethics or values. Among the most important questions are: how and why Islam has re-emerged as socially and politically significant in Bangladesh, so much so that the State Religion of a country created in the name of Bengali nationalism is Islam? Islam is championed not just by ulama but also by most political parties, and even by members of the armed forces, some of whom openly demand that the nation become a Shariah-based “Islamic state.” Despite the sensationalized and motivated opinion among Western, Indian and Bangladeshi intellectuals and politicians, come what may, the country will not adopt political Islam as its official ideology, in the foreseeable future. Again, paradoxically, the country still maintains secularism as one of its state ideologies while Islam has been the “State Religion” since 1988. While the relatively secular Awami League is in power, there is much lip service to “secularism.” The Awami League’s arch rival BNP prefers “absolute faith in Allah” over secularism, which is anathema to Islam, in popular parlance.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

—Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in his “Introduction” to the 1966 edition of his Mother Night

O people of the Book, do not be fanatical in your faith and say nothing but the truth about God.

—The Qur’an, 4:171