In 2013, a section of Bangladeshi society occupied Dhaka's busy Shahbag intersection and demanded that Islamist leaders be executed and that Islamism be banned. What followed was multiple episodes of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass detentions amidst a retreat of democracy from the country. Yet, mainstream commentary on Bangladesh tells a story in which secularism is in crisis, Islamism has taken over the country, and the regime is empowering Islamists. This portrayal of Bangladeshi politics and society is made possible by a banalized secularism whose absence can only be noticed and a marked Islam(ism), which is all too easy to identify. As the meanings of secularism and Islamism shift in a manner that suits secularist politics, Bangladesh can never be secular enough, although the presence of Islamism itself is a testament to the presence of a secular age following what I call fundamental de-Islamization.
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