by MAQSOODUL HAQUE
‘The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite!’ Tennessee Williams
We have reached close to a point of no return in our political shadow boxing and hence the mainstream parties have decided to hire sidekicks to keep us entertained, as the going has gotten clearly rough. These sidekicks in the form of Hefazat on the other hand have conveniently taken on the subject of Islam, knowing fully well its implications; i.e. our general citizenry is averse to discuss or debate this in public.
It is not because citizens do not want to, but its selective anathema on the subject stems more from ignorance as to the history of political Islam, as well as the flimsiest knowledge about the strength of Sufi Islam, the dominant strains in our culture that has been in existence for over 400 years, with records of fighting bigotry and intolerance. It has therefore helped bigots to stamp the word ‘sensitive’ before the subject, and by default, has made them the ‘sole authority of Islam’ in the public perception.
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Secondly, what is the demography of quomi madrassahs? The figure ‘65,000’ is purely speculative and not based on any hard evidence or fieldwork whatsoever, neither are any data available as to the numbers of actual students in these institutions. Thus for argument sake, if we add in 200 people on average (i.e. direct beneficiaries/stakeholders of the quomi madrassah system) and multiply that by 65,000 madrassahs we reach numbers not exceeding 13 million. This in effect is too paltry a figure for any serious demographic judgment when we consider the total population of Bangladesh currently at 160 million!
The bottom line is , Hefazat despite all our fear psychosis has no clouts whatsoever as a political or even social movement and despite the ‘paramount importance’ showered on them by sections of the media, in the hungama everybody seems to have overlooked the financing methodology of this obscurantist entity, that has suddenly become the ‘talk of the nation’.
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(via SACW)