Growing Islamist Extremism in Moderate, Non-Arab Countries Must Be Confronted

A word of warning from one within the Islamist world. Just one more red flag as to the true nature of Islam.
FROM JINSA.ORG:
Growing Islamist Extremism in Moderate, Non-Arab Countries Must Be Confronted, Bangladeshi Activist Urges
Choudhury Exposes Fundamentalist Islamism in “Tolerant” Bangladesh
Former Bangladeshi political prisoner Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is a man with a mission - to spread the message that four out of five Muslims do not live in the Middle East and that the United States must pay close attention to the rising tide of Islamist extremism in moderate Muslim countries if it is to prevent the radicalization of their populations. Choudhury, recipient of PEN USA’s 2005 “Freedom to Write Award”, spoke to JINSA soon after delivering a speech this summer in Washington, DC to the Human Rights Congress for Bangladeshi Minorities, a worldwide organization dedicated to preventing discrimination against minority groups and protecting political freedoms.

Bangladesh is home to the world’s third largest Muslim population and was described by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher as recently as last year as a “traditionally moderate and tolerant country”
But Choudhury and others critical of the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalist extremism in Bangladesh have been the target of an ongoing campaign by Bangladeshi Islamists, both in and out of the government. Choudhury has spoken out against the Islamists from the beginning. Last year he told The Wall Street Journal, “When I began my newspaper, [The Weekly Blitz], in 2003 I decided to make an end to the well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Jews and Christians and especially against Israel … In Bangladesh and especially during Friday prayers, the clerics propagate jihad and encourage the killing of Jews and Christians. When I was a child my father told me not to believe those words but to look at the world’s realities.”
“There is hardly a secular aspect of Bangladeshi society that hasn’t been infiltrated by Islamists,” Choudhury said.
In the political arena, radical Muslim parties have attained power gradually, gaining more and more seats in parliament until they become an essential part of any political coalition. Maneeza Hossain, manager of democracy programs at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, explained in a March 2006 National Review article that the attractiveness of radical ideologies to many in Bangladesh reflects the failure of the two main political parties, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and the Awami League, to offer genuine democratic reforms and economic growth. “The rise of Islamism is not a reflection of ignorance, but a result of disenchantment with the hollow discourse of democracy adopted by the political class against a background of corruption and economic disparity,” Hossain wrote.
Corruption Opens Door to Political Parties Affiliated with Extremist Religious Movements
Islamist actions, on the other hand, are seen as untainted by corruption, a mainstay of political life in Bangladesh, regularly ranked as the world’s most corrupt country by Transparency International. Orphans are enrolled in the more than 64,000 madrassas in the country, and constituencies are provided with funds from the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, to build mosques and hospitals, helping Islamism in its many forms to gain further roots.
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