David Bergman - Bangladesh's growing terror headache: Poll shows 47% justify attacks targeting civilians
On the evening of July
1, five militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State attacked Holey
Artisan Bakery, a Spanish-styled restaurant situated in the diplomatic area of
Bangladesh’s capital city, killing 20 guests, most of them foreigners. The attack did not
come totally out of the blue.
Since February 2015,
groups affiliated to the Al Qaeda had carried out a series of targeted killings
of so-called "atheists bloggers", their publishers and LBGT
activists. In addition, from September 2015, the Islamic State had claimed
responsibility for a string of murders of foreigners and religious minorities.
Indeed, in the 16 months before the Holey attack,there had been over 25 killings claimed by groups or
individuals linked to one or the other of these jihadi organisations.
However, the scale of
the Holey attack – involving a hostage situation and a mass killing of
foreigners – triggered a new seriousness in state authorities on seeking to
deal with the terrorist threat. It also resulted in
Bangladeshis thinking about the nature of the militant threat and the extent of
its support.
People were surprised to discover that only one of the five
militants involved in the Holey restaurant attack was educated in a religious
madrassa and that three of the militants had gone to well-known private schools
in Dhaka and belonged to middle-class homes. It also became clear
that these five men were just the tip of a large iceberg of men – many from educated
households – who had gone "missing" in circumstances that suggested
they may have joined the militant cause.
While it is unwise to
rely on the actions or announcements of Bangladeshi law enforcement authorities as an accurate guide to the reality of the militant threat,
the arrest of over a hundred suspected militants in recent months – along with
the killing of dozens more – suggests, at the very least, that the network of
active members, accomplices and sympathisers may well be large.
However, should we be
surprised to learn that these networks are quite so large? Perhaps not - had we
been paying attention to a 2014 Pew Research Centre poll on the attitudes towards
extremism of people living in 14 countries with significant Muslim populations. The results of this
poll suggest that high proportions of people in Bangladesh hold extremist views
justifying suicide bombers and attacks on civilians as a way of "defending
Islam" – a much higher percentage than almost all the other 13 countries
surveyed.
One of the questions
asked by Pew was this: “Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms
of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam
from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind
of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of
violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely
justified, or never justified?”
The results for
Bangladesh were breathtaking 47% of the 1,000 randomly selected people questioned
in the country thought suicide bombings or other forms of violence against
civilian targets can "often" or "sometimes" be justified. As the table below
(using data extracted from the report) shows, none of the other 13 countries
had a higher percentage of people with similar views.
Indeed, Bangladesh had
double the proportion of people justifying suicide bombings and violence
against civilian targets than nine of the other countries surveyed.
Particularly eye-catching was the percentage of people in Pakistan who
justified suicide bombings "often" or "sometimes", which
stood at only 3%.
Bangladesh's 47%
figure was divided into 14% who thought it could "often" be justified
and 33% who thought it could "sometimes" be justified. Only 33% said
it could "never be justified".
Only one country, the
Palestinian territories, had a higher proportion of people than Bangladesh who
thought this kind of violence was "often" justified (see table
below).
Such views were
reflected in the results of a couple of other questions in the same poll. Twenty-eight percent
of people in Bangladesh had a "favorable" view of both Hamas and Hezbollah
– with only the Palestinian territories and Lebanon having a higher percentage
of people holding similar views. In Pakistan, only 8% had a
"favorable" view. However, the poll in Bangladesh did find that 56% –
a much higher percentage of people than from many other countries – also had an
"unfavorable" view of both organisations. This, of course, is
only one poll… read more:
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