News & Comment
Attack on Khadiza by Awami League Activist Badrul:
The Attacker and his likes are the Products of Democratic Politics - Only Islam can deal justly with the foster children of tyrant Hasina

News

On October 5, 2016, a female degree student named Khadiza Akter Nargis had been brutally stabbed in broad daylight in front of the public at Sylhet Government Women’s College by a senior ruling party activist Badrul Alam, a top leader of Bangladesh Chatra (student) League at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST). Groaning of Khadiza while receiving indiscriminate machete stabs sparked national concern when the brutal video went viral on social media. Various components of the society and thinkers are expressing grave concern over such a brutal incident and blaming the social, moral and cultural decay in Bangladesh.

Comment

The tragic and horrifying stabbing of Khadiza by Sheikh Hasina’s ‘golden boy’ Badrul and the passive bystander role of most of the youth before whom the hacking took place generated heated debate among secular intelligentsia and establishments. Most of the thinkers are in fact beating around the bush as they attempt to address the crux of the problem. Heavy-weight discussions on talk shows and roundtables and op-ed on newspapers are nothing but useless rhetoric, and their analysis and arguments are in fact ‘red herring’ to divert the attention of people from the root cause of the rising violence in our society.

Blaming the moral decay of our youth cannot be the cause for the rise in violence; rather it is the symptom of a much deeper disease. If we look deeply into the epidemic violent affairs taking place in recent times and analyze all the factors comprehensively, we would find secular democracy to be the main and deadliest problem for our Ummah. Due to forceful superimposition of secular ideas into our society by the already rotten western imperialism, social fabrics are collapsing quickly and natural human values like valor to stand for truth are compromised since its supporters now look for self-interests. Constant exposures to self-serving man-made values which are hollow at the core, devoid of any guiding principles, people are increasingly becoming narcissistic under capitalistic democracy, let alone thinking about safeguarding others. The ‘bystander effect’ that we observed from the fellow college mates of Khadiza has to be looked into from this spotlight.

Moreover, democratic system is not set to remove injustice from the society; rather it is founded to ensure simultaneous co-existence of good and evil. By this process, eventually good wipes out and evil dominates the society. We see in a democratic society an elite class with money and muscle is awfully powerful and this class is always being protected by the system. And to remain in power, on the other hand, this class also fosters mobsters like Badrul, Shamim Osman, Nizam Hazari etc. This is how Hasina-Khaleda political leadership criminalizes the political system to safeguard their throne. It is common knowledge that local thugs belong to political parties for survival. Politicians breed, finance and patronize them to ensure local dominance. For example, Badrul was once beaten by a mob for eve teasing Nargis and local Chatra League leadership visited him in hospital. Sheikh Hasina also awarded him by BDT 2 Lac for his medical treatment.

As the system is not trying to eradicate injustice and does not encourage people to stand against injustice, people are becoming accustomed to living with evil and becoming apathetic. In Bangladesh’s democratic society, instead, preventing evil is considered as a crime. For example, a Muslim is not allowed to engage in interest-based transaction as Allah (swt) forbids interest, but sincere Muslims cannot raise voice against it. A pious Muslim’s neighbor can be an adulterer but the pious person has no right to advise him as it is his personal freedom according to the secular laws. This sort of advice is undemocratic in nature and state may punish the pious man for such an act. As state is sponsoring injustice, so-called moral values in democratic society decays at an exponential rate and people become coward and self-centered in the end.

After the constant failure of all the man-made models, the discussion is now back on the surface that only the Islamic system ensures social justice because its politics is founded on fear of Allah (swt). By implementing the Ahkam Shari’ah, Islamic system protects the status of the human being, irrespective of religion and race. Moreover, Islamic system obliges its citizen not to follow their desires and whims, and rather calls for enjoining good and forbidding evil. Hence we never saw any single incident like indiscriminate hacking on woman, let alone in broad daylight in front of public, in the 1400 years of history of the Khilafah "Caliphate" (Caliphate). Allah (swt) pronounces in the Qur’an ul Karim,

(وَتَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْبِرِّ وَالتَّقْوَىٰ وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ)

“Help one another in al-Birr and Taqwa (virtue, righteousness and piety); and do not help one another in sin and transgression.” [TMQ 5: 2]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Shirazul Islam
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh