Bangladesh

Bangladesh has long been one of the earth's poorest democracies. And yet it remained a democracy. It has long been one of the clearest case studies for the ill-effects of deforestation. As the highlands became denuded of its forests, the entire nation became subject to annual cycles of devastating floods and equally devastating droughts that have helped to keep Bangladesh poor. And yet it remained a democracy. An imperfect Democracy, but who are we to throw stones.

When 9/11 happened, I was struck by something. Bangladesh was one of the poorest Muslim nations, and yet remained largely immune to the sweeping tides of fundamentalist Islam that influenced Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Bangladesh had the poorest, most neglected population, yet remained more open to democracy than to fundamentalist Islam or what is too often its alternative: military dictatorship. Bangladesh stood out to me as a nation we needed to focus on, to learn what can make Islam and democracy coexist. We also needed to focus on it as something to nurture. Bangladesh was a place we could help and while we helped them we could be fighting fundamentalist Islam while proving that we can be a good friend to democratic Islam. Bangladesh was one of our best opportunities to PREVENT the spread of fundamentalist Islam even as we fought it elsewhere.

Bush and the Republican controlled Congress ignored this opportunity, as they ignored many others, obsessed as they were in the completely unrelated attack on Iraq, an attack that made us LESS safe, not more safe. And while Bush ignored Bangladesh, the case study in how democratic Islam can survive even under crushing poverty, that crushing poverty finally started to create cracks in the democracy. As I predicted after 9/11/01, ignoring Bangladesh led to the spread of fundamentalist Islam into Bangladesh by September 2005. Around then a wave of some 300 bombings led by a growing Bangladeshi fundamentalist movement occurred, signaling that Bush's neglect of that small nation was opening up new recruiting grounds for fundamentalists. I said in 2005 that we had missed our opportunity in Bangladesh and it would soon go the way of other poor Muslim nations: a battle ground between military dictatorship and fundamentalist Islam, two equally repugnant options.