Our "Project Democracy"
AS the BNP's political prospects brighten, with the Awami League getting increasingly stuck with the incumbency and its concomitant answerability for anything called into question, the mood in the BNP camp is obviously buoyant and it stalwarts -- so long in hibernation -- are returning to the party fold in droves. Many of its star leaders, not seen for months and even years, have started to show up in party forums -- an indication that the party is still left with a good deal of promise even after its fall from grace in the wake of one-eleven. In recent times, the media have also been projecting the BNP highlights with earnestness. Also, a new assertion can be felt among the party's rank and file -- particularly in its junior echelons.
Only the party supremo, with her dream of continuing authoritarian hold over the party shattered and the idea of family controlled fiefdom going out of vogue, did not exude the same enthusiasm -- consequently she is doing more harm to the party than good by running the party erratically. The BNP led by Madam Zia being on a different wavelength had also to understandably behave differently. But by adopting a negative stance in present milieu the madam is isolating herself and abdicating the turf she is entitled to dominate.
She first rejected the result of the last election alleging that it was rigged, although she grudgingly accepted it later. Then, on spurious excuses, her party has been boycotting the parliamentary proceedings as well as other public forums. Her deliberate absence from the national convention on poverty alleviation strategy was viewed in a poor light by observers.
As viewed by political analysts, Madam Zia critically lacks the chemistry to co-exist with others in a democratic spirit. As a matter of fact, she never came to grips with the reversal of fate that befell her. She suffered a double whammy -- one when she failed to execute her scripted selection in 2007 and then again when she lost the ninth parliamentary election. As a result, her party has been s in limbo ever since her release from incarceration. The party could not move either laterally or horizontally, and no decisive step could be taken even to match the equally indecisive AL.
It was learnt that to overcome the prevailing stupor in the party and to tackle the challenges a think-tank of sorts was brought into being. It was also learnt that the young party activists who earned some of the earlier successes for the BNP would be made use of to get over the stasis that has set in the party. Whether or not they will again be successful is yet to be seen.
When someone or some organisation faces defeat he/she, or it, is orphaned because none claims the parenthood of failure while there are many to claim the parenthood of success. That's what we have witnessed in our political history. In keeping with the same tradition, if the BNP admirers and well wishers are looking for foster-parents for a yet to be achieved success it will be a novel experiment, but the success of the experiment itself will remain uncertain unless the heroes of yesteryears shun the beaten track of the past.
There has been a tectonic shift in the country's political terrain in the last two years, drastically changing the public outlook, perspectives and political views. An account will have to be taken of those changes to be able to reconstruct an outfit that has been subjected to so much ignominy -- rightly or wrongly. But even here there seems to be no silver lining for BNP when we see a frenzied move among the younger lot of BNP to install Tariq Zia to the key position of the party, thus according him an iconic status. True, no one learns from the past! But how can one close his or her eyes to the sleaze of Hawa Bhaban, the brainchild of Tariq Zia.
The AL, by virtue of its electoral mandate can rule, and has been doing so. The BNP also did the same when it was in power. Okay. But that's not the democracy that we are committed to. There are many invisible threats to democracy, against which we have no safeguards. Militancy, poverty and corruption are ever present enemies in our midst. It would be in AL's interest to fight them. But how? The experience hasn't been quite savoury so far. Whether it likes it or not the AL must be able to win over the BNP's cooperation, however insignificant that may look. Only unity among the political forces and socio-professional groups can open up the possibility for success, to which only the sky is the limit.
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