Editorial
Martyred Intellectuals' Day
They died, for us to live in freedom and dignity
The nation observes Martyred Intellectuals' Day today even as it stands at a crossroads of history. For the people of Bangladesh, no sacrifice can be greater in dimension and more profound in substance than the dignified manner in which some of our best men and women were huddled to their death on the eve of the liberation of the country in December 1971. Indeed, the three million Bengalis who died at the hands of the Pakistan occupation army and its local collaborators in the nine months of a do or die war of liberation have left behind an uplifting message for those of us who survived, and for our children and their children: that freedom which comes at a huge price is freedom that needs constant sustenance and succour for it to continue playing its due role in the welfare of those who mean to benefit from it.
The brilliant men and women who were picked up by gangs of al-Badr and al-Shams, all willing murder squads in the service of the occupation forces, were individuals who, had they lived, made invaluable contributions to the cause of a sovereign Bangladesh. It was precisely such possibilities that the murderers sought to forestall through picking them up and then picking them off in cowardly manner. The aim of the killers was simple and chilling: they were out on a mission to maim Bangladesh intellectually at the very moment of its birth as a free country. But what these collaborators of the Pakistan occupation forces missed out was a crucial lesson from history, which is that a nation can only emerge reinforced through the valour and sacrifices of its patriotic souls. This morning, it is just such a reinforcement of freedom and the principles underpinning it that we recall and mean to uphold.
And yet we have arrived at a point where the old enemies of freedom and their new adherents have with audacity questioned our historic achievements as a nation. Our response to such brazen assaults on our political traditions has been swift and natural. We believe, together with the rest of the nation, that the time has come for the government to have the process of a trial of the old war criminals get underway. It is absolutely necessary that the dark elements, which have of late questioned the spirit of the war of liberation and have thereby insulted the millions who have sacrificed their lives in the cause of the country, be put through the law and dealt with in terms of justice.
And only when that task is accomplished will we be keeping faith with our martyred intellectuals, with all the millions who died in 1971 so that the rest of us could live in freedom and dignity.
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