By Farhad Mazhar

Do we, the political community of Bangladesh, have an Islam-question? If we do, how does the question differ from such questions as Islam as theology, identity, ‘extremism,’ ‘fundamentalism’ or Islamic politics? My proposition is that indeed we do have an ‘Islam-question’ and we must engage with this question immediately in order to generate positive transformative politics to guide the people of Bangladesh, before their constructive and constitutive political energy is exhausted. The purpose of this article is not to exhaustively address the issue, but simply to raise the inevitable necessity of the ‘Islam-question.’
   To recognise the national or historically specific Bangladeshi feature of this question we also accept that this question is different from the dominant global political project of Islam represented mainly by Sunni Islam. Bangladeshi Muslims are mainly Sunni. This particular fact has implication for the question we would like to raise. We may ask why militant anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles inspired by Sunni-interpretation of Islam aim to replace or transform the global reality into an ‘Islamic’ reality and nurture the politics as a ‘global’ project, although it may or may not contain nationalist aspirations. On the contrary, militancy based on Shia-interpretation of Islam has more nationalist aspirations rather than overly global project like Sunni militancy. It may explain why Iranian revolution could succeed and still could thrive, but we will not enter into this issue here, except keeping this fact in mind hinting at the possibility that anti-imperialist militancy, if it ever takes shape in Bangladesh, may have global project as the dominant trend, rather than the nationalist aspirations, or both may converge. This anticipation in the Northern and Indian security experts, who might have been behind the events of January 11, is triggering the fear that Bangladesh is soon to become a major security concern for her neighbour as well as global powers.
   The events of January 11 has created this condition by destroying the buffer against Islamic militancy that was existing through the regime of the four-party alliance committed to liberal practices of Western democracy but at the same time maintaining a facade of ‘Islam’. The destruction is severe if one also keeps in mind that it has demolished constitutional politics and the processes to a point where it will be very difficult to restore again with the legitimacy affirmed by the people. This political regime before January 11 had to function when donors and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation were promoting a form of clientele capitalism, painful and long, used to be known as the ‘Prussian’ path to capitalist development. Such a form of capitalist path by its very design cannot sustain without rampant corruption since the state is the only sector as well as the mediator to make quick money for ‘primitive accumulation’; the state is the source of huge money from donors and multilateral agencies in the name of development. An entrepreneur class in this context cannot be formed without state-sponsored corruption. Now, it seems, the scope for ‘primitive accumulation’ is disrupted and going to be minimised because the corporate world does not want to share the windfall profit with the local contractors or with thugs aspiring to be entrepreneurs. If one is not obsessed with petty bourgeois moralising or donor-driven campaign against the so-called ‘corruption’ such as being done by Transparency International, exact economic content of the anti-corruption drive in a peripheral society is nothing but the fact that foreign corporations now do not want to share their booties with local agents. They perhaps now believe that they have enough political clout to coerce and dominate the country and have enough infrastructures to plunder the resources. One cannot ask for capitalist development without accepting corruption as a general feature of capitalism, more so, in a peripheral society or state that does not have colonies to exploit and plunder for ‘primitive accumulation.’ Bangladeshis is now paying the price for political failure during the 1970s to make a radical economic transformation.
    The January 11 events have disappointed the emerging class, corrupt but still in the process of formation. It will now be very difficult to recreate the political, social and economic balance that existed in Bangladesh before January 11. We are heading for new scenarios and new political theatres. The destruction of the economic process that was more or less functioning by the dictates of ‘free market’ and the demise of constitutional politics and antagonism is going to accelerate the terrible imbalance in people’s perception and the coming politics. This is the context when we have initiated the discussion on ‘Islam-question’, anticipating an uncertain future.
   Bangladesh experiences an antagonism or contradiction between Islam and Islamic identity on the one hand, and linguistic and cultural identity and politics as Bengali on the other. Therefore, the question is unique in the way that it is the ability of Bangladeshi people as Bengali to resolve this conflict that we intend to interrogate. This resolution has so far been difficult because we read our history of 1971 as Bengalis fought to retain their Bengali identity since the Pakistani ruling class wanted to make them Muslim. The Pakistani ruling class refused to recognise the identity of Bengalis in terms of Bangla language and culture. However, the question has never been raised that the Indian ruling class, particularly the elite of Calcutta representing the Bengali culture and language, did not also recognise the Muslims of Bengal as Bengalis. For Hindus it was not a problem. In the 1971 war Bengali Muslims had to prove by blood to both the Indian and Pakistani ruling class that they are Bengalis as well. This is the point of departure for the Islam-question of Bangladesh, that it is not an issue related to religious identity or cultural identity or with ‘nationalism.’ The Islam-question is not a nationalist question because it also resolves the relations with all ethnic, cultural and religious minorities and aims to constitute a political community in Bangladesh anticipating a post-capitalist and post-imperial global order. Nevertheless, this is a question peculiar to Bengalis and must be resolved as Bengalis in order to absorb the glory and grace of Islam as part of the history of Bangladesh but at the same time strongly recognising the necessity to integrate all ethnic, cultural or religious minorities into a singular polity order to constitute the politics of resistance against the global capitalist order to ensure a future for Bangladesh in the global human history.
   The ‘Islam-question’ has a global as well as national context. If so, one may claim that in different historical contexts there are different questions to be resolved with regard to Islam. This is not our position with regard to the ‘Islam-question’ in Bangladesh in the era of globalisation. What we would like to argue is that the ‘Islam-question’ in Bangladesh is uniquely ‘national.’ Although the question is asked within the language, culture and tradition, politics and socio-economic contexts of Bangladesh, it also has global significance. The question may have its origin in a particular history, but it may rephrase the Islam-question as a global inquiry in order to imagine a post-capitalist, post-imperial world. If such imagining appears to the people of Bangladesh as politically possible, the question may gain a radical character not only for Bangladesh but also for the political resistance against imperialism globally.
   An average Bangladeshi would like to see an end to domination and exploitation by the powerful Northern countries? The events of January 11 is largely interpreted by the people as a move of the powerful countries to assert their control over energy, natural resources, biodiversity, water, telecommunication and port and transit. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and Australia, the countries have already been identified as key players in installing a government of ‘advisers’ as trustees to look after foreign interests without any constitutional or moral legitimacy – a blatant example that donors have absolutely no interest in liberal constitutional politics, but rules by coercion. It is also interesting that India has not been part of the club in the January 11 installation of a non-constitutional regime of ‘advisers’ but riding on the events to safeguard her interest with the support of her security deals with the US and Israel and the recent nuclear dealings. However, given the nature of contending interest there is also contradiction in the club and intense competition to assert command and control over the resources to be plundered. The crack in the club is manifested over various issues already: the energy issue, the Chittagong port and the telecommunication sector. Be that as it may, our immediate interest is not to discuss economic competition and contradiction over gas, coal or oil when energy has become the final criterion of domination among imperialist powers or analyse the compelling necessity to open up new sectors of profit-making ventures in a peripheral society.
   However, the global and regional powers are united on one fundamental issue: ‘Islam.’ The main campaign against Bangladesh that the country is collapsing into an ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ society or worse – into a fundamentalist Islamic state – has been intensely propagated since 9/11. In this context Islam has been made an issue by the Northern powers fuelled by the policy of the development partners in funding organisations that are explicitly and implicitly express their hatred against Islam in order to prove their ‘secularist’ or ‘modernists’ stance. A secular Bangladesh was always a strong possibility given the fact that the people had to fight against a form of Pakistani Islam that was obviously oppressive, unjust and brutal and over and above proved criminal during the war of liberation. The secularisation of Bangladeshi society and polity has failed mainly because the ‘secularist’ politics of Bangladesh refused to recognise Islam as an integral component of Bangladeshi identity and culture and maintained the Indian version of the interpretation of the liberation of Bangladesh. According to this interpretation, the liberation of Bangladesh is the victory of Bangladeshis over and against Islam and the proof that the ‘two-nation theory’ is a failure and India should not have partitioned and remained ‘undivided.’ The development partners knowingly contributed to this politics because of their lack of understanding of Bangladeshi society and history. A pathetically uncritical modernist idea of ‘development’ has irreparably damaged the fabric of Bangladeshi society. The positive economic stride made by Bangladesh did create another opportunity for enlightened transformation of Bangladesh and a creative discourse on the relation between Islam and the socio-economic and political aspiration of the people. This has been identified by some donors as the possibility of Bangladesh to emerge as a ‘moderate Muslim country.’ But this possibility has also been foiled mainly by reactive response of society against the NGO community and the artificial ‘civil society’ created by international donors promoting a form and discourse of development based on portraying Islam, mullahs and madrassahs as the major obstacles to socio-economic transformation. The rise of Islamic militancy is also a failure in ‘development.’ However, donors now must blame their failure of development project on Islam when they are witnessing the rise of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh. They see this rise as a serious security threat to imperial domination as well as regional hegemony but at the same time an opportunity to intervene in Bangladesh to extract the economic benefit. The paradigm shift among the donors from ‘development’ to ‘security’ and the necessity to restructure the state of Bangladesh to combat Islamic threat is the single most significant feature of the present Bangladeshi politics.
   Bangladesh thus entered into the global arena of the ‘war on terrorism’ and emerged as one of the major targets of intervention. The sheer number of Bangladeshis is a threat to the Northern powers as well as India. Identity of the majority of Bangladeshis as ‘Muslim’ means that Bangladesh will have to deal with this situation no matter how it views or resolve the Islam-question. However, the situation will accelerate the process by which the people are forced to understand Islam in the context of the global reality. Needless to mention, the response of the people of Bangladesh to the design and intention of Northern powers in fuelling the events of January 11 and the consequences of the events will be varied, sometimes contradictory and often confusing, but to the average Bangladeshis this is interpreted as an attack against a population who happened to be Muslim in majority and made a great stride in economic and human development and succeeded in carrying out three largely free and fair general elections. It is possible that this response will accelerate the urge to interrogate Islam not merely as an identity of Muslims but to understand the philosophical and political role of Islam in the era of neo-colonial predatory politics. The conventional left politics has demised and has hardly any future; the liberal milieu has been destroyed by the donors creating a situation that is making constitutional politics impossible; on top of it, Bangladesh has been reduced into a ‘security’ apparatus with the sole responsibility of fighting Islamic militancy. Average Bangladeshis also understand that the change took place to protect the corporate interest. In this scenario will the people of Bangladesh turn to Islam? Will the people resort to Islamic discourse to articulate their voices, their anger and their frustrations? The answer is affirmative. Nevertheless, this is not the Islam-question to us. What we would like to pose is the possibility of the Bangladeshis interpreting Islam in a manner that absorbs the positive gains of human history, say for example ‘European enlightenment’, in order to imagine a post-capitalist and post-imperial world and a politics consistent to make that a reality. It implies that Bangladeshis must learn to interrogate not only Islam but also Greco-Christian paradigm of civilisation and Zionism as manifestation of capitalist and imperial order and how both constitute ‘modernity.’
   Why ‘Islam?’ Because this is now the only discourse available to the masses to develop political resistance and will resonate with the global struggle of people with whom people can easily identify themselves. All politics of resistance look for voices in militancy. To what extent Islamic militancy, as we are observing in other countries, will influence Bangladesh is difficult to say. However, politics of resistance cannot succeed without a spiritual grounding because of the collapse of the other militant discourses from materialist tradition. To understand the question, we need to explain a few more points.
   After the collapse of ‘actually existing socialism’ and capitalist transformation of China, the rise of militant Islam opened up a ‘new beginning in history’ rather than punctuating the ‘end.’ It is a blow to Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ thesis and a bad example of repeating Hegelian understanding of history, as the journey of the Spirit culminating into ‘final’ outcome of struggle between capitalism and socialism. He missed a vital point made by Hegel – the Spirit’s project cannot be reduced as a struggle over materiality of life, but realising what is truly appropriate for the Spirit in distinction from the material or the biological life either as given or created by human activities as ‘second nature.’ The supreme posture of Spirit is to defy death and thus to place Spiritual life over and above the biological life. From this perspective, ‘politics’ and to be ‘political’ are not the same thing. Politics as an activity in civil society could simply be activity as economic agents and not as ‘political’ agents. Politics becomes a form of serving economic interest to different socio-economic groups, a platform to lobby for self-interest, and has no spiritual value. In contrast, if the Spirit experiences itself as a free and sovereign power then it will risk its biological life for the sake of spiritual life. It implies that human beings may refuse to play only the role of being economic agent or be dictated by the system of needs in order to act in accordance with the idea formed by the Spirit. To say it simply, human beings are ready to die for an idea since only in realising the idea human spirit can prove that it is the Spirit and not merely a biological being, or simply an economic agent in civil society striving to maintain the biological existence. To be political is by definition the constitution of a subjectivity that is spiritual or that knows itself as the ‘Spirit.’
   Marx retained this legacy maintaining the distinction between ‘class-in-itself’ and ‘class for itself.’ The class-in-itself is the socially determined material and biological life of human beings and ‘class-for-itself’ is the spiritual life of human beings who are capable to comprehend their historical situation both as ‘workers’ or economic agent in civil society as well as ‘spiritual agent’ – that is political agents conscious of the meaning and purpose of history. Marx reinterpreted Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectics as the dialectics of class struggle, triggered by the system of needs or economic competition. Fukuyama is symptomatic in the sense that he signals the crisis of global capitalist order in the post-Soviet era in his desperate yearning to interpret the present philosophically, since history did not follow the dictates of Marx. However, the problematic of history that Marx did put forward has remained untouched and unresolved despite the failure of actually existing socialism or communist movements. The problem he posed is again simple: Is there a possibility of a human history of self-conscious human beings, rather than the history of the capital as being final and eternal history determining the life and thought of human beings? The history that is now unfolding is only history as shaped by the self-expansion and accumulation of capital. Could human beings be able to break the shackles of capital and begin their own history as free human beings that could be called human history in the proper sense of the term: history made by human beings as free spirit and endowed with infinite possibility?
   Political militancy can be criticised from various perspectives but what is easily traced in all forms of political militancy of resistance is the immediate supremacy of the spirit over the biological life. A militant by definition is ready to die for his/her cause. It is impossible unless his/her understanding of the cause and spirit are one. At this level there is hardly any difference between Islamic, Marxist or nationalist militants. Once this point remains clear to us we will also understand why the collapse of the militant left politics in Bangladesh and the failure of nationalist politics could easily be replaced by the Islamic politics of resistance. Afghanistan and Iraq and the question of Palestinians can ferment the politics of resistance inspired by Islam. The people of Bangladesh believe that Muslims are treated badly in the so-called ‘civilised’ countries. Hate words against the prophet of Islam by politicians is a shock to many. The cartoon of the prophet in the Western media is seen as a caricature of ‘freedom’ of thought and speech. Continuous campaign against Bangladesh blaming the people turning to ‘fundamentalism’ has also created a feeling that no matter what the people do they will be blamed by the Indian and Western media. All these factors are creating an interest in the politics of resistance and Islamic discourse and are becoming more acceptable to the younger generation. However, any Islamic discourse that proposes to re-establish pre-capitalists or old form of Islamic society and polity have little to say against the global capitalist or imperialist order as an economic system that organises production, distribution and exchange on the profit motif. Conventional Islamic discourses are incapable to analyse capitalist global order except the faith that Islam is morally superior to capitalism. While faith as a spiritual experience plays a constitutive and crucial role in Islamic politics of resistance, unlike left secular politics, the inability of Islamic discourses in analysing the present makes them politically vulnerable as well and appears as politics of a community defined by theology and communalism. Despite the presence of such theological communities, it is doubtful whether they have a political future on their own. The Islam-question, therefore, is not the theological politics of Islam based on Islam as religion, or an identity politics of a religious community, but politics of resistance inspired by the Islamic notion of justice, equity and militancy against the oppressors and bringing theology, if necessary, to be the witness of such philosophical interpretations. It demands a discourse that is capable to read Islam philosophically and not theologically and demonstrate that the politics of resistance inspired by Islam is capable to carry the politics of resistance against capitalism, oppression and injustice no matter how it has been articulated in the past. It also implies that such a politics of resistance carries the legacies of all previous and existing resistance directed at the oppressors in order to emancipate the oppressed people, irrespective of its articulation – Islamic or non-Islamic.
   To recognise the nature of this interrogation we need to at least accept that this question is unique and differs with other questions related to Islam. Secondly, this question started to take shape in Bangladesh as a consequence of post-9/11 US foreign policy that signals the demise of the notions such as ‘sovereignty,’ ‘state,’ ‘human rights’ and ‘rule of law’ upon which conventional societies are organised or still claim their legitimacy from how the global majority understands and act in accordance with the dominant meaning of these notions. Admittedly, other questions may have implications for this particular interrogation, but we may start, if we are at all interested, at least assuming that there may be an area regarding Islam that cannot be addressed by discussing Islam as theology, or analysing political Islam to assess the extent to which it is consistent with western liberal ideas and practices or where it is a threat.
   It may surprise many but Islam as a theological question is no different from Christian or Judaism or any faith based on positive science, although one may argue that ‘theology’ as an independent discipline is a feature of western civilisation and alien to Islam. It is irrelevant for Islam whether certainty is achieved through reason or divine presence. Replacing ‘reason’ or ‘experience’ in place of Allah as a source, cause or condition of knowledge does not change the fact that all knowledge begins in the immediacy of such presence, irrespective of how it is named — Allah, reason, experience or whatever. However, the point of departure is elsewhere. It constitutes in the claim of Islam that no matter what the nature of the immediate certainty (or uncertainty) of the world, the idea that unconditioned is the conditions of all existence irrespective of how experience or reason intuits or constructs the conditional presence of a being, is not an epistemology, but a political necessity in order to unite the mankind and dissolve all politics of identity based on blood, race, tribal identity, country, language and culture. All relations between human beings as well as human beings and the nature must be mediated by this ‘unconditioned’ that should have no earthly feature. This is the reason why idolatry is prohibited in order to inaugurate the ‘unconditioned’ in constituting the earthly relation.
   Hegel perhaps is the only philosopher of the West who has recognised this revolutionary character of Islam. He named it ‘Revolution of the East’ that ‘destroyed all particularity and dependence, and perfectly cleared up and purified the soul and disposition; making the abstract One the absolute object of attention and devotion, and to the same extent, pure subjective consciousness – the knowledge of this One alone – the only aim of reality; — making the Unconditioned the condition of existence’ (italics is Hegel’s in Philosophy of History).
   There is nothing unique about Islamic theology of Bangladesh. Islam will be addressed theologically in Bangladesh since the majority of the population is Muslim. The role of theology in social life has not been exhausted anywhere in the world. The contribution of Bangladesh to the Islamic theology has always been very substantive and will remain so in the future. Islamic theology as such is not a political problem for Bangladesh or to the west. Theological Islam, by definition, does not challenge the existing order politically. When such challenges are posed it is important to distinguish the political content from the theological assertions. The hegemonic powers, against whom the challenge is posed, would, however, reduce the resistance as a theological question in order to efface the substantive political conflicts, antagonisms or contradictions.
   In contrast to Islam belonging to the culture of political resistance against global capitalist order, a section of Islamic theology and politics may prove rather an ally to the global capitalist order, an important trend ready to be used for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism programme of Washington. Nevertheless, it does not imply that Islamic theologians will have the dominant voice in society and politics. As long as the faith is studied as a positive science without questioning Islam as a philosophical proposition it has no direct relevance for the Islam-question. The revolutionary content that has been identified by Hegel as a substantive proposition of Islamic philosophy is an example of how Islam could and should be studied philosophically now and interpreted in a way that could mobilise the politics of resistance without throwing us back to pre-capitalist mindsets or to the medieval history when the freedom of the Spirit was yet to be experienced by individual human beings or the community.

   Farhad Mazhar is a noted thinker