Bombs in Bangladesh

August 17, 2005 6:19 AM

"It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh": 100 to 300 simultaneous explosions took place throughout almost every Bangladeshi district today, with credit taken by Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, an extremist group banned by the government earlier this year.
posted by highsignal (53 comments total)

Bangladesh:

poor
dark skinned
no oil

Move along, nothing to see here.
[/sarcasm]
posted by nofundy at 6:25 AM on August 17, 2005

Christ. Can we please have a day go by when some muslim fanatic doesn't blow himself up? It's getting bloody boring.
posted by derbs at 6:28 AM on August 17, 2005

Sorry if this seemed a little newsfilter-y, but it hadn't shown up on the GoogleNews radar at the time of posting, and despite the mercifully low number of casualties it seemed like a pretty serious coordinated attack.

Can anyone with a little more knowledge of today's political-religious climate in Bangladesh elaborate on why Jamatul Mujahideen attacked their fellow Muslims to push (whatever their agenda is)?
posted by highsignal at 6:35 AM on August 17, 2005

Isn't blowing shit up punishable by death under Islamic law?
posted by grouse at 6:40 AM on August 17, 2005

Oh man.

Bangladesh has more problems than any other country I know. They get flooded every single year. They've been hit by tornadoes, disease, and earthquakes. They really, really do not need this.
posted by dreamsign at 6:46 AM on August 17, 2005

At least they don't have to worry about infrastructure being destroyed.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:54 AM on August 17, 2005

That was BAD Mayor Curley! :-)
posted by nofundy at 7:05 AM on August 17, 2005

So there's "offensive" and "defensive" jihad under Islamic law. It's not such a foreign concept; we, too, have an idea that when it comes defending you and yours, all bets are off. That's essentially the distinction. Offensive jihad--wars of conquest to spread Islam--are a community obligation. It is the duty of the caliph to discharge this duty. Only the caliph is able to wage offensive jihad, so without a caliph offensive jihad is impossible. If community obligations--those that only the caliph can see to--are unmet (say, by the lack of any caliph), then all Muslims are in sin. Offensive jihad is bound by some admirable rules of war about civilians, prisoners, et cetera that share a lot in common with our own Geneva Convention.

Defensive jihad is a different thing entirely. Defensive jihad is a war to defend your homeland from aggression. That's an individual obligation, and there are no such rules of war. Many fatwas have been issued deciding that re-establishing the caliphate is also an individual obligation. That is, it is up to each individual Muslim to try as hard as he can to see these done, and any individual Muslim who fails to work towards those goals is in sin.

Not every scholar agrees that re-establishing the caliphate is an individual obligation, and al-Qa'ida had a very difficult time after 9/11 proving that its actions were justified. Al-Qa'ida's actions to date haven't been about attacking America nearly as much as they've been communicating a message to the Islamic world. That's where our pundits and talking heads go so far awry. Al-Qa'ida is trying to build a case that re-establishing the caliphate is an individual obligation, and that fighting the U.S. is a defensive jihad. Neither point is entirely unfounded; neither point is universally accepted, either. Al-Qa'ida has also made some strong arguments that defensive jihad should allow any means necessary, including terrorist attacks. This is heavily disputed.

This incident in Bangladesh is kind of scary, because it suggests some real movement in the establishment of such a caliphate.
posted by jefgodesky at 7:08 AM on August 17, 2005

100->300 simultaneous explosions? Yikes.
posted by dabitch at 7:20 AM on August 17, 2005

Bangladesh:
poor
dark skinned
no oil
Move along, nothing to see here.
[/sarcasm]


300 bombs go off and your first comment was a jibe about oil?

From your username, I thought you opposed fundamentalists of all kinds. Did you read the story? Do you have anything to contribute with a shred of background & knowledge of the situation, as jefgodesky displayed?
posted by jenleigh at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2005

Jerk his ass into Meta and really give it to him.
posted by Witty at 7:29 AM on August 17, 2005

300 at once? Wow. That's awful. Quite apart from the fortunate lack of casualties, the amount of coordination that that level of attack implies is pretty disturbing.
posted by unreason at 7:40 AM on August 17, 2005

There's a whole lot of explosions between 100 and 300...
posted by odinsdream at 7:41 AM on August 17, 2005

Did you note the sarcasm flag jenleigh?

This is a tragedy.
On a massive scale.
Because of religoius fundamentalism.
It is SICK.
But I can almost guarantee that "missing white women" or "shark attacks" or some other tripe will take the news slots that SHOULD be covering such atrocities.
And you attack ME for pointing out how this will be a non-story for our part of the world?
I'd call my sarcastic reply a realistic observation of how corporate media will respond.
posted by nofundy at 7:49 AM on August 17, 2005

Only 2 fatalities reported so far - including one of a little boy. Makes me think these bombs were intentionally made to not be fatal, especially since many of them were in crowded places. We all know these kinds of attacks can take many lives when they choose to.
posted by Moral Animal at 7:52 AM on August 17, 2005

Sarcasm, anyone? Great way to make a point, though slightly off topic.

/What nofundy said.
posted by dead_ at 7:53 AM on August 17, 2005

This incident in Bangladesh is kind of scary, because it suggests some real movement in the establishment of such a caliphate.

This might seem a bit harsh, but considering how much Bangladesh has not prospered under democracy maybe they would be better off under another form of government. I mean it's been 30+ years since George Harrison arranged the Concert for Bangladesh and not a damn thing has gotten better. Accoridng to at least one survey, Bangladesh is the world's most corrupt country.. and on this planet that's saying something.

Since the Bush administration has established that it is acceptable to unilaterally use violence to overthrow a corrupt government, is this so wrong if it means positive change for the people of Bangladesh? It seems pretty obvious that democracy ain't working.
posted by three blind mice at 8:17 AM on August 17, 2005

Example of what I'm saying:

How many people heard on the news about a terrorist from Oklahoma boarding/attempting to board an aircraft with a REAL BOMB?
It happened.
But he was white and his name wasn't Muhammed so it's no big deal, correct?
Not newsworthy.
What if he had been dark skinned, Islamic, and had the name Akbar?
7/24 headlines on FOX and CNN.
Now that's how it really works.
Missing poor/unattractive black woman? [chirp]
Missing rich/attractive white woman? HEADLINE NEWS all day long, day after day after day. [it was those darkies abducted her, after all]

And that, is the rest of the story as old horseface says.
posted by nofundy at 8:25 AM on August 17, 2005

But I can almost guarantee that "missing white women" or "shark attacks" or some other tripe will take the news slots that SHOULD be covering such atrocities.

Yes, don't you hate it when reaction to atrocity is indifference, or snark, or devoid of substance, or political, or off-topic?
posted by jenleigh at 8:33 AM on August 17, 2005

This might seem a bit harsh, but considering how much Bangladesh has not prospered under democracy maybe they would be better off under another form of government. I mean it's been 30+ years since George Harrison arranged the Concert for Bangladesh and not a damn thing has gotten better. Accoridng to at least one survey, Bangladesh is the world's most corrupt country.. and on this planet that's saying something.

This is why they get so much traction. Take Iraq as an easy, well-known example. Their experience with democracy over the past 30 years has been of that foreign power that aided their oppressor, then incited them to revolt, and then stood by and watched as Saddam mowed them down. Bush Sr. very explicitly said that the point of the sanctions against Saddam were to put the squeeze on the civilian population, in order to incite a coup d'etat. Even if this were not the case, perception is more important than reality here. Even more people died from the sanctions. Nearly everyone in Iraq has lost someone close to them, whose death can, with some varying degree of legitimacy, be blamed on the United States' democracy.

At the same time, the Islamic Revolution in 1979 offers the closest, realest hope of removing foreign-backed dictators. It was Iran--primarily through SCIRII--that was there with them, in the trenches, day in and day out, while democracies screwed them over. It was Iran who backed their fight against Saddam, Iran who stood by them no matter what.

This is much the same situation we see throughout the Islamic world. Part Cold War blowback and part local corruption, the failure of democracy has become endemic to the entire Islamic world, including Bangladesh. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was meant to be a worldwide, exported revolution, just like the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It has, to a very large extent, worked. Al-Qa'ida and others, like these Bangladesh terrorists, are the result of that revolution. Given the failure of democracy in their world, I can't even say that they're entirely wrong.
posted by jefgodesky at 9:02 AM on August 17, 2005

If you don't like the fact this is probably not going to be much of a story, don't complain to nofundy for pointing it out.
posted by chunking express at 9:02 AM on August 17, 2005

Yes, jenleigh, I do.
And, for the record, using the device of a sarcasm tag expresses that very thing when I elucidate the opposite of what I believe.
Sorry if you misunderstood my intent but I still feel the tag should have been a sufficient clue that I was expressing my disdain for that very response.
[speaking of off topic, I'm leaving this derail alone now, back to the bombings]
posted by nofundy at 9:05 AM on August 17, 2005

It was Iran--primarily through SCIRII--that was there with them, in the trenches, day in and day out, while democracies screwed them over.

Er, no, it was Iran which took the lives of ~1 million Iraqis in a war which lasted some 7 years or so, and it is the self-same Iran which is shipping arms to Sunnis wishing to terrorize their Shi'ite "brothers", all for the sake of tying down America. Just because some Mullahs took shelter in Iran for a few years doesn't mean the people of the two countries necessarily love each other, any more than Khomeini's years of exile in Paris meant he loved the French.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was meant to be a worldwide, exported revolution, just like the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It has, to a very large extent, worked. Al-Qa'ida and others, like these Bangladesh terrorists, are the result of that revolution.

This is as simple-minded as it is wrong. Not only is it most unlikely that the Sunni fanatics of al-Qaeda would ever take their queue from Shi'ite "heretics", but it is also the case that al-Qaeda's roots lie much further back in the past than 1979. For goodness sake, haven't you ever heard of Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, or Mawlana Mawdudi?

Given the failure of democracy in their world, I can't even say that they're entirely wrong.

Another deeply ignorant and condescending statement. How do you make the jump from the notion that democracy has disappointed Bangladeshis to the idea that Islamic autocracy would be in any way an improvement? Do you see Iranians enjoying any compensations for the liberties they've lost since 1979? Somehow I doubt you'd look quite so sympathetically on someone advocating that you and your fellow citizens give up on democracy altogether simply because your political leadership is rife with corruption - your sentence smacks of "shame about the wogs" thinking.
posted by Goedel at 9:39 AM on August 17, 2005

Er, no, it was Iran which took the lives of ~1 million Iraqis in a war which lasted some 7 years or so, and it is the self-same Iran which is shipping arms to Sunnis wishing to terrorize their Shi'ite "brothers", all for the sake of tying down America.

Sorry Goedel, but that war began when Iraq invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. The Bush administration reminded us of that repeatedly when painting Regean's former buddy as the world's most notorious bad guy.

How do you make the jump from the notion that democracy has disappointed Bangladeshis to the idea that Islamic autocracy would be in any way an improvement?

Well I'm not an expert on Bangladesh, but it seems somewhat clear that democracy has not brought peace and prosperity to Bangladesh. They've had 30 plus years of trying. What gives you the idea that an Islamic autocracy would NOT be an improvement?
posted by three blind mice at 9:56 AM on August 17, 2005

It's interesting how all these "more than 300"- (BBC) bombs were small homemade devices. I wonder if it's likely that this was 'merely' an attention getting exercise rather than an attempt at public massacre.

Aside 1: Interesting too how the BBC page calls for photos and first hand accounts - hadn't seen that before.
Aside 2: nofundy, I understand what the sarcasm was about and doubtless we would be closer politically than not, but I guess I'd ask you to consider the possibility that sarco-bombing threads, especially at the beginning, really just threadjacks the debate or at least stifles discussion - sometimes when I see comments like that, particularly in these serious threads, I won't even bother to read the links or comments and wander off nonethewiser. So I'm asking nicely that you think about the wider effects of these throwaway lines - a lot of other people who are not members or who are silent, traipse through this site and even well intentioned snarks (giving you the benefit of the doubt, let's say) may in fact be dampening any wider understanding of these grave issues. Thanks.
posted by peacay at 9:56 AM on August 17, 2005

Peacay said it a lot better than I did, and I'm sorry for the derail. It's gotten to the point that whenever I read the name 'nofundy', I'm tempted to skip the thread altogether rather than wade into the vapid, tired, off-topic, substance-free Kos-Lite political snark (for which, at least once, he's already been banned). Less of that and more input by by folks like goedel & jefgodesky would be a godsend.
posted by jenleigh at 10:04 AM on August 17, 2005

My boyfriend is Bangladeshi, and got some calls from family at home about this this morning. People are panicked. Homemade bombs going off there and killing 1 or 2 people at a rally or a cinema are not so rare (bookmark the BBC South Asia page and you'll see reports of them all the time) but the number of explosions which apparently went off here is insane.

I don't know much about Iran or Iraq or other countries mentioned upthread but I've been to Bangladesh and the people I met there both middle class and poor (and the Bangladeshis I know here) really aren't religious at all, they reminded me a lot of most Irish people in our sorta-kinda-catholicism.

Peacay - re 1 BBC have being doing that for a while, although seemingly for random stories.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:10 AM on August 17, 2005

Keep digging Goedel. Follow the thought of guys like Qutb back a little bit further and you will come upon the roots of the modern conservative leadership, who (like al-Qaeda) believe they can bring their vision of the perfect world about through mass murder and crime, who think that the best way to promote free markets is to tightly consolidate every aspect of trade...

It's a family feud between competing delusions of revolution.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:12 AM on August 17, 2005

It's a family feud between competing delusions of revolution.

....
posted by jonmc at 10:32 AM on August 17, 2005

Given the failure of democracy in their world, I can't even say that they're entirely wrong.

The problem is is not the failure of Democracy. It is the success of global Capitalism. Also you have the twin effect of the a brain drain to the west where people more apt to accept plural forms of government and secular thought move to the West.

It's a family feud between competing delusions of revolution.

Great post sonofsamiam. And. I am stealing this line.
posted by tkchrist at 10:47 AM on August 17, 2005

vapid, tired, off-topic, substance-free Kos-Lite political snark

You're welcome. I love your posting content 'cause it's so thoughtful and full of apolitical substantive content.
Geez, and I was trying to be positive and engage you as though you were serious in your past few posts. Look in the mirror occasionally, ok?
And my once being banned was because my comment was taken entirely out of context as I was responding in kind to a vicious snark from dhoyt and that was not recognized. I did not properly cut 'n paste his vapid comment before responding, a mistake I will not make again.
BTW, thanks for the plethora of thoughtful and substantive commentary on this thread. Not like your usual FPP screed and run tactic.
posted by nofundy at 10:55 AM on August 17, 2005

The funniest thing. I followed jonmc's amazon link and look at what I found:
Customers who bought this book also bought
* The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman
* The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
Hah!
posted by nofundy at 10:58 AM on August 17, 2005

Tool.
posted by Witty at 11:07 AM on August 17, 2005

I mean it's been 30+ years since George Harrison arranged the Concert for Bangladesh and not a damn thing has gotten better.

My mind boggles at the idea that there's someone who thinks a George Harrison concert should have made Bangladesh a better place.

nofundy: What peacay said. Sarcasm is actually not the best way to make points, and it's pretty much a guaranteed thread derailer. Why not try just saying what you mean?
posted by languagehat at 11:33 AM on August 17, 2005

Er, no, it was Iran which took the lives of ~1 million Iraqis in a war which lasted some 7 years or so, and it is the self-same Iran which is shipping arms to Sunnis wishing to terrorize their Shi'ite "brothers", all for the sake of tying down America. Just because some Mullahs took shelter in Iran for a few years doesn't mean the people of the two countries necessarily love each other, any more than Khomeini's years of exile in Paris meant he loved the French.

Take a look at the anti-Saddam resistance, which has become the current leadership. Nearly all of them have strong ties to Iran. Iran is the only place on earth where Shi'ites, like most Iraqis, hold any kind of power.

Remember, prior to the British Mandate, the last time the phrase "Iraq" was found on a map was in the Middle Ages, used as the name of a crusader province, in an entirely different place. The national boundaries that exist now are largely figments of pre-war European imagination with little or no connection to the reality of their culture and life. To most Iraqis, the Iraqi-Iranian distinction takes a backseat to Arab-Persian, or Shi'ite-Sunni.

Bangladesh was partitioned in a similarly arbitrary manner by the Partition of India in 1940s. Indeed, I would venture that most violence in the world since the end of WW2 remains as the legacy of colonialism and imperialism, as countries break about and fuse together, trying to find a configuration that reflects their reality, rather than some arbitrary European model.

It's also worth noting that the line between Shi'ites and Sunnis is beginning to wear thin. When Muqtada al Sadr rose up, they worked together. The insurgency now is primarily Sunni (the Shi'ites are largely willing to cooperate, since they are confident in their ability to dominate any democratic process), but things are starting to become very complicated, indeed. Both Shi'ites and Sunnis have begun referring to bin Ladin, in increasing and disturbing numbers, as the Mahdi.

Bin Ladin's goal to date has not been to attack the United States so much as to use the U.S. as a "common enemy" to achieve his goal: uniting the Islamic world into a new caliphate. The truly frightening thing is that it's working so well.

These bombings in Bangladesh would seem to indicate that al-Qa'ida's success may be going to "the next level." This is a highly coordinated attack, and reminds me of nothing so much as the opening volley of all out war--or perhaps a call to arms to all like-minded Bangladeshis to begin the overthrow of their current government, to replace it with Islamic law.

This is as simple-minded as it is wrong. Not only is it most unlikely that the Sunni fanatics of al-Qaeda would ever take their queue from Shi'ite "heretics", but it is also the case that al-Qaeda's roots lie much further back in the past than 1979. For goodness sake, haven't you ever heard of Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, or Mawlana Mawdudi?

Indeed I have. Read them, even. Qutb is a favorite citation in the West, and while he offers a good deal of, shall we say, "flavor" to fundamentalist Wahhabist terrorists, very little ultimately came of him. We really see very little movement until the 1979 revolution.

Understand, the underlying motivation here is not religion, as jamesonandwater highlighted anecdotally above. The issue is oppression, poverty, and a generally miserable state of affairs. Most people in the Islamic world, like most people in our own world, are just trying to get by. The difference is, getting by is much harder for them than for us. A number of hopes were offered up in the post-colonial period, including democracy, secular pan-Arabism (as championed by Nasser and Hussein), and Marxism. Each failed in its promise to end their misery in its own, peculiar way.

Islamic fundamentalism has largely failed, as well. Many Iranians are pushing for more democratic reforms, but even today, most Iranians--even the protesters--still prefer their government. Most of all, Islamic fundamentalism offers hope. It promises the strength to stand against the foreign powers which they see as responsible for their plight--whether by their economic power in globalization, or by direct political and military influence propping up the dictatorial regimes that oppress them. This is an area where perception is more important than reality, and the very wide perception is that a "return" to a "traditional" Islam that never really was will give them the power to overthrow their oppressors and take control of their own lives.

Another deeply ignorant and condescending statement. How do you make the jump from the notion that democracy has disappointed Bangladeshis to the idea that Islamic autocracy would be in any way an improvement? Do you see Iranians enjoying any compensations for the liberties they've lost since 1979? Somehow I doubt you'd look quite so sympathetically on someone advocating that you and your fellow citizens give up on democracy altogether simply because your political leadership is rife with corruption - your sentence smacks of "shame about the wogs" thinking.

Democracy has failed Bangladesh. Would Islamic autocracy be any better? I don't know; neither do you. I tend to think not, and I'd venture you would agree, but there is a widespread belief that we're wrong. I don't see why Iranians would rather keep their government, but apparently they do. It's certainly not for me to tell them otherwise. I would not want to be subject to such a regime, but there's the rub. They don't want to be subjected to such a regime as they are currently under.

These terrorists are the radical tail of the bell curve, but the mean is very different from our own. The most common criticism in the Islamic world for such terrorists is not their goals, but their methods. Most find their goals laudable and their logic sound. Where most stop is in the killing of innocents to achieve those ends. There is a great debate going on about what is acceptable and what is not in pursuit of those ends. The ends themselves are largely agreed upon.

Would Bangladeshis be any worse off under shariah than they have been under democracy? I don't know. Democracy has not been kind to them, that much we know. Is it worth trying something else? Should that "something else" by Islamic law? These are things for the Bangladeshis to decide.

The caliphate the first time around wasn't all bad. And, while I doubt al-Qa'ida's vision would be as tolerant and open-minded as that shining jewel of Cordoba, if they do succeed in establishing a caliphate they won't be the only factor involved. At that point, the rest of the ummah will be involved, tempering al-Qa'ida's extremism. Bin Ladin favors Mullah Omar as his candidate, but that doesn't mean he'll necessarily get his way. Even if a new caliphate does arise, it doesn't need to be a force of intolerance and beligerent expansionism.

These people want to overthrow their government. This, in itself, could almost be admirable: their government is, after all, the most corrupt on the planet. Their bombing seems indiscriminate, but ultimately resulted in few casualties, thankfully. Was this planned, or just a happy accident? The answer to that question will turn my thinking on them a great deal. By the same token, it was such terror tactics that allowed rag-tag civilians in the southern American colonies to defeat the overwhelming power of the British in our own revolution. This has always been the primary hope of a small force against a stronger enemy.

I'm not sure it justifies it morally--my ability to judge right and wrong for others has wilted in the past several years, as I've focused almost exclusively on what works and what doesn't. It's not a new tactic by any means, but it is an impressive example of it--and one with some worrisome implications.
posted by jefgodesky at 11:46 AM on August 17, 2005

I concede that sarcasm may not have been the best method in this situation but the responses from some were way overboard as well. And still are, it appears. Tool - wittybyHalf

Thank you peacay and languagehat for the gentle admonishment. I actually do listen (preemptive: though it may not seem like it at times!)
posted by nofundy at 11:46 AM on August 17, 2005

So people have to be gentle with you when you come barreling into a thread acting like an sarcastic asshole complaining that a story isn't getting enough attention.. yet here the story is? Your last response to jenleigh was very "toolish". So stop being such a baby.
posted by Witty at 11:56 AM on August 17, 2005

By the way, anyone interested in Bangladesh (and it is an interesting place) should be reading Third World View, a great little blog.
posted by jamesonandwater at 12:09 PM on August 17, 2005

I suppose I'll have to accept the asshole label from witty seeing as I sincerely believe it takes one asshole to recognize another. But I do not appreciate his constant name calling. Waaahhh!!

I surrender. My poor wit is no match for the great one.
posted by nofundy at 12:10 PM on August 17, 2005

So people have to be gentle with you when you come barreling into a thread acting like an sarcastic asshole complaining that a story isn't getting enough attention.. yet here the story is? Your last response to jenleigh was very "toolish". So stop being such a baby.
posted by Witty at 2:56 PM EST on August 17 [!]

What Witty said. You have been acting like a jerk throughout this entire thread. Then, when someone calls you on it, suddenly you're in favor of polite discourse. nofundy, you are a tool. In fact, you go beyond that. You are the platonic ideal of toolness that all tools look up to as tooldom personified. If you want to be treated with politeness, then try acting politely yourself sometimes. Repect isn't given, it's earned, and frankly, you haven't done much to earn respect in this thread.
posted by unreason at 12:10 PM on August 17, 2005

Thanks for the link, jamesonandwater, really great stuff there.

Hmmm ... so the bombs were loaded with sawdust instead of splinters, that's why so few were killed .... That suggests that they intended not to kill so many people. Instead, they wanted to show their ability to kill if they wanted to. It reminds me of "counting coups":

The practice of counting coups (or "blows") among the tribes of the Great Plains supports this idea in many ways. Coups were war honors that emphasized bravery, cunning, and stealth over the actual killing of an enemy. According to some tribal elders the best coup was touching an enemy in the heat of battle and thus leaving him alive to wallow in shame and self-reproach. In effect, the warrior had captured the enemy's spirit.

They've certainly succeeded in sowing panic and terror, however. Such forces can be harnessed to effect wide-spread political change with a minimum of actual violence. Is that their intention (in which case, there is certainly something admirable to it), or is that panic and terror merely a foreshadow of some truly despicable violence they hope to wreak in the future?
posted by jefgodesky at 1:27 PM on August 17, 2005

Instead, they wanted to show their ability to kill if they wanted to. It reminds me of "counting coups":

An interesting idea. Do you know if either Bangladeshi or Muslim society has a similar concept?
posted by unreason at 1:29 PM on August 17, 2005

My mind boggles at the idea that there's someone who thinks a George Harrison concert should have made Bangladesh a better place.

Well I might be dating myself languagehat but boggle this: Bangladesh was a miserable godforsaken place in the early 1970s - The Concert for Bangladesh was the Live8 of the day - and today, 30 some years of democracy later, it's still a miserable godforsaken place.

Would a caliphate make it better? Who the hell knows. But there is at least 30 years of empirical evidence that democracy hasn't.
posted by three blind mice at 1:37 PM on August 17, 2005

None that I've ever heard of, which makes it more interesting. Of course, the principle is a fairly simple one.
posted by jefgodesky at 1:38 PM on August 17, 2005

Would a caliphate make it better? Who the hell knows. But there is at least 30 years of empirical evidence that democracy hasn't.

Not exactly. The democracy in Bangladesh is pretty corrupt and poorly run. Rusty saws and leeches were a primitive form of medicine, but the fact that many people died from them doesn't mean that modern medicine is a failure. Similarly, the fact that Bangladesh has a crappy democracy that produces crappy results doesn't mean that they wouldn't have better luck with a good working democracy.
posted by unreason at 1:48 PM on August 17, 2005

Similarly, the fact that Bangladesh has a crappy democracy that produces crappy results doesn't mean that they wouldn't have better luck with a good working democracy.

Assuming that a good working democracy is possible in Bangladesh. Is it possible that cultural, geographical or political pressures in that region may make that impossible? Is it possible that democracy, at least as we know it, really isn't for everyone?

I like the idealism of democracy,* but I tend to think that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to all the world's cultures. It may be that even if it works so well for us, it may not work at all for someone else.

* I'm also a primitivist/green anarchist, so I also believe that the idealism of democracy is fundamentally at odds with the existence of the state and large populations. Thus, I interpret the history of the United States as the slow erosion of that idealism in the face of the pragmatic problems arising from that fundamental contradiction. It is my contention, entirely unrelated to the present discussion and better discussed on my blog that deals explicitly with such matters (in other words, please don't derail this thread further), that the idealism of democracy can only be realized in sufficiently small groups, no larger than 150 people.
posted by jefgodesky at 2:09 PM on August 17, 2005

Well I might be dating myself languagehat but boggle this: Bangladesh was a miserable godforsaken place in the early 1970s - The Concert for Bangladesh was the Live8 of the day - and today, 30 some years of democracy later, it's still a miserable godforsaken place.

I was there too, my friend (1971, not Bangladesh), and I thought it was a dumbass idea then. (Ever hear National Lampoon's Radio Dinner album? As an Amazon reviewer says, "two sadsack Bengali comics--Raza and Kar--... trade hideously lame jokes while distant crowd noises of groaning and suffering linger in the background ('My hotel room is three by three by three and made of cardboard'--'What is that, the Bengali Hilton?').") To think that a rockstar wankstravaganza would somehow materially improve one of the poorest, most fucked up countries on the face of the earth was absurd, but at the time it was at least a fresh idea. After a generation of such nonsense, as I say, my mind boggles that anyone could still think that.
posted by languagehat at 3:10 PM on August 17, 2005

Bin Ladin's goal to date has not been to attack the United States so much as to use the U.S. as a "common enemy" to achieve his goal: uniting the Islamic world into a new caliphate. The truly frightening thing is that it's working so well.

It is?
posted by opek at 6:10 PM on August 17, 2005

Lee Harris talks about this sort of theatrical display as being common to all sorts of tightly knit ideological groups whose beliefs about the world are kind of wacky. Basically, in order to maintain the part of the identity of the individuals in the group that relies on the group being right, it stages various spectacles that are irrational from a viewpoint of instrumental rationality but sensible within the contextualised logic of the group.

He makes the argument that 9/11 in fact was just such a display. It shamed America in the eyes of Islamic terrorists demonstrating its impotence to punish them. Were they actually interested in a military-style campaign to attack America's infrastructure and the material basis of its society, a number of sporadic, minor actions like planting bombs outside of malls and other important sites would have been far more effective, and required much less planning, training or luck to pull off.

Similarly, we should see this as a demonstration of potency mandated by the logic of Bangladeshi terrorist organisations. As the original FPP points out, the group was recently banned, and no doubt wanted to shame the government, to show its ability to defy their proclamations.

And yes, Arabic society does place a high value on personal honour. To provide an off-the-cuff example, in the Gulf, there are numerous jobs that Arabs refuse to do (and are able to refuse to do thanks to their governments' oil-based financial support) that migrant workers are imported to do, because they are seen as being beneath an Arab. Caring for children is a big one - thousands of Sri Lankan, Philippino and Indonesian nannies are brought overseas each year to care for Arab children and maintain the household. Driving taxis is another, as is actually mining oil (in Saudi Arabia, this is a job done almost entirely by foreigners and the low-status Shi'ite minority)
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 7:56 PM on August 17, 2005

And thank you for your polite and name calling-free opinion unreason.
You sound like a person one would want to avoid having a conversation with.
If I'm a tool, make it a hammer, and I just might know where to use it.
Please forgive me for thanking those who were resonable and nice in to me in the thread.
I don't know what got into me.
May I have another stream of invective please?
posted by nofundy at 8:36 PM on August 17, 2005

To be perfectly honest, it wouldn't surprise me if one of the two political parties were behind this. Both have leveraged fear of fundamentalism at various times to rally people to their cause/make the other party look ineffectual and both carry out extremely disruptive activities that lead to deaths of innocents - for example having violent student wings (who shoot people who disagree with them, leading to some BA degrees taking up to 8 years to complete as the (few) universities are always closed) to the Bangladeshi speciality, the "hartal", where one party calls for a, I kid you not, national strike. Anyone going out or trying to get to work on one of these (quite frequent) days gets lynched by supporters of that party roaming the streets. It does wonders for national productivity.

Looking at the blog linked above, it seems that they've already called one for the 20th. Joy.

The Bangladesh political arena is not so civilized. One of the major leaders of Awami League reacted first to the news of this biombing incident "now we have more issues to go against the government". They have already declared a general strike on 20th of August. Was there any strike after the London blasts? Oh I forgot that we were talking about civilized and uncivilized people here. Now amidst all the chaos the real perpetrators will still be at large. The Bangla Bhai will only exist in paper.

Uff.

I'm off to bang my head against a wall a while..
posted by Mossy at 4:52 AM on August 18, 2005

or perhaps you could all take it to MeTa?
posted by longbaugh at 5:40 AM on August 18, 2005

And thank you for your polite and name calling-free opinion unreason.

Thank you for illustrating my point so completely. You have no difficulty with behaving rudely to others, but become enraged when the same treatment is applied to yourself.


May I have another stream of invective please?
posted by nofundy at 11:36 PM EST on August 17 [!]


No, I believe you've already proven my point quite well. Thanks!
posted by unreason at 5:47 AM on August 18, 2005