Good write-ups
Mr. Mohammad Badrul Ahsan's erudition in and insight into the endless subjects, either on history, politics, theology or that relate to day-to-day life (I love to cite a few of the titles, among hundreds, 'Midlife Misery', 'God and truth', 'Legends of life', 'Laden and Bush', 'Other side of history', 'Garden of Life') from romance to pains of estrangement, from affluence to poverty, from everything to nothing, defy all description and one simply gets startled to get to the depth of his knowledge and at the beauty in his style of writing, always using sharp contrast. And the piece, 'Under cross talk' is, therefore, such a one that if one misses it, one misses great pleasures of reading apart from knowing what one was/is ignorant of.
His piece (Closing of the Red Sea, Oct. 12) dwelt upon reforms in our political planks, and like all his past write-ups, this one was also paved with the historical pertinent event that took place in France before the Revolution and references of the fall of the Roman Empire, the atrocities of the Middle Ages, et al. He seems pretty skeptical about the ultimate fate of reforms in our political horizon that became inevitable following the catastrophe the nation was thrown into, and after the emergency of 1/11, it became more indispensable when people came to know how grossly the trusted elected leaders who were entrusted with nation building did not care a hoot to betray their trust and denuded the nation for their (leaders') personal well-being. In fact, as we see nine months have already elapsed with the bang of reforms but our political parties have not stepped ahead nine inches in the area of reforms, rather they are raising a hue and cry about release of their key leaders, both of whom are in custody now, along with their colleagues and cohorts (and many have fled to evade arrest for their repulsive deeds of minting and rolling in money).
So, Mr. Ahsan made the observation, 'And what started with a bang might end with a whimper'. He also quoted a political thinker as saying, “One would play with fire if one failed to sincerely carry out a reform” and referred to the story about the fate of Girolamo Savornarola, a Dominican preacher falling victim to his own reforms because he could not condemn the violation of one of his reforms. It is really not unlikely that, as Mr. Ahsan has reason to believe, if the failed leaders are made to walk free, get their confiscated wealth back and eventually the election is held, it would be at best the same old liquor in a new bottle, and it cannot be ruled out that the pioneer(s) of reforms would meet the fate of Girolamo. On reading the newspaper reports and stories of the filthiest looting of national wealth and abuse of power by the national leaders and their cronies and cohorts, Mr. Ahsan in one of his earlier write-ups wanted them to face public trial.
Nevertheless, before setting democracy to roll in, set the house (the nation) in order and for this to happen, please take as much time as needed; this is the exigency and to meet exigencies mind least about the constitution, for we know bad money drives away good money, and so we cannot still allow the bad guys to rule the roost.
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