US Congress Members’ Orientalist Discourse on Bangladesh

Dr. A J M Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan:

Recently some American Congress Members indulged in an exercise of producing orientalist discourses on Bangladeshi politics. Two instances of such acts are prominent. In the first instance, a group of six members wrote a letter to President Biden “to stop human rights violations by the Sheikh Hasina Government” and “ensure free and fair election” in Bangladesh. In the second instance, 14 Congress Members wrote a letter to the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield to ensure UN intervention and supervision of election in Bangladesh by deploying peacekeeping forces “to prevent intimidation, harassment or assault of voters.” Two names—Bob Good elected on a Republican ticket from Virginia and Scot Perry also elected on a Republican ticket—are common in the two groups and seem to be leading the packs.

Their letters reminded me of two great American media and cultural studies scholars—Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said. Said was a professor of literary studies and Chomsky is a linguist. They both are scholars of extraordinary caliber and outgrew their disciplinary boundaries with their activism for social justice across the world. The proactive roles played by the Congress Members concerning Bangladesh warrant a discussion of two seminal concepts developed by these scholars such as “orientalism” and the “failed state”. Said initiated the idea of “Orientalism” while Chomsky talked about the concept of the “failed state”. Chomsky (2006) argues that despite being an imprecise concept, a “failed state” refers to a state that is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from violence and destruction. Such states also have a tendency “to regard themselves as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and free to carry out aggression and violence. And if they have democratic forms, they suffer from a ‘democratic deficit’ that deprives their formal democratic institutions of the real substance.” Chomsky goes on to say that the US regards the states that pose potential threats to its security or “needing its intervention to rescue its people from severe internal threats” as failed states. But if America sees itself in the mirror, it will see the symptoms of the failed states within itself, asserts Chomsky. On the other hand, Said (1979) defines Orientalism as a mythical construction of the Orient (read the non-West), a style of thought that creates a duality between the Orient and the occident (read the West) for “dominating, restructuring and having authority over the orient.” You can see a connection between the two concepts; the idea of the “failed state” is invoked for domination.

The two letters mentioned above are full of orientalist overtones. Of the letters, the second one is more egregious in terms of its assertions and recommendations. However, they both weaved a master narrative operating two binaries--the villain vs. the victims and the villain vs. the good guys. The letters defined Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as the villain and the people of Bangladesh as the victims claiming that “Hasina’s government has increasingly … perpetuated widespread abuse against its citizens”. The good guys refer to the “tens of thousands of peaceful protesters” demanding a free and fair election.

The first letter also came up with a fictitious claim that “since Sheikh Hasina’s rise to power, the Hindu population has been halved. Looting, burning of households, destructions of temples and religious idols, murder, rape and forced religious conversion” caused “Hindus to flee Bangladesh” which was rightly condemned by the Hindu community leaders in the country.

In framing charges against Sheikh Hasina, they banked on oblique expressions through the use of passive voices such as “the well-documented abuses by the Hasina government; Hasina’s government’s reported reign of terror” to demonstrate objectivity.

The contention between Sheikh Hasina’s government and her opponents over the conduct of the upcoming parliament election and Sheikh Hasina government’s unwillingness to blindly toe the American line in the brewing great geopolitical game in the Indo-Pacific prepared the launch pad for the orientalist discourses.

The congress members “are highly skeptical that the Hasina government will permit fair and transparent election” and are also afraid that “Hasina’s misconduct encourages other bad actors in South Asia to make a common alliance and hurts America’s national security interests as they gang together and draw closer to China and Russia.”

The solution they offered was to suspend Bangladesh’s membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council, to prevent the deployment of any members of Bangladesh’s paramilitary force RAB in the UN peacekeeping missions, and the UN in combination with “impartial governments” (read pro-American) around the world and deploying UN peacekeepers to supervise and conduct free and fair election in Bangladesh.

However, many things are missing in the discourses such as: First, Sheikh Hasina and her government have spearheaded Bangladesh’s transition from a least developed country to a lower middle-income country and several of Hasina’s development initiatives such as the community clinic have been adopted as role models of development for the developing world by the UN. Second, Sheikh Hasina enjoys enviable popularity even among nonpartisan people for her honesty, simplicity, dedication, and welfare-oriented policies. The third glaring omission is the identification of the protesters. People aware of Bangladeshi politics know obviously that protesters belong to the anti-Hasina as well as anti-Awami League camp who want to take over power toppling her government.

Although the Congress Members stopped short of calling Bangladesh a failed state, the allegations they brought against the incumbent Sheikh Hasina government and the remedies they recommended harken back to Chomsky’s idea of the failed state.

The question that arises about the actions of the Congress members is why they are worried about Bangladesh’s election while Chomsky indicated the presence of the “failed state” like symptoms in the US such as systemic racism and police brutality against the blacks and other visible minorities. Conspiracy theorists claim that either they have been duped by the lobbyist appointed by the anti-Awami League and anti-Hasina forces or are creating the pretext for US intervention. However, the movements of the US government representatives regarding Bangladesh lend support to the first hypothesis. If that is the case, it begs to point the finger at the role and efficiency of the Bangladeshi diplomatic mission in the US.

However, whatever the motive of the Congress members I concur with their aspiration for a free and fair election. Sheikh Hasina’s government has also promised to deliver that. I will be waiting to see the fulfillment of this promise.

Writer: Professor of Media Studies at the University of Dhaka