Perspectives
The BNP's pied pipers
HUMBUG is what has often been the BNP's forte. During her fairly long years in polities and two stints as prime minister, the party supreme mastered well the art of gobbledygook and developed a malignant arrogance that borders on paranoia. Madam Zia took refuge behind this when flummoxed, and thought that it was the means to absolve her past sins for which she is yet to be chastised.
The last few days witnessed a fresh spurt of the phenomenon, when the madam started speaking defiantly while appearing in the court. The BNP, however, seems to have got a shot in the arm after a long hiatus as its "uncompromising" leader could give vent to her feelings.
The unfortunate problem is that this great country -- at least in terms of the way it came into being -- was ruled by lesser beings fortuitously catapulted to the apex. Khaleda Zia doesn't even understand how her last government precipitated the country's ruin. Neither can she perceive how the nation is to be retrieved from the sorry pass it has been pushed into. She is only interested in retrieving the paradise the BNP has lost and ensuring her position at the party's helm.
Madam Zia still thinks that she can again call the tune for the party's pied pipers to mesmerise the public as before -- notwithstanding the reversal of her fortune. Perhaps, that's the reason she isn't responsive to the caretaker government's effort to work out a modus-operandi to hold a credible election with the participation of all political stakeholders. At this critical juncture, when the country is passing through a delicate phase of transition, the BNP prefers to throw a spanner in the political process aimed at an early transfer of power to a representative government.
As a political stakeholder, Sheikh Hasina has already been freed for her treatment in USA where she was treated earlier. Her early release was not accorded any undue priority because she was critically ill. Her health bulletin, received from the US, confirms this. If there is need Madam Zia also, as indicated by the authorities, can avail a similar advantage.
But to be a so-called "uncompromising" leader, and to be able to whip up the dead horse of BNP, she seems to be in favour of treatment, if required, at home while bargaining for her sons' release and treatment abroad. Whether they come under the present political equation for such a favour is a crucial question.
The madam, however, roared, demanding their immediate release and treatment abroad. Is it a kind of blackmail on the part of the "uncompromising" madam, who is instinctively machiavellian, to secure her son's release from captivity while readying herself for a fresh bout with the country's liberal forces in concert with the Jamaat which has, of late, come out of hibernation and bared its fangs.
The BNP is re-aligning with the Jamaat within its existing framework of four-party alliance, which has demanded the release of Khaleda and Nizami and has also threatened to launch a movement for the purpose.
What has, however, been disconcerting, while becoming the joke of the town, is Madam Zia's unabashed and emphatic claim that her sons haven't down anything wrong. The nation has been taken aback, and is nonplussed at an affectionate mother's discovery while feeling baffled at her demand because her sons' notoriety, still sketched in the public psyche, speaks otherwise. Madam Zia has no compunction in sacrificing truth at the altar of her blind and biased view of stark-reality with regard to her sons' criminality and corruption.
Madam Zia has so far been successful in stirring up an impotent and divided BNP. Even a hawk like her chosen secretary-general has sprung back to life and taken a dictatorial posture -- the hall-mark of BNP -- in directing the future course of the party which is still holding the nation at ransom with regards to both the dialogue and election.
It's clear from the pronouncements of the BNP that neither the party nor its leadership are repentant for what they did during their rule, in alliance with Jamaat, from 2001 to 2006 when they unleashed a reign of terror, plunder and militancy, targeting the AL, minority communities as well as the liberal secular forces including journalists, human right activists, intellectuals and progressive elements of the country. The alliance's unholy nexus compelled numerous AL activists to leave their homes to escape the torture of BNP Jamaat goons.
The enormity of the BNP Jamaat terror tactics makes it difficult to record them in full detail. In fact,
depravity, depredation and organised skullduggery in each field of socio-economic and political life became the order of the day. Apart from numerous political killings, the indelible dark spot for them has been the enactment of August 21, which is still shrouded in mystery.
As regards Madam Zia's clean chit for her sons, it aptly reminds one of the folk saying that "the thieves' mothers are always vocal." The Hawa Bhaban cronies of Tarique Zia allegedly looted the country to the extent that even relief materials meant for the destitute were not spared. The worst had, however, been the BNP Jamaat lust for power. Their blueprint to perpetuate their rule necessitated the coming of the present dispensation, accompanied by a state of emergency. Now they blame the present Election Commission for impartiality. Don't they see their own faces in the mirror?
They blame the government for so many things -- injustice, no rule of law, it's interference in the judiciary, as well as public misery because of the food crisis. Madam Zia and her party conveniently forget that they set in motion all these vices during their rule. Begum Zia used the "talent" of Moudud to turn the judiciary into a mockery. She forgets that the syndicated price rise of food was the BNP's invention to benefit some of its favourites. And people? Did the word "people" exist in their lexicon?
Madam's crocodile tears may inundate the soft delta of hearts belonging to BNP's beneficiaries, but the ordinary people are nonchalant about her gesture, which is directed only at their sympathy vote if one day the party goes for election after the present phase of hard bargaining. The BNP may well win that election in a country of collective amnesia. After all, some are endowed with an element of serendipity. And Madam Zia is of one of them. She seldom tasted the rigours of political activism, yet enjoyed the best of its returns.
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