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How are things in Dhaka?

KAZI KHALEED ASHRAF
***I write about cities, but what can I say about a rot in the state or failed governance? I know though that when I step on the streets, I am terrified in my own city. I look over my shoulder even in a crowd. I use the dear mobile to call my mother at home for no particular reason. I am no longer myself in my own city.***
OW are things in Dhaka?" To answer that around this time last year, I would resort to a kind of mystification like, oh, we have a parliamentary democracy, or the consumer life style has really shot up, although feeling anxious all the time that "things" are not particularly cheery. Now, after August 21, I have a clearer mind. I would answer, and I already have, that Dhaka has increasingly become a violent and vicious city, and something is rotting in the state of Bangladesh.
I write about cities. That has been my commitment to the editor of this newspaper. To write about how cities work, how they do not, and how we behave in cities exposes the extent of our civilised nature. I have not written about the recent flood, a major disaster that has affected all parts of the country but very acutely Dhaka. I decided not to write because many other expert people have written about it, but most of all because I realised that it is useless to write about it (for that mater it is perhaps useless to write about Dhaka either). Floods will come and floods will go and nothing will come out of it. It should be clear that no one who matters really has any intention to face up to this issue in any credible or effective form. Earnest people will scream murder for a while, the mud will dry, and then life as usual.
But before the muddy waters of the flood could dry came August 21, nothing short of an urban apocalypse in the heart of Dhaka city. If the guerilla-style attack on the Awami League rally does not become a wake-up call then we are in for worse. A non-Bangladeshi friend once labeled Dhaka as a violent city. At that time, feeling a little snubbed, I looked for other ways to explain that. I mumbled, no, not as violent as Karachi, and certainly not as inhumane as Mumbai. It is clear from August 21 that all our complacencies, all our superficial claim about a moderate nation and peaceloving people lie not challenged but shattered. In the meantime bragging about the deluge of development -- the other flood that never comes -- seems utterly hollow and vapid.
The city has quite often been a stage of violence; there is something chillingly dramatic and symbolic about concerted mayhem in the city. The more daring the act, the more brazen, the more effective the chill factor. From Caesar stabbed outside the senate to Lincoln shot inside a theater, from Gandhi to Sheikh Mujib to Anwar Sadat, the , killing was not a domestic matter carried out stealthily by a character invented by Agatha Christie. They were brought down by a volley of fire and storm in the most public of places or an urban heartland, as what I am hesitatingly calling an urban spectacle. On August 21, the plan was to create the most effective spectacle of all. The anatomy of political assassinations expresses a vehement hatred that no negotiation or democratic norm can stop.
The present government was elected to power with a singular mandate, to improve the condition of law and order. Over the last few years, ironically, we have seen only contrary realities. A violence never witnessed before in the history of the city has gripped it completely (news of the week: child killed in cross-fire, Norwegian family mugged, bomb blast in market). And it is perhaps country-wide. There have been continuous issues about abuse of human rights, oppression of various minorities, brazen militant activities, and of course, vicious killings. And each time the cloud got darker, the government focused its fury on those who made an issue of this. While there is a half-hearted attitude about combating crime, the government seems extra vigilant and ever-ready in encountering their political opposition. The only time they show single-minded purpose and resolve is when they beat up opposition activists -- men and women -- mercilessly. Or when gentle but conscientious professors and journalists are hauled up for traumatic interrogations. The scene of a woman dragged and lying beaten on the street is one of the most painful and embarrassing images of Dhaka I have seen so far. However, the many ostriches of the city remain with their heads safely tucked in the muddy mush.
As a New York Times columnist recalled in the US context, the truth is always the first casualty in politics. And truth be told, we are in a big soup. August 21 was a failed assassination attempt although there were dreadful fatalities, but the point was made, that whatever goes under the name of a secular and democratic polity and whatever stands for the Bengali spirit are under attack. August 21 is a watershed in what we want to be as a nation, as a community.
The August 21 bombing is both qualitatively and strategically vastly different from other incidents. If this is equated with previous ones, it will be a fatal mistake. The previous attacks, despite the casualties, were really acts of terrorism and intimidation, even a little symbolic, while the August 21 action was a project, a choreographed action amidst an urban audience. It is also a mistake, naive or insidious I can't seem to decide, when readers comment that both parties (the one in power and the one in opposition) are two sides of the same coin. I think it was clearly stated by Zafar Sobhan in his editorial piece in The Daily Star (August 27) that there seems to be a persistent target group in this escalated and calculated violence, and a party who is bearing the brunt of it. Accusations and counteraccusations fly, faster than bullets, as being our standard practice, but the responsibility to contain the rising specter of an unknown terror lies solely with the present government. After all, we elected them to do that job.
I write about cities, but what can I say about a rot in the state or failed governance? I know though that when I step on the streets, I am terrified in my own city. I look over my shoulder even in a crowd. I use the dear mobile to call my mother at home for no particular reason. I am no longer myself in my own city.
Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, an architect and writer, currently teaches at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu.