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PLEASURE IS ALL MINE

Bangladesh needs political repositioning

Shah Husain Imam
***Changing dynamics of US-India, US-China and China-India relationships have been radicalised in varying degrees by past standards that they merit a reassessment by Awami League and BNP to depolarise their domestic politics and external diplomacy. They need not play India card now, China card then and the US card every so often thinking they are stealing a march over one another in the eye of their constituents. This is pointless now.****
WHEN politics is derailed, a peek into history can give us a break — both refreshing and instructive.
Lord Salisbury, the longest serving British prime
minister between 1886-92 and 1895-1902, yet the least remembered, once said in disgust: "Whatever happens will be for worse, and therefore it is in our interest that
as little as possible should happen."
More than a century on, this observation holds good in Bangladesh today. People are not even saying things can't get any worse and therefore these can now only turn for the better. They don't want to hedge their bets on any more daydreaming. Enough is enough.
President of the Republic, arguably, the last refuge for the quarrelling politicians has had a roller-coaster ride in his advancing years. He held a series of talks with political parties on the "advice" of the prime minister on practically a non-issue. Need he have been drawn into officiating a discourse on reconstituting an outgoing Election Commission when a well laid out constitutional pathway exists for that?
So much for history and a working democracy. Will Rogers, an American social commentator and one of the world's best-
known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s had perhaps the last word: "Stupidity got us
here: it can get us out."
It needn't be as hopeless as it may seem, though.
Maybe an assessment of changing geopolitical and geo-strategic dynamics will help our contending political parties to inject life into their otherwise lifeless, lisdess domestic politics.
Conventionally, Awami League has been perceived to be broadly aligned with India, USA and Europe being liberal and inclusive as a party. AL has effectively dealt with extremism thereby coming closer to New Delhi, Washington, London etc. Hillary Clinton's groveling over AL’s attitude to some NGOs, treatment of Bangladesh's only Nobel Laureate regardless, the US ambassador in Dhaka never tires of reiterating friendly relations with Bangladesh.
BNP, on the other hand, is placed on China-Pakistan axis, as well as being close to Saudi Arabia. Remember that it was after the changeover of 1975
which brought Zia to the fore that Saudi Arabia recognised Bangladesh. As for China, its letter of recognition reached Dhaka after August 15 but it had despatched it earlier on. Pakistan had, of course, done it in 1974 when Bangabandhu attended the OIC Summit in Lahore as the leader of newly-born Bangladesh.
That is remote history now — the world
has changed a lot between then and now. BNP and Awami League's external alignments cannot be placed in watertight compartments any more because China and USA are common denominators in their quest for expanding external support base and as sources of trade and investment.
Changing dynamics of US-India, US-
China and China-India relationships have been radicalised in varying degrees by past standards that they merit a reassessment by Awami League and BNP to depolarise their domestic politics and external diplomacy. They need not play India card now, China card then and the US card every so often thinking they are stealing a march over one another in the eye of their constituents. This
is pointless now.
US and India as strategic partners are into nuclear collaboration and cutting-edge technology exchanges. While the US and China are economically beholden to each other (the former more than the latter perhaps), Chinese ambition to become a military superpower is making her a geopolitical and geo-strategic rival of the USA. The USA's troops withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and its setting of sights on Asia-Pacific region have drawn contradictory signals from Beijing. Going by Chinese official media, Beijing's generals have expressed concern over US' withdrawal from South and West Asia. The resulting disequilibrium in the region, they think, might jeopardise global security balance.
Whist China and India use respective market potential in their trade and investment expansion strategies, they are at the same time looking
eyeball to eyeball along the border and on the Tibetan issue.
A brand new dimension felt pretty hot when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "supposedly looked his Chinese counterpart in the eye at a summit in Bali last weekend and defended his country's 'commercial' right to explore for oil and gas in the South China Sea" (New Delhi
datelined Simon Denyer story in Washington Post).
China's growing maritime presence in South China Sea is viewed with concern by Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and in an extended sense the littoral states of the India Ocean. So there is a grouping of countries whose security concerns the US appears to be sharing.
The somewhat changed tenor of China-Myanmar relationship is a significant development in our neighbourhood. Rangoon is having to do a critical trade-off between getting Western sanctions withdrawn by liberalisation and shelving gigantic Chinese hydraulic electric dam in Myanmar. What China does next, is well worth watching for. India is also interested in developing relations with Myanmar.
Bangladesh's stake is in securing its maritime rights in the Bay.
A breeze of change is blowing in Pakistan promising to take the wind of the sail of the right and far-right in Bangladesh. As Imran Khan's political fortunes rise against the backdrop of army-political regime conflict and the Supreme Court's interventions, his eloquence is drawing huge attention. What is important for us is that he has demanded war crimes trial of the 195 Pakistani army officers for their role during Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971.
Is BNP listening?
The writer Is Associate Editor, The Dally Star.
E-mail: husain.lmam@thedallystar.net