Islamists vs. Democracy

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 27, 2004 | MANEEZA HOSSAIN

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...Bangladesh has a reputation for moderate Islam, for democracy, and for promoting the rights of women. Indeed, women lead both major political parties, the governing Bangladesh National Party of prime minister Khaleda Zia and the opposition Awami League. Mainstream parties accept that they can only assume power through elections. Bangladesh is home to the Grameen Bank, cited as a model of development for the way that it empowers poor women through small scale loans, or "micro-credit."

But the Islamist current, once marginal, appears to be growing. In 1998, when Osama bin Laden declared "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," few took notice that one of his co-signatories was Fazlur Rahman, "emir" of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh. Nobody in Bangladesh seemed to know who he was. Indeed, the general feeling was that Bangladeshi Islamists, while sometimes noisy, lacked a constituency. Yet today, with the return of migrant workers from Saudi Arabia, they may have found one. The Saudi government has decided to reduce religious militancy among its own young men by pushing a "Saudi-ization" of the workplace, cutting back on foreign employees in favor of Saudis. Returning Bangladeshi workers are not only jobless, but have also been exposed to the intolerant Wahhabism that dominates Saudi Arabia.

The violence and Islamist assertiveness has shocked many Bangladeshis who have come to take their democracy for granted, and to assume that their compatriots could not possibly be misled by extremism. The danger now is that Bangladesh, a country the U.S. had long assumed would always be in the camp of the moderates, has been targeted for conquest by Islamists.

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Ms. Hossain, research associate at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is a citizen of Bangladesh and a recent graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law.