A sagacious PM, need of the hour

LIKE the universe, Bangladesh's politics is continually expanding! It is in a constant revolution on a bipolar axis, so to speak. And, the unresolved debate over genesis also curiously plays out: Which came first -- the egg or the hen? This shapes understanding of politics depending on which side of the political spectrum one is. The neutral silent majority knows full well where and how our political history coursed up on a wrong tangent from the core set of Liberation War ethos. 

But it needn't have been this serious a mind game had we taken to dialogue as the normative practice of resolving political differences that are elemental to a predominantly two-party polity.

The sad truth is political discourse stands reduced to a single divisive moot point: Whether dialogue should precede end of violence or violence would be allowed to be used as a weapon by a political opponent to force the ruling party into negotiations. In the process, standard rules of engagement are thrown out of the window. When the whole world pleads for a dialogue urging the AL government to initiate it, the latter insists, and with good reasons, that the BNP should first call off transportation shutdown and hartal before talks can be considered. There is an overwhelming demand from all sane people that BNP should shun the path of violence. It has led to stupendous loss of lives and property, let alone burning people alive without a blink of an eye, wreaking havoc on education and economy. 

On top of everything, the innocents are being preyed on by a kind of barbarism the people have been hitherto unaware of. You cannot equate partisan political agenda with complete disregard for sanctity of human lives.

For its part, the government is obliged to ensure answerability of the law enforcement agencies allegedly perpetrating so-called crossfire incidents. Accountability is all the more necessary because they have been empowered to deal with an exigency. In Britain, a new law is likened to a new offense, to be erring on the side of caution. 

Both parties need to climb down from the high horse touching on to the terra firma. 

The twin backlash of an anarchic situation is that after each hard-lining announcement by an emaciated leadership from a hideout, the saboteurs get a freer hand to strike at the place and time of its choice. On the other hand, law enforcers ratchet up their responses. 

Then you have the government's constant hammering at the BNP that it disassociate itself from the Jamaat-e-Islami. This is aimed to cut off muscle and money power to terror activities in collusion with other extremist fringes. 

The Belgium-based influential conflict and policy research institution, International Crisis Group (ICG), in its executive summary to a big report, has counseled BNP-led 20-party alliance to extricate itself from Jamaat-e-Islami and settle for non-violent movement. 

The ICG thinks that at the present juncture the AL government should keep from 'suppression of opposition politicians.' It suggested the AL at appropriate level could initiate talks with second rung BNP leaders in accord with a pecking order to melt the ice. 

Major UN, EU and US efforts are underway to bring the parties together, with the UN's former Assistant Secretary General of Political Affairs Fernandez Taranco being assigned for the task. Initially, a government spokesman reacted negatively saying that talks with a terrorist party which the BNP has now become are to be ruled out. But optimists still pin hopes on a last minute miracle to happen as a formal reply from Bangladesh government is awaited.

The point to be driven home is this: Sheikh Hasina, being a member of a political family with long traditions, is no stranger to the art of making political overtures to opponents. These she had already done at certain turning points, some with success, and others having been aborted. Herself a student political leader, she has had her own experience, to say nothing of the accord with the PCJSS during her incumbency earlier on. She must have seen her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman negotiating with various political elements crafting some kind of settlement or understanding with them. She has that pedigree in her to be politically savvy in trying circumstances.

Sheikh Hasina nowadays complains of being put on the same scale with Khaleda Zia by some quarters. Indeed, she cannot be placed on a similar pedestal, both background-wise and otherwise. 

She perhaps will remember that Time magazine placed her 7th among 12 'most powerful women leaders' in the world in 2012. Among the criteria, of course, the influence she wielded was one, but Time termed her as a 'survivor,' pointing to the dastardly events of August 15, 1975, the August 21, 2004 bomb blast. She escaped to safety but with injury, and her comeback with a landslide in 2008-09 general election was also mentioned.

One final point, Bangladesh has carved a place in the world for its UN peacekeeping roles at various flashpoints, which the nation prides itself on in great measure. Why should we not muster up the national capacity without having others to counsel us, with the PM leading the way to set the troubled country on a road to stable progress and prosperity based on pluralistic inclusiveness?

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.   
E-mail: husain.imam@thedailystar.net