I find the basic premise of the 4 April 2002 Bertil Lintner's poorly written, shallow and self-indulgent article (Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror), the cover story in the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review, extremely objectionable. It mainly consists of airy-fairy anecdotal tidbits, hollow bluster of fringe elements and sanctimonious utterances of leftover left-wingers. It is full of malicious and mendacious assertions and accounts. I strenuously object to the unsound theme, irrational observations and illogical conclusions with preconceived, unproven, and scurrilous notions.

If you follow the absurd, outlandish and untenable line of reasoning of Mr Lintner you can assert that the US is full of fundamentalists. The pronouncements and proclamations by evangelical preachers in late night TV would have you believe it is about to undergo a fundamentalist Christian revolution. The enlightened and knowledgeable people how that is not gonna happen, and treat the fringe groups with benign neglect. The tall talk, bluster and grandiose claims of the publicity hungry small and insignificant fundamentalist groups

far outweigh their popular appeal or importance. The author seems to have fallen in the trap of their claims, unless his intent was malevolent and motivated to begin with. The vote that the islamic parties garner has steadily declined over the years and was around four per cent in the last general election. The BNP electoral alliance with Jamaat does not automatically lead to the unreliable, inane and uncorroborated conclusion that the sky is falling, the wolf is here and Bangladesh is about to become a cocoon of fundamentalist terror. Several European liberal parties have had electoral alliance with extremist parties without long-term deleterious effect on liberty or human rights.

After the fantasy, conjecture and speculative but damaging and detestable sophistry of Bertil Lintner, let me point out some pertinent facts about Bangladesh. it is a Muslim majority country with a liberal bent. Most people are religious but not fanatical. Hindus are the largest religious minority. While a raging communal riot in the neighbouring Hindu majority india has resulted in 770 gruesome Muslim deaths, relative communal harmony exists in Bangladesh. Both the Government and the people

have taken customary hard-line stance against communal disturbances and retribution against the Hindu minority. This secular and tolerant attitude is a source of great pride.

Given time and space, one can refute much of Mr Lintner's vague and trivial points, full of drivel and embellishment. The donor countries, for example, expressed concern about the grievous law and order situation in the country. They made no connection of fundamentalism with high profile crimes. The description of Awami League, the party that suffered humiliating defeat in the last general election, as left wing secular party and the ruling BNP as conservative is laughable in addition to being outright babble. There is no ideological divide, nor was there any significant difference in the election manifesto of the two parties. Bangladesh is the rare moderate Muslim majority country where the transfer of power through democratic means has become a norm, rather than an exception or an entirely forbidden practice. Women vote in large numbers, about 75 per cent of the eligible female voters cast their ballots in the last election. The voters rejected Awami League because of unfettered corruption,

and unremitting terrorism by party hacks and henchmen, with active patronage and corroboration by godfathers and party leaders. The party did not promote left leaning honest governance.

About 60 per cent Bangladeshi women work outside the home, same proportion as that in the US. The precursor and a potent catalyst for social uplift and economic progress are education and financial autonomy of women. Working enlightened and conscious women are also a powerful restrictive impediment against the influence of fundamentalism.

Bangladesh has many negative attributes. The law and order situation is atrocious. it is the most densely populated country with environmental degradation and levels of pollution in big cities the worst in the world. it, however, is not a fundamentalist country, and there is no real evidence that it is about to become one. Any claim to the contrary is a bunch of poppycock and gibberish. The allegation is intellectually dishonest and an affront to religious tolerance and secular attitude of vast majority of Bangladeshis. Mr Lintner ought to be ashamed of himself for the spiteful and spurious attempt to stigmatize this country.