Bangladesh – dawn of Islamism | DW Documentary

[Music] so [Music] there's one way to survive here it's like just hide your identity we are scared we are very scared we have to stay and you know we have to fight for this fight against terror the policy of the government is zero tolerance against militancy we have not tolerated we will not tolerate it [Music] this government has become totally dictatorial to some excess it's the fascist government [Music] the islam we call for the rule of islamic law [Music] we are caught in a terrible trap i think between the devil and the deep blue sea in a sense liberal thinking free thinking the space is being squeezed [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we've come to bangladesh a country that few people outside asia know much about not many tourists venture here at a time when intolerance religious fundamentalism and xenophobia are on the rise worldwide we want to find out more about what is happening in this densely populated country where muslims form the majority when it comes to bangladesh western news coverage tends to focus on reports of flooding lack of development and poverty the terrible work conditions in the country's textile industry also make headlines an industry that provides the rest of the world with cheap clothing in recent years a wave of islamist terrorism has also swept over the country many of the victims have been liberal or secularist bloggers and writers the mass exodus of rohingya refugees to bangladesh is now confronting the country with another daunting challenge we wonder what future awaits bangladesh [Music] at a university in the capital dhaka we meet a computer science student who is part of a younger generation that looks to the west there are many who are hiding their identities and living here in peace and harmony this is the safest way to survive here otherwise i don't think it's wise to stay here aisha doesn't wish to give her real name we met her through contacts in the local blogger scene she only agreed to meet with us if she could cover her face if anyone sees me here they would just straight complain to my parents like look it's your daughter you should take care of it well it's really suffocating i feel like you think when someone pets a bird they don't let them fly they're just locked up in a cage and take good care of that bird for aisha the university campus is a place of refuge and freedom at 25 she lives with her parents and extended family who insist she be home by dark they want aisha to marry soon as a virgin her well-to-do parents insist that her husband be muslim for aisha that's not important i don't care like if he's a muslim or a hindu or a christian or anything can be anything it's her right it's a choice i'm a free thinker fading it means i everyone's free hair free to go free to think anything she would never dare to say such a thing at home aisha is an atheist and only talks about religion with her blogger friends they chat online anonymously aisha understands the danger she faces in recent years dozens of free thinkers secular activists members of religious minorities and outsiders have been killed by radical islamists i think bangladesh is moving towards religion it's coming from the education like our education system we are taught religions are from the early age for teaching them quran so this is the kind of brainwashing and this is like a virus you know like it just spreads unless you don't have a vaccine or medicine so the only medicine i think is education the right education the proper education [Music] the students at dhaka university are celebrating the semester is over [Music] just a few meters away is the place where blogger abhijit roy was killed an avowed atheist roy was paying a visit to dhaka's book fair in february 2015 while walking home with his wife he was killed by radical islamists wielding machetes roy's father is heartbroken ajoy roy is a retired professor of physics and a human rights activist as a young man he fought in bangladesh's war of independence ajoy roy did not want his son who was living in the united states to visit dhaka he warned avijit that his books and blogging could spell his death at the hands of religious extremists but in spite of my advice he came with his wife and here's a very vague idea why fundamentally will kill me why fundamentally it will kill me i am a writer what a innocent thinking and he paid the price sometimes tears rolls down after all i have a father and was one of five secular bloggers murdered in 2015. none of the killers have been convicted when avijjit roy was attacked police were nearby but they did not intervene [Music] roy's father says the police and secret service have failed his son but he lays the greatest share of the blame with the government politically bangladesh is being mismanaged by the leaders we haven't created a culture of non-punishment if this continues beyond this will be a very anarchic state i i cannot say directly i said that either they are incapable that inefficient or the alternative is they don't have the intention what else you can say [Applause] we plunge into the noise and crowds that make up daca the metropolitan region is home to at least 18 million people the bustle and energy of this comparatively young country is in evidence here as is the importance of islam [Music] bangladesh is not an islamic republic like pakistan under the constitution the state is officially secular but islamist groups are increasingly demanding a state founded on islamic law what is the government's position on the rise of islamism and what is their stance on the violence that has been directed at bloggers hosaintofiq imam is an adviser to the prime minister this is a preponderantly muslim country overwhelmingly and some of them are very superstitious or extremely religious so when you distort the quran which is a holy book and commit on the life of the prophet some people are incensed they lose their balance that's how the bloggers they brought it on themselves imam is one of prime minister sheikh hasina's closest political advisors yet he and by extension the government are suggesting that the bloggers share in the blame imam does little to counter that impression we practice secularism and the enemies of secularism are those people the bloggers and the those who kill them these they are the extremists we have to bring them within the mainstream that is our main purpose imam has been involved in politics since the founding of bangladesh he believes the government must extend its hand to the islamists in order to maintain social cohesion for example by recognizing the degrees obtained by graduates of private madrasa institutes we have given recognition to the highest system of education so that they can also compete with the other who have completed general education once they they are coming they come out of the shell they see that the world is wide wide open for them there are opportunities for them we pay a visit to the private koran school belonging to the lalbach mosque in dhaka the state has no influence over what students are taught here we soon realize that many in this closed society see themselves as victims of anti-islamic propaganda islam is a liberal and moderate religion people from the jewish and christian religions become perpetrators too hindus and buddhists also commit crimes but when and only when a perpetrator is muslim islamic sharia law and is among the country's leading islamists in our interview he presents himself as a moderate but he also has another face such as when he called for the execution of a minister who dared to criticize the annual pilgrimage made by muslims to mecca that you removed latif siddiqui from your cabinet and his punishment must be death [Applause] [Music] we asked him was this not an incitement to violence a charge mufti fazula denies islam in islam so what should you do if you are hurt do you pick up our weapons but when it comes to those who hurt you and make your heart bleed at least you can ask for their punishment the mufti's word can mobilize huge crowds in bangladesh within the space of just hours he casually dismisses the separation between religion and the state that is enshrined in the constitution secularism he says played no role in the birth of bangladesh secularism was not an issue before during the mass uprising of 1969 the independence movement and then the liberation war of 1971 secularism was never mentioned foreign this museum is dedicated to the war of liberation which pays tribute to the country's violent separation from pakistan we're here to meet zara hossain one of the country's most prominent lawyers when she was a child her father played a key role in the drafting of the bangladeshi constitution this is good to see this example because you know the spine is broken um and that's unfortunately a very accurate metaphor for what has really happened to the constitution and constitutional practice in today's bangladesh maybe i'm exaggerating it's not broken it's just badly damaged and that's more accurate i think we're not broken and we're not fully paralyzed bangladesh is still moving and still moving forward but with a lot of obstacles and internal complications in the museum we are confronted with the brutal history of the country's founding as an independent nation a history that still reverberates today [Music] the long road to independence began in 1947 with the end of british colonial rule the subcontinent was partitioned creating pakistan which was itself split into eastern and western parts [Music] many in east pakistan chafed under what they saw as the dominance of west pakistan and demanded their own state in march 1971 a war of independence began [Music] the military carried out massacres against civilians in the east locals who wanted to remain part of pakistan also took part the bangladesh government says that up to 3 million people were killed india's intervention led to the creation of a new country out of east pakistan bangladesh millions of people were uprooted [Music] the leaders of the new nation wanted a secular even socialist bangladesh they enshrined the principle of secularism into the preamble of the constitution many years later in 1988 the country's ruler declared islam the state religion with far-reaching consequences we don't really subscribe to secularism any longer we don't believe that everyone has a right to life and liberty and freedom of expression irrespective of what their religious belief or background is i think what we're seeing is a willingness to tolerate the intolerant but also embracing that actually asserting intolerance as a way of being and saying that so long as my views are respected i'm fine but i'm not respecting other people's views [Music] early the next morning zara hossein takes us to bangladesh's supreme court she wants to show us the power that islamist hardliners have secured over matters of politics a statue of eustisia the ancient roman goddess of justice stood before the supreme court building but islamic hardliners complained that it was a form of idol worship and cultural decadence the authorities finally capitulated ordering the removal of the statue of lady justice it's been moved to a place that is no longer in public view her removal demonstrated that unfortunately our government is definitely favoring groups that are fundamentalist in their views utterly irrational completely opposed to ideas of secularism or equality or even justice for all and it's favoring them over progressive forces i think our history shows us that that's really playing with fire the more you give the more they want these kinds of groups aren't very easily appeased or satisfied zara hossein has to leave for her next appointment although bangladesh's legal system is facing increasing pressure she is determined to persevere in her work on behalf of equality and human [Music] rights [Music] we travel to the south of the country bangladesh is less than half of germany's size but its population of more than 160 million people is twice as large [Music] a la di nagar would be an ordinary village if it weren't for the regular patrols carried out by armed police officers the police are supposed to protect some 250 hindus who live in this village of 2000 muslims when an unexpected incident happens we take immediate action normally hindus and muslims and people from other communities live like brothers in bangladesh in february 2013 this piece was broken an angry mob gathered before the friday call to prayer at the village they marched forth heading toward the huts where local hindu families lived is also hindu he was on his lunch break when the violence broke out a friend ran over and told us to leave people were headed our way to attack us i ran away with my sister and some friends when we returned we saw the temple was burning my house had been damaged they used gunpowder to burn our helped rebuild the temple but he says the fear of fresh violence took a long time to fade the attack by radical islamists on the hindu families in the village of aledinagar was no isolated event in early 2013 a wave of violence swept across the entire country [Music] the main targets were religious minorities and free thinkers at the time a special tribunal in dhaka had begun to hand down death sentences against several leaders of the top islamist party they were convicted of atrocities committed during the 1971 war of independence islamic hardliners were outraged by the verdicts which soon spilled over into protests and violence visible scars from the attack are still evident on roni bonnick's house for a time he debated fleeing to neighboring india foreign [Music] we arrive in chittagong with more than 4 million residents it's bangladesh's second largest city it's also home to one of the largest ports in southern asia which is essential to the country's export-oriented economy [Music] oh yeah the country's south is more traditional and less cosmopolitan than the metropolitan region of dhaka to our own surprise we're permitted to film in the hatazari madrasa it's normally closed to filming and women are not usually permitted access the hatazari madrasa is among the most influential in the country [Music] the hatazari school is regarded as a center of a particularly hard-line form of islamism the school which has twelve thousand students has repeatedly been under police observation maulana anis adani whose father is director of the madrasa insists that hatazari is not a breeding ground for islamist terrorism islamic education the islamic scholar says that the quran can be the only foundation of the country it provides answers to all earthly questions we ask him if the iphone can also be found in the quran yes of course they're described in the quran researchers can find all these discoveries in the quran for example the missiles that are being invented today and atomic bombs these things were all foretold by the prophet 1400 years ago just a few weeks after this interview we found out that the teachers of the hatazari madrasa confiscated and burned hundreds of mobile phones because they had music and dance videos stored on them the school's leadership believes that women have no role to play in public life mufti sawa proudly tells us that they have their own special classes we've done a great deal to support women's education in bangladesh we want to inspire women to support our country's development to do handicrafts minded children tend to the household be obedient to their husbands and kind to the neighbors we continue on to cox's bazar a town on the southeast coast of bangladesh it's near the refugee camps where rohingya muslims who fled the buddhist nation of myanmar are living in one of the camps we meet munira and her young son a stalk of bamboo struck her forehead during her escape eighteen-year-old manira is pregnant and nearing her due date she's one of at least seven hundred thousand rohingya whose return to myanmar is being negotiated but it's hard to imagine that people who live in this crowded camp will ever return [Music] we would rather eat dirt than go back to myanmar there's no electricity too little fresh water and hardly any sanitary facilities the danger of epidemic is ever-present conditions in the refugee camps are desperate but people are afraid of being forced to return to myanmar here at least the rohingya are among muslims i don't have any dreams for my children i might die while giving birth to my child or i might survive that's in allah's hands [Music] islamists have repeatedly called for a jihad a holy war against myanmar we are told that the first huts set up in the refugee camps were mosques the money came mainly from saudi arabia and from koran schools in chittagong and dhaka we wonder how a poor country like bangladesh is coping with the arrival of so many refugees the village of digibiu which lies adjacent to the refugee camps has a new mosque also built with aid from saudi arabia at first the villagers here sympathized with the rohingya refugees but meanwhile they have grown wary they came here because they suffered in their country but it would be good if they went back the problem is that our life has become more difficult because of the refugees living and transport costs have doubled it's better if they leave [Music] it is a situation that is ripe for unrest as we leave the refugee camps it is apparent that bangladesh is struggling to cope with the situation it has been confronted with and that the refugee crisis is far from over just a few kilometers away but a universe apart from the misery of the refugee camps the world's longest stretch of beach this is one of the few draws of bangladesh's fledgling tourist industry on our travels we keep seeing posters touting the leader of the ruling awami league party the prime minister of bangladesh is the daughter of the country's first president the main political parties in bangladesh are dynastic we also see a few posters of khalid azia leader of the country's largest opposition party the bangladesh nationalist party or bnp zia's husband was a well-known general back in dhaka we meet the secretary general of the bnp mirza alamgir has been sent to jail several times just like the leader of his party when the bnp was in power they were just as ruthless with their opposition we're told that people who oppose the ruling party often vanish without a trace neither of the two large political parties that vie for power in bangladesh appear willing to make concessions they always blame us for everything for everything when a cow dies then the baby is responsible for it so this is their mindset that's the problem here in this country in any democratic country in terms of society you have the dialogue between the government party and the opposition if you destroy the democratic system in bangladesh there is ample apprehension of extremism to rise ordinary people in bangladesh have other worries the next morning we go to one of the slums of dhaka to meet aretha she lives with her mother who is sick and her three sisters in a tiny room for the many poor in bangladesh this is normal life [Music] arifa had hoped to become a teacher but instead she was forced to go to work at 14. my father died early and i have younger sisters who should go to school it was very difficult so i had to work sometimes i'm sad when i see children going to school [Music] but what can i do i must help my family and that means i must work we accompany aretha to her next shift she is one of the millions of textile workers in an industry that is fueling the growth of bangladesh's economy the textile industry now accounts for some eighty percent of the country's exports arefa works up to 12 hours a day six days a week earning the equivalent of just under 70 euros a month if she were to get sick her family would not have enough to live on i don't understand much about it but i do believe the main problem in bangladesh is politics the big political parties blame each other for everything and we the ordinary people suffer as a result they fight each other they organize big demonstrations provoke violence and we are caught in the middle but they have the power and they do whatever they want our travels are coming to an end we are back at dhaka's university district at shabbat square we meet two young musicians safin and rivu come here often the square holds a special fascination for them for decades all major demonstrations and movements in bangladesh had their start here and rivu have just started their university studies when they come here to shabbat square they dream of a better future and not only for themselves to me shabbat square is a place of hope because there are many free thinkers uh studying on the university and they're they're they're uniting here they're we all unite here to do something new people have to be together again and if there's a revolution again you know we we all we all sing together we all give slogans that we want our freedom there is freedom but we want more soon on our last evening in bangladesh safin and rivu invite us to watch their band chitropot rehearse for us this marks the end of our travels through a divided country ordinary people here it is clear are unhappy with the country's political elite bangladesh appears to be at the tipping point the danger that islamists could seize the advantage seems very real in the end it is the young people of bangladesh who will determine the country's future the young people in the koran schools and those who yearn for more freedom we are scared we are very scared and it is very it is very sad that things are happening uh in bangladesh but you know hope is the thing with feathers and hope never dies [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,688,733

Rating: 4.2873054 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, Bangladesh, Dhaka, religion, tolerance, democracy, Islamism, terror, censorship, blogger, Al Qaeda, IS, Islamic State, sharia, South Asia, DW, India, Bengali, DW Documentary, India documentary, Bangladesh documentary, Scheich Hasina, zero tolerance

Id: J6DxXI6wD8U

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Mad_King]

The title also explains the current situation in Turkey too, almost the same thing.

[u/madmax797]

Pakistan, Afghanistan and now Bangladesh

[u/Sohail001999]

The country that wants to reconcile democracy and Islam appears to be finding it harder and harder to strike a balance between the two. Bangladesh was born in blood. The Bangladeshi government claims some three million people were killed during the 1971 war of liberation, though independent figures vary greatly.

While Pakistan has remained an Islamic republic, Bangladesh made secularism a founding principle in the republic’s constitution. But conflict between Islamist and secular forces has plagued the country since its formation - and has a major impact on how it is perceived abroad. Annual economic growth has been at well over five percent for a decade; inward investment is flowing. Bangladesh is one of the world’s leading producers of garments and textiles. The government in Dhaka is keen to attract foreign cash. That fixation with inward investment also helps explain the refusal on the part of the political elite to recognize the growth of violent Islamism in the country.

In 2016, Bangladesh experienced its worst terrorist attack to date. In Dhaka in the heart of the capital’s diplomatic quarter, terrorists murdered 20 people they’d taken hostage in a popular café, among them 18 foreigners. So-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in Dhaka, but the Bangladeshi government continues to deny that there are IS or Al-Qaeda cells in the country.

The daughter of the country’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Sheikh Hasina has led the Bangladeshi government since 2009. She views herself as a mediator between secular and Islamist forces. But the brutal murder of bloggers critical of religion and the continuing restriction of democratic freedoms show how this balancing act is teetering - and could soon tip into disaster.

[u/DasLebenistScheisse]

Ach, becoming an Islamic Nation, the quickest way to fuck up your country

[u/UnluckySamuraj]

This hurt to watch. As a Bengali-American, immigrating from the country when I was 3, I recognize so many of these issues. Wahhabism has taken a hold of so many lives. The country was founded upon secularism, and that should have been the way forward.

[u/sado22]

“There is no compulsion in Islam”

[u/nomoretired]

This comment section passed the vibe check!

As an ex muslim, am just glad that criticism of Islam is no longer getting shut down as Islamophobia and that people are actually waking the fck up. Good on y'all. Every ideology deserves to be criticised especially the one which has a death penalty for leaving.

Ignore the losers crying 'Islamophobia' on here.

[u/[deleted]]

When I visited Bangladesh when visiting family, my cousin stated to keep any opinions of religion to ourselves just because of the stigma that lies in having different beliefs there

[u/x62617]

Islam is not just another major religion. That's what people don't understand.