It was the only moment of confusion the two groups expressed. Standing by Shaplar Chattar, with my back to the stage before me lay a sea of choreographed, pious fury. The confusion rested between my self-appointed Shibir chaperone and one of the march’s Hefazat organisers. The subject of the confusion was the Indian Islamist scholar Maududi. A difference that the Shibir minder attempted to swiftly brush under the carpet of good will and merriment, that regular chanting about hanging non-believers had produced.
The Shibir minder was well connected in the ranks of the march; he stopped to chat to dozens of acquaintances and thankfully had an invisible back stage pass, enabling access right up to the bearded notoriety on stage. The demeanour of the Jamaat Shibir members reflected a contrast with the less articulate rank and file Hefazat marchers. The Jamaat members moreover, “joined our rally and resorted to violence in a bid to oust the government,” Hefazat leader Babunagri told a Dhaka court on May 21.
Maududi, needless to say was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami movement and was one of key radical Islamist thinkers of his day. His mid-twentieth century writings are now at an impasse here in modern Bangladesh, for whilst his goal of an Islamic state has not come to fruition, the majority of Muslims have not seen Islamism as the way to combat the political troubles of their lives. When a war ceases but dogma persists a new enemy must therefore be imagined for the foot soldiers to be rallied against.
One of Maududi’s great paradoxes, like many prominent anti-colonial dissidents and thinkers was his relationship to European or Western thinkers. Whilst simultaneously striving to break free of Western hegemony and compete with it, he similarly sought to learn from it. Thus whilst strongly rejecting the twin “ogres” of European twentieth century political philosophy, communism and fascism, his thoughts borrowed arguably from both.
The tactics that Maududi chose were, according to Jason Burke, author of Al-Qaeda, The True Story of Radical Islam: “Leninist tactics in more locally acceptable clothes.”
Thus the idea behind Jamaat-e-Islami or the “Islamic Society,” created in 1941 was to, “create motivated and trained cadres who he [Maududi] hoped would be the ‘vanguard’ of the Islamic revolution,” writes Burke.
Thus a small vanguard, just as with Lenin’s revolutionary theories, would lead the masses to rise against the corruptions of a society, that allow for earthly uttered laws, as opposed to absolute use of their own interpretations of the divine. Which were naturally, in their eyes uniquely and unequivocally holy. The vanguard would need however a willing mass to lead, which is why the previously directionless Hefazat has come just at the right time.
The imagined enemy
Maududi believed that this small pious, yet educated elite should get rid of the Ulema, whom he saw as corrupted and thus unable to challenge secular leaders and ultimately western domination during the colonial era, because they had made compromises.
With the trial of their leaders a new sense of an enemy or persecution could be built. “The defensive posture - against colonialism, or more recently “neo-imperialism” or now “Westernisation” or “modernisation” is absolutely central,” to the movement, Burke tells the Dhaka Tribune.
This idea was put forward within the trial of Kamaruzzaman, in which his associations with Al Badr brigades was seen as him acting, as the judge put it, as part of this “vanguard,” to induce the masses to fight secularism. The major problem being that the majority of the population didn’t want to fight it. Therein you have the conundrum; you need an enemy.
On May 7 after the government crackdown the prior night, the victim complex took a leap into further realms. “Genocide” occurred in the early hours of May 6, according to Islamist supporters. One Jamaat member told the Dhaka Tribune that 4,000 people were killed, whose corpses were loaded into trucks and taken to India where the story seemed to lose its thread.
This rhetoric was picked up by the ill-informed, including firebrand UK leftist George Galloway who beseeched his parliament to support “democracy activists.” Missing the bit where the Hefazat supporters tried to bring down a democratically elected government or where they firebombed the offices of the Communist Party of Bangladesh.
Hefazat provide the mass and also help to generalise or popularise the sense of victimhood that became apparent after the groundswell seen at Shahbagh. The reality of Shahbagh was that it was very specific about a party and its leaders; this had to be brought into being a more general “threat.” Thus thousands who barely knew what a blog was took to the streets under the impression that their religion and by extension they, were being attacked.
Leftist “apostate” Farhad Mazhar personifies the linkage between leftist ideology and Islamism, with the perception that Hefazat is in some way subaltern or pro-people, “democracy has been denied to the masses of Bangladesh by major political parties,” he told the Asia Times Online.
Problematic patronage
“Maududi’s Islamism was heavily influenced by revolutionary Marxism and, to a lesser extent, European fascism, and was a political ideology which entailed a vanguard of true believers seizing and using the structures and levers of the modern state in a bid to reforming society along literalist, neo-traditionalist lines. The state is seen as a powerful tool to bring about major social change,” said Jason Burke.
In this sense the movement is compelling. Secular governments in Bangladesh have failed to shift the yoke of patronage politics from the shoulders of society. The failure of secular government to offer rules and justice give a unifying authoritarian creed more appeal. Such feudal politics fails the lower middle class aspirer; the educated yet frustrated teacher for instance would receive few of the benefits of those who prosper from nepotism and connections. There are thus few rewards for the educated striver, bereft of the liberal benefits of the elite or the blinding daily struggle of the down trodden. This has historically provided the demographic for the “vanguard” in Islamist and European contexts. With Maududi and fellow traveller, the Egyptian Islamist Syyed Qutb exemplifying this demographic.
“There is simply no room for pluralism in Maududi’s Islamism, though in practice Islamist parties like Jamaat e Islami work within a democratic system though their logic is that they need to do so to gain the political power which will allow them to effect the change which will mean the end of democracy,” adds Burke.
Indeed the notion that it is a people’s movement is highly questionable. The movement is heavily reliant on foreign funding and support, making its local credentials dubious. As the US embassy noted prior to the ICT’s commencement:
“At least one JIB (Jamaat) representative has mentioned the possibility of JIB soliciting moral and other support from Saudi Arabia … JIB representatives also indicate the party is likely to make an effort to ensure regional stake-holders such as Pakistan (the origin of a significant number of war crimes suspects) play a role as the process moves forward.”
The movement has strong links to the Islami Bank Bangladesh (IBB) who are part owned by Al Rajhi bank, who have come under suspicion of terrorist funding, according to the US government’s case history notes on the HSBC scandal.
IBB has itself been identified as an alleged financial facilitator of terrorism, having at times provided financial services for the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) which was allegedly a funding vehicle for terrorism and for Abdur Rahman, chief of the Jamaatul Mujahideen of Bangladesh (JMB).
Adding to the sense of external backers of Hefazat, its leader Babunagri told court that: “The 18-party alliance provided us with all kinds of financial support for making our Dhaka siege programme on May 5 a success. The rally at Shapla Square went out of control of Hefazat after 6:00pm on that day.”
Selectively pro-people
Whilst a pro people movement cannot by definition possess demands, which “imply denying fundamental rights, such as free association, to very large numbers of people, particularly women,” says Burke. Inclusivity in theory being a defining factor for a “people’s movement.”
Such connections, capacity and philosophies demonstrate distinctly non-nationalist, authoritarian elements to the movement but also that the means of the organisation are deep. Just like with the campaign to remove Soviet forces from Afghanistan much of the funding is from Middle Eastern donations intended to support “poor Muslims.”
The anti-nationalist flavour was a distinct philosophical innovation of Maududi who saw nationalism in the form of Jinnah of the Muslim League, “as a modern, western construction which artificially divided the ummah, the community of believers,” according to Burke.
All this points to the attractiveness of a Trojan Horse phenomenon, with the salt of the earth Hefazat as the horse and the Jamaat vanguard as the Greek soldiers within. Rejecting self-publicity in politics, preferring the few “chosen” vanguard members as crusaders against moral corruption, the more they are rejected the greater their crusade, to “enlighten” the rest. Martyrdom and victimhood now present themselves as worthy causes for the vanguard, intent on making the Islamic state a reality.