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Compromise, Bangladesh style

Zafar Sobhan
HERE we go again. Is it just me, or docs it seem like we have been here before. Elections arc on the horizon and talks arc underway to set the ground rules for the upcoming polls and their after math. It seems to me that things are a little reminiscent of where we were in the middle of 2006. l\vo years on, we are back where we started.
There are differences, of course. No need to state the obvious. But the similarities and the depressing familiarity of the current situation are more striking. The principal feature of the 2006 dialogue between the general secretaries of the AL and BNP was that it was essentially a charade. They went around and around the mulberry bush and ended up precisely where they started.
What was especially galling about the 2006 dialogue was that we all knew from the beginning that that would be the outcome. However, insulting the intelligence of the public, the two sides continued to release cheery statements that a compromise was close at hand.
It was this comical performance, followed almost instantly by the decidedly uncomic violence of October 28 that persuaded people that there was no ground common enough for the AL and the BNP as far as holding elections was concerned, and that helped pave the way for 1 /11.
So here we are again. Another dialogue has begun, this time to set the ground rules for the elections that have been promised for the end of this year. However, once again, while it is in almost everyone's interest for the dialogue to succeed, and in almost no one's interest for it to fail, and while there are compromises and middle grounds that could easily be found such that everyone's interests would be adequately (if not perfectly) pro
tectcd, chances arc that that is not where we will end up.
Things do not, it must be said, look promising. The recent round up of politicians who were thought to be key to the reform process makes it seem as though plans to work with some permutation of the existing political players have been shelved. In addition, from what one can gather, there remain hard-liners who remain adamant that no quarter can be given to the existing party leaderships and no compromise reached.
Similarly, the main political parties seem to have drawn a line in the sand. Even if they do participate in the dialogues, both AL and BNP appear to have made the release of their incarcerated leaders a non-negotiable precondition for participation in the elections.
Now, the real tragedy here is that there are compromises that could possibly be acceptable to everyone: arrangements, understandings, negotiations, com- mon ground that could be found. That is the purpose of the dialogue and why everyone has high hopes for it.
But the unhappy truth is that neither side seems in the mood for compromise. Both seem to want to push things towards confrontation, doubtless feeling that they are the ones that have the strength on the ground to prevail.
Of course, stuck in the middle, as ever, are the long-suffering Bangladeshi people.
What do people want, by and large? We want a restoration of democracy. We want to make sure that democracy functions better in the future than it has in the past. We want to make sure that the institutional reforms that have been carried out remain in place.
We want to make sure that criminals and corrupt politicians remain behind bars and can no longer abuse their power and position to bleed the country dry. We want to ensure that
muscle power no longer rules either politics or the streets or our localities, and that there is rule oflaw and law and order.
Wc want to make sure that the political parties reform themselves. We want to make sure that we will have the ability to vote for honest and capable candidates and that If they do not do a good job that we are able to replace them. We do not want a polity beset by goons and gangsters so that good people can neither be voted in nor vote their consciences.
The sad thing Is that all these things are readily achievable if all sides to the equation were able to focus on the common good and the will of the people as the primary consideration.
But, of course, they are not. The political parties care primarily for their own survival and how to regain their supremacy, so their main focus for the past year and a half has been this one issue. No surprise there. The powers that be are also concerned primarily with their own security and also have certain line in the sand positions that they have drawn and seem determined to cleave to, come what may. No surprise there, either.
Neither side is really thinking of the common good here. This is not a news flash. The political parties never did, which is why we ended up in this situation in the first place.
And it is too much to expect that any other faction to the current crisis is going to be motivated primarily by fidelity to the public good or that their idea of what constitutes the public good will necessarily correspond with that of the ordinary citizen.
There is still hope, but it is fading. The real problem lies not in the intractability of any of the problems faced by the nation, either economic or political, but in our seemingly congenital inability to compromise.
Our problem is that we believe a fair deal is one that ends up with us getting 100 percent of what we want, and the other side getting nothing. We seem to have a hard time understanding that to get something, you have to give something up. Every party to this current impasse has been guilty of this kind of thinking.
The one hope we have is that past performance is no indicator of future performance, and that all parties to the dialogue, including those behind the scenes, will, when push comes to shove, demonstrate the maturity and prudence necessary to reach a workable compromise. The fear is that if they could do that, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Da.y Star.