For People With A Diminished Sense of Shame

We do not want a repitition of 1990. We will wage street movement, give our blood, and then Khaleda Zia will go to power: that will not happen this time around again.

- Syed Ashraful Islam, Awami League Acting General Secretary, responding on calls of unity with BNP, June 3 2008.

You know, we have a lesser portion of shame and propriety. For the sake of our country’s democracy, a united movement amongst all the political parties of our country is now necessary. For God’s sake, say yes, not no, to unity.

- Khandokar Delwar Hossain, BNP Secretary General, on why he was repeatedly asking for alliance between BNP, Awami League, and all other political parties at this point, June 5 2008.

It’s true. Those of us likeminded on the subject of unconstitutionality, brutality, and incompetence of this military government must really be running low on shame, bordering on the shameless.

After all, this is a government of our best and the brightest, right? A government of brothers and brother-in-laws that will rid this country of nepotism. A government of honest do-gooders who will rid our country of corruption. A government of defenders of freedom who will make Bangladesh a shining beacon in all that concerns human rights. A government that advocates untramelled rights for its citizens and will ensure all future governments do so as well. A government that follows the rule of law, and comes down severely on those who do not.

How shameless must one be not to support this government. So much easier to support this government, Bangladesh’s first-ever bhadralok government. So much easier to bask in the collective glow of Princeton graduates and Nobel-laureates. So much more easier to believe that those square-jawed men in olive fatigues will protect us and keep us safe.

Instead, the Secretary-General of BNP, the party that brought back both the multi-party political system and parliamentary democracy to Bangladesh, tells us, nay, begs us, to unite against this government. The Awami League, of course, will not condescend to stoop so low. Even many within the BNP object to these repeated offers of unity and prefer to go it alone.

Maybe the lack of shame comes with a slice of foresight, because the speech by Khaleda Zia and now this offer mark another turning-point in this military government’s downfall. The members of the military government knows that sooner or later, they will again have to face the people of Bangladesh whom they continue to oppress, and the current arrest spree is merely another ploy of trying to forestall that explosion of anger, to put off the day of reckoning for a moment more.

I submit, with the utmost respect, the notion that the people of Bangladesh are forward-looking. Once the Liberation Movement of 1971 started, we did not sit around to analyze what went wrong with the two-nation theory and whether we could have done something better to have avoided this war. Instead, we waged war, and won our independence. In 1990, we did not sit around to debate the failings of Justice Sattar; instead, we toppled H. M. Ershad’s dictatorship. Similarly, the people of Bangladesh now want to be free of this military government. Those who miss this opportunity to do their utmost to overthrow the government, instead choosing to debate how the military government appeared in the first place, are swimming against the tide of history. There will be a place and time for that discussion, but it is not while our brothers and sisters are rotting in jail.   

The offer has been made. History will judge its success. But, for today, I rejoice in my shamelessness.