You may have heard that there have been more murders in Bangladesh — once again, fanatics are butchering atheists, and people who publish atheist works, with machetes. You may think this is unconscionable, that these are barbaric acts, but don’t you worry. Representatives of the government of Bangladesh have made a statement.
Yesterday’s attacks are isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries of the world.
Really? I’m an atheist blogger. Should I be worried that someone will break into my house and chop me to death? I don’t think so.
As for the isolated incidents
claim…that’s a very strange thing to say about a series of murders, for which there is a published hit list. It’s also very strange to say when the latest killing of Faisal Arefin Dipan, and attempted murders of Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, Tareque Rahim, and Ranadipam Basu were synchronized and coordinated. It’s also strange when religiously motivated terrorists are claiming credit and threatening to kill again.
These secular and atheist publishers waged war against religion of Islam in every possible ways,it said, threatening to annihilate anyone who would dare stand against Islam.
Planned, coordinated, openly intended to intimidate critics of religion…but the government has decided that these are just isolated incidents
? I don’t think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to be able to connect the dots on these cases. Maybe we should loan Bangladesh a couple of 9 year old kids who’ve played the game Clue to help them figure it out. As a special bonus, they could probably help Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal find his own ass.
” irresponsible, corrupt, or ignorant”, why not all three? I would also add in Fear as well
There’s that deep insecurity which infests religion in general. If people truly believed, silencing atheists (or heretics, or whatever) would not be in the least necessary, they’d just let God take care of it, right? That never happens though. It’s a constant hallmark of religion, that insecurity and deep fear that people really are going to find out it’s bullshit all the way down.
These are “isolated” insofar as they represent only a minority of the ongoing political violence in Bangladesh, most of which oppose the supporters of the two main secular parties.
The thing is, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s main islamist party has been outlawed in 2013, its leaders either executed or surviving in exile.
What we see in Bangladesh is what happens when far-right organizations drop the mask: these pretend to respect the rule of law only when they feel they have a shot at winning elections and establishing their despotates through legal means: in the last election before it was outlawed, the Jamaat-e-Islami won only 4,6% of the popular vote: leaderless and without the hope of being the prime beneficiaries of any popular uprising in the foreseeable future (despite the fact that Bangladesh is a mess right now), the local fundies are pretty much attempting to implement Hitchens’ recipe for political change: they keep killing people they don’t like until every survivor submit rather than risk being the next one being killed, taking advantage of the climate of widespread political violence to act with impunity
Of course no-one will chop you to death. They’ll empty a semi-automatic into you, which is a much more civilised thing to do.
re @2:
agreed. Religion is just a fancy implementation for how emotions influence rationality, what psychology calls “tribal mentality” (or herd instinct).
There is something very comforting about being part of a larger group. Defending the group from “outsiders” is important (vital) to maintaining the group; actively, without depending on some outside influence to resolve the situation (Gawd/Hell, etc).
or so say I
He knows perfectly well where it is and he’s covering it. There are machetes waiting for him if he interferes with the will of Allah.
Looks like they’ve taken a page out of the way America treats white terrorists, umm, I mean 2nd amendment defenders.
Irresponsible, corrupt, or ignorant? How about “Complicit”?
… isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries …
You don’t need to know any context at all to spot the self-contradiction in that statement.
“Isolated incidents”. Hmm, where else have I heard that to describe a pattern?
Trebuchet, #8
Yes, it is complicity. A while back, the government was given a list of bloggers by the extremists that they wanted arrested.
Every time a given government can’t be bothered with and/or lacks the resources to and/or is too dysfunctional to tackle the problem.
In Bangladesh’s current atheist-murder cases, it’s the options two and three (option one can be ruled out since, well…)
In the US, when white nutjobs murder black church goers or doctors providing abortions, it’s either option one under the GOP, option three under Democratic administrations and never option two because when one has the mean to send killer drones on the other side of the planet, one has the means to neuter homegrown nutjobs.
irresponsible, corrupt, ignorant – have you checked one of the US’s major parties lately?
And millions upon millions of ordinary Muslims around the world are saying “Ho-hum.”
@laurentweppe #3 if what you say is true, I’d expect the secular parties to use the murders to foster fear in the population and pass in authoritarian measures, as happens here in the West. It doesn’t take competence for that.
I’m missing something.
Corrupt and complicit more likely
“isolated”
…from what?
…from antarctic circumpolar current?
grumpyoldfart @14
I don’t get it.
I wish this was just incompetence on the part of the authorities, but I don’t think I’m going too far when I suspect their response is actually founded at least in part in agreement with the motivations behind the murders. Deprioritizing these cases and downplaying their organized nature is an easy way of helping things along, unfortunately.
grumpyoldfart @ 14:
And millions upon millions of ordinary Christians around the world are saying “Ho-hum.”
What’s your fucking point?
grumpyoldfart, #14
They are. If you think about it, it has nothing to do with being Muslim. It is something that is bound to happen when you have a set of 1.5 billion people.
If there were 1.5 billion atheists in the world and a secular nation run by atheists was persecuting Muslims, you can be certain millions upon millions of ordinary atheists around the world would be saying “Ho-hum”. Because 1.5 billion.
I agree with Trebuchet and Rob. The word you’re looking for is “complicit.”