Sun 22 May 2005
Imtiaz makes a very good point in his piece about the hypocrecy of the opposition regarding hartal. While Mr. Jalil is busy attending meeting of his bank, the HSC examinees are suffering. People like Mr. Abdul “April 30 Deadline” Jalil is precisely the reason why AL does not have any credibility with the mass these days and is likely to keep them away from power another 5 years if things don’t change radically. Kind of what has happened to the conservatives in the UK. However, please do note that there has not been a single hartal on the garments disasters or the repeated ferry disasters where hundreds of people died. Have you heard any AL leader speak a word about these issues and on the inefficiency of the government on these matters? When I saw Ms. Shirin Akter, of Kormojibi nari shongstha last week in London, she made exactly the point that why is that these issues, issues of the common man or the working class, do not come up in political agenda? Any idea? Feel free to comment.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
I guess Mr. Amir Hossain, the demised autorickshaw driver, will be the latest addition to your index of political violence (or indices of violations?).
While we jump upon the Awami League goons and their visionless leaders for their possible role behind this grisly cold-blooded murder, let’s also try to be objective: from one newspaper account, three passengers reportedly got on his vehicle with the apparent intention of going someplace, and then they poured kerosine on Mr. Hossain as well as on his autorickshaw in order to set fire on it.
This is very different from the usual hartal picketer’s modus operandi.
I don’t want to sound like the pro BNP-govt conspiracy theorists (always blaming the victims as perpetrators): but shouldn’t we pause to think about who are going to gain the most out of this? The simple answer is: the current BNP-Jamaat alliance.
Once you accept the above hypothesis, the rest of the story makes perfect sense. But let me be perfectly clear: we should stop the blame game; we should get to the bottom of every single murder, political or not; and above all, we should urge our opposition parties to be more innovative and proactive and go beyond the cycle of hartals and hibernations; to come up with a vision and an agenda beyond the sole objective of toppling the current govt.
If our political leaders will not improve, it is imperative on volunteer orgs such as Drishtipat and Uttorshuri to wage an open campaign of advice that makes sense. More sense than what we can make of all that’s going on.
Surely, one day someone will listen and act.
May 30th, 2005 at 2:21 am
May be your hypothesis is correct. This just goes to the show how bankrupt morally our politicians have become. The scary thing is that the alternative is equtally ruthless and is not much better in these areas. Amader Mukti kothai?