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August 15, November 7, and post-January 11

Omar Chowdhury
The future does not seem to bode well for Bangladesh. In a rapidly changing global economic scenario of soaring food and energy prices, and the uncertainty with climate change, our survival as a functioning sovereign state depends on unity. Without unity, it will be impossible to manage our resources in respect to food and energy security amidst a political environment that is totally corrupt, divisive and dysfunctional.
If a political government had been in power with rice retailing at 40 Taka per kg, the opposition would have started street agitation to destabilise the government in a bid to grab power, irrespective of the consequences to the nation. Our political culture is about divi-
sion and confrontation, rather than cooperation and consensus in the national interest
Let's put dysfunctional politics into perspective. Khaleda Zia / Hawa Bhaban / 4 Party Alliance in the guise of democracy unleashed five years of mismanagement and unbridled corruption that ranked Bangladesh as the most corrupt nation in the world. Sensing defeat in the polls, the 4 Party Alliance attempted and failed to engineer the elections thanks to intervention on January 11, 2007, and Bangladesh was spared from total anarchy and possible civil war.
Khaleda, her family members, Hawa Bhaban, half the cabinet and scores of MPs have been arrested and charged with corruption, murder, patronisation of terrorism, etc. Khaleda's post-1/11 actions, like the
unilateral expulsion of Mannan Bhuiyan and appointment of Delwar Hossain as Secretary General of BNP has further plunged the party into a crisis that may destroy the party completely.
Yet, after all her failures of colossal magnitude, no one in the party, from grassroots to the top leadership, has the intestinal fortitude (guts) to hold her responsible for the present state of the party, whereas men of good conscience and character should be challenging her leadership and demanding that she be expelled from the party. Rather, grassroots BNR the reformists, and the Khalcda-loyalists all claim to be united under her leadership, and no one within the party dare question her supreme authority. Odd, is it not?
Our politics have become dys- functional as a result of the deadly rivalry between AL and BNP. Bangladesh achieved independence under the leadership and inspiration of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1971, but after forming the AL government of a new Bangladesh, Bangabandhu switched from a multi-party democratic system to socialist one-party rule (Baksal).
Bangabandhu and most of his family members were murdered by a group of disgruntled army officers on August 15, 1975. In the following months, a power struggle ensued between pro and anti-AL forces. After a series of bloody coups and counter-coups, there was a mutiny within the ranks of the army on November 7, 1975 in which the deposed chief of the armed forces, General Ziaur Rahman, was reinstated.
In a period of total anarchy, General Zia emerged as the hero for restoring stability to a relieved nation. Zia presented the nation with an election roadmap to restore multi-party democracy and transfer power to civilian rule. Zia went on to form an anti-AL political force called
BNP BNP won the elections of 1979 by a landslide and formed the government with Zia as president.
Thus, Bangladesh began her journey of bi-polar partisan democracy with political forces split into two distinct camps: anti-AL and pro-AL. The rivalry and bitterness from the events of 1975 is still prevalent between these two camps to this day.
Following President Zia's assassination in 1981, General Ershad usurped power from Zia's successor in a bloodless coup in 1982, assuming the role of president and chief martial law administrator. In the years that followed, Ershad formed his own political party named Jatiyo Party in an effort to become an elected civilian president through several staged elections.
During this period, Zia's widow Khaleda and Bangabandhu's daughter Hasina both emerged as the undisputed leaders of BNP and AL respectively. In an environment of power struggles within their respective parties and defections to JR Khaleda and Hasina were, in essence, the glue that held their respective parties together. They were able to put aside their differences briefly to topple Ershad in a mass uprising in 1990.
Elections were held under a neutral caretaker government in 1991; BNP was elected to power and formed a civilian government with Khaleda as PM. Bangladesh entered a new phase of democracy, but the rivalry between BNP and AL only intensified.
In the years of "democracy" that followed, BNP and AL made parliament totally dysfunctional, with the opposition resorting to hartals and street agitation on any excuse. Money and muscle power became the modus operandi to win elections, and both parties resorted to corruption, patronisation of criminals, and created armed student cadres to control the universities (which have always been in the forefront of struggles for democratic rights).
In the process, both parties politicised the civil administration and public institutions (EC, PSC, UGC, etc) and would not allow an independent judiciary or AntiCorruption Commission. With no transparency or accountability, the
quality of individuals entering politics and the bureaucracy dramatically deteriorated, politics took on a purely business outlook, and politicians made unimaginable fortunes.
I hope I have been able to shed some light on the alarming state of our politics. Most politicians are opportunists, out to line their own pockets. Frankly, neither party has been able to display the courage, integrity, vision, and patriotism of the current dispensation. Without Hasina and Khaleda, both parties face the risk of disintegration. They don't want reform because their livelihoods depend on division, dysfunction, and corruption, and other than these narrow selfinterests there is no incentive to do politics.
This division has been shoved down our throats with the political holidays of August 15 and November 7, which have been observed and not observed by alternating AL and BNP governments. On August 15, BNP celebrates Khaleda's apparently fabricated birthday with great pomp and circumstance while AL mourns with Hasina for her family. Most people have no clue as to why November 7 is a holiday. These "natoks" are just ploys to divertour attention and keep us divided while they loot and pillage.
I congratulate the caretaker government for their noble and seemingly impossible tasks to right the wrongs of the 15 years of BNP and AL misrule. There is no magic bullet to make years of orchestrated division disappear, even though we are such a homogenous people in terms of race, language, culture, and religion. I hope, for all our sakes, we can reach a national consensus to institute the reforms undertaken by this government
I urge the CTG to honour the memory of Bangabandhu by flying the flag at half-mast on August 15, but for the sake of national unity I also urge you to rethink the political holidays of August 15 and November 7, because public holidays are supposed to unite the nation and not divide us or be imposed on us. United we stand, divided we all fall.
Omar Chowdhury is a freelance contributor to The DaRyStar.