Editorial
Muzaffer Ahmad's passing
A voice of conscience falls silent
Professor Muzaffer Ahmad's passing leaves us all impoverished, for his was a voice of conscience for this country. In the manner of so may other eminent citizens deeply concerned about the present and future of this country, the now deceased scholar played a prominent role in organizing civil society in Bangladesh and seeing to it that the opinions of those who constituted this society were taken proper cognizance of. Indeed, it would be quite proper to suggest that Professor Muzaffer was the one man who understood clearly that when politics failed to address the concerns of the masses, it remained for broad society as a whole to step into the void and try making a difference.
In his lifetime and in his various roles --- as an academic, as an economist, as a social activist and as a political commentator --- Professor Muzaffer was able to persuade people into believing that resignation to mundane realities was not the answer to the issues that assailed a society every day. It was only when a sense of awareness developed or about the many contradictions in society and the surefire ways in which the contradictions could be handled that a nation could move into the future. That is the legacy, we can tell ourselves as Muzaffer Ahmad goes beyond the pale of the living, the former chairman of Transparency International Bangladesh has left for us to build on. His concern about the state of human rights, his reflections on the need for politics to rise above the parochial, his belief that the nation could not afford to stay divided along political lines and his faith in the ability of the political leadership to eventually find a way out of the woods for the nation were ideas that sustained him both in his private ruminations and in his public pronouncements.
Professor Muzaffer Ahmad had no dearth of detractors. Men of his kind sometimes arouse intense passion of the negative sort in those who do not share their beliefs. In the end, though, it is these men who survive the fire and fury caused by their intellectual approach to the issues. Muzaffer always stood taller than those who tried to make light of him.
Let his soul be at peace. And let his family find the courage to bear this loss with fortitude.
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