Is it the struggle of 1952 all over again?

How can any citizen of Bangladesh insult our National Flag? How can a Bangalee attack and damage a Shaheed Minar? Unbelievable as they may sound this is exactly what happened 42 years after we gained a hard fought independence at the cost of millions of lives.
Who are these people who desecrated our flag and the second most important national monument? Are they not Bangalees? Do they not speak Bangla? What is the language of communication with their parents, children, friends or near and dear ones? By breaking the Shaheed Minar are they not trying to say that they do not believe in our national identity? Do they think our language movement was unjustified? Are they not trying to tell us that everything we have fought for, all the struggles that our people undertook, all the sacrifices they made and lives we lost to give Bangla the status of a national language were wrong? By implication are they not denying the rights of Bangalees to have Bangla as their mother tongue? So in effect people who insulted our flag and broke our Shaheed Minar do not believe in any of the struggles that have resulted in the birth of this beautiful country we call Bangladesh.
We think the desecration of the National Flag and of the Shaheed Minar are telling revelations that should alert us all as to what Jamaat, Shibir and their supporters stand for. In their eyes, the War of Liberation was wrong, our fight for independence was wrong, our fighting the Pakistanis was wrong. On the contrary, the Pakistani army's attacking our civilian population was correct, the genocide was correct, the raping of our women was correct and the killing our freedom fighters was correct. In their views, the war criminals are heroes because they not only opposed the birth of this country but carried crimes against humanity to prevent Bangladesh from becoming independent. In their thinking, Bangla cannot be our national language and as such the Bangladesh of our dreams does not have the right to exist.
How can our freedom-loving people tolerate this stance? How can the children of our martyrs accept this position of Jamaat and Shibir? How can anybody with an iota of pride and self-respect accept such an insult to our very existence?
As believers in democracy and as supporters of plurality of political views, we have tolerated Jamaat's politics and viewpoints for all these years and have given them a chance to participate in our politics. It was our hope that given political space and being tolerated, though they stood against our independence, Jamaat and Shibir will, in time, repent and apologise to our people for their politics of 1971.
Our hopes stand belied. After 42 years of our independence, Jamaat and Shibir not only did not apologise for their murderous role in '71, they now seem to feel strong enough to burn our National Flag and destroy Shaheed Minars in several parts of the country.
So the destruction Shaheed Minar means that we are fighting the battle of 1952 all over again.
It is well known what the religious extremists said at that time to oppose our language movement. It was that Bangla was not a language of the Muslims, our culture was not what we practise, our heritage was not ours, and everything, including our literature, music, dance, art, sculpture and painting, was polluted by Hindu influence and hence should be discarded. The language itself must be shunned and in its place the Muslims of the then East Pakistan should try to practise either Arabic or Urdu. Everything Bangalee was non-Muslim and as such should be disowned.
The language movement itself was termed a Hindu conspiracy to divide the Muslims of the new born Pakistan and hence should be thoroughly opposed.
Today, as our demand for the trial of the war criminals intensifies, we hear the same attack on our language, heritage and culture, and using the same line of attack that Bangla and Bangalees are against Islam. Suddenly fictitious claims of insult to the Holy Prophet and to Islam are begin spread throughout the country and among the poor and illiterate masses so that confusion can be created and the trial of the war criminals cannot proceed to finish the job now, what should have been done four decades ago.
We ardently believe in democracy, and cherish the ideals of pluralism. However, today we declare with as much clarity, determination and forcefulness we are able to master that our right to exist as Bangalees cannot be taken away from us and that we will fight till the very end to preserve and protect our independence and culture.
The violence that has been carried out against our people, culture and independence cannot and will not be tolerated. The nation is ready to make all sacrifices required to protect and preserve our nation and our culture. Let our tolerance not be taken as our weakness, nor our faith in democracy as our incapacity to fight our enemies.
Many of my fellow freedom fighters may, perhaps, not agree with me but we say that there is still time for Jamaat and Shibir to renounce their politics, reject their blood thirsty ways and pledge their loyalty to the independence and cultural identity of Bangladesh. The violence they are indulging in will only cost innocent lives, and they will never be able to win. The war criminals who are still enjoying leadership role should be rejected by the younger members of Jamaat and Shibir, most of whom were not born when the language movement and our liberation struggle took place. The older leaders, many of whom took direct part in the genocide of our people in 1971, now stand thoroughly exposed through the trial process. The younger members of religion-based political parties should not take on their shoulders the crimes against humanity committed by their older leaders.
We also condemn the attacks on the journalists who were merely performing their duties in reporting facts. The brutal attacks that a section of our journalists has been subjected to reveal only too well the fascist nature of Jamaat and Shibir. They use the democratic rights given by our constitution to kill that very same rights by resorting to terrorism and violence.
We assert in the strongest of terms that no amount of violence will stop the media from reporting the truth and that the war criminals will be tried and that the culture and language of Bangalees will survive for thousands and thousands of years, and killings and violence by Jamaat-Shibir will never make us give up what we have won through the sacrifice of millions of martyrs ever since the early 1950s.