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Time to call a spade a spade

Zafar Sobhan
Idon't know why I am surprised that, in the wake of the attack on the AL rally at Bangabandhu Avenue on Saturday that killed 20 and left over 200 injured, some people would choose to focus on the misdeeds of the AL, who suffered the attack, rather than on those of the ruling alliance, on whose watch it occurred.
I suppose in the context of the politics of a certain segment of opinion makers, where the fault for every ill that befalls the nation can ultimately be traced back to the AL, the fact that some would be more critical of the AL than the government should have been expected.
But before the janaza had even been intoned over the bodies of the dead, before the nation could even think of recovering from the shock and heartbreak of what had transpired, these people were quick to locate the blame for the current crisis with the AL leadership.
For the blame AL first crowd, it was the AL leadership's refusal to permit the PM to meet with Hasina and the AL's determination to use the tragedy for political purposes that was the real stumbling block to resolving the current crisis in which the nation finds itself.
They have repeated over and over again the same pieties and platitudes about now being the time for the
nation to unite against the common enemy of terrorism and that this wasn't the time for the opposition to play tit-for-tat-blame games.
No mention is made by these people of the fact that ruling party activists had attacked processions carried out by the AL and its supporters and allies, or that the ruling alliance is on record blaming the AL for -- get this -- using the attack against it for political purposes.
That the BNP offer of conciliation could be interpreted as little more than
politically necessary damage control following an incident that has harmed its image, and that the government might be motivated more by a well-founded fear of public backlash than the spirit of generosity, has gone unremarked by them.
The thrust of their critiques is clear. In the aftermath of the bomb blasts, the BNP has done the decent thing, but once again, as ever, it is the AL that is the problem.
Some are more circumspect than others. Instead of pinning the blame for the poisonous political atmosphere in the country on the AL, they suggest that both the AL and the BNP are equally at fault, even if one repeatedly is the target of terror and the other isn't.
This kind of pedantic pox-on-both-your-houses analysis that locates the culpability for the nation's longstanding political crisis in the accusa- tions and counter-accusations traded by the two main political parties -- or indeed lays the lion's share of the blame squarely at the feet of the AL -- is unhelpful in the extreme.
It's time to call a spade a spade. Yes, the attack on the AL rally was an attack on the entire country and an attack against democracy in some kind of abstract metaphysical sense.
But in a far more real and immediate sense it was an attack on the AL and what it stands for, and it is this reality which must be accepted and under-
stood if we are ever to get to the bottom of who was behind it, and to truly comprehend in a meaningful way the enormity of what is taking place in this country.
Certain segments of this country's intelligentsia and polity must get beyond their knee-jerk anti-AL posture if we are to make sense of and overcome this threat that we are facing.
The principal shortcoming of the sophisticated world-weary positioning, that bemoans the grubbiness of our politics and suggests that the real issue here is that the AL is refusing to play nicely with the government, is that it deflects attention from where the blame really lies.
The fundamental political problem in the country today is not that there is so much polarisation within the polity -- although this fact remains a problem -- but that there is clearly a ruthless and undemocratic element within the
country that seeks to use terror and violence to achieve its ends.
And guess what -- this element has nothing to do with the AL.
Am I suggesting that this element is part of the ruling alliance?
Not at all. I do not believe for a moment that the government was behind the attack, and I dare say that the PM and her cabinet are genuinely shocked and appalled by what happened.
But two things are fair to say.
The first is that the attack was
carried out by elements who are fellow travelers with the ruling alliance in their pathological hatred for the AL.
The second is that the hatred and hostility against the AL that the BNP has nurtured, and its tolerance for antidemocratic action by groups, such as the Bangla Bhai-led JMJB and the International Khatme Nabuwat Movement, has helped create the climate in which extremists believe that their opponents, including the AL, are fair game and can be terrorised with impunity.
Whether there are elements within the government who are tied to the extremists remains an open question, but there can be no doubt that the government's own actions and inaction have enabled and emboldened the terrorists.
So, let's get it straight, people.
Would it have been a grand and generous gesture for Hasina to have
embraced the PM to her bosom and to have agreed that the AL and the BNP must unite to fight the scourge of terrorism and extremism?
Of course.
But, frankly, in the great scheme of things, Hasina's understandable hostility towards a government that has fomented hatred of her and her political party and everything it stands for and has mocked and dismissed concerns for their safety is not the problem.
Those who remain implacably
opposed to the AL need to come to grips with the fact that the AL is not the problem, and that the time has come for those opposed to the AL to rein in their rogue elements.
I know that this will be hard to do for those who believe that the AL is the cause of everything that has gone wrong in the past 33 years and who cannot write on any subject without taking a potshot or two at the AL.
But if this nation is ever to unite and move forward, this kind of willful selfdelusion or intellectual dishonesty (I'm not sure which it is) is something that needs to be abandoned.
Let us examine the terrorist attacks of the past five years. Since 1999, there have been at least sixteen bomb blasts in the country that have killed over 130 people.
Now, is there any kind of common denominator to these attacks that might help pinpoint who is to blame?
Hmmm . . . Let me think for a second . . .
Udichi function . . . Ahmadiyya mosque . . . CPB rally . . . AL Central Office . . . Ramna Batamul . . .
Baniyarchar Church . . . AL office . . . AL election rally . . . AL meeting . . . Faila Peer Shrine . . . Shahjalal Shrine . . . AL meeting . . . AL rally . . .
What could the common denominator possibly be?
Could it be that the common denominator is that the target of the attacks has been the AL or its allies or minorities or secularists?
Nah. Couldn't be. That would suggest that the AL or its allies almost certainly are not to blame for the terrorism -- unless we are going to pin the three bomb attacks on cinema halls -- the motive for which remains unclear -- on them.
The AL undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. No one can seriously argue that the two periods of AL rule were not marred by atrocities (though the same can be said for any period in our history), and those who implacably oppose the AL doubtless have good cause to do so.
However, in the current crisis, this knee-jerk hatred for the AL is counterproductive. The enemy today is not the AL.
It is true that the national reconciliation is the need of the hour. But such reconciliation will not come from pathological hostility to the AL and tortured attempts to find some kind of equivalence between the two parties when it comes to the current crisis that Bangladesh finds itself in.
The AL is not part of the problem. But the blame AL first crowd -- even those who abhor terrorism -- by refusing to look squarely at where the real problem lies -- are.
Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.