BCL burden
Pardon me for my reaction, but it seems a footnote has gone missing in M Abdul Hafiz's post-editorial titled “A losing battle from a slippery slope” in your issue on April 6, 2009.
The bottom line should have been: These are just an appetizer; the main course is coming.
The Brigadier of bygone days, with panache of intellect writ on his current outfit, laboured quite hard to point up how the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) has been a bane for the ruling party. Vandalism, thuggery, extortion and plunder by the BCL men are now going on in the country's major educational institutions. The horror is spreading all over, and is likely to surround more universities and colleges in no time. It is just BCL today; tomorrow, activists of the mainstream Awami League will join the pack in keeping with their past history. The real conflagration will then start.
The problem is no genuine effort is in sight to stem the rot. The proclamation that prime minister Sheikh Hasina, enraged by what is happening, has given up her role as the BCL guardian, is widely perceived as more political than real. Some BCL leaders have said they would persuade Hasina to reconsider her action. And only fools will believe that she won't. It's only the question of time and the time should be sooner rather than later.
I shall be happy if my prognosis goes wrong.
Is there, therefore, no light at the end of the tunnel? One may pertinently ask. Yes, there is a light. Rein in the BCL boys genuinely and put them under leash. Please curb their lust for money and control. Let them not allow a laissez faire world where they can resort to any sort of transgression with impunity just because their main party has won an overwhelming victory in the national election.
These are just few answers. But who cares? Brute majority, in democracy, is a dangerous thing unless the beneficiaries know how to judiciously exercise it. As Jack Livingstone once said, “The arrogance of majority is a suicide note”.
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