Shibir reveals it has not renounced its dark past

Amid the celebrations marking one year of July Uprising followed by the elections announcement, Islami Chhatra Shibir's display on Dhaka University campus created much less of an uproar than it should have. It was yet another attempt, in a series of swipes at the 1971 liberation war, by Jamaat-e-Islami's student cadres to test the waters and see how far they could go in their bid to ridicule the sentiments around our War of Independence.

The student wing of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party had organised a display at TSC (teacher-student centre), which is the throbbing heart of Dhaka University, featuring photos of seven convicted war criminals, which were later taken down. These people included Motiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujaheed who were behind the systematic execution of intellectuals in the dying days of the war in December 1971. Among the seven were Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Abdul Quader Mollah and Kamaruzzaman who were convicted of violent crimes to defeat the liberation forces.

Perhaps what Shibir fails to realise is that the more they try and glorify their former leaders, the more they become unpalatable. The more they try to idolise the collaborators and war criminals as fallen heroes, the more they put others in an awkward position, especially those within Students Against Discrimination (SAD) who had waged the anti-Awami League campaign together. And every time Shibir expresses its true sentiments over these war criminals, they prove to their electorate that they are not yet ready to renounce their dark past.

That Shibir will keep at this attempt to rehabilitate their leaders as innocent victims, martyrs even, is predictable. But more importantly, when this happens with the permission of Dhaka University authorities, it has an entirely different message. No one has pointed fingers at the university officials who were the enablers in the entire process and looked the other way. Perhaps someone should if only to identify today's collaborators.