Straight Talk
Back to the future
This week has been just like old times. It has been quite a sight to see. The ex-prime minister, resplendent in her trademark flowing chiffon, once again taking centre-stage to extol the virtues of her rule, defend the honour of her family, and dismiss as enemies of the state anyone who has the temerity to question her words.
This week her pronouncements have come, not from the Olympian heights from which she routinely delivered such tirades when she was head of government, but from the dock, where she has been brought to face serious and credible charges of corruption. But in terms of the arrogance and disconnect from reality, we could have been back in 2006.
It's not a lie if you believe it, and though I am no psychologist, it seems to me very much that Begum Zia might indeed believe what she is saying, as absurd and outlandish as her words may sound to anyone else's ears.
But that is what a culture of sycophancy and obsequiousness will do to you. If you insist on surrounding yourself with courtiers and yes-men and lackeys who never have the nerve to tell you anything other than what it is you want to hear, then it is very easy to become detached from reality and live your life in some kind of parallel universe where up is down and black is white.
This, of course, was the problem with Begum Zia as prime minister. Then, she railed against any suggestion of misconduct or misstep on the part of her government as media concoctions or lies put out by her enemies. It seems that a year and a half on the back foot, indictment for corruption, and incarceration in a sub-jail have done little to change things.
Thus Begum Zia perhaps truly believes that her tenure in government was a golden age for Bangladesh. Perhaps she truly believes that her sons have not put a finger wrong and are being persecuted for political reasons. Perhaps she truly believes that the cases against her have been fabricated and that she is above reproach.
Nevertheless, sincerity, or willful self-delusion, or whatever you wish to call it, is no defence. It beggars belief that she could complain, apparently without irony, about blanket arrests -- as if she does not recall the tens of thousands of arbitrary arrests that were the hallmark of the BNP government.
Similarly, for the prime minister who presided over hundreds of extra-judicial executions and whose Law Ministry decimated the independence of the judiciary, rule of law, and due process, to, with a straight face, cast herself and her corrupt and criminal party-men in the role of injured, innocent victims, take a certain effrontery.
And one wonders, with what audacity the woman who put M.A. Aziz in charge of the Election Commission, staffed it from top to bottom with her party hacks, and produced an electoral roll of almost contemptuous shoddiness, dare suggest that the current Election Commission is unfit to preside over the upcoming elections.
Don't get me wrong. There are any number of legitimate and serious criticisms to be made of the current government, but to hear these critiques coming from the mouth of Begum Zia is like being lectured to on respect for international law by George W. Bush.
Let us not forget that, contrary to Begum Zia's confident pronouncements, the real reason 1/11 happened was that her hand-picked caretaker government and Election Commission were 12 days away from delivering a stolen election to the BNP. Had her party been willing to face the electorate in a free and fair election, 1/11 would not have happened.
This caretaker government has committed, and continues to commit, more than its fair share of wrongs. The on-going program of mass arrests is just the latest instance of this government's brazen flouting of due process and rule of law.
The last 16 months have been replete with due process and human rights violations and marked by the subservience of the judiciary and lack of transparency and accountability. One can make the case that, from the handling of the anti-corruption drive to the handling of the economy, this government has staggered from misstep to misstep, from blunder to blunder.
But the lesson to be learned here is that criticising the caretaker government is not the same thing as whitewashing the sins of the last government and wanting to return to the days of pre-1/11. As bad as things might look today, that does not mean that we should, or that the people of this country want to, return to where we were.
This caretaker government will be gone by the end of the year. Looking back at its record is a necessary exercise, but, ultimately, should not be our primary consideration right now.
We need to be looking forward, to the elections. And as we look forward, the question we need to ask ourselves is whether we wish to go back to things the way they were or whether we want to see an improved, better, more functional democracy.
Make no mistake: it is quite possible that we will go back to 1/10, that everything will return to the way it was. The political parties, unreformed and unchastened, indeed emboldened and triumphant, will run things as before: elections decided by money and muscle, reforms undone, open season for corruption, no accountability, no transparency.
The question, we, the people, need to ask ourselves is: is this what we really want?
The upcoming elections could bring us something quite different. The upcoming elections could bring us reformed political leadership that is committed to change, that is committed to preserve the institutional reforms of the past year and a half, and that, moving forward, will try to govern responsibly and be responsive to the people.
That is why Begum Zia's recent outburst comes at an opportune time. She has made it abundantly clear that she has learned nothing and that nothing has changed. If her Bangladesh is the Bangladesh we will return to after elections in December, we know what to expect.
The choice facing the country is not between the caretaker government and the political parties. The caretaker government will not be on the ballot. The choice in the upcoming elections is between business as usual and new politics. It is between the politics of selling nomination papers and plundering the nation on the one hand, and of, for the first time in our history, honest, open governance in the best interests of the people. The issue isn't the sins of the current government. The issue is where do we go from here.
Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.
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