Content Analysis for Experts

Global Factors
ZR: Since at that time the governments adding Bismillah, etc etc, seeping religion, we even
saw that in the name of non-governmental organizations, various Middle East countries
brought many funds which were used negatively for these reasons.
ZR: In Afghanistan, foot soldiers or Taliban who went there from our country, a large portion
of them came back and formed Huji and JMB but most of them had Jamat Islam as
background or were connected with Islami Chhatro Shibir.
ZR: Overlapping of globalization and another reason is that after 9/11 the Twin Tower attack
is US and due to that attack, in many countries, especially Muslims in US underwent through
tortures, hate crime increased causing an identity crisis and development of a new rightist
tendency and capitalism or US kingdom or so called declaration of Jihad against Christianity,
developing a global movement. This seeped into our country like many other countries
through the trickle down process. And that seeping led to we saw that technology is a new
tool, it was used to build a network or society as we say, linking other terrorist organizations
with our country.
ZR: The creation of IS, Bangladeshi diasporas, Bangladesh’s people participating in Jihad or
running after religion in Syria, I’d say global politics and global politics was a causal fact
behind it.
ZR: Firstly we said the local rise of Islamization, it’s strengthening of power, secondly the
global local nexus and third is what we see is that the process of justice of the war criminals,
as result Jamat Islam and other organization who had lots of money and investments in
bank, insurance, institutions, they hired lobbies and spent lot of money so that this justice
could be hindered.
ZR: I don’t find the explanation behind IS coming here or to create this situation. And even if
they were here, they were paid to create this kind of situation here.
ZR: On one hand lack of moral education, transnational crime, drug addiction, these things
also played a big role since one group found lots of money and without guidance and
absence of parents, maybe he was sent to a good school/ English medium school but
because of the lack of moral education, he took that negative thing from the technology, he
became even more negative.
ZR: Mainly after 9/11, hatred was created against the Muslims; if you saw someone had
Khan or Ahmed after their names, they faced discrimination everywhere including at
workplace, leading to hate crime.
SA: Bangladesh has been influenced by global terrorism. In fact, the rise in terrorism that
we see in Bangladesh, its origin has to do with the internal dynamics of Bangladesh, neither
politics nor economics, it may have played a facilitative role but not a causative role.
SA: Islamic International Font led by Al Qaeda, Osama, he called for a coalition against the
Americans. 9/11 had not yet taken place then but the Afghan war started against and
Afghanistan was coming to an end, it began entering in Saudi Arabia, they helped it, America
occupied Iraq, all these led to the formation of a loose coalition.
SA: The problems and conditions of the Muslims in Palestine and Iraq were exploited by
them. And this motivates us here.
SA: the Russians were kicked out and Osama Bin Laden said that the way you have kicked
out these enemies of Muslims from Afghanistan, you can do the same in your country,
and you can establish Islam? So talk about Hujibi or JMB, they are all same. And they
thought that they can establish an Afghanistan in this country.
SA: More than ideological affiliation, they had that Muslims are being killed. That was the
motivation, not so much as Islam was being destroyed.
NL: We noticed that explicitly under the banner of baitul moqarram, mujaheedins were
collected who would be sent in Afghanistan to assist the Taliban. And at that time many
people from Bangladesh had gone there to assist the Talibans, a large portion of whom
later returned and formed Harqatul Jihad Bangladesh, which is named Hujibi.
NL: Since global islamic terrorism has been rising lately, they took that chance in a muslim
majority country like Bangladesh.
SM: We live in a region where religious extremism is a serious problem and also globally it
has become a serious problem so despite whatever best efforts we might make, we cannot
keep ourselves fully insulated from this threat
SM: Nothing is one of. No terrorist attack in the world is one of[R1] . We can see that the
groups behind these incidents are mainly local, the perpetrators are local, their mastermind
is local, as in the local mastermind, their funding is local but these kinds of act always have
an international communication background
SM: Because the ideas that are spreaded in the internet are not local ideas, the ideas are
coming from a global movement, let that be Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent or Al Qaeda.
SM: I don’t want to say it like this that global diaspora is spreading terrorism in Bangladesh.
Because within the diaspora we have a lot of people who are involved in making significant
contribution in the development and prospect of Bangladesh. So if we start blaming
diaspora, it will take a different turn
SM: No matter how much we try, we can never insulate ourselves from the regional or
global threat.

Push Factors
ZR: Media involved these people and our Bengali cultures like pala gaan, jaari gaan was
replaced with waaz mahfil. Overall, Bangladesh entered into a historical reality where
people had a radical change in mentality
ZR: So a vacuum that has been created, on one hand the almost banishment of socialist
values, we saw and did khelaaghor during our childhood, music, dance, poetry, these things
were there, community involvement, reward punishment, these things were there as a
result creative thinking, helping and humane attitudes developed among the people.
ZR: The young generation did not have this as much, yet they grew up with a patriotism
vacuum, that they’ll go abroad, make money, work in MNC and this sort of mentality among
the young generation especially grew within the last 15 to 20 years.
ZR: Because of urbanization, the growth of technology, self development, cohesion, lack of
social integration and bonding, these things were destroyed which is very much opposite to
our rural values
ZR: The mainstream political parties because of their poor leadership, it is not the fault of
those poor students because they just saw that these people are relatively mainstream
leaders is less.
ZR: They also always had a displeasure with the local politics because of corruption, session
jam at universities, violence, traffic jam, these things created frustration, and somehow we
saw that the ideas tagut government and the absence of Khilafa, these ideas were exploited.
ZR: On one hand education system, disparity, social inequality, and on another hand, the
failure of our local political parties that they couldn’t prepare them accordingly, the
affluent generation who are updated with the world, even they tried to channel out and
thus quickly they were motivated by these activities.
ZR: The capitalist system that developed, competition and self development, individual
development, or which we say developed as a principle
ZR: It is seen in other societies as well that nuclear families evolved and joint families broke
down
ZR: We saw that ultimately both husband and wife are working so the moral education
which was earlier given through socialisation, this vacuum had been created.
ZR: They didn’t have those and so were not finding that outlet to release those frustration.
They I say were not being engaged with terrorist activities directly but they were not also
participating in the counter narratives or learn a positive thing.
ZR: Khan was treated differently because of his name.
SA: Every time after a political party resigns and the period before the election, they have
exploited that.
SA: Class 1 students parents are asking for questions, and being like “baba, write from this.”
So you’re making him a cheat. A thief. Dishonesty. So as you hand him a lollipop, you hand
him a question. So he grows up thinking this is a norm of life.
SA: There’s very much weakness in our moral authority. You say we have Muslim majority
and their sentiments but be respected but you can’t have a minoritarian system where the
minorities will suffer, where the minorities will be sidelined, will be treated as third class
citizens.
NL: We are seeing an economic inequality due to globalisation, few new things are coming
before us where everything is developing centering individual thinking.
NL: Several unrests take place in the society which is suppressed because of the dormant
democracy. And opposition political groups slowly become weak and as a result, extremism
in terms of thinking rises in society
NL: Economic unrest, unrest in the family and social unrest drive people towards this sort
of thought, thus radicalization occurs.
NL: Misunderstanding and communication gap and lack of intimacy in the family are much
more noticeable now than they were before. Thus children can be easily influenced.
NL: People who are suffering from poverty, they can be easily influenced because of their
weak state of mind.
SM: How much are we teaching the youth about Bangladesh’s culture, heritage and history.
SM: If they did not have an identity crisis, then probably wouldn’t have acted that way.
The matter of identity crisis is very crucial. We often forget who we are.
SM: With that is involved is frustration, there is a large despair and disaffection towards our
society in our youth, that nothing will happen, the country is being destroyed, what we call
frustration, we must come out of that.

Education System
ZR: From schools and colleges, moral education was not received and the selfish
development, parasitic development, they prevailed and there was no value for moral
development.
ZR: Open market economy, as a result English medium schools, 12-13 types of education
branches, which we won’t see in US or Canada where people study together for 12 years no
matter what background they have.
ZR: We saw that someone is reading in English medium school, some in madrasa, some in
Cadet College so there was no united force or patriotism.
SA: I think no system is a cause, it is how we apply it, what we teach in the system; system
itself can’t be guilty of.
SA: Education system has to be eclectic, it has to cover everything and should ensure two
things—a system that prepare a man or a woman to face the world, to meet or contribute in
the society. And it must be ensured that he is employed after his education.
NL: We could emphasize on certain topics, there’s no harm in that. But along with that,
students must be provided with basic knowledge about the general topics.
SM: It is wrong to say that all madrasa students are militants by default and that few
individuals coming from affluent backgrounds are involved in these activities so all militants
are from there. We have to get out of this kind of categorization.
SM: It is of course not a desirable situation to have twelve different kinds of education
curriculum in a country. We want that in future that more harmony is created in the
education system but it is also that there always has been and will be a diversity in the
education system.
SM: There are few specific things that must be taught in all education curriculums, there
must be few things that all curriculums have to maintain.
SM: The point is that if you have a comprehensive knowledge on the history of Bangladesh
or Indian Subcontinent, then your thinking power will be very different, it will be that you
will be able to think about a lot of things very differently and question them.

Facilitative Factors
ZR: We saw that technology is a new tool, it was used to build a network or society as we
say, linking other terrorist organizations with our country.
SA: They are highly religious, yet they are not bigots.
SA: I don’t think internet is a cause, but it works a facilitator.
SA: What has bred terrorism is misinterpretation of religion
NL: Since Bangladesh is a country with Muslims majority in terms of population, for that
reason that power can work easily
NL: The terrorist organizations are using different methods to utilise the internet as a
medium of communication whereas they would have to contact directly before.
SM: Internet is the marketplace of ideas so while I will not subscribe that internet is a cause
of radicalisation, not internet per say, internet is a cost of radicalisation.

Counter Approach
SM: We need to work more on this because we can ensure good governance and service
delivery, good governance and service delivery not just in Dhaka, it doesn’t just mean that
there’s flyover and proper electricity in just Dhaka; Bangladesh is not about Dhaka,
Bangladesh is about all the remote villages and outlying areas so we need to look at how
much improvement we can make in this grassroot level
SM: We need to strengthen our identity for example, we used to have this pride that there
never used to be conflict between the fact that we are Bengali and Muslim.
SM: Within the internet there are spaces that are creating the problem. We have to find out
those spaces but we also must remember that a person doesn’t get radicalised by going
online alone.
SM: Militant groups, extremist groups try to indoctrinate a narrative into our youths, we
have to bring an alternative narrative, not counter, counter is a very reactive word. We
won’t react, we will proactively bring an alternative narrative.
SM: We must see that if we are being able to use our youth in constructive work.
SA: Someone asked me once if the problem is with too much religion. I say no, too little of it.
If you have too little of it, you suffer from this
NL: Bangladesh can only free herself from Islamic terrorism by properly practicing the ideas
of the liberation war. Instead of using it to our advantage, we have to truly preach and
practice it.

Summary of underlying concepts

Almost all of the experts concurred on the significant role of global terrorism in shaping the
advent of terrorist organizations and their activities in BD. Even though most identified the
national advent of this phenomena with the Afghan war and 9/11 crisis, it is evident that
however, due to the transnational network facilitated by globalization, Bangladesh cannot
insulate itself from the crises that continue to loom all over the world. Frequently
mentioned was the Western hegemony and Middle Eastern duplicity in financing these
activities and seeping these ideologies across borders and beyond.
Also due to the globalization, a change in family structures and falling social solidarity within
and outside households have been observed that have severely hampered family
relationships. Because of the absence of an eclectic curriculum and lack of common grounds
in the extremely branched off education system, the Bangladeshi youth continues to suffer
from a lack of knowledge, role models and sense of identity.
The country bears within issues like inequality, unemployment and poverty which causes
frustration among the youth. On top of that, the persecution of Muslims all over the world
and a conflict between the Muslim and Bengali identity, the youths are left in a chaos which
is exploited by the terrorists with their misinterpretation of Islam as a strong tool.
To counter this crisis, it is imperative for families to strengthen their family relationships and
instill moral values within the children. Educational institutions need to work towards
developing a common ground that fosters patriotism and effective knowledge. Counter
narratives need to be provided that not just clear the misinterpretation of Islam but also
impart a sense of solidarity and moral values in the youth.