It is a peculiar feature of UK foreign policy that we only seem capable of focusing on one international crisis at a time.
For now the eyes of Westminster are fixed firmly on the
civil war in Syria, the resulting migrant crisis and the spread of Islamic
extremism across Europe.
No one will be anything but appalled by the deaths of 84
people in Nice on Thursday night.
But nearly 5,000 miles away in Bangladesh, a country with a
population seven times that of Syria, a political powder keg threatens to erupt
in a bloody explosion of violence.
Should that happen, the shockwaves will be felt much closer
to home than many MPs realise.
As MP for Rochdale, representing more than 4,000
constituents of Bangladeshi origin, I was honoured to speak on the subject of
democracy at the Sixth Council of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in March
this year.
Sadly, my address was less of a rousing speech and more of a
solemn eulogy. That is because, to put it bluntly, democracy in Bangladesh is
dead.
Amid an opposition boycott during the country’s last general
election in January 2014, turnout was just 22 per cent. The ruling Awami League
won almost 80 per cent of seats on a day that saw 21 people killed in
unprecedented levels of violence even in a country where political passions
have always run high.
Since the election, political intimidation, disappearances
and a culture of fear have become commonplace. Human Rights Watch has
criticised the authorities for use of excessive force, the police have been
accused of extrajudicial killings and the judiciary has been used for political
ends.
ISIS and al-Qaeda linked groups have claimed responsibility
for more than 58 killings since early last year yet the Government refuses to
acknowledge their involvement. Gagging orders ban the media from publishing
opposition statements and secular bloggers have been murdered by Islamic
extremists.Entrepreneurs are crowded out as the Government hands contracts to a
cabal of favoured businessmen, stifling investment in a country of 160million
people. Economic growth, which should be in double figures, hovers around 6 per
cent.
The Arab Spring taught us that disenfranchised people in
tough economic times cannot be oppressed indefinitely. When freedom of speech
is curtailed it creates a vacuum that can be, for some small groups of people,
filled with extremist views. Violent protests in Bangladesh are escalating and
people talk openly of civil war.
Such unrest would destabilise the region and result in mass
migration on a scale that would make the influx of refugees into Europe in
recent years look like a steady trickle.
The UK is home to the largest Bangladeshi diaspora in
Europe, and our two countries share significant cultural, political and
commercial ties.
When I walked the streets of Dhaka, complete strangers
approached me to ask about their aunties and uncles in Ramsay Street, which
lies at the centre of Rochdale’s vibrant Bangladeshi community.
We can be sure that hundreds of thousands, if not millions,
of Bangladeshi refugees would seek the safety of the UK if the situation
continued to deteriorate.
But I am not confident that our shambolic asylum system will
be able to prevent a twisted minority importing political tensions and violent
extremist beliefs.
As Britain asserts a bold, international, post-Brexit
posture, our first job must be to take our responsibility for bringing peace,
tolerance and democracy to this part of the Commonwealth more seriously.
As the situation in Bangladesh worsens, the voice of British
politicians must get louder. Our new Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson must leave
the talking to others and start acting. Economic sanctions may be the only way
to rescue Bangladesh’s secular
democracy.
It is an ambitious and industrious young nation with great
potential. It is up to us to intervene to ensure extremist chaos does not lay waste
to that potential at great human cost.
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- Simon Danczuk is MP for Rochdale.
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