Bangladesh is having a country-wide strike (aka 'Hartal') tomorrow. The UN and the US government has sent out advisories that travel should be avoided.
At the moment I am in Dhaka. I had planned on taking the overnight train into Dinajpur, it leaves (well, it left) at 8pm and arrives at about 6am. I like overnights because it's nicer to sleep through most of the long journey and wake up there than to have to bump around and occupy myself for 10 hours while I wait to arrive!
However, I decided to wait.
The strike isn't happening today, so things would have been safe to travel - tomorrow most big things will shut down, no buses, most offices will close, basically it sounds like most of the city stops, and the same happens across the country. Call me crazy, but I figured I would rather be in a city that is familiar to me when something like this was going on, rather than arriving bright and early to disarray in an unfamiliar one without knowing which areas were safe and which weren't.
So, I wanted to know more about WHY there is a strike going on, and what exactly a "hartal" was. As usual I googled hartal and followed a Wiki link - it suggests that hartals are employed in this end of the world (including India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan with Bangladesh) when the people don't like a decision the government has made.
This particular strike is being called for by the Islamic Law Implementation Committee (ILIC) protesting the National Women Development Policy (NWDP) 2011, and a few other things the government did back in March.
I don't know much about Islam, about Muslim belief systems or legal systems, but being in a country that is primarily Muslim I am trying to learn. I've actually even started reading the Qua'ran because I'd like to understand more about it all - I've read the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and a few other religious books, so why not the Qua'ran? More on that another time perhaps.
Back to the strike. The NWDP was started back in the late 90s attempting to give women in Bangladesh more rights - it was approved in early March of this year. There is controversy (if I am understanding things correctly) from some of the Islamic groups because if it were law, it would interfere with Muslim family law (which I have no understanding of), and contradicts some of the teachings of the Qua'ran. I pretend no knowledge in this area and therefore don't have an opinion yet, however, so I'm not about to go off at the mouth over it in a public forum.
However, the part I don't understand, is that it is not LAW, it is a pledge by the government, a policy to further the rights women have in the country, so I'm not exactly sure why the strike is happening - the only thing that comes to mind is that there could be a fear for the lines of "progress" (my word, I think improving women's rights here WOULD be progress) that could be opened if indeed the government were successful in making changes that DID lead to new laws giving women more rights in the country. In an article in the Daily Star...
"The policy upholds the rights of all women irrespective of their religions. Shirin Sharmin also said they would draw a national action plan based on this policy which will, “Provide women with full control over their right to land, earned property, health, education, training, information, inheritance, credit, technology and opportunity to earn… And enact necessary new laws to put these rights into practice."So the issues for the ILIC are (1) the women's policy, (2) the High Court's ban on fatwa, and (3) the education policy.
ILIC chairman Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini...called the general strike on Mar 8 protesting the women's policy, the ban on fatwa by the High Court and the education policy." [Full story link here]
"Wait a minutes, you lost me... what the heck is fatwa?" you ask? Don't worry, I googled that too because I had no idea, so bear with me.
Fatwa is an Islamic religious ruling (scholarly opinion, some would say) that is pronounced by recognized religious authorities in Islam. It is not a law, as I understand it, but is meant to be read/heard and considered, and then you are to choose whether or not you support it/follow it or not as a Muslim, a follower of Islam. It is your personal choice.
Sometimes they can be extremist in nature (like when Salmon Rushdie wrote Satanic Verses, Ayatollah Kohmeini (Iran's highest ranking political and religious authority at the time) issued a fatwa that actually ordered Rushdie and everyone associated with the book to be killed - you can look it up, I'm not trying to start any fights here; I was shocked by it myself because I had no idea there were public orders to KILL people - naive, naive, naive.
[Read the wiki article here and decide for yourself what you think - there are lots of additional sources at the bottom of the article if you're interested.]
The fatwa remains in place today... The Iranian government supported the fatwa for almost 10 years before the President spoke against it, and it's apparently here to stay since the Ayatollah who issued it died. Rushdie's translators in different countries were hurt of killed in response: craziness for this girl, that just all blew me away!!! Perhaps because the book was written in '88 and the fatwa issued in '89 and I was 12 at the time I didn't know any of this went on, but I'm making up for it now with the shock value... wow...
I want to note... I want so much to share the things I love about this country, to put into the light things that people never hear about in news stories, things that would make hearts glad and spirits smile, but tonight I'm in heartbreak about many things, so many sad things that continue to happen even today in the country, things that I just can't make room to understand or even begin to justify.
Bangladesh's government declared fatwas to be illegal last year (yay Bangladesh!), but there is another law, Islamic Sharia law (I am very confused and have had overload and will not be looking up anymore tonight) that people still use to make these more extremist fatwa pronouncements. I dont' understand the system, so I can only speak to my dismay at their outcomes, their consequences, and I cannot speak to their cause or origin.
In looking for more information on all of this tonight I just read a story where in a 14-year old girl who was raped by her 40-year old married cousin was sentenced by fatwa (in February of this year) to a public lashing: 100 whip lashes - the victim, a child, ordered punished, and she died in hospital from the severity of her injuries before the punishment was finished; her rapist was sentenced to the same, but he "escaped to parts unknown."
Truly, I want to throw up.
I don't know if it was widely known at the time because I wasn't here. I don't know if anyone tried to stop it from happening before it did. I don't know if the whole country knew about it, or if they didn't hear about it until after it happened, I don't understand Sharia. I don't know if anyone tried to save her, and I can't help but cry now for her.
The Bangladeshi High Court is apparently looking to punish the people responsible, but I have yet to find out what came of it. Kassandra said she was aware of it at the time, but I didn't ask for details, she said only that it was awful. It is still awful.
Some things make me more grateful than others to have been born into the country, family, and ideological systems that I was. So grateful.
Ok, attempting to move on... I got carried away because I was so shocked about the Rushdie ruling, and then worse by the child who died because of a community's fatwa, but I meant only to explain what it was.
It seems when I looked it up that most often fatwas seem to be religious opinions meant to govern how to live your life as a Muslim best in accordance with the Qu'aran, and they're not public death warrants on people. The thing is that it seems that since the High Court in Bangladesh banned fatwas not everyone is happy about that.
There is an AWFUL lot to learn being in a Muslim country...
So, what I started the night wanting to tell you was only that I am in Dhaka, I am safe and sound in the diplomatic area, happy and chilling out in my apartment. I had a great day today thanks to 2 super friends at home and away, and tomorrow you will find me far from any news that is unlikely to even hit the fan internationally tomorrow.
In the event that there IS something about it on the news, you can just know I've kept myself safe and sound far from the "action," if there is any... the farthest I'll be going tomorrow is to the grocery store for some snacks on the train the next day - no worries!
PS - See, I make decisions in the interest of my safety, not just in the interest of my curiosity and my desire to move around and see stuff!
