Terra Incognita
BEFORE the world was fully mapped there were large parts of the globe that were known as "Terra Incognita" -- Latin for "unknown lands." Within the last few days, the politics of Bangladesh has moved into such places.
After a period of stagnation, presumably over the haggling for extracting maximum concession from the authority, when the BNP's "uncompromising" leader relented at long last, politics unravelled and gushed forward at a speed, and in a direction, that left the country awe-struck -- the way it used to be when her alliance government was in power between 2001 and 2006.
The people, seized with fresh consternation, look askance as the Hawa Bhaban mafia returns to rule the roost and the criminals are turning into national heroes.
The release of Tarique Zia, the most despicable name since 1/11 and even before, was already on the card. The wily BNP-Jamaat fraternity thought it to be a fitting occasion to have a shot in the arm for the alliance, which had become increasingly marginalised in the national scene.
Using Tarique Zia's accidental head injury while in detention, the JCD and Shibir cadres went berserk and resorted to the game they are fond of -- the politics of violence and intimidation. The hysteria over the issue led to the killing of an innocent trader, and spread fast across the country.
Finding itself in the eye of a storm, the caretaker dispensation considered the time before the national election in December to be delicate and chose to play cool so that the storm could just blow over.
The BNP-Jaamat fraternity wanted also to go for a showdown to recover some of its street power that the BNP, mired in intra-party schism, could not demonstrate for long, by mustering a show of force.
They chose the occasion of Madam Zia's release to stage that. Given the fact that a cadre-based party like Jaamat and Hawa Bhaban beneficiaries are at the BNP's beck and call to do it on its behalf, there was nothing extraordinary in its show of force. It was merely an attempt to hide the alliance's criminals face by whipping up rather cheap emotions and rhetoric.
Only months ago, the now bailed out alliance leaders were political and social outcasts. With their faces smeared with numerous crimes and corruption they were either incarcerated or on the run, and could hardly face the public wronged by them.
The pariahs in politics usually re-eastablish their credibility through catharsis and a period of penance. They haven't done either.
More often than not, the genuinely repentant of the lot develop a repugnance toward their past misdeeds to the point of calling it a day. Not surprisingly, there wasn't a single such repentant individual in the entire crowd of the alliance because they are indeed a bunch of hardened sinners. Even if they are out of detention, their crimes are undeniably etched in public perception and can never be erased, in spite of their going scot-free.
The caretaker dispensation's agenda for anti-corruption drive and political reforms made a lot of sense, although there could be differences in approach for attaining those objectives. It could, at least, arrest the rot created by the immediate past BNP-Jaamat regime.
The country was in freefall when the alliance left the office. The caretaker set-up stopped its further nose-dive. Yet, many factors have combined by now for the caretaker government to look for an exit after its extended stay in power, and it unavoidably passes through a national election necessitating the participation of AL as much as BNP and other political stakeholders. Here is the tragedy for a well-intentioned venture that has to be willy-nilly wrapped up.
The sooner the better, because we still have a long way to go to rescue this country ravaged by the alliance's fathomless corruption, incompetence, and malignant arrogance. We have to defeat the forces of the obnoxious legacy left by the alliance, at the centre of which has been the terror of the proportion of August 21.
It is learnt that the BNP chairperson has relieved her son from the post of senior joint secretary. She herself gave the mantle of that plum position to her school (or college?) drop-out adolescent son during the heyday of BNP's last stint in power.
Well, she can do that in her authoritarian air of all-in-all of the party, but to what end? To keep him out of the reach of the law or answerability during the party's critical days?
Back with fury and her trade-mark hubris, she claimed that her party would win the next election. After what she wrought in the country during her last tenure anyone in her place would have seen her or his face in the mirror first before uttering such a prognosis. But she is indeed brave to the extent of giving the country's body politic a mortal blow. It's a painful experience to come out of its trauma.
The nation is now treading the uncharted "Terra Incognita," bereft of any landmark that could be a guide. In this terrible vacuum, let our forefathers' experience and their collective wisdom show us the path to save ourselves from a repetition of another cabal of Hawa Bhaban cronies and perpetrators of August 21.
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