A DEFIANT YET BRUTAL FACE OF ISLAMIC FASCISM

A Defiant Yet Brutal Face Of Islamic Fascism
Author: Jamal Hasan

Publication: Muslim World Today

Date: March 9, 2007

URL: http://www.paktoday.com/mwtoday/brutal9.htm

A Third World Scenario

Most of the authoritarian doctrines have one thing in common. That is,
the end justifies the means. Thus, fascism, Nazism, and communism are
the "non-divinely" inspired doctrines where humanistic and moralistic
values are halted to attain the assumed larger objective. In such
totalitarian predicaments, process of extinction of nonconformists may
be conducted with extreme prejudice.

Genocide of a great magnitude is thought to be justifiable because the
"others" seemed to be a threat to the expansion of dogma. Nazi
superiority complex led to the hatred to the Jews and the dogma
cherished the need to annihilate an entire people. In such a
totalitarian dogma, average citizens unknowingly fall prey to
brainwashing where the sense of right and wrong get blurred.

Islamic fascism is not a new development in the contemporary world. The
totalitarian nature of this political idea is indebted to the
Wahhabistic idea in the Arabian Peninsula that culminated only a few
centuries ago. In a traditionalist political Islamism, fascistic nature
is inherent. In governance of a society, the line between secular and
sacred is almost nonexistent. The total subjugation to a powerful elite,
who claims to be arbiters of god's wish, is the common scenario.
Millions of faithful like dumb and driven cattle lose the sense of
morality and humanity to appease god's gatekeepers or the protagonists
of Islamic fascism.

Islamic fascism in the Indian subcontinent was basically a localized
political development. Deobandi students and Abul A'la Maududi were the
pioneers of a movement where interpretation of Islamic norms and
jurisprudence was made in the line of existing Wahhabism borrowed from
the Arab land. Today's greatest threat to human civilization, the
al-Qaeda, and the Talibans got their main inspiration from Wahhabite
philosophy.

In Bangladesh and Pakistan, Jamaat-i-Islami had been historically a
leading protagonist of Saudi-sponsored Wahhabism. The Saudi monarch was
satisfied with the contribution of this fundamentalist party in
enhancing the Wahhabist agenda. Although the Jamaatis are the blood
brothers of the Talibans or al-Qaeda, they have not turned into as
ambitious as the latter. On the surface, it seems they have not resorted
to undermining western interest globally. Not everybody would agree to
such notion.

Khalid Duran has extensively written about Jamaatis' sympathetic ties to
the Talibans in the Pakistani theater. The Jamaatis, though
surprisingly, refrained from committing violent acts against USA and
western nations. This does not make them to be innocent lambs. Maybe,
this could be their tactical maneuver. Nonetheless, some disturbing
events need more vigorous scrutiny. The presently ruling
BNP-Jamaat-i-Islami alliance is helping the cause of Islamism in
Bangladesh.

The new regime that won a landslide victory in a controversial election
held in October of last year is putting its favorites in different
sectors of the country's governing body. A newly elected cleric, the
Khatib of the grand mosque of Bangladesh recently urged his fellow
countrymen to confront USA and US President George Bush. This, he
uttered in an Eid-ul-Fitr congregation where Bangladeshi President and
quite a few state ministers were even present.

If the tragedy of September 11 did not occur, the free world would not
have been bogged down to confront the global menace of Wahhabism
inspired al-Qaeda. Today, the battle line is drawn where the victory of
west's military action is helping the ideological battle against an evil
philosophy. Globally, the victory against Talibans still leaves some
questions unanswered. That is, if Islamic fascists of indigenous variety
do not show any global agenda, how to deal with them when they espouse
brutal and fascist acts within the confines of nation states?

This question has more significance as countries like Bangladesh and
Pakistan are facing the danger of falling preys to the
Jamaati-i-Islami's evil design. Pakistan, due to immense pressure from
her Superpower ally has cornered the fundamentalist party to a great
length. Even then, the danger remains. This party has enough
sympathizers not only in the rank and file but also in the army
hierarchy.

In Bangladesh, the right of the center Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP) draws its power from the fundamentalists who are blessed with
having two ministers in the national government. The painful reality is,
these Islamic fascists, leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami of Bangladesh
were directly involved in the genocide in the country during its war of
liberation in 1971.

At one time while the Soviet army was engaged in Afghan soil, the
Talibans were friends of the West. So were the Jamaatis. During 1971, in
a bipolar world, USA was involved in a turf war with the Soviets when
Pakistani army juntas allied with the Islamic fascists conducted a dirty
war against the people of Bangladesh. After the war, a number of the
ringleaders of the Islamic fascists fled the country to Arabian
Peninsula.

Ironically, some of them ended up in the western nations. The
Bangladeshi war criminals settled in UK and USA are test cases where the
western nations ignore their presence as they are assumed to be not
directly tied to Osama bin Laden or his terrorist al-Qaeda network. They
have bloodied their hands to uphold the cause of Islamic fascism, but
the killings were done in a Third World hinterland like Bangladesh.

Today, it can safely be said that the perpetrators of the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon attack and the fundamentalist killers of 1971's
Bangladesh are graduates from the same school. They are the torchbearers
of an inhuman dogma where dignity of human lives has no value. For
readers' attention, let us have a brief overview of two notorious
Bangladeshi war criminals who will always be remembered by the victims
as forces of evil.

The Ashrafuzzaman Khan affair:

When the News from Bangladesh on November 10, 1999 published "The
Travail of Ashrafuzzaman Khan's Infamous Diary" (later on republished in
South Asia Tribune with a new title, "Why to read Ashrafuzzaman Khan's
Infamous Diary") many readers at home and abroad were introduced once
again to the heinous killer of 1971. Before the NFB publication, he was
a sought out man in just liberated Bangladesh. His photo was posted in
various dailies as a "Most wanted fugitive."

Later on, a few books on killers and collaborators depicted his picture
and the details of his murderous act. This man was directly responsible
for killing seven Dhaka University teachers before the final moment of
Bangladesh's liberation from the occupational forces. In early
seventies, in a Bangladesh court, Ashrafuzzaman Khan was found in
absentia, to be guilty of the crime.

Today, this criminal is living freely and openly in USA. After the
publication of the article in NFB, an advocacy group, namely Bangla
Nuremberg was formed with some dedicated Bangladeshi expatriates. Some
of them were living in the North America while others were living in
Europe.

Thanks to a handful of dedicated expatriate activists in America, soon
Ashrafuzzaman Khan became a household name in various law enforcement
bodies of USA. This war criminal's thirty-year-old photo along with his
present day portrait and his writing samples were in possession of a
powerful law enforcement body of USA. The US State Department was not
left out either.

The lobbyists met Bangladeshi Ambassador to USA and had a few meetings
with the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina regarding extradition of the
war criminal to his native land. Sheikh Hasina's typical oratory was as
if she was the greatest champion of the Bangladesh liberation cause. The
activists got a different picture altogether.

While the US State Department took some interest in the case and
followed up the matter with another US law enforcement agency, the US
officials' position was - "The ball is in Bangladesh's court." That
means US government wanted to see Bangladesh being more proactive in
resolving the war criminal issue. One reliable source was quoting a
highly placed law enforcement official who said with frustration, "The
Bangladesh Government had been pressing US Government a number of times
to extradite Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's killers back to their home country.

Not one time, the Bangladesh Government approached US Government asking
for extradition of Ashrafuzzaman Khan or any other war criminal who
might be living in the United States." The Hasina Administration failed
miserably pursuing the case. Therefore, a war criminal has the last
laugh.

The other day, New York-based Bangla weekly Thikana published a news
story on the killer of 1971. Today, Ashrafuzzaman Khan is a renowned
Islamist, a busy body in Bangladeshi community affairs in the greater
New York area. The Thikana report said he gave an emotional speech at an
award presentation ceremony for the Quran reciters.

He expressed his frustration as he spoke of the expatriate Bangladeshis
stating that only twenty percent of the Muslims attend the mosque. He
said that if the Muslims did not practice their religion in a
nonbelievers' land, their identity would go away in course of time. The
Office of Special Investigation (OSI), a division of the US Department
of Justice has successfully apprehended a good number of Nazi war
criminals who were hiding in the United States.

In fact, OSI became synonymous with successful prosecution of Nazi
criminals on US soil. In most cases, those Nazis living in the land of
opportunity kept a low profile, occasionally bearing aliases. Some of
them were working in factories; some of them were making a living by
menial jobs. In case of Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a leader of the Islamic
Circle of North America, the situation is quite the opposite. Not only
did he not change his former name, neither does he hesitate to be in the
limelight.

As a son of the soil, he knows the pulse of the Bangladeshis and
Bangladeshi leaders. He knows that in Bangladesh the political wind is
now blowing favorably in his direction. He does not see any threat
coming from Bangladesh now that an Islam Pasand government is in power
over there. Also, he knows it very well that he will die peacefully and
gracefully in an alien infidel land.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin saga:

While Ashrafuzzaman Khan story may sound amazing, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin
episode is as incredible as it could be. Like Ashrafuzzaman Khan, this
war criminal from Bangladesh is leading a rather elegant life in UK.
Ashrafuzzaman Khan did not get any bad rap in the US press, also the
majority of the Allah-fearing Muslims living in North America are
presumably not aware of his murky past.

Conversely, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin got the infamy because of high level
exposure brought out by a lone UK TV documentary. On May 3, 1995, UK's
Channel Four Television broadcast a documentary titled "The War Crimes
File." Produced by Twenty Twenty Television of London, this documentary
provided exclusive evidence on the criminal past of three former
Bangladesh citizens who became prominent British Muslim Fundamentalists.

The documentary presented vivid eyewitness testimonies of these men, all
of whom had lived in Britain for around 20 years, in organized
assassination and massacres during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war
against Pakistani military regime. All three moved to England shortly
after the war and each had become a leading figure in Bangladeshi
community and were actively involved in fundamentalist politics.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin is one of the three protagonists of "The War
Crimes File." Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin's despicable act in 1971 could have
been blown in the wind if not for the direct involvement of a few young
Bangladeshi activists in the production of the documentary. The brutal
Islamic fascists slaughtered most of the activists' parents when they
were merely infants.

Unlike theirs most other contemporaries growing up during the General
Ziaur Rahman's or General Ershad's (who happened to be the friends of
Islamic fascists) rule, these activists kept the fire in their soul
intact. The following message came from these dedicated individuals who
still keep the mantle of liberation war memories alive.

(Jamal Hasan is a freelance writer of international repute. He is also a
director of Council for Democracy and Tolerance.)

__._,_.___