Editorial
Enough is Enough
Once again an accord - this time an eight-point one between the leaders of different student organisations and the Dhaka University authorities - has been signed to make things hum on the campus. A very welcome tiding no doubt. But the question is how durable is it going to be? Experience tells us that life of this kind of an accord is as short as that of the daffodils. Not long ago a similar treaty, apparently a weightier one, was signed to help DU wriggle out of a deadlock. The recent crisis over the capture of a dormitory by Bangladesh Chhatra League , the student front of the ruling Awami League came to serve as an ocular proof about the transience of such treaties.
While congratulating the student leaders for responding to the authorities' efforts at restoring normalcy sooner than later, we cannot help asking them to reflect over the farcical proportions student politics has been lowered to. It seems to be an unending procession of farcical acts and utterances. Proper perspective seemed to be no body's business. If BCL committed a crime in capturing Surja Sen Hall, the rival and dispossessed JCD did no better in demanding a status quo. Status quo of what? Occupation or dhakhal ? Is the university a piece of a newly reclaimed land waiting to be ruled by might? Or, are its dorms the drawing boards for political limners? Political leaders who for years have been cashing in on the impressionableness of young hearts and the economic weakness of the students should realise what a pass they have brought the university to by the sheer pursuit of their petty inclinations. They must understand that their puerileness has reduced the venerable office of the Vice Chancellor into that of a referee in a rustic, unprincipled and wasteful game. How would he, as the administrative head, think of ways to meet the demands of fast changing times if every now and then he has to remain busy in sharing sweets and cups of tea to broker peace among feuding groups?
Let this peace accord be the last of its kind. Let there be political will for a consensus to delink student fronts from the national political parties.
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