Isn't it time to govern?
ADVISOR Mashiur Rahman has reasons to think anarchy is abroad in the land, that those behind it are on a mission to destabilise the government as well as the country. We do not disagree with him. In a land where for the better part of its independent existence conspiratorial politics has been the norm, it would be naïve to expect that those who have so long wielded authority and who today are outside the pale of power will rest easy in their discomfort. Not after the execution of five of Bangabandhu's assassins can you expect that those who patronised them for as long as twenty one years, maybe more than that stretch of time, will be happy at this remarkable opportunity for us to return to rule of law.
Not after the judiciary has firmly upheld the notion that between August 1975 and April 1979 the country was hostage to illegal government must you expect that the beneficiaries of that sordid period in national life will be happy with you. Not after this fresh chance of going back to the 1972 constitution should you think that those who reaped advantages from an overturning of the essential secularism of the constitution will quietly move out of the scene and into oblivion.
So when the prime ministerial advisor speaks to us of anarchy, of moves to let it loose upon us, he is merely stating an obvious truth. The bigger point here, though, is whether the government is ready to handle it in a way that makes all of us feel secure as citizens. In plain terms, can we now expect, more than a year after the general elections, governance to define our lives, irrespective of the political beliefs we uphold as individuals and as groups? The answer to that question is not easy to come by, seeing that what has lately been happening in the country does not in any way persuade us that we as a people are on the right track.
Of course, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies have come back to Parliament. They should stay there and they should be made to stay there, through making sure that the ammunition they need to go out of the chamber again is not easily provided to them. And yet it is Home Minister Sahara Khatun herself who inflames passions through her remarks in the House. The people of the country know only too well the history of the bloodletting, and the men behind them, that has often pushed us down the road to disaster. Parliament being a sacrosanct chamber, however, it is important that the language employed by lawmakers and especially ministers be kept on a leash.
The BNP has demanded that the home minister's remarks on General Ziaur Rahman be expunged from the proceedings. Let the speaker go ahead and do it, for a cardinal rule about parliamentary politics is that we do not allow our individual sentiments to get the better of our judgement inside Parliament. When a ruling Awami League lawmaker who was once a minister raises, absolutely unnecessarily, questions about the identity of the individual buried as Zia, one is outraged and then horrified. We subscribe to a cultural tradition where to speak ill of the dead goes against every grain of morality.
Now, to ask that a DNA test be carried out to ascertain if it is the late military ruler who is buried in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar is a most convenient way of taking attention away from all the issues the 150 million people of Bangladesh face today. Rising prices of food and other items of necessity, a deteriorating law and order situation, a gathering mess in the institutions of higher learning -- these are our priorities. It is not Zia, it is not a renaming of airports and other institutions, it is not a raking up of the debilitating politics that has hit us below the knee every time we have tried to rise since our putative return to democracy in 1991 that is our challenge today.
The home minister tells us, without batting an eyelid, that there is no reason for her to resign because there has been no slide in law and order. We blink and we wonder if we have heard her all right. The government would have us know that the Shibir has been behind all this mischief in this past couple of weeks and must be brought to heel. We applaud the firmness of the ruling circles. But we notice too that little or nothing is being done to rope in those elements of the Chhatra League who have been on a rampage at such educational institutions as Kushtia government college. At the airport in the nation's capital, elements of the Jubo League control the car park, to a point where drivers operate in fear of them.
It is time to govern. All this loud mouthing of principles and precepts must now give way to purposeful administration for every citizen of the country. You cannot be abrasive and yet expect to govern. Government must reach out, to every man and woman and child, if it is to be a throbbing, thriving experience.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk
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