Simon Tisdall in The Guardian
The prospective collapse of democracy in predominantly Sunni Muslim Bangladesh is raising concerns reaching far beyond the politically divided south Asian nation of 145 million people. A state of emergency and intervention by the army are distinct possibilities if already delayed elections fail on January 22. ...
The main beneficiaries of institutional failure could be violently militant Islamist fringe groups such as the Jagrata Muslim Janata and the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, opposed to the country's secular liberal tradition. The International Crisis Group links these organisations to an upsurge in terrorist violence in 2005, including the country's first suicide bombings. A crackdown brought respite last year - although at a high price to civil liberties, according to a Human Rights Watch investigation into alleged "death squad" activities of the feared paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion.
Is it really so difficult to understand: that religion is the spirit learning to rule the heart and the mind, while politics is the hand learning to rule others?
# posted by
Charles @ 1/08/2007 10:52:00 PM