Arrests Made in Murders of Atheist Bloggers in Bangladesh, But Int’l Response to Violence Remains Anemic | Religion Dispatches

To understand what’s happening in Bangladesh now—both the violence and the anemic response from the west—we need to look at some history.

In 1971, as West Pakistan violently cracked down on Bengali nationalists in East Pakistan clamoring for independence, Washington, D.C. remained silent. U.S. Consul General in Dhaka Archer Blood repeatedly urged President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to intervene.

Nixon and Kissinger, as Gary Bass would later recount in The Blood Telegram, were so anti-India that they ignored what would become one of the 20th century’s forgotten genocides: the killing of over three million Bengalis (including many Hindus) and the displacement of more than 10 million.

Among those who left what would become Bangladesh was Rukhsana Hasib, a young secular Muslim whose father—an East Pakistan military officer—was killed by West Pakistani forces.

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For years, beneath the loud and proud rhetoric of Bengali unity, Bangladesh has been increasingly radicalized, particularly in rural areas and villages just outside of major cities such as Dhaka and Chittagong. Even under the nominally secular Awami League, land-grabs against groups such as Hindus and indigenous tribes have gone up, and authorities have done little to deter violence led by Islamist groups and their allies. Now, religious minorities, atheists, and secular Muslims are now firmly in the crosshairs of an emboldened collection of radical groups.
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The lack of U.S. involvement in Bangladesh is multi-fold. Though the country is a trade partner with the United States, it lacks the strategic significance of its South Asian neighbors India and Pakistan. Additionally, the attacks against the bloggers are often presented in U.S. media without context. Perhaps more problematically, many Bangladeshis, particularly those living in more upscale parts of Dhaka, the capital city, have largely been shielded from the creeping extremism taking place throughout the country.

Arrests Made in Murders of Atheist Bloggers in Bangladesh, But Int’l Response to Violence Remains Anemic | Religion Dispatches

See also:

‘In 1971, Muslims murdered 2.4 million Hindus and raped 200,000 Hindu women’