When will this murderous legacy end?
The nation mourns.Photo: Shawkat Jamil
THESE are tragic times only found in old classics and in the history of our forlorn country. Time to time we found ourselves as helpless witnesses to murderous events that have culled precious lives, lives of our presidents, statesmen, men in uniform, and of other innocent people who became collateral victims of these senseless acts. After nearly three decades of the last mayhem that took lives of a president, a serving general, and several other members in uniform, we thought that we had passed the period of madness and left it in antiquity. We thought that may be our new generation had learnt to disown the legacy of blood, and forge ahead leaving that dreadful past behind. How wrong were. For three agonising days we followed from abroad with bated breath the events of catastrophic and incredible proportion that were gradually coming out of the surrounded walls of the headquarters of our border guards. What we initially learnt as an incident of venting of protest by some disgruntled sepoys against low compensation and perks to their superiors turned out later to be mayhem of an order that the country had never witnessed in our nearly four decades of history. They say that the biggest lesson of history is that no one learns from it. They also say that a society that never respects order cannot keep order. We have created institutions that have enormous edifices, splendid equipment, and eye popping appurtenances. But the key missing ingredients in all this are human values, respect for order, respect for other humans, and above all, the dignity and respect for life itself. We have trained our human resources in all skills that require handling of weapons, handling of an adversary, but not trained them in preserving core human values of respect and preservation of other human lives. We live in a culture of distrust, suspicion, and jealousy. Our grievances are often shaped by not what we lack, but what we perceive as a requirement since others have it. This is how our needs are built, and we seek ways fair or foul to fulfill them. This is how a mind is corrupted, and the corrupted mind will work in any which way it can. This is not a psycho-analysis of the recent tragic events. This is a reminder to all of us of our collective failure as a society to inculcate in our new generation respect for core human values. This is a reminder of the collective failure of our political leadership in the past to have respect for institutions, the respect for order, and respect for rule of law. In the chaotic days following the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman in May 1981, and subsequent flight some of the officers, the alleged participants of the abortive coup, I found myself in the unenviable situation of informing then acting commander of Chittagong that there were no soldiers guarding the cantonment. I was the deputycommissioner of Chittagong then, and I had witnessed this rather unusual sight while entering the cantonment. I had to be there as only a few hours earlier my district police had discovered the dead body of the ex president in a village in Rangunia, and my superintendent of police and I had decided to take the body the cantonment. This obviously took the commander aback, and he asked one of his deputies to look into it. When the officer took off rather reluctantly, he turned toward me, and said in not too soft a voice that when a soldier turns a gun on his superior the whole foundation of law and order breaks. This was a "no trust, no loyalty" situation, and that everyone was for himself, he further added. We should have come a long way since those terrible days. We should have learnt how to mould our new generation of law enforcers and preservers of our sovereignty in the dignity of their work, and of their fellow beings. The chain of command does not work simply by offering and accepting of salutes, it comes from building of trust, building of respect for each other. We may have overcome now a critical point, albeit with a great sacrifice. For now our political leadership has shown great restraint and pragmatism in dealing with this terrible event. But the path in the near future, and in the long run is not paved smooth. Demands for justice for the fallen as well as those who are seen to be perpetrators of this uncalled for event will be loud, and it will need to be met with a lot of patience and wisdom. There will be a need to sift through a mound of conspiracy theories, and a very transparent way of working through this maze. All I can hope that we learn from this heart rending event that we can inculcate in all our future recruits a respect for core human values, respect for law, and above all, respect for life.
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