Country has boarded the far-right train: Mahfuz Alam

Mahfuz Alam, a former adviser to the interim government, has remarked that the country has boarded the far-right train. In his view, the political environment is being shaped through coordinated campaigns and character assassination on social media, pushing many people from the right towards the far right.

Mahfuz Alam made the comments in a Facebook post on Thursday night (October 15), titled “The strange state of post-July politics”. In it, he also criticised the political positions of a section of the country’s civil society, as well as various individuals and institutions.

Mahfuz Alam alleged that since the time of the interim government, various individuals and institutions of “secular civil society” have tried to get close to Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir. He believes they took this stance out of a desire for power and, in the name of reform, out of opposition to the BNP.

In the Facebook post, Mahfuz wrote that after getting close to Jamaat, many have been unable to leave its orbit. In his words, “Having climbed into its lap, many cannot get down, and so remain confined in Shibir’s lap even now.”

Criticising coordinated campaigns on social media, the former adviser said many have turned from right-wing to far-right under the pressure of a digital “mob”. He described such activities as a process of planned campaigning and character assassination. In his view, the combined activities of right-wing forces of various streams are pushing the country’s political situation further to the right.

According to Mahfuz Alam, a section of civil society will have to pay a political price for getting close to Jamaat while opposing the BNP in the name of reform. He also remarked that the conventional community of Islamic scholars may have to face consequences for cooperating with Jamaat.