Killed and buried

The above happenings show how an event can profoundly influence other events in an unimaginable way -- it's a killing and burying game. This sort of thing happened in the past and will happen in the future, but as games are being played by different players on different turfs for different goals, this world will continue to change, shape, and respond dramatically for the good or for the bad.

Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda killed about 3000 people in US, mostly Americans, in a single day on September 11, 2001, and in response the United States buried the hopes and aspirations of the millions around the glove, mostly Muslims, in the name of internal security and the war on terrorism. From that day onward, the old world order was buried under a new world order.

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This new world order is the story of brutal invasions, wars, senseless acts of terrorism, biased immigration policy, illegal detentions and deportations, etc affecting millions of lives worldwide. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives and more are dying everyday through no fault of their own. With each killing, parents, wives, husbands, brothers, and sisters are burying their wonderful dreams associated with each deceased. Al-Queda killed peace and America buried it quite effectively.

The Pakistan army started mass killings of Bengalis on the night of March 25, 1971 in a planned way and any hope for a united Pakistan was buried on that day. Who knows what would have happened if Skeikh Mujibur Rahman had been allowed to be the PM of Pakistan as per people's verdict? But that's for historians to judge. Dictator President Marcos of the Philippines was running that country with an iron hand but he became unnerved when the popular opposition leader Benigno Aquino was coming back to the country, ending his exile in the US. Therefore, as Aquino descended from the aircraft and set foot on the airport tarmac, he was killed by assigned killers. That killing shook the people and the country and ultimately Marcos had to leave the Philippines, burying any hopes for his uninterrupted dictatorship.

One of Cuba's charismatic revolutionary heroes, Che Guevara along with some comrades went to Bolivia to organise a revolution there after their success in Cuba. Che was caught and killed by the Bolivian army and their dreams of exporting communism to the other South American countries were buried forever. With this killing of a romantic revolutionary, "communism" as a potential exportable item lost its international market value.

Syria maintained its military presence in Lebanon for the last 30 years and was hoping to maintain it in the foreseeable future. But suddenly, Lebanon's ex PM Rafik Hariri was killed in a bomb blast, and with that Lebanese rose in revolt and Syria's dream of maintaining military presence in that country was buried quickly with the forced withdrawal of its troop from Lebanon within 30 days.

Without giving any more examples, let's now look back to our country. We the Bangladeshis are also getting killed and our hopes and dreams are also getting buried but our story is different than those of the above because we are different. Bangladesh is different.

In our country, a killing and a burial can happen without so much of an effort, as here everything and everybody is powerful. So, recently when a bus hit and killed a girl belonging to Dhaka University near Shahbag area it was enough to spark chains of reactions leading to the burial of a peaceful academic atmosphere prevailing on the campus.

There is no proper language to express shock and outrage for this tragic loss of life of a student. No matter what we do, the victim's parents will not get her back, but the student organisations could better mourn this death by waging a powerful social movement for

safety on roads, heavy punishment for reckless driving, and strict enforcement and compliance of the traffic rules.

But that did not happen and instead, the sequence of events following this tragic death divided the student community into two groups and a race was on to reap maximum political benefit out of this shocking killing. So, while one group arranged for burial of the peaceful university atmosphere by announcing the boycott of classes and examinations, another group performed their own burial of the university's tranquillity by beating the agitating students and chasing one particular student group out of the university.

Meanwhile the university authority, by remaining motionless and by their nonchalant attitude has supplied a very good coffin to aid this burial. A spineless response from a spineless authority.

And finally, our government has fixed all the necessary nails to this coffin and allotted a resting place for this burial by meekly surrendering to the whims, actions, and audacity of their all-powerful student organisation. It's a disgrace to the government that frequently boasts of improved law and order in the country. It's disrespect to the people who have voted this government to power. And when a government is unable to govern, it becomes ripe for a disrespectful burial. In the final analysis however, students, university authority, and the government can all be blamed for the burial of a congenial academic atmosphere prevailing on the campus.

ATM Murshid Alam is a former project consultant.