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Islamists In Bangladesh Demand Murder of More Bloggers
An anonymous reader writes "Days after the killing of leftist blogger Thaba Baba, mosques throughout Bangladesh called for a popular uprising to demand the killing of other bloggers who had held a rally calling for the death of Jama'at-e-Islami leaders convicted of war crimes. This happens in an atmosphere of ongoing tension between Left and Right, with the leftist government threatening to outlaw rightist parties while the right uses violence to quiet selected enemies."
These few loud attention seekers do not represent Islam any more than Westboro' Baptist represents Christianity. They may respectively have their flaws, but don't believe that the most radical examples are representative of the whole.
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This is not a dispute between left and right, at least not in the sense that we are used to in the so-called "West". The two antagonistic parties here are secularists on the one hand, and islamistic religious fundamentalists on the other. These two groups are not even in a very roundabout way related to the old left-right dichotomy we are used to. Except perhaps the fact that Western leftists also generally seem to weigh in on the secular side of things, but that is about the point where any similarities end.
Relevant bit of history: Until 1971, Bangladesh used to be called East Pakistan and the current Pakistan was called West Pakistan. Both parts together made up Pakistan, but the East and the West didn't share a common language or culture. In 1952, the West tried to impose Urdu as the sole official language, which resulted in people protesting, and dying, to protect Bangla (Bengali) on Feb 21, 1952. This was eventually recognized by the UN as the International Mother Language Day
But the attitude didn't change, and after losing an election overwhelmingly to a political party based mostly in East Pakistan, the loser from the West worked with the military to not hand over the power and instead let loose The Pakistani Army, which, with the help of local collaborators (Rajakars), killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women in 1971. One of the stated reasons was to "Protect Islam."
Fast forward to 2012. Now there is a war-crimes trial going on for some of the top Rajakars, and like the Arab Spring, social media headed by young bloggers took a leading role in holding the war criminals accountable.
So the Rajakars, who predominantly belong to a party called Jamaat-E-Islami, are trying to inflame popular sentiment (which is overwhelmingly against them) through propaganda that all bloggers are Atheists. Their campaign is funded by huge influx of money from the middle east and a network of highly profitable businesses in Bangladesh. They own TV stations and newspapers that are using photoshopped images to show the alleged debauchery and insults to Islam of the so-called Atheists.
So this is not just a left vs. right issue as people elsewhere might interpret it. This is an active campaign for the Talibanization of Bangladesh along with a campaign to protect people who allegedly committed crimes against humanity.
The process is not to ban just rightist parties (there are plenty)--the process aims to ban Jamaat-E-Islami, which has never clearly stated that their role in 1971 (of helping with genocide and rape) was wrong, and which is headed by people who actively participated in the genocide and rape.
For freedom-loving people everywhere, this must not be allowed to stand. "Atheists bloggers" is just a red herring--don't let this cheap trick by alleged criminals muddy the water.
But ya
Christianity grew up. It's not perfect, it still has plenty of crazies in various kinds, but by and large Christianity grew out of the crusades mentality. Islam by and large has not.
Thus I think it is perfectly reasonable for people to criticize Islam in a way they do not criticize Christianity (I'm an atheist by the way). That Christianity was all "kill the unbelievers" 700+ years ago does NOT give Islam license to be that way today. Society can, and should, advance. I would hope that in 700 years people would look back on society today and be glad that their society was even better than it is now.
In very many ways Islam is still largely stuck in the Dark Ages and it needs to stop. We shouldn't give it a pass because Christianity was also in the Dark Ages several centuries ago.
>> And what do you think Islamists are?
An answer then... because you asked so politely...
At my school they always told me that these muslim people are followers of the religion of love, peace and respect. And that any misconduct of that group could, and SHOULD, be played down with either:
- other religions are violent as well, look at the crusaders, the IRA, abortion-clinic-arsonists, the KKK. (Funny that they never mentioned Sikh / Hindu / other religions huh?)
- Those people 'lost' their religion, so any killings have NOTHING to do with islam.
Now, years later I know better.
9/11, 3000 deaths, by Saudi Arabian muslims.
2002 bomblast in Bali (Indonesia), 200 killed by muslims
2004 muslims killed 250 schoolkids in Beslan (Russia)
2004 muslims blew up 190 people in Madrid (yurp)
7/7 London, 52 killed by... wait for it... muslims
2008 muslims the Mumbai (India) blast killed 160 people.
2013 muslims murdered 13 people in Hyderabad (India, last week)
That totals 3,865 of only this horrendously light weight list. There are thousands of smaller cases like the girl that was shot in the face (by muslims) because she wanted to be educated. Or that (Christian) girl with a little mental handicap that was accused of burning pages of a koran and was almost killed by the people in the neighbourhood. The list could be far more elaborate. Nevertheless I heard about Breivik, and yes people are killed by white-power groups and all... but that is like saying that a paper plane is equal to a 747 because they both fly.
To me things are clear, this religion will never stop until either the last muslim is dead or the whole world is muslim.
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