It’s absurd! It’s preposterous to suggest that around 40 percent of Bangladeshis favour suicide terrorism. Yet this is what some American think tanks and “expert analysts” have recently come up with in their reports, to the detriment of Bangladesh’s reputation. Muslims in Bangladesh – around 90 percent of the population – are peaceful, liberal, devotional, and even syncretistic, unlike their counterparts in the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Roughly two years after the publication of the Pew Research Center’s findings on the so-called “popular support for suicide terrorism” in Bangladesh in 2014, Christine Fair, Ali Hamza, and Rebecca Heller published an essay in the Foreign Policy magazine, titled “Popular Support for Suicide Terrorism in Bangladesh: Worse Than You Think” (Sept 4, 2016). This alarmist, prejudicial, and provocative piece reminds me of similar smear campaigns against Bangladesh by several Western and Indian journalists during the first decade of this century, which lasted during the entire period of the BNP-led coalition government under Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), and beyond up to 2008.

There’s a laundry list of such sensational, biased, and motivated writings against Bangladesh. I cite a few just to highlight that reputed individuals working for prestigious institutions often never shy away from saying or writing ridiculous things, out of ideological commitments, ignorance, political bias/prejudice, and even for material incentives. The following examples of vitriolic attacks on Bangladesh as a safe haven for al Qaeda and its ilk make us understand why scholars like Christine Fair and organisations like the Pew Research Center have come up with absolutely motivated reports on the state of Islamist terrorism in Bangladesh.

Bertil Lintner wrote the most alarmist piece, “Beware of Bangladesh – Bangladesh a Cocoon of Terror” in the Far Eastern Economic Review (April 4, 2002), giving the impression that terrorists were going to stage a successful Islamist revolution in the country. Soon, another Western journalist, Alex Perry unloaded his “deadly cargo” to attack Bangladesh. His write-up in the Time magazine, “Deadly Cargo – Bangladesh has become a safe haven for al Qaeda” (Oct 21, 2002) boosted the morale of those who desperately wanted to tarnish the image of the government as the harbinger of al Qaeda in Bangladesh, notwithstanding the bad reputation for the country.

While Bangladesh was fighting the homegrown Islamist terror outfits, HUJI (B) and JMB in 2005 (and soon crushed them by early 2006), yet another nasty piece against Bangladesh came out in the prestigious New York Times. Eliza Griswold’s piece, “The Next Islamist Revolution?” (Jan 23, 2005), “convincingly” argued about an “impending” Islamist takeover of Bangladesh. The rubble-rousers didn’t stop until late 2008. While Indian journalist Hiranmay Karlekar (a former editor of the Hindustan Times) came up with a poorly written book with a hyper-sensational title, Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan? (Sage, New Delhi) in 2005, Harvard-educated renowned author/journalist Selig Harrison wrote a sensational nonsense, “Terrorism in Bangladesh”, in the Christian Science Monitor (July 8, 2008).

As scholars cite Pew Center reports, I have also cited them in support of my arguments on the states of governance, poverty, terrorism, and other aspects of society in various countries, as I always considered the organisation “a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world”. I also believed that it “conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research” and “does not take policy positions”. Now, in view of Pew Center’s latest bombshell on Bangladesh that around 37 percent of Bangladeshis support suicide terrorism, I no longer consider it a “nonpartisan fact tank”.

Christine Fair and her colleagues’ (all from Georgetown University) latest piece on Bangladesh in the Foreign Policy is an eye-opener for me, not to agree with them that there’s a huge support for suicide terrorism in the country but to see the other side of the coin, which in the name of objective research is spewing hate and prejudice against Bangladesh. I have reasons to believe, as were the vitriolic Western/Indian writings on Bangladesh during 2001-2008 were politically motivated, so are the recent Pew Report and the Foreign Policy article on Bangladesh. There’s nothing academic, objective, or nonpartisan about them.

At the very outset, Christine Fair et al strongly disagreed with former US Ambassador Dan Mozena, who in March 2014 considered Bangladesh to be “a moderate and generally secular and tolerant” country, in the following manner: “While Mozena’s statement reflects the general perception that Bangladesh is a success story of a moderate, secular, Muslim democracy, this view never rested on strong empirical grounds”. Then Fair and her colleagues tell us about the slow and steady growth of Islamism in Bangladesh, that they think, “enjoy popular support”. What’s exceedingly disturbing is the blatant lie, as one comes across in this piece: “Between January 2005 and June 2015, nearly 600 people have died in Islamist terrorist attacks, but 90 percent of those have taken place since 2013”. If one buys this grossly exaggerated account, then it appears that 540 people got killed at the hands of Islamist terrorists since 2013! We don’t have the evidence if Islamist terrorists were the killers of innocent people in late 2013 and early 2014, up to the February 5 elections in Bangladesh.

Although it’s true scholars have paid more attention to Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries with regard to Islamist terrorism than they have done to Bangladesh, it’s nevertheless impossible to agree with Christine Fair and her co-writers that “almost half of the population” in Bangladesh justifies suicide terrorism. It’s ludicrous to suggest: “Levels of justification for suicide attacks in Bangladesh are considerably higher than in Pakistan, Indonesia, or Malaysia.” For some strange reason, they have correlated Bangladeshi Muslim-support for Sharia and Hudud Law with their support for suicide terrorism!

Researchers at the Pew Center and Christine Fair et al should have applied some common sense before making such a sweeping assertion that almost 40 percent of the population or almost 65 million people in Bangladesh favour suicide terrorism. Did they ever think before publishing their reports that even if a fraction of that population “who favour suicide terrorism” been actively engaged in terrorism – which would have been the most logical thing one could think of – how many thousands of suicide terrorists would have been around, killing tens of thousands of people within and beyond Bangladesh? They should have learnt from counterterrorism (CT) experts about the ratio of population in favour of suicide terrorism and the number of actual suicide terrorists in given populations, before making such sweeping assertions. Terrorism is such a formidable security threat that in 2008 the MI5 (British Intelligence) officials were very worried that as many as 80 IRA terrorist bombers were around in Britain, posing grave security threat to the nation.

One wonders as to how basing on a tiny sample of respondents in Bangladesh – who are always vulnerable to loaded questions – Pew Research Center could come up with such an absurd figure of 37 percent of Bangladeshis favouring suicide terrorism. One is not sure why Christine Fair and her co-writers have used the Pew data to write such an unconvincing essay in the Foreign Policy, which is again a prestigious magazine! Now, it’s not Bangladesh’s reputation that’s at stake; it’s Pew Research Center, Foreign Policy, Christine Fair and her co-writers’ turn to defend themselves for publishing something devoid of facts and logic, simply not defensible at all!

We know quantitative research is better than generalised assumption-based studies, but unscientific data from micro-studies could backfire as well. Common sense is more important than randomly collected statistics, often collected for the sake of defending a hypothesis, or even worse, out of malice, political bias, and prejudice. Last but not least, I strongly believe the Bangladesh government should immediately file defamation suits against the Pew Center and Foreign Policy magazine, demanding unconditional apologies from them for their attempts to tarnish the image of Bangladesh. Sooner the better!

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in the US. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014). Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Is America Any Safer” is the cover story of this September’s Atlantic magazine. CNN and other media outlets are also commemorating the catastrophic terror attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. Reflecting their collective paranoia or delusions of persecution, and exaggerated self-importance, Americans in general are perplexed about certain things with regard to 9/11: a) what went wrong with their intelligence; b) why some people hate them so much; c) America is no longer invincible; and d) theirs being “The land of the free and the home of the brave” will always remain “Number One”. However, the politics of fear- and hate-mongering has impaired a large number of American minds, which only think Islamist terrorists are the sole security threat to their nation.

Photo: AFP

Fifteen years after 9/11, American media, politicians and analysts are evaluating what went wrong with American intelligence in 2001; and how much 9/11 cost the economy and society; and what else America should do to defeat al Qaeda, ISIS and of their ilk. There’s no guilt, no remorse, no apology to the Muslim World for America’s illegitimate invasions, GTMO, and Abu Gharaib.

American bombs, guns, and drones since Hiroshima have killed more than ten million unarmed civilians across the world. And who doesn’t know this except the overwhelming majority of Americans? They know very little to nothing about their country’s covert and overt invasions of countries, and promotion of terrorist groups across the world. Americans somehow were instrumental in the creation of al Qaeda, Taliban, and the ISIS, directly or through its surrogates like Saudi Arabia. It’s sad but true; in 2011 America turned a blind eye to Saudi invasion of Bahrain to crush the popular mass upsurge of the Shiite majority against the Sunni rulers of the oil rich sheikhdom; and Saudi Arabia since 2015 has killed thousands of Yemeni rebels, with impunity.

America since 9/11 has confronted “the newfound fear” … sometimes heroically and sometimes irrationally, mostly by fear-mongering and demonising Muslims, Syria and Iran. Meanwhile, the country has spent $1 trillion to defend against al Qaeda and ISIS. “Has it worked?” is the embarrassing question. While the State, DoD, and Homeland Security agencies had been trying to defeat al Qaeda, the more deadly ISIS emerged from “nowhere” in Syria and Iraq. One’s not sure if America’s Middle Eastern surrogates, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (which was in good terms with Washington until the abortive July coup in 2016) created the anti-Shiite/anti-Iranian ISIS – with tacit US support! It raises two diametrically opposite questions: a) Has the “War on Terror” been lost? b) Is the ISIS another US-sponsored false-flag operation?

The legacies of 9/11 haunt the world, and many Americans too. One knows about American and allied soldiers’ indiscriminate killing and mass arrests of civilians in Afghanistan in the first few months of the invasion in November 2001. Hundreds of “unlawful combatants” from Afghanistan were tortured and kept behind bars at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center for years; a couple of hundred detainees are still there without any charges and trials.

The way US General Wesley Clark (ret.) publicly exposes the real motives of the American warmongers days after 9/11 is revealing. According to him, America didn’t invade Iraq in 2003 for defending democracy, freedom, or America’s Homeland Security, let alone 9/11: “About ten days after 9/11, I went to the Pentagon … and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq…. I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down government.’” He also reveals Pentagon’s hidden agenda about invading seven countries in five years, “starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran”.

Since invading countries for the sake of invasions being the raison d’être – America’s mighty Military-Industrial Lobby loves mega wars in distant lands for the “profits of war” – 9/11 didn’t precipitate the invasions of Iraq and Libya. The “profits of war” explain all American post-World War II invasions of countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; and millions of innocent civilians got killed in these countries.

However, democracy and free press create problems, even for the American hawks. What fascist, communist, and military dictators got away with – the world hardly knew how many people Stalin, Mao, or Saddam Hussein killed during their heydays – America’s top warmongers, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. couldn’t hide from their own people and the world at large. Thanks to William Assange and Edward Snowden, we now know a lot more about American ways of illegitimate wars and invasions than before. We also know a lot about the part played by the US administration in operations that led to thousands of deaths of unarmed civilians in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

The 15th anniversary of 9/11 is a time to reflect on as to how despite being democracies, countries like America, Britain, France, Germany, and Australia get away with invading countries, and killing tens of thousands of unarmed civilians. It’s time to demand the trial of all war criminals that invaded countries and killed millions of innocent people during the last seven decades – from Hiroshima to Helmand, Aleppo to Fallujah, Sana’a to Mogadishu, and Bahrain to Beirut – for the sake of justice, and just and durable peace. It’s time to stop demonising Muslims, Arab or non-Arab. It’s time to inform the misinformed in the West about the lies, and deceptions their governments resort to justify invasions of countries out of sheer neo-imperialist design of plundering the weak and resource-rich countries in the Third World. American taxpayers must know that since 9/11, their Government has plundered around $3 trillion from them in totally unnecessary and illegitimate wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

We believe America and its allies would be safe only when they would ensure others’ safety, freedom, honour and dignity. They must be told terrorists just don’t drop from the heavens; terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and desperate people resort to terrorism as their last resort, not as their first choice; Islam doesn’t permit suicide attacks, and killing of innocent people; only imperialists and neo-imperialists wage wars and kill innocent people. Apparently, today America is safer than before while countries in the Third World worry if they are the ones America contemplates invading next to bring “freedom and democracy” a la Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya!

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014).

Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com

Politicians and law-enforcers in Bangladesh, from time to time, hype up both panic and complacency by publicizing the following: “terrorists everywhere” or “no terrorists anywhere”, in the country. The ambivalence is counterproductive to counterterrorism (CT) operation. The first and foremost requirement for effective CT is understanding of terrorism per se, that terrorists are not mindless robots programmed to kill innocent people just for the sake of killing. Terrorism is ideology-driven violence, different from violent crime and warfare. Most terrorists, globally, have been well-to-do engineers and technocrats, not poverty-stricken madrassa-educated people.

Terrorism is a deviation, something out of the ordinary; there’s no ordinariness about it like crime, epidemic, floods, or earthquake. It’s a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. A society or nation creates it, as studies on terrorism have revealed, through various unwise socio-political, and economic decisions. Very similar to cholera or malaria, terrorism spreads through certain germs or bacteria; it just doesn’t drop from the heavens. It’s noteworthy, terrorist outfits representing minority communities often fizzle out – such as the IRA and LTTE – but those who are well-entrenched among the main stream of the population, remain formidable adversaries for years, if not decades.

The primary responsibility for the spread of terrorism in any country lies with the country itself; there is no room for blaming others. I give the example of the ten-year-old American boy, who seconds after the second plane had hit the Twin Towers on 9/11 screamed: “Why are they killing us? We must have done something wrong to some people somewhere”. What this little boy understood that terrorists don’t attack just for the sake of attacking, the American Administration refuses to admit that terrorist attacks are either retaliatory or preemptive by nature. Bangladeshis must also search as to why terrorism is present in their country. Any denial is costly, and counterproductive to effective CT operation.

CT experts in Bangladesh must understand the problem of terrorism has deeper roots than alienation of some rich kids. Is there any problem of mass alienation of people from society, politics, and state – which they consider corrupt, cruel, and lacking in legitimacy? The problem may be political, and “political” has a very broad definition. It’s all about human relations in power perspective; it’s about people’s aspirations, honour, dignity, livelihood, family, and freedom in local, national, and global perspectives. And what’s local is global, and global is local.

In the wake of the latest terror attacks at Gulshan and Sholakia, the question is, are Bangladeshi leaders and law-enforcers still going to be in the denial mode? The stance that there is no ISIS in Bangladesh and that terrorists here are all homegrown locals seems to have become irrelevant. In fact, they should rather worry more about the homegrown elements than the foreign ones, who are relatively easier to track down than the locals. They should understand terrorism is also globalised like the McDonald’s franchise; you don’t need American chefs to prepare their burgers in distant Bangladesh.

An effective CT doesn’t require more troops or policemen, it requires: a) the admission by politicians and police that terrorists do exist in Bangladesh; b) no bragging about actual or elusive success in CT operation; c) no blame game against each other; and d) good governance and fair distribution of prosperity and opportunities to all. Imperatively, mainstream religions or political parties never nurture terrorism. Cults or secret religious or political clans surreptitiously mobilize support for terrorism by systematic brainwashing of people through manipulation of facts and ideologies. The upshot is a tiny minority of angry, marginalised people start believing what’s apparently right is actually wrong, and vice versa.

According to the Home Minister, since only a handful of people are terrorists, the Government can overpower them in no time. The Police Chief is even more complacent: “Militancy has decreased in the country due to law enforcers’ efforts …. Some have been killed in ‘crossfire’ incidents”. Interestingly, only 19 terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers on 9/11, killed around 3,000 people, inflicting a loss of more than a trillion dollars to American economy; and al Qaeda spent less than $500,000 for the attacks. The punch line is 20 terrorists can kill 20,000.

Global CT operators have learnt that there are three different types of politically inspired violence: a) terrorism b) insurgency and c) insurgent-terrorism. The fine line between terrorism and insurgency often remains blurred. While al Qaeda is primarily terroristic, the ISIS champions global insurgencies against all governments across the world. Hence it’s the most dangerous destabilizing force in the world.

As terrorism is often part of broader insurgencies – the terrorist JMB in Bangladesh is a surrogate to the global insurgency called ISIS – CT operators must apply counterinsurgency (COIN) methods as well. David Galula, the guru of COIN operators in the world (although this French expert came from the losing side of the War in Algeria), believes CT-COIN is “eighty percent political, and twenty percent military”. CT-COIN operators in Bangladesh must apply the concerted civil, military, paramilitary, political, economic, and psychological forces to counter terrorism.

Then again, CT-COIN operators mustn’t follow security studies manuals, blindly. One military historian has pointed out, most CT-COIN operations have failed to achieve anything as the losing side has written “99 percent” of their manuals. Hence the desirability of innovation or creativity! Again civil-military cooperation is an essential pre-condition for the success of any CT-COIN operation, so goes General David Petraeus’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

The line between terrorists and insurgents is getting blurred, very fast. In countries where terrorists and insurgents come from the main stream of the populations, there’s no guarantee about the success of any CT-COIN operations in those places. There’s no alternative to addressing the socio-political, and economic issues to resolve the problem of terrorism-insurgency in those countries. We know terrorism isn’t a law-and-order problem, and as such there’s no quick fix or police and military solutions to the problem. However, this information is a bitter pill to swallow for most government agencies in Bangladesh, and elsewhere.

Another stumbling bloc to successful CT-COIN operation is some politicians’ and law-enforcers’ disrespect for human rights, human dignity, and privacy of suspects having links with terrorists and insurgents in general. They simply don’t understand extra-judicial killings of suspects and criminals – through the proverbial “encounter” or “cross-fire” – further aggravate the problem of terrorism-insurgency.

To conclude, Bangladesh should use the globally recognised CT-COIN Manual, for example the one developed by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), which is all about intrastate and interstate cooperation to contain and defeat terrorist-insurgencies in various countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Bangladesh. While the Comprehensive Security Response to Terrorism (CSRT) method stresses the importance of intrastate civil-military and inter-agency cooperation, including intelligence sharing, the Advanced Security Cooperation (ASC) suggests interstate cooperation among civil-military and intelligence agencies at the international level.

Again, both the CSRT and ASC methods stress the importance of good governance, democracy, and respect for human rights as antidotes to terrorism and insurgency. CT-COIN operators in Bangladesh should learn, there’s no substitute for good governance, which is transparent and accountable, and ensures democracy, the freedom of expression, human rights and dignity. In sum, there’s no police or military solution to the problem of terrorism and insurgency.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in the US. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014).
Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com


This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The enigmatic coup-attempt in Turkey on the night of July 15 and 16 signals something ominous about the future of Turkey, NATO, and the entire region. There’s more to read into the event than what appears on the surface. We don’t know much about the nature of the coup, but it has definitely tarnished the “Turkish Model” of success, which its Arab neighbours envied, and European ones admired for the co-existence of liberal Islam, secularism, and democracy. The “abortive coup” seems to have further consolidated Erdogan’s power, at least for the time being. Seemingly, Erdogan and his followers are marching together toward “illiberal democracy”, if not toward the utopia of Islamist totalitarianism.

A man lies in front of a Turkish army tank at Ataturk airport in Istanbul. PHOTO: AP

Turkey is very unique from its European and Muslim neighbours. Being straddled on two continents, this Muslim-majority country is officially secular in the strictest sense. It’s not just another postcolonial country in the Muslim World, it’s rather a former colonial power, the centre of the mighty Ottoman Empire, which once ruled parts of Eastern Europe, West Asia, and North Africa for several centuries up to the end of World War I. Turkey’s Ottoman legacy of ruthless subjugation of European nations – including forcible conversions of Christians into Muslims, and the infamous Armenian Genocide – is still a factor behind its exclusion from the EU by European nations.

Turkey isn’t a nation state. Fifteen million of its 80 million people are ethnically and linguistically non-Turkish Kurdish Muslims, in the process of being fully integrated into the main stream of population. Turkey has a checkered history of military rule and democracy; and many Turks aren’t sure if they are primarily Asian, Muslim, or European.

Now, to look at the enigmatic “abortive coup”, one may agree with an analyst that: “Erdogan is using this failed coup to get rid of the last vestiges of secular Turkey.” Some people question the coup and whether it was staged to further consolidate his power, and to turn Turkey into an Islamist autocracy. The amateurish and excessive brutal behaviour of the soldiers on the street, who didn’t even close down all electronic media outlets, including cell phones, and TV stations, raises questions among people whether it was really a coup-attempt, or a false flag operation!

Interestingly, while Erdogan blames his former ally and present adversary, Hanafi Sufi Master Fethullah Gulen – self-exiled in the US – for the “coup-attempt”, Gulen points fingers at the President for staging the whole thing for further consolidation of power. To Erdogan, Gulen is corrupt and a terrorist, although there’s no Turkish court decision to charge Gulen with any terrorist activity. The day after 9/11 attacks, he wrote an article in the Washington Post and stated: “A Muslim cannot be a terrorist, nor can a terrorist be a true Muslim.” Contrary to Erdogan’s allegations, Gulen believes in interfaith dialogue, multi-party democracy, and asserts: “Studying physics, mathematics, and chemistry is worshipping God”.

The end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 and the Kemalist Revolution of 1923 transformed Turkey into a modern, ultra-secular country, where the military and urban classes became the main custodians of secular democracy. With the end of the Cold War and the acceleration of the globalisation process, and the IT Revolution in early1990s, Muslims across the world became more Islamised than before. Henceforth, Turkish Muslims started questioning the utility of Kemalist “Godless” secularism. Erdogan became one of the bold advocates of political Islam. He is not only an Islamist but also an admirer of “authoritarian democracy” – a euphemism for dictatorship, a la “Mahathirism” in Malaysia.

As Erdogan’s support for Islamist rebels in Syria has contributed to the instability in Turkey and, so is his tacit support for the ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Turkey is accused of having bought cheap oil from the ISIS controlled Iraqi oilfields, and it didn’t stop foreign nationals at its border from entering ISIS-occupied territories in Syria to join the terror outfit, till the recent past. Why so? One assumes to topple the pro-Iranian Assad regime, and to stop secular nationalist Syrian Kurds from gaining any foothold in Syria.

The Kurds are in Turkey by default since 1919. The League of Nations arbitrarily divided Kurdistan into four parts, giving each to Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Up to 2009, Kurds in Turkey couldn’t publicly speak their language or sing any Kurdish song. Turkey didn’t even recognise them as Kurds, but as “Mountain Turks”. After the US-led Iraq invasion of 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan has become an autonomous entity. The Turkish government is very uncomfortable with this development.

Erdogan tried his best to make Turkey a EU member. The EU has been unwilling to accept Turkey as a member so far. European and North American NATO members have had no problem in having Turkey as a member of this military alliance. However, as The New York Times has pointed out [“The Countercoup in Turkey”, July 18, 2016]: Erdogan’s use of Islamist language and harsh retaliatory measures against his secular opponents might “compromise Turkey’s democracy and its ability to be a stabilising influence in NATO and the region”.

In view of Erdogan’s position vis-à-vis the democratic and secular values of the EU and the West, it’s strange that till the other day Turkey was insisting its main strategic relationships remained with the NATO and the EU, and that it had “zero-problem” with European neighbours. But now it seems like Erdogan and his party may be laying the ground for the creation of a Muslim bloc. Both the EU and US seem to have emerged as the biggest nemeses for Turkey.

To conclude, one is least likely to be enamoured by Erdogan’s authoritarian Islamism; his attitude towards the Kurds; mass arrests of journalists, opposition supporters, and alleged coup makers; his promotion of Islamist rebels in Syria; and last but not least, his alleged links with the ISIS at least in the earlier stages. However, one can’t solely blame Turkey or Erdogan for the drift in Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies, which are deviations from Kemalist principles of secular democracy. Western obduracy, racism, and Islamophobia are also responsible for the messy situation in Turkey. This doesn’t bode well for regional and global security in the long run.

Turkey, its European and Asian neighbours, and America must find out a durable solution to the problems dogging Turkey and the entire Middle East and North Africa, and their mutual relationship with each other.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University in the US. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014). Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

By Taj Hashmi
Mar 1 2016 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

There was yet another shocking headline in this daily (February 22): “Priest killed, devotee shot”. Some “unknown” assailants raided a Hindu temple, slit the throat of a priest, and shot a devotee at Panchagarh in northern Bangladesh. This wasn’t a random violent crime. Of late, there is nothing exceptional about premeditated attacks on minority communities or on people holding divergent views on religion and politics across the country.

Unfortunately, many Bangladeshis, first of all, don’t consider such violence as politically motivated; and secondly, people are no longer that vocal against random or selective killing of people by criminals, terrorists, or law-enforcers unlike their predecessors, who wouldn’t remain quiet at any violent attack on fellow citizens by anybody. This was the norm across Bangladesh up to the mid-1980s.

Although the average Bangladeshis still take interest in local and national politics, their interest is dwindling. Firstly, the bulk of Bangladeshis seem to have become thoroughly depoliticised; and secondly, they don’t know whether politics has everything to do with violent attacks on minority communities, women, writers, journalists and others.

This apathy has nothing to do with the victims’ religion, political views, gender, or profession. The number of unresolved killings and “disappearance” of people has desensitised people; and to some extent, this apathy may be attributed to what political scientists consider “political illiteracy” and “rational ignorance”, which have devastating effects on political order, social cohesion, democracy, and freedom. Desensitised, apathetic, apolitical, and ignorant people throughout history have succumbed to absolute dictatorships in the name of religion, racist nationalism, or communism.

I’m going to elaborate these concepts with regard to the prevalent political culture of Bangladesh. Despite what many Bangladeshis say about themselves as being one of the most politically conscious people in the world, the overwhelming majority of people in the country are actually among the least politically conscious, and disillusioned people anywhere. Most decent people in society have shunned politics altogether, and rogue and corrupt elements have filled in the void.

While in some cases, the least desirable people have become politicians and fabulously rich through the “profession of politics”, hardly anybody ever raises this question, and nobody seems embarrassed about this weird state of affairs in the country! On the one hand, people’s lack of interest in raising questions about people’s illegitimately acquired wealth and power through politics is fear-induced; on the other, it also reflects people’s political apathy or “rational ignorance”, and “political illiteracy”.

The understanding of “rational ignorance” and “political illiteracy” requires an understanding of what democracy and politics are all about. People everywhere learn about the intricacies of politics not only from textbooks, but also from enlightened politicians. What’s Bangladesh today is no exception in this regard. People here used to learn about democracy, people’s rights and responsibilities, and about politics in general from political stalwarts like A.K. Fazlul Huq, Maulana Bhashani, H.S. Suhrawardy, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. There was a dialogue between leaders and their followers; they understood each other, and learnt a lot from each other too. Not anymore!

One of the most famous political scientists, Robert Dahl, believes everything in human relationship in power perspective is political. He thinks politics in a democratic setup is what “A” is getting from “B” to do what “A” wants through rational or manipulative persuasion, inducement, influence, authority and power. Since coercion and the physical force to back it up are integral to autocracy, democratic politics is all about effective participation, equal voting rights for all, and inclusiveness.

Thanks to the prevalence of unethical politics in Bangladesh, people in general don’t trust politicians. In a society devoid of mutual trust and respect, politics in Bangladesh is all about what “A” can get from “B” in the most unscrupulous way. Thus people here believe it’s irrational to learn anything more about politics – especially from politicians – as they see no benefit in politics.

Renowned economist and political thinker Anthony Downs’s theory of “rational ignorance” is very pertinent to our understanding of political apathy in Bangladesh. In his seminal work An Economic Theory of Democracy, he has defined political apathy as “rational ignorance” of people when they find the cost of learning something more expensive than any potential benefit from what they learn.

This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, during general elections, where the probability of any one vote changing the outcome is very small.

“Rational ignorance” perpetuates blind political support or loyalty among citizens to particular political parties, X, Y, or Z. The loyal voters are too lazy to investigate if the old policies of their party has changed, or not suitable in the present, or the new leaders are less honest and capable than their predecessors.

What famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht has defined as “political illiteracy”, is the next most logical stage of a “rationally ignorant” nation. Despite the popular perception in Bangladesh, thanks to the manipulative and corrupt politicians, the overwhelming majority of people in the country are among the most “rationally ignorant”,and “politically illiterate” in the world. The fatal combination of “rational ignorance” and “political illiteracy” has turned the brave nation of Bangladesh – which in our recent memory was a nation of freedom fighters – into a nation of supine underdogs and conformist subalterns.

It’s time that politically conscious and patriotic elements in the country tell the people nothing is more important to know than the reality that everything that affects our living is political. We need to pay heed to what Brecht has said in regard to “political illiteracy”:

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Politically apathetic people lose their sense of belonging to a nation, or even to a bigger entity called humanity, which are larger than their families, clans and ethno-religious communities. They become apathetic self-seekers, most unwilling to do anything for collective benefits of people not related to them by blood or by mutually beneficial ties. German pastor Martin Niemöller has beautifully narrated what happens to perpetually apathetic people in totalitarian countries.

Niemöller – who spent seven years in Hitler’s concentration camp – wrote a poem about the fate of politically indifferent people from his own experience: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –Because I was not a Socialist…. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Unless Bangladeshis shun political apathy, doctors fight for journalists and truck drivers; engineers defend garment factory workers’ rights; professionals fight for equal opportunities for all; men fight for women, and women for men; rich fight for the poor, and poor for the rich, the country will remain politically inert, socially backward, and economically stagnant without any rule of law and equity. I believe political apathy is the mother of all evils in Bangladesh. There’s hardly anything in life beyond politics. We’re all related to each other in power perspective.

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. He is the author of several books, including Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan (Sage, 2014). Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com

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