From: Islam Watch

One of the most potent myths of our age is that the Crusades were little more than an unprovoked attack by a barbarous Europe against a quiescent and cultured Islamic world.

According to conventional ideas, the seventh and eighth centuries constitute the great age of Islamic expansion. By the eleventh century – the time of the First Crusade – we are told that the Islamic world was quiescent and settled and that, by implication, the Crusaders were the aggressors. Indeed, the Crusaders are routinely portrayed as a horde of barbarians from a backward and superstitious Europe irrupting into the cultured and urbane world of the eleventh century Near East.

This at least is the populist language often employed on television and in newspaper articles. In my recent book Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization, I have shown however that before the advent of Islam Christians had no concept of “Holy War” at all, and that it was from the Muslims themselves that Europeans took this idea. I showed too that the Crusades, far from being an unprovoked act of aggression on the part of Christian Europe, was part of a rearguard action aimed at stemming the Muslim advance which, by the start of the eleventh century, was threatening as never before to overwhelm the whole of Europe.

Notwithstanding the evidence presented in Holy Warriors, the consensus among the majority of medieval historians is that the threat from Islam had very little, if anything, to do with the Crusades; the Muslims were simply the convenient targets of a savage and brutal Europe, mired in a culture of habitual violence and rapine. The “energies” of Europe’s warrior-class, it is held, were simply directed by the Papacy away from internal destruction onto the convenient targets of the Islamic world. This, for example, is the line taken by Marcus Bull in his examination of the origins of the Crusades in The Oxford History of the Crusades. In an article of almost ten thousand words, Bull fails to consider the Muslim threat at all. Indeed he mentions it only to dismiss it:

“The perspective of a Mediterranean-wide struggle [between Islam and Christianity] was visible only to those institutions, in particular the papacy, which had the intelligence networks, grasp of geography, and sense of long historical tradition to take a broad overview of Christendom and its threatened predicament, real or supposed. This is a point which needs to be emphasized because the terminology of the crusades is often applied inaccurately to all the occasions in the decades before 1095 when Christians and Muslims found themselves coming to blows. An idea which underpins the imprecise usage is that the First Crusade was the last in, and the culmination of, a series of wars in the eleventh century which had been crusading in character, effectively ‘trial runs’ which had introduced Europeans to the essential features of the crusade. This is an untenable view.”(Marcus Bull, “Origins,” in Jonathan Riley-Smith (ed.) The Oxford History of the Crusades, p. 19)

With what justification, we might ask, does Bull dissociate the earlier Christian-Muslim conflicts of the eleventh century in Spain, Sicily, and Anatolia from the First Crusade?  The answer can hardly be described as convincing. “There is plenty of evidence,” he says, “to suggest that people regarded Pope Urban II’s crusade appeal of 1095-6 as something of a shock to the communal system: it was felt to be effective precisely because it was different from anything attempted before.” (Ibid) Of course it was different: the Pope had called a meeting of all the potentates and prelates of Europe to urge the assembly of a mighty force to march to Constantinople and eventually to retake the Holy Land. It was new because of its scale and its ambition. But to thus dismiss the connection with what went before in Spain and Sicily – and Anatolia – is ridiculous. Such a statement can only derive from a mindset which somehow has to see the Crusaders as the aggressors and to thereby detach them from the legitimate defensive wars which Christians had been fighting in Spain and throughout the Mediterranean in the decades immediately preceding 1095.

The fact is, in the twenty years before the First Crusade, Christendom had lost the whole of Anatolia, an area greater than France, and a region right on the doorstep of Europe. In 1050 the Seljuk leader Togrul Beg undertook Holy War against the Christians of Anatolia, who had thus far resisted the power of the Caliphs. We are told that 130,000 Christians died in the war, but that, upon Togrul Beg’s death in 1063 the Christians reasserted their independence and freedom. This was however to be of short duration, and no sooner had Togrul Beg’s nephew Alp Arslan been proclaimed Sultan than the war was renewed. In 1064 the old Armenian capital of Ani was destroyed; and the prince of Kars, the last independent Armenian ruler, “gladly handed over his lands to the [Byzantine] Emperor in return for estates in the Taurus mountains. Large numbers of Armenians accompanied him to his new home.” (Steven Runciman, The History of the Crusades Vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1951) p.61) Indeed, at this time, the entire Armenian nation was effectively transplanted hundreds of miles to the south and west.

But the Turkish attacks continued. From 1065 onwards the great frontier-fortress of Edessa was assaulted yearly. In 1066 they occupied the pass of the Amanus Mountains, and next spring they sacked the Cappadocian metropolis of Caesarea. Next winter the Byzantine armies were defeated at Melitene and Sebastea. These victories gave Alp Arslan control of all Armenia, and a year later he raided far into the Empire, to Neocaesarea and Amorium in 1068, to Iconium in 1069, and in 1070 to Chonae, near the Aegean coast. (Ibid.)

These events make it perfectly clear that the Turks now threatened all the of Empire’s Asiatic possessions, with the position of Constantinople herself increasingly insecure. The imperial government was forced to take action. Constantine X, whose neglect of the army was largely responsible for the catastrophes which now overwhelmed the Empire, had died in 1067, leaving a young son, Michael VII under the regency of the Empress-mother Eudocia. Next year Eudocia married the commander-in-chief, Romanus Diogenes, who was raised to the throne. Romanus was a distinguished soldier and a sincere patriot, who saw that the safety of the Empire depended on the rebuilding of the army and ultimately the reconquest of Armenia. (Ibid.) Within four months of his accession, Romanus had gathered together a large but unreliable force and set out to meet the foe. “In three laborious campaigns,” writes Gibbon, “the Turks were driven beyond the Euphrates; in the fourth, and last, Romanus undertook the deliverance of Armenia.” (Decline and Fall, Ch. 57) Here however, at the seminal battle of Manzikert (1071), he was defeated and captured and all of Anatolia was irretrievably lost.

Any honest reading of these events leaves us in no doubt whatsoever that the aggressor was Alp Arslan and his Turks, and that Romanus Diogenes’ march into Armenia was a last-ditch counter-attack by the Byzantines to prevent the loss of all of Anatolia. Yet observe how the battle is described in the recently-published Chambers Dictionary of World History: “The Byzantine Emperor, Romanus IV Diogenes (1068/71), tried to extend his empire into Armenia but was defeated at Manzikert near Lake Van by the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan (1063/72), who then launched a full-scale invasion of Anatolia.” (Bruce Lenman (ed.) Chambers Dictionary of World History (London, 2000) p. 585)

We see in the above a graphic example of the disinformation disseminated by the mentality of political correctness, where the victim is transformed into the aggressor and the aggressor portrayed as the victim.

Alp Arslan was killed a year later, and the conquest of Asia Minor, virtually all that was left of Byzantium’s Asiatic possessions, was completed by his son Malek Shah (1074 – 1084). These conquests left the Turks in possession of the fortress of Nicaea, on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, and the survival of Constantinople in question.

These then are the major political events which prefigured the First Crusade. Within a space of thirty-five years the Turks had seized control of Christian territories larger than the entire area of France, and they now stood poised on the very doorstep of Europe. We are accustomed to think of the Crusades as first and foremost an attempt by Christians to retake the Holy Land and Jerusalem; but this is a mistake. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus now made his famous plea to the Pope, not to free Jerusalem, but to drive the Turks from his door, to liberate the huge Christian territories in Asia Minor that had so recently been devastated and annexed by the followers of the crescent. It is true, of course, that the Turks, who had also assumed control of Syria/Palestine, now imposed a barbarous regime in that region; and that the sufferings of Christian pilgrims as well as native Christian populations in that region, described so vividly by Peter the Hermit and others, provided a powerful emotional impetus to the Crusading movement among ordinary Europeans; but the relief of pilgrims was not – to begin with at least – the primary goal of the Crusaders. Nonetheless, the barbarous nature of the Turkish actions in Palestine was a microcosm of their behavior throughout the Christian regions which they conquered, and the nature of their rule in the entire Near East is described thus by Gibbon in his usual vivid manner:

“The Oriental Christians and the Latin pilgrims deplored a revolution, which, instead of the regular government and old alliance of the caliphs, imposed on their necks the iron yoke of the strangers of the north. In his court and camp the great sultan had adopted in some degree the arts and manners of Persia; but the body of the Turkish nation, and more especially the pastoral tribes, still breathed the fierceness of the desert. From Nicaea to Jerusalem, the western countries of Asia were a scene of foreign and domestic hostility; and the shepherds of Palestine, who held a precarious sway on a doubtful frontier, had neither leisure nor capacity to await the slow profits of commercial and religious freedom. The pilgrims, who, through innumerable perils, had reached the gates of Jerusalem, were the victims of private rapine or public oppression, and often sunk under the pressure of famine and disease, before they were permitted to salute the holy sepulcher. A spirit of native barbarism, or recent zeal, prompted the Turkmans to insult the clergy of every sect; the patriarch was dragged by the hair along the pavement and cast into a dungeon, to extort a ransom from the sympathy of his flock; and the divine worship in the church of the Resurrection was often disturbed by the savage rudeness of its masters.” (Chapter 57)

The ordinary peasants of Europe may not have been fully cognizant of the danger from the east, but the ruling classes and the Church could not have been anything but alarmed. Yet even if the peasantry and artisans of Europe knew little about Anatolia, they would certainly have had some knowledge of the Muslim threat. It is Marcus Bull’s suggestion that they did not which is untenable. The advances of Abd er-Rahman III and Al-Mansur through northern Spain in the latter years of the tenth century would have sent a flood of Christian refugees into southern France; and the raids even into southern France which continued well into the eleventh century would have sent refugees from there fleeing into central and northern France. These people would have spread knowledge of the danger throughout western Europe. Granted, peasants and manual laborers would have had a very imperfect understanding of Islam and what Muslims actually believed; but that is not the point: They knew enough to know that Muslims were enemies of Christ; that they waged war against non-combatants and enslaved women and children, and that they had conquered all of Spain and threatened France.

And this is a point that needs to be stressed repeatedly: The reality is that, far from being quiescent and peaceful, by the latter years of the tenth century Islam was once again on the march. Muslim armies waged wars of conquest against non-believers from one end of the Islamic world to the other; from Spain in the west to India in the east; and this new aggression was not confined to the eastern and western extremities, but proceeded along the entire length of Islam’s borders. The Christian kingdoms of Armenia, Georgia and Byzantium were threatened with extinction, and Muslim armies fought with Christians in Sicily and other Mediterranean lands. Many aspects of this new Islamic thrust, particularly those which occurred around the beginning of the eleventh century in Spain and India, are strangely reminiscent of the earlier Islamic expansion in the eighth century, so reminiscent indeed that they might even cause the casual observer to wonder whether the birth of Islam has been somehow misdated and moved into the past by several centuries. So, for example, we are told that the main Islamic invasion of India began with the conquests of Mahmud of Ghazni, a Turkish-speaking prince based in Afghanistan, who launched a series of 17 campaigns into Northern India. These began in 1001 and ended in 1026, just four years or so before his death; a series of campaigns, we should note, which caused immense destruction and loss of life in the country. By the 1020s Mahmud ruled an empire that included much of the Indus Valley, Afghanistan and Persia. Yet these conquests, at the start of the eleventh century, seem to echo those of Muhammed bin Qasim, three centuries earlier, who created an Islamic Empire in roughly the same region (circa 710).

It is strange too that Mahmud of Ghazni’s name differs but little from that of his predecessor. Only the “n” in Ghazni differentiates it from Qasim, a word which could equally well be written as Qasmi.

In the western end of the Islamic world we encounter the same phenomenon. “In the tenth century,” says Runciman, “the Moslems of Spain represented a very real threat to Christendom.” (Runciman, op cit. p. 89) Under Abd er-Rahman III (912-961) the followers of Muhammad found a leader who promised to repeat the successes of the eighth century. As founder of the Cordoba Caliphate, he presided over a new age of splendor and military power. His forces battled the Christians to the north, and the boundary between the two religions was marked by the battles he fought. The most decisive of these were at Simancas (939), between Salamanca and Valladolid on the Duoro River, where he was stopped. These were areas that had been overrun by the Muslims two centuries earlier, though the Christians had apparently retaken them in the interim. In many ways then Abd er-Rahman III resembles his ancestor and namesake Abd er-Rahman I, who conquered these areas in the eighth century. And this new conquering impulse continued under Al-Mansur (980-1002), whose career was to see Muslim power once again enveloping all of Spain, including the far north. He burned Leon, Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela, and, copying his Muslim predecessors almost three centuries earlier, advanced over the Pyrenees. We are told that in Al-Mansur’s time, “Never had the Christians found themselves in such a critical position.” (Louis Bertrand, The History of Spain (2^nd ed. London, 1945) p. 57)

It was the attacks of Al-Mansur that finally roused Christian Europe into undertaking the Reconquista, which commenced with the campaigns of Sancho III (called the Great) of Navarre and the Norman Baron Roger de Tony in the 1020s. Yet these events recall the earlier beginning of the Reconquista with the victory of Don Pelayo at Covadonga around 718.

The reader might well wonder why this “revival” of Islamic conquest in the eleventh century seems so uncannily to resemble the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. That indeed is a moot point: one to be discussed in a future article. For the moment, all that needs to be emphasized is that, contrary to popular belief, the tenth and eleventh centuries constitute a period of massive expansion by Islam, an expansion felt all along Islam’s boundary with Christendom. The Crusades were clearly part of an attempt to stem this aggression.

(John J. O’Neill is the author of Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization. The essay was published in Islam Watch [www.islam-watch.org] on 19 February, 2010 – Bangarashtra)

Online: 17 March, 2010

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Much is being said about the crisis of Bangladesh about which I will not go into detail here. Here I will initiate discussion from a new perspective which remains almost completely ignored or even denied in the mainstream discourse of the intelligentsia of our society.

In order to begin and to be precise, it should be stated here that the root of the crisis of Bangladesh lies in the process of its birth. So, in order to get at the root of present day crisis we will have to go back to 1971 and will have to understand the nature and problems of the war of independence during the time.

There is a dictum in military science that war is the extension of politics. But here in Bangladesh it is really amazing that till now little or almost no effort has been made to understand the background and problems of war of independence from this scientific point of view. Rather the official historiographers, in general, present the history in such a way that there was apparently no politics of independence and armed struggle before 1971. And it started as if on all a sudden when the Pakistani army started operation on the night of March 25, 1971 to suppress the autonomy movement led by the Awami League or to thwart the election result of 1970 in which the Awami League had won landslide victory. Such a false premise prompts one to conclude that the Bengali people had no politics of independence and no preparation for establishing a secular nation state before-hand, and so they were all in favor of autonomy and constitutional movement only. There is a big hiatus between the fact and fiction of this historiography. And in order to cover this hiatus different versions of declaration of independence have been invented.

So, much effort has been made to present the speech delivered by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 7, 1971 as the declaration of independence. When it did not gain ground, another story was invented as to how Mujib gave his secret order to begin armed resistance (of which the nation knew nothing) before he surrendered to or allowed the Pakistan army to arrest him by staying at his Dhaka residence. In order to counter this fraud another group of historiographers under the patronization of their masters (originated from the cantonment) put highest emphasis on the declaration of independence by an unknown Major till then, forgetting the fact that he gave the declaration on behalf of Sheikh Mujib, who had surrendered to the Pakistan Army.

In all these exercises what is denied is the fact that armed resistance began when the Bengali soldiers at Joydebpur rose up in arms even several days before March 25, 1971. If truth be told, armed struggle for national independence had already been initiated by the underground organization of Siraj Shikder before the month of March in 1971. However, in this context the most important point is that the war of independence began without any central leadership to lead it on or before March 25, 1971. It should be further mentioned here that from the Awami League’s side there was no program or declaration for war of independence until before April 17, 1971 when it formed provisional government after taking refuge in India.

There is another denial of the fact that a constitutional and election oriented movement like Six-Point Program, which was confined to the concept of Pakistan, could not turn suddenly by itself into an armed struggle for establishing an independent and secular state for the Bengali people. In fact, the concept of six-point program for autonomy of East Pakistan and that of an independent and secular State for the Bengali nation within the territory of the then East Pakistan or East Bengal represent two different dynamics operating under the surface of one and the same society. Sometimes, they may be supplementary to each other and even intertwine, but at times they may even be at odds with one another.

However, had the Awami League adopted a covert or informal policy of preparing for armed struggle for national independence in case of its failure in the constitutional movement for autonomy, things might have been different. But, it is well known that the AL had nothing to do with any kind of overt or covert politics for independence, not to speak of armed struggle.

So, in order to bring change in the nature of the national movement and to initiate a full-scale armed struggle in the face of the crackdown by the Pakistani military regime, an intervention was necessary by a politics to organize the people for armed struggle for national independence. And such politics had already originated and developed beforehand in a very different political camp other than the AL.

Thus the elements that filled the gap between the movement for autonomy and the war of independence and thereby made it possible for the movement to switch over from one stage to another can be identified. Those were the people who mostly belonged to the young generation during the ’60s. But the generation represented various ideological cross-currents within the broad socialist camp under the overall leadership of Maulana Abdul Hmid Khan Bhasani.

On February22, 1970 some of the young leaders in their twenties at a public meeting in Dhaka on behalf of the then East Pakistan Students’ Union(EPSU) declared Eleven-Point Program for establishing an Independent People’s Democratic East Bengal. Was it then any surprise that the war of independence began a year later? But the consequence had to be different for them due to several factors, most important of which, however, was proved to be the intervention by India in the events that followed March 25, 1971.

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Thus we are confronting one of the most important events of our history. And even though it seems to be surprising, it is one of the least discussed events in our history also.

So, I will now shed some light on this striking development that was taking place in the left movement during the `60s of the last century without the understanding of which we will not understand anything about the birth and consequent problems of Bangladesh.

Under the influence of Marxist philosophy the advanced students belonging to the leftist students’ organization East Pakistan Students’ Union (EPSU) were becoming secular and logical in their world outlook. Pakistan was created on the basis of religion. So, due to their philosophical position Pakistan became an irrational and irrelevant entity to them. As a result, they were searching for an alternative national identity as against Pakistan. Naturally, the awareness as the Bengali nation provided them with that sense of identity. Moreover, there was the question of disparity pursued by the then West Pakistani ruling class against the Bengalis. So, this awareness that was the result of a philosophical search found a strong material ground to stand upon.

The awareness as the Bengali nation among the Muslim people of this land was first generated by the language movement during 1948-1952. But still the sense was essentially mixed up with religious identity i.e. Islam. So, the demand for autonomy was its highest manifestation that fitted with the framework of Pakistan both philosophically and politically.

But during the early `60s a new generation of students was thriving with secular philosophy and revolutionary politics. As I told earlier that due to their philosophy they went against Pakistan. So, they started dreaming of a secular and socialist independent state for the Bengali nation. The deprivation of the Bengali people by the Pakistani ruling class added new vigor and material base to their dream.

But in the context of social consciousness this dream of building a nation state was too advanced. People were yet to be ready to accept any such idea. So, the leftist students were in need of an autonomy program which would include other essential demands of the broad masses. This kind of program could work as a cover for them to build underground movement for independence.

So, they were pressing the leftist political leaders, both open and underground, to give a program for the then province of East Pakistan or East Bengal. But their leaders were not responding to them. But when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on behalf of the Awami League declared the 6-point program in February, 1966, the leftist leaders could no longer avoid giving a program. Under pressure from both inside and outside ultimately from the National Awami Party they declared the 14-point program in June, 1966.

But, that they did not want to carry it was proved by the future course of events. In fact, they did not want to build any movement against the government. They were orthodox Marxists. So, they had no interest in building national struggle. Their activities were mostly confined to economic class struggle and local issue based mass movement. Moreover, their pro-Chinese political stand made them weak towards Ayub Government, because it was then maintaining good relation with China. At that time their policy was not to disturb Ayub. So, they were reluctant to build up any movement on the basis of the 14-point program.

On the other hand, the leftist students, in general, rejected the program. They had several reasons for rejection. Firstly, in spite of its assertion for autonomy it was an all Pakistan based program like the 6-point program. But it could not give special emphasis on the question of autonomy for East Pakistan like the 6-point program. Secondly, in comparison to the 6-point program it was in favor of a stronger center. In the 6-point only defense and external affairs were vested in the hands of the central government. But in the 14-point defense, external affairs and finance were vested in the center. Thirdly, while the 6-point was a small but well composed and compact program, the 14-point was not so. So, in spite of having some very pro-people and progressive demands the 14-point program failed to attract the radical youth.

The students were the vanguard of any effective political movement during Pakistan time. And they refused to accept and carry the program to the people. On the other hand, except Maulana Bhasani other leaders were not willing to build any meaningful movement against the Ayub Government. So, the fate of the 14-point program was sealed and soon the program was lost into oblivion. But the fate of the 6-point program was different. The students belonging to the Awami League camp accepted the 6-point program full-heartedly and carried it to the people. On the question of building movement for the program the AL’s majority leaders also supported Mujib.

However, it may be said here that even if Bhasani or NAP was able to give an appropriate program for autonomy, ultimately the developments would not have been much different from what had actually happened. Why I am telling this will be explained in a little while.

In spite of the fact that the left leadership failed to give autonomy program duly, the overwhelming majority of the leftist youths and the students since 1968 onwards started raising the slogans for independence openly. Moreover, the youths declared the program of independent East Bengal from their students’ organization as was said earlier. In fact, the idea of establishing an independent and secular state for the Bengali nation in the territory of East Bengal or the present day Bangladesh originated among the leftist youths of the `60s; and arising from there it occupied the major domain of the left movement and ultimately drifted the entire Bengali nation into the war of independence in 1971.

However, till before the military crackdown on March 25, 1971 the majority of the people were not opposed to Pakistan and their demand was confined to autonomy within the framework of Pakistan. So, the slogans and programs for independence and armed struggle were too advanced for the mass people. That is why despite their effect on popular mind these slogans could not draw effective support from the majority people at that time.

But these slogans did have positive impact on the Bengali officers and soldiers of the Pakistani Armed Forces who were persecuted, humiliated and deprived of their rights by the West Pakistanis. So, when after the landslide victory of the Awami League the Pakistani ruling junta was delaying the transfer of power to the AL, the Bengali soldiers became impatient and started thinking of rebelling. It should be noted that mutiny by the Bengali soldiers belonging to the East Bengal Regiment of the Pakistan Army started at Joydebpur several days before March 25, 1971. And the Awami League had nothing to do with that incident.

However, the military crackdown at dead of night on March 25, 1971 brought radical change in the situation. It could have brought new opportunities for the leftist pro-independence forces as with the crackdown the electoral victory of AL for 6-point became irrelevant. Not only that. At the beginning of the war, the legitimacy of the electoral victory was also put to an end, since the electoral mandate was neither for independence nor for war. With the crackdown and the resultant massive revolt by the Bengali people especially by the mutinous soldiers and police etc. the phase of the peaceful movement for autonomy was over. Naturally the next phase for armed struggle should begin by putting the forces in the front who had been developing the politics of armed struggle for independence long since. For better understanding of the situation it should be mentioned here that these pro-independence forces were opposed to electoral politics. As a result they did not participate in the general election held in 1970, and rather opposed it.

But the crackdown and genocide conducted by the Pakistani army and the resultant exodus of the Bengali people into India in millions including the AL and some of the pro-independence left leaders and workers, mutinous Bengali soldiers and other freedom fighters turned India into the most important and decisive actor in our independence war. The collapse of the short-lived spontaneous and disorganized resistance war from within and flight of the leaders and fighters into India shifted the centre of gravity of the independence war to India and thereby put the mainstream of the independence war under the absolute control of the Indian Government.

Now the question that arises is: could the Indian Government allow the development of an independence war under the leadership of the left forces e.g., NAP? The leftists were patriotic, dedicated, honest and committed to their cause. They were the staunchest supporters and torch bearers of secular and non-communal politics in our society. But India could not afford to help establish a radical or socialist state within its own surrounding. In the long run it might have proved to be harmful to the system she had inherited from the British colonial rule. Moreover, it might awaken the fervor of Bengali nationalism in West Bengal and Tripura and in other places of India, e.g., Assam, inhabited by a large Bengali population. So, the Indian government in every way obstructed the participation by the left forces in the war of national liberation and in line with this policy kept the leftist leader Maulana Bhasani in confinement.

The Indian government knew the character and background of the AL leadership. It was known to them how the AL leadership had betrayed the cause of autonomy of East Bengal after going to the central power in Pakistan during 1956-`57 and had thereby forced Bhasani, the founder president of the AL, to quit it and form NAP. Thus the AL practically became the representative of the most opportunistic, greedy, dishonest and deceitful sections of the middle class of our society.

The same game for power and money which was played by the AL during the `50s could not be repeated after the `70 election victory due to the rise of a formidable extra-constitutional movement in the country, built especially by the leftist nationalist youth. The introduction of this new element in society made the underhand arrangement for sharing power between General Yahia and Mujib impossible after the `70 election. Moreover, under the tremendous pressure caused by the rapidly growing revolutionary freedom movement, the situation was going out of control for both the Pakistan government and the AL. So, the crackdown became inevitable. Under the circumstances, AL leaders decided to divide themselves on the line between Pakistan and India. So, Mujib surrendered to Pakistan army followed by Dr. Kamal Hossain, and the rest fled to India. And India was in need of this kind of leadership most.

It was a wonderful manoeuvre by the AL. India and Pakistan whichever side would win the AL would remain the gainer.

So, what was the need to recognize the contributions made by the leftist nationalists? And so, when the provisional government would be formed, there would be no place for them. They would be absolutely denied. And their historical role before-hand? No matter. `History’ would be invented and fictions would take place of facts.

Thus the fate of a nation was decided for a long time to come. Without going into detail, it may be said in short that the conditions stated above led to the rise of a ruling class with a corrupt core. So, for the most part, it is devoid of morality, self-esteem, independence of mind and patriotism. It is not the question of any government only. The problem lies with the process of the birth and growth of this kind of upper social classes or the ruling class of our society. Under a corrupt political leadership this class got a State through war that was conducted under the control and guidance of the Indian government. It had no dream of a nation state, and it never had the imagination of building an armed struggle for it. So, it had no preparation for the state or war. It simply usurped the fruits of others by the help of external forces. It is fraudulent and dishonest. So, it claims all the contributions made by others to be its own. Since its birth it has been characterized by its extreme corruptibility and dependence on external support. In this situation our independence and development are bound to suffer from extreme limitation and perversion.

However, it will be wrong to accuse the external factors only, say India or any other cormtny, for the rise of this class. In fact, the root of this class should be searched out in the weaknesses of our own society also caused by various social, historical, natural, geological and other factors. These weaknesses have been manifested most in the leading classes of our society. Even the leftists during the `60s when they were in the heyday of their rise and influence, in spite of being the best and most advanced elements of our society could not overcome fully certain weaknesses of the social base they stood upon.

So, in this situation it is natural that social advancement would be achieved through a process where external factors would decide most of the things and a dependent or client state would come into being and develop along with the development of a corrupt ruling class dependent on external support. So, it is not unlikely that in most cases people with less or even least self-esteem, independence of mind, honesty and patriotism would get preference to climb up using the ladder of power and resource.

However, everything has its limit. The class about which I have discussed above seems to have reached the last limit of its development. No society can sustain such a corrupt, parasitic, hedonistic and irresponsible ruling class for long. The rising social tensions, killings including extra- judicial ones by the law enforcing agencies, the rise of Islamic militancy and the confrontational politics especially between the AL and the BNP are all the manifestations of the crisis of this class. The crisis is now endangering not only the existence of the ruling class itself but also the very foundation of the state and society.

In this situation a major change has taken place in the country on the 11th January, 2007 by declaring emergency by the President. With the backing of the Armed Forces the new Care-taker Government under the Chief Advisor Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmad has been established on 12 January, 2007. This change has become a turning point for the country. It can be said without doubt that the change has begun at last. But, how far this Government will be able to go is yet to be seen. The Government has started its drive against corruption. But still this is a mere beginning. They have a long way to go ahead. The task is gigantic. It requires an overall reorganization of the ruling class along with the state and society.

Without going into detail about the complexities of the present situation I will simply say that if we want to protect our country from the imminent danger of destruction or liquidation, we must change the existing way of doing things. We must realize that a major cause of our national crisis lies in our dependence on foreign powers or to tell it differently the control, domination and influence of the external forces on our country. Now by using their control and linkage here some foreign powers are trying to push Bangladesh into a situation which will be extremely harmful to the very existence of the country. So, now the main task for us is to free the country from foreign control, domination and influence. Without depending on foreign powers we will have to chart our own course of development. Otherwise this time the country will be lost for ever.

This is a task nobody can dictate or undertake on behalf of us from outside. So, for the first time in our history we have been under the compulsion to determine and undertake a task by ourselves without any expectation of relying on any external intervention or interference. This time we have nowhere to go beyond our political boundary.

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Online: June 5, 2007

Our Objectives

Nationality

The frenzy of religious politics divided the motherland of the Bengali nation in 1947. The partition of Bengal between the western part, rich in minerals and industries, and the eastern part, rich in agriculture, divided and thereby crippled the nation. The great language movement of 1952, the rout of the Muslim League in the election of 1954, the students’ movement of 1962, the upsurge of 1969 by the students, peasants and masses, and finally the war of independence in 1971 – all contributed to the dismemberment of Pakistan, a State based on the concept of religion, and thus created a possibility of establishing an egalitarian and secular nation state. But the possibility could not be materialized due to the policies pursued by Mujib, Zia and Ershad. Sheikh Mujib saved the base of religious politics by preserving the existing system and saving war criminals, and he initiated the criminalization of politics and economy and in the following course General Zia and General Ershad criminalized politics, economy and state further and tightened the grip of religion over the nation.

After the successful upsurge in 1990 by the students and masses against the military rule of Ershad the Khaleda Government came to power. But they also Islamized individuals, society and state further and the successive Hasina Government continued the same process. Since after 1971 Sheikh Mujib tactfully and Zia, Ershad, Khaleda, Hasina openly raised Islam against Bengali nationalism, which was the achievement of the war of independence of the Bengali nation. Thus they have destroyed the sense of national identity, secularism and patriotism. As a result, the country has become an unbridled hunting ground for all kinds of external domination and despotic rule. Bangladesh is the product of Bengali nationalism. But there is a conspiracy to weaken, to make dysfunctional and finally destroy the state by weakening that very Bengali nationalism by religion.

The inhabitants of Bengal have been endangered through ages by the outsiders of different national identity and languages. Since mediaeval time the alluvial and resourceful land was invaded by predatory foreign fortune seekers. They ruled this land for centuries. They grabbed women and wealth, led luxurious and sensual life and preached religion. The local weak state and the society, torn into pieces and stagnated by the caste system, turned into a state of tyranny and a society of inhumanity by their long rule. Their religion could have spread under the support and protection of the state and due to the disunity, infatuation and fear of the local people. Under the protection of the central state ambitious generals also invaded and occupied different areas of Bengal by raising the banner of religion. A considerable number of religious preachers, called Pir-Darbish-Awlia, were nothing but soldiers. These soldiers occupied and ruled different areas as sensuous rulers. By taking advantage of naivety and tolerance of the local people and by destroying the beneficial social values and the sense of righteousness, truth and beauty they imposed foreign faith and customs of the invaders upon the local people of Bengal and thus perpetuated their foreign rule as well as the foreign ideology. Due to prolonged domination by foreigners the natives of Bengal have lost their sense of honor and ability to think independently, and hence have become dependent on external powers both physically and mentally. As a result, the natural evolution of the natives of Bengal has been obstructed and ultimately the process of nation formation on the basis of language has also been foiled.

Being devoid of patriotism and nationalism the natives of this land consider the foreign land holier than their own motherland and the foreign nation as their own instead of those people who preserve their cultural heritage. In most cases, the role of religion here has been to give legitimacy to torture, oppression, plunder and debauchery of all the past foreign and present despotic rulers, to kneel before the aggressors and to restrain the protesting conscience of the oppressed people by turning them into fatalists. That is why, not only the Mullahs, the merchants of religion, but also the military and election based political rulers -- all become the custodians of religion.

The people living at the lower strata of society are fatalistic. Religion is the driving force of their life. Upper classes are based upon them. Naturally, the ruling upper class people use religion at their will to preserve the existing system of exploitation. So, the middle class aspiring for better life is the main force of social change here. In the past the conscious young section of the middle class played the leading role in all major movements. But since most of the movements led to elections, the plunderers and resourceful criminals were elected by the fatalistic and backward people’s vote. Thus the fruits of all the movements of the advanced people passed out of their hands.

The social system is basically religious in our country. So, the ordinary people grow here in the environment of religion, and as a result their mind-set becomes backward, hostile to change, violently offensive to different opinion or faith, opposed to arguments, apathetic to civilization, devoid of talent and intellect, short-sighted, sensualist, self-centered and dependent on the rulers of the society. These people think that the world is momentary and life beyond death is everlasting. So, they want to engage themselves ceaselessly for the everlasting life and work less or least, if possible, for this momentary life. These people, meditating for the world beyond death, are not inquisitive as they are not reasonable, they are not eager to search or investigate as they are not inquisitive and they are not discoverers or inventors as they are not eager to search or investigate. So, these people with blind faith and without the ability of comparative judgment cannot pursue reasoning and truth and are incapable to dream of changing social system or building any great thing.

Their scripture has permitted the practice of knowledge. But that is conditional and strictly confined to a small boundary. Crossing the boundary and moving into the wider world of knowledge is even a punishable offence. In that case, there is scriptural permission to declare the wise man as Murtad and to kill him. Thus by closing the scope for pursuit of open knowledge closed men and a barren society have been made. As these men cannot make any new creation, they learn grabbing only, and their last hope is plunder.

Religion creates a particular mode of thinking. So, it is not a matter of faith only. Rather it is a total system of life, including one’s identity, social customs and behavior, culture and daily life. So, only by bringing economic change no social change can be brought significantly, unless there is a change in the philosophy of man with a view to introducing new world outlook and a new way of life.

Almost all the great achievements of this nation like the movement against the partition of Bengal (1905-1911), the language movement (1948-1952) and the war of independence (1971) are the products of nationalist movement. In the holy land of Bengal Bengali nationalism is the most effective weapon in the fight against the brutally oppressive state and inhuman society. In order to make society civilized and democratic Bengali nationalism will have to be established as an antidote to religion as well as secular national culture based on Bengali nationalism will have to be built instead of religious culture. Life of every individual will have to be reorganized through national culture. Only then there will emerge the new man, society and nation.

The struggle for developing the nation and building the independent nation state is not unique to Bangladesh. Small and big many nations of the world are illuminated by this awareness. Many small nations are struggling for autonomy. The developed nations of the first world also have been able to build developed states only by fully developing themselves as nations and freeing their societies and states from the domination of religion. As men of advanced thinking we are now confronted with the task of building a new Bengali nation as well as its State, the inevitable culmination of which is the formation of a sovereign united Bengal.

Democracy

The country will be ruled democratically. In the interest of establishing meaningful democracy the isolation of the armed forces from society and their bureaucratic and autocratic system will have to be abolished and they will have to be brought under the control of the people. Cultural and political awareness as well as nationalism and patriotism will have to be engrained in them. So these subjects will be essential part of their educational and training course. If the armed forces are not controlled by the people, democracy cannot be protected and cannot continue. But in the prevailing situation, as the majority of the people are backward and unconscious, in most cases, the people’s representatives, elected on the basis of universal adult franchise, are bound to be fraudulent and criminal. That is why the unity between the conscious, honest and patriotic section of the people and the armed forces, rekindled with the consciousness of Bengali nationalism, will bring revolutionary change to this country. The Bengali nation will be boastful of the armed forces that emerged through the great national war of independence and will engage in the defense of the sovereign nation state.

One of the components of democracy is socialism. It teaches one to sacrifice for others and to become committed to the greater welfare of the society. As a result man becomes more humane and attains more democratic values. Private ownership is necessary; and it is necessary in the interest of social advancement and development. But individuals must not be allowed to be absolute. Otherwise, society becomes overwhelmed by discrimination and injustice. Socialism is the struggle of the oppressed against discrimination and over-centralization of wealth and power. Without socialism no democracy is democracy and it becomes democracy of the bureaucrats and the rich. So, what we need is democracy with socialistic characteristics or socialist democracy.

Civil Bureaucracy

Bureaucrats are the paid servants of the people. But these servants have become masters of the people. The independence and domination of the bureaucrats are a threat to democracy. Democracy that prevails in our country is the democracy of the bureaucrats and the rich. Here everything depends on bureaucracy, because all power is over-centralized. Since the state is bureaucratic it has become the center of corruption. As all the economic activities are basically controlled by the bureaucrats, the formation of the rich and the poor also depends upon them. Whichever government comes to power the bureaucrats are the permanent rulers here. In order to establish control of the people over bureaucrats at all levels of administration the people’s representatives will dominate and the bureaucrats will be subservient to them.

Feminism

The position of woman in a society is the standard of judgment for it. But in our society the most wretched conditions are those of woman. This is due to the fact that this society is backward, reactionary and preoccupied by religion. The influence of modern education and times has brought some change to the conditions of woman. But in most cases they are like coating, because the inferior and uncertain conditions of women in the family, society and state have not changed much. Women’s power will have to be established for making the advancement of society and democracy easier and uninterrupted. So, everywhere of the society and state there must be women’s own representatives. Women will build their own power structure in administration, legislature, judiciary, armed forces, police, etc. Thus women will enter into the decision making positions of the society and state. Only then there will emerge a powerful, brave, intellectually developed and humane society.

Conclusion

In order to build a modern society, secular nation and socialist-democratic state we will win in the struggle of national liberation and thereby build up a mighty state of a nation and a union of nations. In the assembly of nations of the world the Bengali nation will be amongst the best. Other minority nations those who live in this country will enjoy full autonomy. Bangladesh will be run on the basis of five principles e.g., nationalism, secularism, democracy, socialism and feminism, which will be considered as the extension of the four principles of the Constitution of 1972. This extension will be the recognition of the advancement of the nation. In order to complete the unfinished war of independence we will free the country and nation from the bureaucratic statecraft and religious politics, and thus we will establish an egalitarian and affluent Bangladesh. All the oppressed nations on earth will be liberated by following the example ofBangladesh and a new civilization of mankind will begin its journey.

Author:

General Secretary

Committee for the Establishment of National Government

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Revised: 25 January, 2007