After the book fair: a night of long knives in Bangladesh

By Jim Downard

Returning from a book fair, atheist blogger Avijit Roy and his wife were set upon by machete-wielding defenders of traditional values, hacking Roy to death and separating his now-widow from one of her fingers.

As an atheist and a lover of books I can well imagine the mood of inquiring curiosity of Roy and his wife as they strolled the tables, poking through stacks of titles with alternate smiles and frowns, finding works of interest as well as others prompting less flattering comments, only to collide on the way home with the opposite of what that book fair celebrated, a self-appointed abattoir of vengeance where incorrect thinking will mean your death.

Coming on the heels of the atheist fury who sought to resolve parking disputes by executing his peaceable Muslim neighbors, the Bangladesh murder reminds us all just how dangerous a world can be populated by people who pull their guns or knives ahead of using their wits and heart.

The temperate historian in me can rightly remind us of the bigger picture, that murdering of bloggers has not been a common pursuit in that troubled country of 160 million people, with only four attacks over the last decade. Ahmed Rajib Haider’s death in 2013 prompted large protests by secular Bangladeshis, but also strikes by Islamist hardliners demanding the execution of blasphemers, to which the ostensibly secular government of Bangladesh responded by arresting several atheist bloggers.

The pen, it would seem, is more dangerous for some than blood-stained machetes.

The vigilante religious thought police of Bangladesh are not (yet) as dangerous a threat as the escalating terror of the Nazis were for European Jews and gays and gypsies, ever more deadly gears engaged with impunity as the Nazis had become the government. But there is ISIS today with swords aplenty and the rigid will to use them, angling for a government of their own to bring about their own terrible desires for all.

Think of the prospect of long sharp knives waiting around the next corner as you flip through a stack of books at the library or book store, and of the threat to all of deep conscience on a planet where there are places still where thoughts and curiosity can be hacked out of existence in a pool of drying blood.