One of the biggest casualties of post 1/11 scenarios is the loss of a space for a healthy dialog without getting labelled. It seems now people are very afraid to take any firm stand on any issue for the fear of being labeled. The civil society in Dhaka has been broken up into multiple brackets. Without packaging people up in multiple labels, it seems not many people are able to be engaged in evidence based criticisms and arguments. Say a good thing about the government, you are automatically branded as army-r dalal. Talk about due process for political leaders, you are branded as someone who wants to go back to pre 1-11 days. Say that religion based politics should not be banned for the sake of democracy, and you are branded as a rajakar/jamati. We talk about partisan politics ruining our country but look at the people in the chattering class. Are they engaged in anything different? Sad thing is that some of the people who are making such statements are very much capable in bringing up the nuances in the debates. Then why are they not doing that?

In today’s Bangladesh, the louder you are in your rhetoric, there are more chances that you will be heard. You will be sought after by the talkshows and you will be noticed. In short, it pays to be rhetorical than analytical. But what to do as an audience and how do we judge people’s stand? My advice is take a look at the track record and also how evidence based they are in their criticisms or adulations. The people who are doing the talking, take a look at their past history for consistency. Folks and organizations who are calling Sultana Kamal compromised need to dig down and find out her track record and find out even in today’s Bangladesh what her organization ASK is doing for HR abuse victims. Can we fault her or other human rights activists for that matter for not being vocal about alleged torture on tareq zia when they have been vocal about the larger issue police brutality for years and no one noticed. Suddenly people are noticing now because the victims of such abuse are the politicl leaders, the very same people who reaped the benefit when the same black system worked in their faour. Some of the people who are now victims of humaÄn rights abuse regulalrly termed us anti national for raising the same issues that they are raising through lobbyists today. Does it make a police torture more of a crime when it is perpetrated against a Tareq rahman rather than a din mojur shona mia? Of course not. But defending shona mias cry won’t get you headines. But dare you not come out with a statement in defending tareq rahmans rights, you risk to be branded as someone soft on army. On the contrary, check some of the people’s track record of those who are perceived as most vocal against HR abuse today. Some of them perhaps are genuine but some of them have actively and passively aided past governments when they were in the business of violating human rights. Take a bit of grain of salt the next time you see these people in talk shows. I almost choked when I found a former deputy attorney general of the BNP-Jamat government who actively participated in various cases of HR abuse defending the government talk about travesty of justice in arresting people without warrants. The message is good and the right one but you have to question the messengers track record,
Where was this morality was when similar violation was going on ahead of every big government protest in the past 5 years. Why was he defending the government and not resign like his boss Hasan Arif did? Then there are the Shahriar Kabirs who could never reconcile his role as a human rights activist who campaigned for jainal hajaris election campaign. You would not hear this now because if you do, very likely you will be branded as an army apologists if you say this. This is not intended as a finger pointing exercise but an example of people needing to be aware not just about the message but who the message is coming from.
This is also an example of how difficult the space has become for people who wanted genuine changes in the system for the past n number of years.
Labeling is easy. But what is difficult is to step back and take a longer term view of things. Just because I am criticizing the government now does not mean, I am a big admirer of what happened in the past regimes. Similarly just because I admire some of the changes in the administration post 1/11 does not mean that I am a propagandist for the military backed government. Election as early as possible is a must but let’s face it these systemic issues will not go away as soon as an elected government comes to power. Too often we are too happy in burying imprtant conversations under labels and short term solutions. I hope we don’t make the same mistake now. I can only pray and hope that some people who are in a position to have an honest debate are not disingenuous in their arguments.