On November 10, 1990 Nur Hussain was killed at point blank range by police. He was one among tens of thousands that were out on the streets to denounce the autocratic regime of Hussein Mohammad Ershad. The death of the person of Nur Hussain was real enough, but that one death gave birth to an undying man symbolising the supremacy of man and liberty. So often a historic moment makes an immortal man. On November 10 it was more than the other way round. Nur Hussain immortalised the moment — a moment that grew inexorably into a power of divine majesty that at once annihilated autocracy and set alight an ever burning beacon, guiding the spirit of man towards a goal of common weal and unblemished liberty. How did he work that magic? The daubings on his bare torso — Shoirotantro Nipat Jaak. Gonotantro Mukti Paak — now become a most cel ebrated household credo — invited the inevitable bullet. And he literally courted that fatal piece of coursing lead.

Hardly a month passed before autocracy toppled — largely through the pace of movement inspired by that glorious martyrdom of Nur Hussain. And in its wake, thanks to caretaker President Shahabuddin. came the first truly fair and democratic elections giving birth to a genuinely democratically elected government in Bangladesh. How are we faring on the course lighted up by Nur Hussain's sacrifice? The answer, unfortunately, cannot be an enthusiastic affirmation of our abidance by the values coveted by Shaheed Nur Hussain. For we are decidedly in a twilight zone with the worst of sociopolitical premonitions taking shape on the one side and our age-old ideals of liberty and equality beckoning us on the other. Much depends on the government and the party it represents and also no less on the opposition as to what way the nation would take leading to what destiny. And then there are the social and cultural forces and realities forcing and Influencing the parties' choices and compulsions.

The outcdme of the interaction so far of the three hasn't been happy. The government, never tiring of taking the plea of its being agreed validated and sanctioned, is not mindful of acting to keep that sanction alive. It has agreed to accept the parliamentary system and is contributing to the ineffectiveness of the Parliament. And the opposition amounts to only a defeated force, out unpatriotichlly to wreak the nation in the ruling party’s warped and patently undemocratic idea of politics. The opposition in their turn of contributing to the undoing of democracy is crying hoarse about the government already having forfeited its moral right to rule — much before the nation's mandate for such has come to an end.

No amount of such insubstantial shadow-boxing can serve the cause of democracy. Consolidation of the victory of democracy carved in bloody letters on December 6, 1990 required a broader vision and principled dedication and application on the part of our leaders and their parties. Any expression of such will is still to be seen any where around our national reality. Any bad performance on this count of building democracy — not only of the political kind but of the varieties that would embrace every aspect of our collective life — would be made good by a certain fall for the ways of autocracy from which our habits have hardly been weaned away.

Talking of an undying remembrance of Nur Hussain will be an unmeaning exercise in hollow rhetoric if in practice we fail to uphold the spirit of liberty and sacrifice, tolerance and accommodation. A dent in the so far unsure vessel of democracy is tantamount to a nail into the body of Nur Hussain. We the beneficiaries of his heroism, cannot ever let him down.