Located in a hidden corner of South Asia, poised
to become either a thriving democracy or a failed
state, Bangladesh has the potential of becoming a
major front in the global confrontation with
radical Islamism. If democracy is preserved and
enhanced, Bangladesh can serve as a model of how
to counter radical incursions into Muslim
democratic environments; if democracy is
defeated, this will be the first such victory for
radical Islamism and will likely unleash a global
wave of radical Islamist activism, similar to
that following the Islamist victory over the
Soviet-backed Communist regime in Afghanistan.

The fact that Islamists in Bangladesh have been
striving to lay the foundation of a Sharia state
is no secret. Their efforts present a complex set
of difficulties for democratic life in the
country, similar to those faced by democratic
systems that had allowed the activities of
Communist parties prior to the fall of the Soviet
empire. In the case of both Communism and
Islamism, we are faced with ideologies that
tactically accept the democratic rules of the
game in order to promote and eventually establish
a system that negates democracy. The issue in
Bangladesh is two-fold:

(1) There might not be a
sufficient appreciation of the nature of the
Islamist threat. Some doubt that the program of
the Islamists includes the establishment of a
Sharia state, or they are skeptical of the
Islamists’ ability to reach their goal.

(2) There
is no counter program in effect to address the
comprehensive character of the Islamists’ agenda,
notably in the area of cultural radicalization.
To date, attempts by those aware of the risks of
cultural radicalization have only deepened the
effects of the Islamist program.

 Defining Cultural Radicalization

Radicalization is the attempt to “restore” a
society’s cultural purity by reconnecting it °©
in practices and in rights °© with an idealized
Golden Age distant in space and time. This
so-called restoration often comes at the expense
of the society’s actual historical and cultural
legacies. In the case of Bangladesh, the cultural
radicalization sought by Islamists posits a
fictionalized “society of the Prophet” that
overshadows the lived and shared experiences and
traditions of the millennia-old Bengali culture.
Bengali culture at its apogee was a synthesis of
Islamic values and local traditions and
practices. Islam has always been an integral part
of Bengali culture, while Bengali culture has
been the backbone of the moral, intellectual,
literary, and societal life of the Muslims of
Bengal.

As part of their program of cultural
radicalization in Bangladesh, Islamists have
created a dichotomy
between a fictionalized monolithic Islam and a
local culture redefined and rebranded as Hindu,
but this is an artificial dichotomy that is
better understood as a top-down expression of
power and control than as a reflection of a
genuine native conflict. This expression of power
does in deed have antecedents, notably in the
attempt by the former West Pakistani leadership
to subjugate and regiment their East Pakistani
subjects. Even prior to the rise of independent
Pakistan, a similar expression of power was
manifested in Mughal times in the promotion of
Persian and Urdu as languages of the elite at the
expense of the local culture.

The process of
cultural radicalization in Bangladesh today is
propelled by this history of top-down control as
well as by the current global experience of
Islamism across the Muslim world. The cultural
radicalization currently faced by Bangladesh has
the potential of instituting longer-term cultural
conflicts. Addressing it is necessary in order to
maintain local stability and to face down the
threat of political radicalization that it feeds.
The issue of cultural radicalization, both cause
and effect of the political radicalism that has
surfaced, has been underreported and little
investigated. Slowly but surely, proponents of a
monolithic understanding of Islam have been
implementing elements of their program of
cultural “purification.” Their means range from
the peaceful to the violent.

Bangladesh,
traditionally a tolerant and pluralistic society, is
therefore experiencing the possibility of an
irreversible transformation. While members of
civil society who support a more open conception
of society, culture, and politics fail to react
to the emergent threat with any coherent program,
we must ask ourselves whether this impetus for
transformation and the lack of response to it
reflect
a changing cultural mood in Bangladesh, or
whether they are due to extrinsic political
factors. More importantly, can Bangladesh survive
as a pluralistic and tolerant society, or is it
indeed witnessing a fateful evolution towards
religious regimentation?

 Background

With a population of over 145 million, Bangladesh
is home to the third-largest Muslim community in
the world. The former East Pakistan (previously
East Bengal) has had a tumultuous political
history since gaining its independence in 1971.
Of par tic ular note are the assassinations of
two presidents who were also the founders of the
major political par-ties that dominate
Bangladeshi politics to this day. Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, the charismatic leader of the Awami
League (AL), whose daughter Sheikh Hasina is the
current opposition leader, was killed in 1975;
and Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the Bangladesh
Nation al Party (BNP), the main part ner in the
ruling coalition (now led by Rah man’s widow,
Khaleda Zia), was killed in 1981.

After almost a decade of military dictatorship,
the restoration of the democratic process in 1991
brought a new era of political vigor to
Bangladesh. However, the political system was
prone to corruption. Successive elections relied
heavily on patronage and cronyism, leading to a
growing disenchantment with the democratic
process and the two main political movements.
This gave Jamaate-Islam, the prominent Islamist
party that is now part of a coalition with the
BNP, an opportunity to promote a platform
seeking the fundamental transformation of
Bangladeshi society through the eventual creation
of a Sharia-based state.

It is not surprising
that Islam should play a role in Bengali politics
given how deeply rooted Islam is in Bengali
identity and history. The important function of
Islam in Bengali life prompted even secularist
ideo-logues, such as Mujibur Rahman, to seek to
accommodate it. It is the exploitation of Is
lam’s central role in Bengali identity and the
refusal to acknowledge any other components of
this iden tity that become the hall-mark of
Islamist activism.

That the Jamaate has a long-term plan for
Bangladesh is not a secret. Born of Islamist
revivalist thought in the first half of the
twentieth century, the Jamaate has moved with
other Islamist groups throughout the world to
embrace some precepts of Salafism, a rigid
understanding of the Sharia-based state. In so
doing, it has paved the way in Bangladesh for the
emergence of Salafi groups. These have made their
entry into the cultural and political scene
through conservative ulemas (religious scholars)
inhabiting mosques in many districts of the
country, and through the militant jihadist group
Jamatual Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

The Jamaate
advocates the establishment of a Sharia state
through the violent overthrow of the established
order. In accordance with a pattern of
penetration adopted by a multitude of sister
Islamist organizations world wide, the Jamaate is
also seeking a presence in student, worker, and
professional sectors. Its gains have been
considerable, although they are still checked by
an established tradition in Bangladesh of
religion-free activism in all three sectors.

 The Current Evolution of Cultural Radicalization

Those seeking cultural radicalization in
Bangladesh have sought both to promote ideas and
to act. The ideas have sought to suppress other
ideas in the cultural marketplace, and the
actions undertaken have often been violent and
coercive. Some of the promoters of cultural
radicalization have systematically targeted key
communities. Journalists have been singled out
for harassment and not-so-occasional
assassinations; authors have been muted or
ostracized; NGO workers have been threatened. The
overall result of these actions is the creation
of an atmosphere of fear that has affected the
traditional tolerance that Bangladesh has
historically enjoyed. A brief survey of the
changing face of Bangladesh through a sampling
and categorization of incidents and attacks
illustrates the gravity of the situation.

The actions taken in the service of cultural
radicalization can be labeled either
retrospective (those targeting the history and
traditions of Bangladesh) or prospective (those
seeking to influence the country’s future through
its youth). Retrospective actions include the
systematic attack on free thought and expression
and the invasive transformation which targets the
creative and artistic communities. Prospective
actions include the rise of the madrasas in order
to prepare the next generation of culturally
“pure” youth. These two approaches have
compounding cumulative effects on culture in
Bangladesh and are altering its current face and
reshaping it along Islamist ideological lines.

It is possible to identify at least six different
groups targeted by the promoters of cultural
radicalization as they seek to implement their
program of purification:
(1) “Hindu,” (2) “Christian,” (3) heretics or
apostates, (4) minorities, (5) those considered
socially deviant, and (6) critical voices.

1. The “Hindu” Target:

The quotation marks around “Hindu” indicate its
use by the radicalizers as a euphemism for
various traditional components of the Bengali
cultural legacy not sanctioned by the Islamist
utopia. This target includes many aspects of
culture in Bangladesh, from the music that dots
every-day life, to cultural celebrations, to
matters of dress and other visual display, to the
political process itself. The millennia-old
Bengali New Year celebration, until recently a
cultural staple in Bangladesh, is now ignored,
contested, questioned, and occasionally even the
scene of violent attacks. In a spontaneous
popular reaction to these attacks, many Bengalis
now embrace this celebration even more
energetically. The fact re - mains, however, that
the initiative is in the hands of those who
challenge it.

2. The “Christian” Target:

“Christian” serves as the radicalizers’ euphemism
for any and all components of public life that
stem from the pool of cultural, political,
educational, and social facets of Western
civilization. The use of English as a language of
communication, the reliance on democratic
institutions (such as the Constitution), the
wearing of Western-style dress, are all viewed as
markers of a Christian contamination of
Bangladesh and are met with the call for
purification.

3. The “Heretic” Target:

“Heretics,” according to the radicalizers, are
those Muslims who choose a path of belief in
contradiction with the monolithic faith promoted
by radical Islamists. The Ahmadiyyaa South Asian
Islamic religious movement, which the
radicalizers refuse to acknowledge as Is lam ic,
has been a favorite target. Ahmadiyya mosques
have been attacked, and Ahmadiyya families have
been ostracized and occasionally subjected to
violence.

Promoters of cultural radicalization
have introduced intolerance and calls to violent
actions into the normal public discourse in
Bangladesh, while the government reacts with
apathy, or, in some cases, seems to assist the
radicalizers: even English-language dailies will
publish the dates and locations of the intended
attacks on Ahmadiyya mosques, and the Religious
Affairs Ministry bans publications, sales, and
distribution of literature by the Ahmadiyya
community.

4. The “Minorities” Target:

With the term “Hindu” now being affixed to
Bengali culture in general, the actual Hindus are
further relegated to a more marginal status, that
of the physically undesirable/un - acceptable.
Hindus and other religious minorities live under
constant threat, their lives dominated by the
feeling of being systematically targeted. Public
statements by radical politicians, as well as the
brutal targeting of symbols of Bangladeshi open
culture, have reinforced this atmosphere of fear.

An effective ethnic cleansing program was
implemented in Bangladesh even before the rise of
organized cultural radicalization. Hindus, at one
point a sizeable minority within the Bangladeshi
population, are today a vanishing relic of times
by gone. The promoters of cultural radicalization
view this loss suffered by Bangladesh as a
victory in their cultural jihad.

5. The “Socially Deviant” Target:

“Deviant” social behavior, according to the
stated and unstated positions of the promoters of
cultural radicalization, is often associated with
women, and in particular women activists. The
status, physical appearance, and behavior of
women that fail to conform to the radicalizers’
view of what is acceptable is labeled deviant.

Across the Muslim world, Islamist movements have
measured their success by their ability to alter
and control women and to box them into predefined
support roles. The place of women in traditional
Bengali society was not restricted to the private
realm. Promoters of cultural radicalization in
Bangladesh have therefore been rather shy in
their attempts to force women into conformity
with the segregation standard. How ever, from
separate seating at Jamaate events to the absence
of women at public events, it is apparent that an
implicit project of segregation and
marginalization is in effect.

While mainstream
Islamist movements in Bangladesh have been
careful in handling the women issue, NGOs and
women activists have been regular targets of
under-ground movements connected to the cultural
radicalization project.

6. The Critical Voices Target:

It has been suggested that Bangladesh is enduring
a project for theocracy and a project for
autocracy. Both projects negate the traditional
Bangladeshi practices of open communication,
tolerance, freedom of expression, and diversity
of opinions. This suggestion may be subject to
debate.

What is not is that many journalists and opinion
makers have been dismissed, harassed, battered,
and imprisoned by the government and Islamist
groups. Even voices that are constructively
critical are rebuked as damaging the country’s
image. This official, or quasi official,
atmosphere of intolerance feeds upon the cultural
radicalization project and, in turn, nourishes
it. The end result is the potential slide of
Bangladesh away from its hard-earned status as a
free and open society.

 Current Responses To Cultural Radicalization

As noted, the cultural radicalization project in
Bangladesh is a top-down effort with an
ideological impetus. It has generated diverse
reactions, some spontaneous and some deliberate.
All these reactions can be seen, depending on
their origin, either as social responses or
political counteractions. Social responses have
been numerous. From the use of the teep (bindi)
on the forehead, to the revival of Bengali-style
fashion at the various socio economic levels,
Bangladeshi society has displayed its desire to
preserve its diverse cultural legacy and not to
succumb to the uniform vision espoused by the
promoters of cultural radicalization. Resistance
to the radicalization effort has also taken the
form of art that documents, continues, and
develops the cultural legacy of Bengal. New
artists, vocal as well visual, are offering works
rooted in Bengali traditions to an appreciative
wider public. Although not explicitly conceived
as or offered as a comprehensive rejection of
cultural radicalization, this art, retaining its
individual and unorganized character, constitutes
an organic resistance movement that is virtually
impossible to defeat.

As to the political counteractions, these have
been as varied as the forces that inhabit the
Bangladeshi political spectrum. The configuration
of political currents in Bangladesh can be
schematically rendered, from the extreme “left”
to the extreme “right,” into five divisions, each
of which has reacted to cultural radicalization
in its own way:

1.
Socialist and Communist movements at the extreme
left have preserved a nationalistic tone in their
discourse and have therefore been consistently
critical of cultural radicalization, often by
linking it to the antirevolutionary forces that
fought against the independence of Bangladesh in
1971. For these movements, cultural
radicalization echoes the era of East Pakistan
and their rejection of it on political as well as
social grounds. These leftist movements view the
cur-rent rise of Islamism in Bangladesh as a
continuation of an attempt by Pakistan to
reinsert itself in Bangladesh and gain back its
1971 losses. It should be pointed out that while
some Pakistani agencies and political players
have played a role in the rise of Islamism in
Bangladesh, reducing the phenomenon of cultural
radicalization to a mainly Pakistani
intervention, as these movements do, ignores the
latent native factors that are contributing to it.

2. The left-of-center mainline political
movement, the Awami League, heir to the Founder
of the Nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, posits
itself as the secular (if not secularist)
response to the project of cultural
radicalization. The AL has displayed an awareness
of the spread of the phenomenon and repeatedly
announced a deliberate program of cultural
reinvigoration to address it. Some components of
this program are at the grassroots level and
therefore not readily measurable in their effect
and impact. However, a clearer comprehensive plan
for the AL remains to be articulated.

3. The right-of-center Bangladesh National Party
maintains that the two main components of
Bangladeshi culture, namely the Bengali heritage
and the Islamic contribution, exist in a stable
equilibrium. BNP officials have often noted the
resistance of Bangladeshi culture to any induced
change and therefore have characterized warnings
against cultural radicalization as politically
motivated and/or alarmist. How ever, this BNP
assessment ignores the reality of an incremental
but steady alteration of the cultural landscape
of Bangladesh. Further more, it inadvertently
masks some of the more radical change taking
place through the ruling coalition it formed with
the Jamaate-Islam.

4. To the right of the BNP, the Jamaate favors
the cultural radicalization that the country is
witnessing — without applying the label
“radicalization” to it. Jamaate officials might
stress the peaceful character of their
Islamization. However, their actions and words
tell another story. The extremity of the
Jamaate’s true beliefs is evident in the
statement of a Jamaate official who characterized
the induced flight of Hindu Bang - ladeshis from
the country as similar to the human body getting
rid of excrement.

5. To the extreme right are the radical Islamist
underground movements, which, driving the
violent implementation of the cultural
transformation, can be expected not to have any
complaint about it, except perhaps its slow pace.
What this quick overview indicates is that
Bangladesh urgently needs a counter-program to
cultural radicalization that takes into account
the symptoms of its implementation (indicated by
its six aforementioned targets), its methods, and
the deep causes of its success, however limited.
Such a program cannot be reactive, and it cannot
let the promoters of cultural radicalization
define its areas of operation.

 The Methods of Cultural Radicalization

Although violence has been the most prominent of
the methods pushing towards cultural
radicalization, it is by no means the sole or
main vehicle for this program. Two other methods
have been part of the radicalizers’ arsenal:
cultural saturation and a method best
characterized as bait-and-switch. The backbone
of the cultural saturation method is the
previously mentioned madrasa-alternative
education system, as well as publications,
broadcasts, and sermons designed to instill in
Bangladeshi culture Islamist values. While in a
free society the Islamists’ program would compete
with other ideas and values, the atmosphere of
fear in Bangladesh has destroyed the level
playing field. Any approach to the problem of
cultural radicalization will have to have as its
main objective the restoration of an atmosphere
where competing ideas can be freely exchanged.

The main reason why cultural radicalization has
been possible in Bangladesh is not related to
culture. The spread of corruption, the
degradation in government services, and the
ensuing waning of con fidence in the political
system have created a fertile ground for the
implementation of a bait-and-switch method:
promoters of cultural radicalization offer social
and economic services and imbue them with ideas,
values, and cultural elements in conformity with
their ideology. Bangladeshi citizens take
advantage of these needed services and in the
process are subject to a program of cultural
radicalization. This process has created a
situation akin to a state-within-a-state in Bang ladesh, as ex plained below.

Since independence
in 1971, the Jamaate has developed institutions
parallel to the government’s. Citizens of
Bangladesh view themselves as immune to the risk
of religious extremism. And yet, societies have
engendered alternative egos that posit Sharia as
the ideal of rule, at the expense of their
democracy. Jamaate-Islam of Bangladesh may never
have had official connections with other national
Islamist movements. However, Jamaate’s
grassroots mobilization and political action
methods resemble those of other movements. The
model is one that capitalizes on the
inefficiency, corruption, and lack of political
vision in the mainstream, providing alternatives
in practice, morality, and ideology. In the cases
of Bangladesh, the respective Islamist movements
have behaved not as conventional political
parties, which monitor the government’s
performance and point out deficiencies, but
rather as the kernel of an alternative system
altogether.

For example, where state schools fail to provide
lunch for students, the Jamaate sponsored
madrasas not only furnish lunch, they also offer
after-school tutorials for students. In so doing,
the madrasas become competitors to the state
schools, creating an alternative network that
incorporates religious education. To the poor and
pious of Bangladesh, this combination of lunch
and God is an attractive package that trumps what
any public school can offer. Needless to say, the
kind of religious education provided in these
madrasas is a militant version with its own
understanding of what is the pure Islam, one that
clashes with traditional practice prevalent in
Bangladesh.

In the banking sector, the
Jamaate-influenced Islamic Bank has been
outperforming other banking institutions. This
has effectively created a parallel economy that
fosters Islamist businesses while remaining out
of the mainstream control of the state. In what
may be an ominous sign of further Islamization of
the banking system, the largest state bank was
recently purchased by Saudi interests. Public
medical care in Bangladesh is full of gaps, but
the Jamaate-sponsored Ibn Sina Hospital provides
state-of-the-art health services that were un
heard of in the country until recently. In the
health sector, as well as education and banking,
Jamaate institutions are viewed as models of
performance, efficiency, and integrity. In
addition to providing necessary services for the
population at large, these Jamaate institutions
are excellent venues for employment for young
professionals associated with the Jamaate
movement.

Where the state has failed in providing the
expected services in education, banking, health,
and social welfare, the Jamaate has stepped in
with exemplary albeit highly ideological
institutions. The result is the creation of an
effective state-within-the-state, one that does
not rely on conventional measures to assert its
influence. The number of seats in parliament is
of little relevance in understanding the power of
the Jamaate. The Jamaate’s twelve seats are often
dismissed by those who re fuse to see the growing
impact of Jamaate institutions all over
Bangladesh. The criterion used here does not take
into account the fact that the Jamaate seeks
power through transforming society, not through
gaining parliamentary seats. All indicators point
to the fact that this trans-formation is taking
place. Most Bangladeshis engage in wishful
thinking when they convince themselves that this
change is not real, or, at worst, real but
contained. They need only look west to countries
such as Lebanon to see what a presumably
containable state-within-a-state can bring to a
thriving society.

 Conclusion: Suggestions For A Comprehensive Strategy

If cultural radicalization is about inducing
conflict where none has existed, the response to
it should not be simply to accept that a conflict
exists and defend the component of culture that
is considered under attack. Islamist cultural
radicalization targets Bengali culture.

Countering it should not be a mere defense of
Bengali culture, but instead a rejection of the
posited dichotomy between Islam and Bengali
culture. Bangladesh can assert pride in its
Islamic heritage with out having to pass a test
of Islamicity artificially imposed by the
promoters of cultural radicalization. Further
more, Bangladesh can declare its embrace of
global civilization in all its facets, including
democracy and secularism, without feeling the
need to justify it in Islamic (or more
appropriately, Islamist) terms. Ad dressing the
growing threat of cultural radicalization re
quires this spirit of no apology.

The plan to
counter cultural radicalization has to be based
on solid premises: (1) Recognition of the
universality of human rights and values and a
rejection of their attribution to a Western or
Christian origin. Malaysia’s societal Islam,
Islam Hadari, can be invoked as a form of Islam
that accepts traditional cultural practices. (2)
An insistence on the intrinsic relation between
Islam not only as a culture and a civilization
but also as a religion, with Bengal as land,
society, and history. In other words, any
artificially posited dichotomy between Bengali
identity and Muslim identity must be rejected.
(3) A positive insistence on the future of
Bangladesh as a state for all of its citizens,
with a recognition of the ancient and proven
Islamic values of tolerance, diversity, and
acceptance of others Muslim or not and rejection
of the new Islamist conception of a monolithic
Sharia state. (4) An insistence on zero tolerance
for any movement, ideology, or political group
that uses violence and intimidation as a way of
achieving its aims, and the development of a
national consensus towards that effect.

Proponents of liberal democratic values have
often claimed the innate compatibility of the
notions they advocate with Bangladeshi culture.
The current situation is indeed the test of this
view, which holds that the country’s current
climate of intolerance is a transformation
brought about by promoters of radical political
views. It is against a backdrop of political
corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency that
promoters of radical movements present
themselves, often credibly, as a counter model of
efficiency and integrity. The cultural dimension
is therefore not their primary offering. It
does, however, follow. Presented as the “true”
form of the religion to a pious society, the
transformation progresses, often as a by-product
of the political dimension.

The implications of
this phenomenon in Bangladesh are also
considerable in the Bangladeshi diaspora.
Cultural radicalization paves the way for
political movements that often espouse violence
as the means for change. Europe has al ready
experienced the effects of a radicalization that
originated overseas. The future of cultural
radicalization is conditioned on the success of
its promoters in positing a clash of cultures in
Bangladesh. Defusing their program and thereby
avoiding their program’s ensuing political
adventurism can be achieved through reclaiming
the cultural space and denying them the
institutions that they have usurped.