Let's talk, let's unite

By all basic political science rulings, democracy is always a joint venture of both the ruling and the opposition party. In Bangladeshi democracy, while ruling party, whoever they are, are not used to the idea of respecting and listening to the opposition, the opposition, I believe, has been doing a much worse job as the responsible partner.

Since the day after the election, the opposition has been demanding immediate resignation of the government. Now, in the aftermath of the attacks of the militants, apparently the only thing our opposition has to say is that the government has to resign.

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Do our previous and possibly future prime minister and other ex-ministers and national leaders understand the implication of their demand? Don't they understand what an irresponsible demand it is? Or is responsibility something that you can't live with in Bangladeshi politics?

Who will be the ultimate winner if the government has to fall after the militant bombing campaign? Why Awami League is so blinded by its lust for power that they simply don't see that, in the face of fledgling Islamic militancy, fall of the current government is the worst thing that could happen to Bangladesh.

Resignation of the government will reward the militants and encourage them to keep on doing their militancy. At the same time, uncertainty after the fall of government and lack of political authority will seriously hamper current anti-militant drive by the law enforcement agencies.

Is there any guarantee that the fall of BNP will stop the bombing campaign? If AL says so, won't it justify the past BNP-Jamaat allegations that AL was behind the bombings?

I also demand the government implement the four points raised by Asif Saleh. I believe they are all doable. Banning terrorist organizations is a must do. Bringing kaomi madrassas under government control is way overdue. Cleansing government machinery of terrorist sympathizers must happen. Foregoing alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami can also happen if BNP and AL agree on principle that none of them will form any election alliance with Jamaat in the future.

There is a serious mistrust between the two parties. BNP strongly believes that if they separate from Jamaat today, AL tomorrow will join hands with them and try to form some sort of electoral compromise. The history of Bangladesh politics justifies this fear.

Now tell me how to achieve the four points demand without a serious talk between the two mainstream parties? How will street anarchy, hartal, and government resignation demands help the perplexed nation get rid of militancy? How will bringing AL to power stop all the bombings. Previous AL government was also marred with frequent bombings.

There has been a lot of spin with the demands for government-opposition talk. Writer Humayun Ahmed also came under fire for such demand. Let's put the spin aside, why don't we understand the real meaning of this demand? When general people ask for such a discussion, they probably don't mean any political dialogue per se. People probably mean a national consensus, a unified effort to tackle a formidable enemy.

We had a unified nation in 1971 and the same unification paved the way to democracy in 1990 also. With a nation, undivided, i.e BNP not blaming AL for the bombings and AL not blaming BNP for the same, there will be real opportunity to focus on the real perpetrators.

I wasn't there to take part in the war of 1971, but I was very much present during 1990s movements. I know what energy can come from a unified political front. If we can regain the energy, in this close-knit society, we will easily be able to identify and root out the extremists from all aspects of the society.

It is true that the ruling party has 90 percent or more responsibility to create the environment towards a unified nation. It is true that the ruling party, so far, did nothing, in fact did the opposite, to create such an environment.

But, it is also true, we need to get united. Divided, our nation, never gained anything. United, we got our independence, we got our democracy, and we will be able to eradicate Islamic militancy from the soil of Bangladesh if we are united again.

Rumi Ahmed is a physician and human rights activist.