A moment of introspection for BNP
In my article for The Daily Star (January 27, 2015), titled "War for democracy: For the people or on the people", I concluded with these words: "The BNP-led alliance's war for democracy has turned out to be not for the people but on the people." No matter how one looks at it, it would be unrealistic to disagree that the alliance's so-called movement has not only failed, but has boomeranged. The people of the country have seen many political movements in the past, but never before have they experienced such kind of brutality, in terms of arson attacks by petrol bombs inflicted on the ordinary people. The victims include a two-year old Mariam, an 85-year old Taher Ali and a pregnant Shirin Aktar, who was burnt to death with her unborn child while she was on her way to work on a four-wheeler.
"I only see a bleak future as I belong to a poor family which is run with the little money I earn by driving a truck," lamented Arman, lying on a bed in the Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital. While talking to reporters, the 45-year-old man said he had two young children and a pregnant wife. "I may pass a day without having any food but what will happen to my children and my pregnant wife?" he demanded. "Leaders of both the major political parties sleep happily in their warm and cosy living rooms but we lose everything and pass our days in pain and suffering. Please, do something to stop such inhuman acts. It is unbearable," says Arman.
Every sensible human soul of the nation will empathise with the sufferings of the countless victims of these attacks, except for the leader under whose leadership the so-called movement is being instigated. People in general, except for a few so-called pro-BNP intellectuals, will heave a sigh of relief the moment this so-called movement meets its natural death. The BNP intellectuals, who are still trying to show a brave face by putting the responsibilities squarely on the shoulders of the government, are blind to the realities. A human rights activist, whose organisation inflated the number of casualties in hundreds and thousands during the Hefajat movement, wrote an article for the DS, castigating the death of two opposition activists at the hands of law enforcing authorities. He, however, made no mention about the arson victims whose future will remain the same no matter which political group occupies the helm of the state.
In any pluralistic society, a big political party can never be destroyed and no one should be writing a eulogy for it. When a party faces a serious setback due to its policy, the leadership of the party calls it a day, making room for a new leader to reformulate the policies, to recuperate from the setback and regain lost ground. While Bangladesh cannot claim to be a perfect democracy, it is more to do with its two major political parties, both of which barely have any democratic practice to elect its leaders. It is more so for the BNP. Although, heredity plays an important role, more or less, in the political arena in every republic of the world, in recent times only two 'democratic' countries publicly declared heirs as the leaders of the state. And they are the Democratic Republic of North Korea and the Democratic Arab Republic of Syria. It is needless to say how 'democratic' those two countries are and what kind of democratic freedom the citizens of the two republics are enjoying.
Bangladesh has been added to those 'democracies' wherein the name of the next Prime Minister was proudly declared by his party. It was the senior vice president of BNP, whose picture hangs along with those of his late father and his living mother in BNP offices around the country. This is an unprecedented phenomenon even in Bangladesh, where two families have been ruling for the majority of the time since the country's inception. Even in England, the picture of the heir to the British throne is never hung beside the picture of the Queen mother.
BNP can only bank on the short memory of the public to make a comeback in the near future, thanks to their current insensitive and violent war on the people. If one looks at the history of nations that liberated themselves from colonial domination, very few had the parallel of such massive support of its people as enjoyed by the liberation movement. However, the basic difference is that the other nations were able to hold on to the values and virtues that worked as the principal guiding force towards achieving freedom, while Bangladesh miserably failed to hold onto them. While the liberation war should have been the rallying point for the unity of the nation, it has become the dividing line between the two political camps.
Yet there are many front ranking leaders of BNP who truly believe in the values on which the nation was created. But they are afraid of falling from grace of the supreme leadership if they openly voice their beliefs. Before joining the BNP or when they quit the party, these members have no qualms to come to terms with the truth of history.
Many of the BNP leaders are capable of leading the party and the nation. It is high time for the BNP protagonists to ponder about the change of leadership not only to help the party to regroup but to create a platform alternative to AL. This would allow the party to join the chorus for the trials of war criminals, an issue that has occupied the centre-fold of the nation's psyche. Thereby, they would be able to disassociate themselves from Jamaat-e-Islam, which has its inseparable, ideological mooring aligned with the current leadership of BNP.
The writer is the Convenor of the Canadian Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in Bangladesh.
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