Ground Realities
Manifestos, much hubris and no contrition
The people demand more. Photo: Munem Wasif/ Drik News
THERE was little contrition. There was much hubris. And there was a load of anger in Begum Zia as she made public her party's electoral manifesto the other day. Hubris is understandable. Lack of contrition is not. In the five years prior to October 2006, there was much that went wrong. Indeed, everything went wrong. Bridges were built, in segmented, incomplete form. Men who owned nothing in 2001 ended up being entrepreneurs by 2006. Ruling party men carried themselves in the manner of highway robbers. Ministers built homes at state expense. Other ministers had government officials beautify their homes with money that belonged to citizens. Foreign policy went missing. So did the national reputation for integrity, as all those corruption indicators told us. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party would have done itself a world of good had it humbled itself, had it acknowledged the error of its past ways. The manifesto would have been taken as a serious document if only the party had informed the nation that it had learned from its mistakes, that it was ready to turn a new page. None of this of course has happened. Begum Zia and her friends, without batting an eyelid, have now told us all that what happened in January 2007 was a conspiracy. That is quite an argument. Or call it sophistry. Conveniently forgotten is the conspiracy that went into installing Iajuddin Ahmed as head of the caretaker government. Mischief was afoot and ghosts prowled in the dark, until a body of new men stepped in, to throw the interlopers out. And that was the end of conspiracy. But the BNP, despite seeing all its ministers, ministers of state and lawmakers making a beeline to prison or absconding, does not see it that way. That is bizarre. And mystifying is the slogan it has adopted for itself: save the country, save the people. From whom? From what? The caretakers? From the nation itself? Part of the saving was done on January 11 last year, from those who had been squeezing the country like so much lemon. The remaining bit will come, if it comes at all, when the electorate votes in a government of honest, well-meaning men and women who have had nothing to do with the five years when the BNP and Jamaat were around. The BNP manifesto does not cheer us -- because it does not speak for the country. It turns a blind eye to the corruption of the government that was there until two years ago. The corruption, say these unembarrassed men and women in the party, was not there. What was there was intrigue, to paint the country in bad light at the national and global levels. So much for political reinvention. You would have thought a party that ran the worst government in Bangladesh's history would take time off, sit back, go into reflection and come up with ideas of a purification of its soul. That has not happened. Indeed, something more ominous is in the air. The Begum now speaks of values, those represented by 'Bangladeshi nationalists" and Islamists. She speaks of communal harmony, but says nothing about the secular underpinnings of this land. Not a word is there in the manifesto about religious extremism in the BNP era. Not a whisper is heard about the war criminals, the same who killed Bengalis in 1971 and joined the BNP in government in 2001. The manifesto speaks of the War of Liberation, but goes silent on the need to uphold the spirit of that war. It speaks of strengthening the public bodies -- ACC, EC, PSC -- the party undermined over the years. But let us not quibble. There are some good points made in the manifesto. The speaker and deputy speaker, should the BNP and its allies return to office, will cease being members of political parties; the deputy speaker will be from the opposition; and consensus between the treasury and opposition benches will underline the functions of Parliament. These are noble thoughts. Why were they not there before October 2006? In the years of Sheikh Hasina's government, Prime Minister's Question Hour was a welcome act. It went dead when Begum Zia, as leader of the opposition, demonstrated a consistency in not being present on the day of the questions. In the last parliament, ruling coalition lawmakers stood up to discuss the budget and then quickly descended to making vituperative attacks on the leader of the opposition. The speaker let his party men go on talking nonsense. He shut off the microphones when the opposition tried to speak on grave national issues. The past is an unhealthy one. How will the BNP convince the country it will be more civil, more businesslike in the days to be? Its manifesto speaks of modernising the Gulshan shooting complex! It does not explain why the party, in its days in government, so insistently and conspicuously shot down so much that was good in the country. The BNP is not sorry at all. Ladies and gentlemen, surely this country deserves better?
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments