Another voice is silenced by Islamists

We tend to believe that bad things happen to others Bad things like assault rape murder Till it happens to someone we know or know of or admire or hold in high esteem Reality then knocks on our door the knocking resembles the drumbeat of unshod hooves of beasts of prey galloping furiously towards youSo it was with me Thursday night when I was alerted by a sobbing friend in Dhaka about writer Avijit Roy being hacked to death by Islamists most likely Jamaatis at Dhaka University His wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya barely escaped with her life after putting up a brave struggle to save himIt is a tragedy of our times that few would have heard of Avijit Roy beyond those who follow Bangladeshi politics and are on the Bengali bloggers circuit Yet many of us had heard of Charlie Hebdo though few if any among us either follow French politics or read FrenchIn news reports about his gruesome killing he was literally hacked with machetes and his head was split open Avijit has been described as a lsquobloggerrsquo That description is at once simplistic and profoundly misleading He was a lot more like all bravehearts areRemembering Avijit Roy Hundreds of Bangladeshis gathered to protest against the killing of writer Avijit Roy who was hacked to death by unidentified assailants in Dhaka on February 26 PicAFPAvijit Roy was neither a writer nor a blogger by profession He was an engineer who had settled in the US where he could have pursued the American dream But he did not allow his American citizenship to inure him to the rapidly crumbling secular fabric of Bangladesh He kept on returning to Dhaka his family and his friendsAn atheist he founded the hugely popular blog lsquoMuktoMonarsquo FreeMinded and wrote books against blind faith among them his much acclaimed Biswaser Virus Virus of Faith He did not demand acceptance of his views nor did he shun those who disagreed MuktoMona in the past has both hosted my views and lashed them severelyOn Thursday night when he was set upon by thugs he was returning home from Amar Ekushey Book Fair The irony of it does not merit elaboration Ekushey commemorates the memory of Bengalis who died in the protest against the imposition of Urdu on what was then East Pakistan It would seem February 21 1952 is now a faded memory in BangladeshWhile we obsess over Pakistanrsquos descent into torrid Islamism and the reign of terror by jihadis we tend to ignore the bushfire of Islamism spreading through Bangladesh on our East As in Pakistan in Bangladesh too cynical power politics fuels Islamist bigotryContrary to popular opinion Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League Government even while prosecuting the Razakars of 1971 have been less than harshly punitive in dealing with fanatics Therersquos more than a whiff of lsquosoftrsquo Islamism in its actionsAt the other end of the political spectrum there is Khaleda Zia and her BNP that sustains and is sustained in return by the rancid JamaateIslami Ziarsquos widow may not live by the tenets of hardline Islamism and Salafi lsquovirtuesrsquo but she knows the brute power of bigotry can squash liberal opposition to everything her politics stands forAnd thereby hangs the tragic tale of Bangladesh trapped in a battle for power between two begums while mullahs run riot and ride roughshod over free speech and enlightened values Writers and intellectuals have long been targeted in Bangladesh Avijit Roy is not the first nor will he be the lastSheikh Mujibur Rehman forced poet Daud Haider into exile There were no fanatics calling for death to writers then Later Taslima Nasreen had to flee Bangladesh mdash neither of the two women who seek and wield power chose to stand by herWellknown writer Humayun Azad was hacked to death in a similar manner also while returning from Amar Ekushey Book Fair a decade ago During the Shahbag protest of 2013 against Jamaatis and Islamist fanatics blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider was murderedBooksellers were warned by Islamists not to sell Avijit Royrsquos books They meekly complied But Avijit Roy was defiant As was Rafida They could have sought safety in America And lived in exile They chose to be in Dhaka unsafe and insecureI wish more of us were equally brave in confronting those who deny freedom of speech and thought Sadly as the adage goes if wishes were horses beggars would flyAvijit Roy will be fondly remembered by his many friends admirers and fans As for his killers they will be praised by those who celebrate hate and worship at the altar of bigotry Their hollow world is bleak dark and joyless They are beasts of darkness whose unshod hooves you hear in the distance Pray it is not your door they come knocking on