Bangaldesh in 2003...

[Ockey]

Article from DS: Anti-Ahamadia group gives one-week deadline to govt

I read this article today and I was shocked and deeply disappointed. We talk about the "pathetic backwardness of the arabs"...well let's not venture futher than ourselves to see how closeminded and hateful people can be. I find it hard to believe that 30,000 Bangladeshis rallied behind a hate group whose only intention is to quash the religious belief of a group or to perpetuate hate to annihilate the them all together.

I'd like to say more on this but I'll leave it to the religious gurus of this forum to explain the difference between Ahamadis and the mainstream Muslims and as to why (if at all there is a reason) there is so much annimosity towards Ahamadis from the so-called "Muslims".

[Pundit]

Yes, I would like to know more about the Ahmadias ? How many such believers are there in Bangladesh ?

I personally do not understand how there can be Muslims who are neither Sunnis nor Shites ? But regardless, to riot against any group of people, is simply a dispicable act.

Are we Bangladeshis at some sort of crossroad here ? One group is religiously over zealous, only too keen in mimicking their Arab counterparts, and the other group, in its rush to embrace liberalism (the western brainwash variant as I see it), is all too keen in its attack of all cherished traditions that defines him or her in the first place.

[Zobair]

Just shows how far deep we have sunk ...heartbreaking...The only difference that I know of is that they believe Imam Mahdi has already come and gone while most Muslims believe he is yet to come. Hardly the stuff of witch hunt... but tell that to our countrymen...we are the same people who join frenzied mobs breaking cars and smashing windows at the slightest provocation...we are the same people who don't think even twice lynching snatchers and thiefs...I bet most the people who demonstrated don't even know the differences themselves...

I'd like to say more on this but I'll leave it to the religious gurus of this forum to explain the difference between Ahamadis and the mainstream Muslims and as to why (if at all there is a reason) there is so much annimosity towards Ahamadis from the so-called "Muslims".

[Nasif]

All of this is because of no education and lack of knowledge on Quran. And there are people who spend a lifetime studying all kinds of book but fail to read Quran cover to cover. Then there are those who are nothing but a parrot. Parroting Arabic does not count as reading, those haifz and huzurs are just parroting without any idea, don't have the slightest clue. These people fight thinking that they fighting for the cause of God! Tricked by satan to think that they are on the right path. Sad indeed! Nothing can be further from the right path.

2:256 There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.

25:30 The messenger said, 'My Lord, my people have deserted this Quran.'


[Edited on 6-12-2003 by nasif]

[oracle]

I read this earlier. Also dwells on the government's carefree attitude towards fundamentalism.


http://www.weeklyholiday.net/front.html#2
HOLIDAY ARTICLE:
The immunity of the white tupi
Zayd Almer Khan

As we sip our cups of tea this morning, the Kadianis of Tejgaon are bracing themselves in fear. They are supposed to come under another attack today, this first Friday of December.
Two Fridays ago, the last one falling in the month of Ramadan on November 21, Dhaka saw its worst wave of sectarian attacks for some time. About ten thousand (by the police’s estimate) hoodlums under the banner of overzealous Sunni Muslims attempted to attack a small family-run Ahmadiya mosque on Haji Maran Ali Road in East Nakhalpara. Their contention — Kadianis are non-Muslims (kafirs) and hence have no place in the mosque.
The police, forewarned by the mob’s announcement the day before that they would take over the mosque, did well to prepare for the attacks, cordoning off the mosque area with barricades. The attacks, however, did take place and with much damage, both material and to the police personnel.
The most enduring images of the attacks, broadcast on television and printed in newspapers, were those of the police being beaten up, mercilessly; of police vehicles being damaged, unhindered; of the nearby police camp being pelted, unanswered. What a predicament for our trigger-happy police force — the same force that doesn’t think twice about swooping on protesters all and sundry, be they students, garment workers, teachers or nurses, having to endure the humiliation of a free-for-all police-bashing session, and without resistance as well.
All because the attackers had their white tupis on. So is that all it takes for bloodthirsty hoodlums to get away with the most blatant physical assault of the state apparatus and its authority?
The attacks may come again today. And again with the mob adorned in white kurtas and white tupis. And again, the police will probably desist from using force. Unfortunate, isn’t it, that the very force that is supposed to deter unrest, it seems, has become a source of encouragement for unruliness in this case.
But the police’s passive attitude is not all that has been an encouragement for today’s possible attack. As the waves of attacks were made last time around, the imam of the nearby Rahim Metal Mosque took on the role of the ringleader, shouting commands from a megaphone from atop a pick-up truck. ATN Bangla showed him proclaiming, “We will take over the [Ahmadiya] mosque. No police, no BDR can deter us from our goal. We will crush all barriers.”
The imam, documented as the ringleader who not only incited the violence but also spewed defiance of the state’s law enforcing agencies, has not been taken to task in the two weeks that have passed since — not even a questioning, let alone arrest. And while the police filed a case against 10,000 people over the previous attacks, none has been sought out or arrested.
Again, is it only imams that the government is ready to let off scot-free when they actively incite violence? So next time if the garment workers denied wages, the teachers denied status, and the students denied rights congregate behind an imam, will they also be provided reprieve from the state?
With not even a rap on their knuckles following their earlier lawlessness, what deters the mob from repeating, even multiplying, their acts of violence? The Tejgaon police told New Age that they have increased the number of constables deployed and will cordon off the area again today. But they did that last time as well. How many more Fridays will it take for the much-too-passive barricades to be cracked, for the mob to rush through?
The issue, of course, was further muddied when Moulana Azizul Huq, chairman of a faction of the Islamic Oikya Jote (IOJ), called on Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on November 29 along with other ruling alliance partners and requested her to declare Kadianis non-Muslims. He told the press after the meeting that the prime minister assured him of ‘looking into the matter’.
Not going into a debate on whether at all the prime minister has the jurisdiction, ordained either by the Book or by the Constitution, to ‘look into the matter’ of one’s faith, if she did make any such assurances instead of berating the IOJ for instigating sectarian violence, is her attitude not as much abetment as the police’s passivity?

[Tehsin]

This illeterate fools have brought Islam to its knees. Not surprised with the government though. For us, it's a matter of right and wrong - for them, it's a matter of votes. Pathetic.

Which gives me an idea, what if the leadership of the Ahmedia group comes out and says, they will back one of the political groups (JP, BNP, AL) in the next election ? I think that will be splendid. They will get the protection from the same goons that may have been sent to destroy their properties.

[rafiq]

An article from Naeem on the dangerous course followed by Pakistan in earlier times. Let's hope we don't go down that path. It was good to see some Govt Ministers, including Home and Religious Affairs, stand up to this nonsense. Perhaps the Ahmadias themselves are being made into an issue as a test to see exactly how much the orthodox right can flex its muscle.

Following was copied from Dirshtipat.org
_______________________________
Merchants of hate: Following Pakistan's deadly example (Score: 0)
by on Monday, December 08 @ 16:21:40 EST
Shobak
Daily Star/09 December
Naeem Mohaiemen

"We don't want to take the law into our own hands, but we don't know what will happen to [Ahmadiyyas]," warned Mamtaji, imam of Rahim Metal Mosque. This was his latest salvo in the recent anti-Ahmadiyya campaign.
I grew up saying jumma prayers at Dhanmondi' Baitul Aman mosque. We had a tolerant, educated imam whose khutbas encouraged Muslims to educate themselves and uplift the community. If we wonder why the Muslim world is in crisis, we only have to look at frauds and illiterates like Mamtaji, busy distorting the true message of Islam and preaching fanaticism, hatred and backwardness.

By preaching hatred of Ahmadiyyas, we are following a blueprint carried out to deadly effect in Pakistan since the 1950s. With so many nations to emulate, why are we copying Pakistan -- a textbook case of failed state and banana republic?

On August 11, 1947, Jinnah gave a speech at Karachi Club where he said, "You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the State." Following this spirit, Pakistan's first foreign minister was Sir Zafrullah Khan, an Ahmadiyya. The 1956 constitution also gave citizens the right to practice, and propagate their religion (Article 20).

The Islamic parties had always been suspicious of Jinnah's motives in creating Pakistan, and now they were disappointed. This was not to be a theocratic state at all! In 1948, during a drafting session of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, representatives from Saudi Arabia clashed with Pakistan over Articles 19: Freedom to change one's religion. The furious Saudi delegate had to listen to Zafrullah Khan describe the Article as consistent with Islam's denunciation of compulsion in religion.


This Saudi anger (and possibly money) soon found its way into Pakistan's domestic politics. One year after Zafrullah Khan's clash with the Saudis at the UN, a new group called Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam issued a demand that Khan be removed from the cabinet, and all Ahmadiyyas be declared non-Muslim. These agitations peaked in 1952 with riots in Punjab, and on May 18 Khan resigned from the Basic Principles Committee.

The campaign was then intensified by Maulana Maududi's Jama'at-i-Islami, which launched a project to declare Ahmadiyyas non-Muslim, linked to a larger demand for Shari'a law. Prior to the 1958 military coup, the Muslim League and other ruling forces strongly opposed creating a theocratic state. The government therefore fought back aggressively against the anti-Ahmadiyya campaigns, arresting many Jama'at activists.

Following the 1958 coup, the "Islamization" of Pakistan's constitution began. The process often focused on anti-Ahmadiyya laws. In 1962, the Advisory Council for Islamic Ideology added a clause to the constitution: "No law shall be repugnant to the teachings and requirements of Islam." The East Pakistan politicians always acted as a brake on overt Islamicization, as the Bengali population was not (at that time) interested in passing Shari'a laws. However, following the independence of Bangladesh, Pakistan approved a new constitution in 1973, parts of which began implementing the legal machinery of the Shari'a.

Following a new wave of anti-Ahmadiyya protests inn 1974, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced Articles 260(3)(a) and (b) into the Constitution, which defined who was a "Muslim" and listed groups that were legally non-Muslim. Ahmadiyyas were now listed in this second group. The process of disenfranchising Ahmadiyyas now had a solid legal basis. Just as Islam was codified as "state religion" in Bangladesh during two military regimes (Zia & Ershad), the anti-Ahmadiyya legislation was solidified in Pakistan during the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq. In 1978, Haq passed laws creating separate electorate systems for Ahmadiyyas and other "non-Muslims." He then followed this by creating Federal Shari'a Court which helped legalize criminal ordinances targeting religious minorities -- specifically two laws restricting Ahmadiyya activities (Martial Law Ordinance XX, 1984). The final death-knell for Ahmadiyyas came with the Criminal Law Act of 1986 ("Blasphemy Law"), which raised the penalty for blasphemy from imprisonment to death. Because the Ahmadiyya belief in prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad can be defined as "blasphemous" by a Shari'a Court, this law legalized persecution and even execution of the entire Ahmadiyya population.

Khan's position as first foreign minister of Pakistan is now a distant memory. Today Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan cannot announce their faith, pray, build mosques, or give azaan. Even in death, there is no escape from the state -- the law prohibits putting the kolema on an Ahmadiyya's gravestone. Pakistan's only nobel prize winner, Professor Abdus Salam, was persecuted because of his Ahmadiyya faith. Ahmadiyyas are only 3% of Pakistan's population, but 20% of its literate population. In an age when Muslim nations are incredibly backwards in science, technology and education, the peresecution of Ahmadiyyas accelerates our intellectual bankruptcy. In the Prophet (PBUH)'s time, in cities that the Muslim armies took over, non-Muslim populations (including Jews) were treated humanely. How far we have traveled from that tolerant ideal can be seen in the Daily Star report (Dec 6): "They threatened the Ahmadiyyas with arson in symbolic imitation of the burning of the newspaper [Prothom Alo]."

If the anti-Ahmadiyya groups are allowed to continue their agitations and threats, Bangladesh will soon slide down the treacherous path Pakistan took with the forced resignation of Zafrullah Khan in 1952. Starting with Ahmadiyya persecution, it is very easy to see that these groups' eventual demand will be Shari'a law.

In the last two years, I have been to many rallies in America protesting the unfair targeting of Muslim immigrants in the post 9/11 anti-terrorist campaign. At these rallies, I have seen many signs carrying the famous quote from anti-Nazi activist pastor Martin Niemoller:

"In Germany they first came for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me -

and by that time no one was left to speak up."

If we protest the scapegoating of immigrants in America, we must also protest the persecution of minorities in Bangladesh. Otherwise, when the shadowy merchants of hate come for all of us, it will be too late. Pay attention to Pakistan's tragic path, and fight to protect Bangladesh from a similar fate!

Naeem Mohaiemen is Editor of Shobak.org and Associate Editor of AltMuslim.com

[Arnab]

Ahh...religion (and patriotism, too): the wonderful instrument of peace and harmony.

[Zobair]

and western secularism the essential tool for our salvation.

[Arnab]

No -ism is sufficient for everything.

Don't believe in any -isms.

Ok, may be Darwinism. To a certain extent.

[Edited on 13-12-2003 by Arnab]