Us vs them: Pernicious politics of confrontation

They say that in politics there is no last word; a politician is forever seeking ways to win over opponents. In politics no one is an enemy forever or a friend in perpetuity. Politics is all about seeking new alliances, finding accommodations of other views, and often compromises. A politician does this not out of philanthropy, but with a long term goal of gaining or retaining power. A seasoned politician does it in a clever and adroit way, by subtle actions, and by articulation of words chosen carefully. A deft politician knows that rhetoric laced with venom does not win opponents; it even drives close friends away. But not in Bangladesh.
There used to be a time when politics in our part of the world had some unwritten code of conduct, some rules of engagement. These rules would include mutual respect for people on opposing sides; and honouring personalities in different parties or institutions and refraining from demeaning them with words or actions. We had seen many stalwarts dominate our politics in the fifties and sixties and in early part of the seventies who belonged to a wide spectrum of political belief and ideologies. Some of them were luminaries and others not so. But they had in one thing in common -- a code of conduct that put emphasis on mutual respect. In Parliament they berated one another, they chastised the government, they chided their opponents in public -- but they did not call names or try to defame anybody in person. There were confrontations all right, but confrontations with debates, with words, and not by venom that seems to have overtaken our politics now. In place of verbal duels in the parliament we have duels of the real kind. In place of words we have real weapons, and instead of parliamentarians we have rowdy mobs in the streets that do the proxy fights for them.
Unfortunately, politics in our country has not evolved from the bottom. Our major political parties have been foisted from the top, and have spread to the bottom guided by the vision and hard work of either a single individual or a central leadership. The result has been that most often a party is identified by the masses with the founder of the party or the leadership that succeded. This puts a great onus on the leader since his or her actions shape the party's conduct and image. And the leader's role becomes more onerous when the party assumes the task of governing the country. Words and actions of the leader who also runs the government have consequences that go beyond the party's fame and image; they affect the whole country.
It is a pity that our political leaders do not see themselves yet in the roles of statesmen who have to rise above the narrow confines of their own party leadership. Their roles hardly change from party leader to national leader even when they assume the task of governing the country. They cannot separate national interest from party interest; they allow personal likes and dislikes to interfere with national policies; and they view criticisms of government actions as personal affronts. They believe in confronting their critics, both domestic and international, head on. They little realise that their myopic views and self-defeating actions not only undermine them and their party, but bring down the nation as well.
It does not do us any good nationally or internationally when we find faults in others for what observers see as the consequences of our own actions or inaction. In the early part of this century when western media pointed at the growing threat of religious militancy in our country with specific examples, our leader at that time quickly dismissed the concerns as false. Our leader deemed these reports as another attempt by others to defame the government. Three years later we would learn the hard way how real the threats were when some militants were captured.
Last year when reports of alleged shenanigans in the much publicised Padma Bridge consultancy contract were brought to the current government's attention by the World Bank, our leaders tried to down play the reports as inaccurate. Some leaders termed the allegations as another illustration to discredit the government. When International Human Rights Commission this year blatantly accused our law enforcement agencies of grave violation of human rights and cited cases of abuses, our leaders called these as downright false. Those were nothing but outside attempts to tarnish our national image, they added.
These denials of necessity lead to confrontation. Several examples come to mind. Domestically, our leaders deny that the opposition has any merit in demanding that fair elections be held under a neutral government. Instead of having a proper debate on the subject both sides decided that that the issue be settled in the streets rather than parliament or through dialogues. We saw mob rules in the streets as supporters of both sides fought. On human rights the leaders denied that the law enforcers can ever be accused of any abuses, and therefore the Commission's report was rejected and angry comments were made by some government officials. They refuse to accept the report because it was not prepared by anybody they "trust."
On a more internationally noted issue our leaders' stance has been more stubborn and defiant. The government has categorically refused to admit that any wrong has been done by the unceremonious removal of the internationally acclaimed phenomenon in poverty eradication from his position from the very institution that he had founded. Entreaties from people of eminence worldwide have fallen on deaf ears. In another egregious case, our leaders have steadfastly denied and continue to deny that any graft taking or attempts at graft were made in the Padma Bridge construction project.
So the politics of confrontations continues. This happens because our leaders view these accusations as challenges that need to be stopped. At home we see these reflected in street fights, defiant utterances of public leaders, and hapless plight of common people. Internationally, we see results of such confrontations in negative media reports, corrosion of national image, and possibly interruptions in international financing.
I am afraid we will have to continue to witness this politics of confrontation unless our leaders change their mindset of associating their personal likes and dislikes with matters of national interest. This will continue until the leaders get out of their paranoid personalities and cease to confuse their own interests as their party's or country's interests. This will continue when the leaders reward personal loyalty of individuals at national costs. I hope this realisation comes to them sooner than later for the good of all of us.

The writer is a retired staff of the World Bank.