Shoaib Daniyal - In Bangladesh, a movement against a statue of Lady Justice reveals the dangers of rising Islamism
Should Bangladesh’s
foundational ideology be secular Bengali nationalism or Islamic nationalism?
This is a question that has bedevilled the country since it gained independence
in 1971. The word secularism itself was part of its original Constitution, only
to be removed in 1977, and then reinstated in 2010. The latest
battleground for this war is an unlikely one. Bangladesh’s Islamists are angry
that the compound of the country’s Supreme Court has a statue of Lady Justice.
The very existence of an idol goes against Islam’s strictures, they argue. The
country’s secularists, under attack for some time now, are mostly silent. As a
result, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in what could be considered an instance
of appeasing the Islamists, has hinted at having the statue removed, reported the Daily Star.
Lady Justice: The statue, which was
erected outside the Bangladesh Supreme Court in December, depicts the Greek
goddess of justice, Themis, holding a sword in one hand and the scales of
justice in the other. To give her a local flavour, she is dressed in a sari,
the near ubiquitous dress of Bangladeshi women. Almost immediately,
the statue set off a controversy in the Muslim-majority country. The Far-Right
group Hefazat-e-Islam took out marches across the capital Dhaka asking for the
statue to be pulled down. Idols have been
controversial throughout Islam’s history, given that they are seen by
conservative Muslims as trying to match Allah’s power of creation. As a result,
they have rarely been commissioned in the subcontinent, even by its many Muslim
kingdoms. In Bangladesh, this is
not the first time the Far-Right has brought up this issue. In 2008, Islamist
protestors had destroyed a statue of the famous Bengali folk singer
Lalon Fakir situated outside the Dhaka airport.
Advantage Islamists: While that was a
fringe, Islamists in Bangladesh have since acquired enough power to make statue
removal a part of the country’s mainstream politics. The Hefazat-e-Islam is a
body of madrassa teachers and students. Yet, its movement to pull down Lady
Justice has attracted mainstream political support, including from a body of clerics associated with the ruling Awami
League and, eventually, the prime minister herself. Sheikh Hasina, the
daughter of the country’s founder, Mujibur Rahman, expressed her disapproval of
the statue on Monday. Given that she leads the nominally secular Awami League,
she did not explicitly agree with the Islamists, instead making a roundabout
cultural and even sartorial argument. “Why would the statue of Greek Goddess
Themis be set up in Bangladesh?” the Daily Star quoted her as saying. “The Greeks had a certain type
of costume, but here a statue has been built and it’s wearing a sari. It’s a
funny incident. I don’t know why such an incident happened.” read more..
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