“Chopping Off Limbs” To Crush Opposition In Bangladesh
By Taj Hashmi
09 March, 2014
Countercurrents.org
Sheikh Selim, an influential and powerful Awami League leader, at a public rally in Dhaka recently threatened to cut-off limbs of those who would create anarchy in the name of anti-government movements. One wonders, a) if “cutting limbs” is an antidote to anarchy, or the very idea gives fillip to fascism and anarchy and b) if mass movements can ever be crushed by brutal force!
This writer is not sure how the average Bangladeshis have reacted to the provocative statement. One knows violence is alien to true democracy. However, as Bangladeshis have already been used to political violence, carnage and terror, and their country at times seems to be on the brink of total anarchy, they possibly do not bother to notice what politicians do and tell their followers to do to their opponents in the most obnoxious and provocative manner.
We have reasons to worry if ruling party goons, and nakedly partisan law-enforcers take Mr. Selim’s advice seriously. Theoretically, thousands of people are at risk of losing their limbs for “promoting anarchy”. Since the culture of violence has thoroughly desensitized people, they possibly think that while law-enforcers can kill people with impunity in the name of “cross fire” or “gun battle”, why on earth a politician, who is much more powerful than the police chief in Bangladesh, cannot get away with a mere “political rhetoric”, for asking followers to chop off limbs of political demonstrators!
On a serious note, those who know, they do take the threat of violent attacks on opposition workers very seriously. They know ruling party leaders do not mince words or throw empty threats to anti-Government people. While the intent of chopping off political opponents’ limbs is an anarchic thought, its translation into action would signal a reign of terror by unleashing anarchy. In the backdrop of unaccountable extra-judicial killing of innocent people, suspects and criminals by police and RAB, it seems Bangladesh has already entered the domain of anarchy. The way the police chief of Metropolitan Dhaka addresses public rallies, admonishing opposition leaders and followers, in the most crude and threatening language, one wonders if top police officers are simultaneously Presidium members of the ruling party!
Now, is there any room for a debate as to which is more barbaric, chopping off limbs by political activists or gunning down people by law-enforcers in the name of restoring order? The question then leads us to another question: Whose “order” are we referring to?
Hypothetically speaking, Awami apologists may argue that what Sheikh Selim and some other Awami stalwarts stated at a public rally in Dhaka should not be taken literally. They may even cite scores of similar rustic expressions and threats that Bangladeshi politicians frequently use against each other at public rallies, in the parliament or at TV talk shows. The apologists might harp on: “Chopping off limbs” is just a political rhetoric, a metaphor, not to be taken seriously.
Our experience, however, tells us a different story. Zealous and armed political “cadres” and law-enforcers in many Third World countries enjoy complete impunity from arrests and legal action. They are not that different from the Gestapo, Blackshirts and SAVAK. The way law-enforcers and armed goons of ruling parties in Bangladesh have been crushing the opposition during the last forty-odd years, one wonders how dangerous some “figurative expressions” could be, occasionally. Political activists and goons (“cadres” in the local parlance), take leaders’ “figurative expressions” literally. Political opponents in Bangladesh lose limbs, eyesight, “disappear”, and die at the hands of political “cadres” on a regular basis.
One wonders why Bangladesh is so vulnerable to political violence, which sometimes reaches the fringe of anarchy. From conservative Samuel Huntington to many liberal scholars have identified the so-called Youth Bulge as the main factor behind the rise of Islamist and secular extremism in the Third World. When around forty per cent (or more) of the population in a given country is in the age group of 15 and 29, that country is supposed to be under the spell of a Youth Bulge. Lack of education and employment opportunities turn the Youth Bulge into a “demographic bomb” signalling long-term socio-economic and political disorder. A Youth Bulge has definitely taken place in Bangladesh, where more than 50 per cent of the population is under 30, and 47 per cent of graduates unemployed or under-employed.
Many of the unemployed and unemployable graduates work as domestic servants, farm and factory workers, in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Many more join gangs, peddle drugs and swell the ranks of professional criminals and political activists at home. These frustrated and angry youths are available for doing the dirty work of politicians, as hired killers and extortionists in the name of politics. They are also subject to elite manipulation and hegemony, which have already brainwashed them in the name of various half-baked ideologies, including Islam and nationalism.
Now, if sections of pro-Government political activists – extortionists and killers – take the threat to cut-off limbs of political rivals literally, then Bangladesh could become a safe haven for anarchy for a long-drawn-out period. So, sooner the politicians adopt civility and shun provocative language, the better.
The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee. His latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage 2014) is forthcoming.
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