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PLEASURE IS ALL MINE

Soft-lining around the rant
***The ruling party need not be caught up in the opposition mode of grandstanding. This showmanship can wait for another day; now is the time for careful navigation to take the rocking ship to the shore.***
Communications Minister Obaidul Quader made the comment of the week last Tuesday: reckless drivers and politicians are both killers. The first type kills people and the second has democracy morph into a corpse. May we add, violent politics also kills people.
Quader clearly doesn't draw calibrated parallels, but he makes his point all the same. His candour, tinged with courage, is refreshing when seen beneath the surface. He is critical of those at the "driving seat" -- the remark being inclusive of both parties. One could even say the pedigree of politicians has been so lowered by their behaviour that they are being put in the same bracket with reckless drivers.
Speaking of the first full-house day in parliament after 84 days of one-sided JS proceedings, one feels it should have been an occasion for democratic celebration. Was it too unrealistic to expect that the ruling party and the opposition would have begun the day by exchanging courtesies, if not pleasantries. Granted inertia of confrontation would linger, still the occasion could have been seized to release some positive energy on both sides without compromising their respective positions in any way.
The cross-party parliamentary advisory committee should have ensured an orderly exchange of mutual courtesies by select speakers from both sides at the outset just to set the right tenor for the session. They could have greeted each other, regardless of their stepped up rivalries or the slanderous exchange of remarks the day before. That would have had the effect of disarming the opposition and making it feel at home, even though the BNP quite clearly was compelled to join the parliament if they were to retain their seats.
Prime Minister and Leader of the House Sheikh Hasina instead of wholeheartedly welcoming the Leader of the Opposition paid her a left-handed compliment. She said the opposition's return to parliament was actuated by the motive of drawing their salaries and perks by keeping within 90-day limit to absenteeism in JS. She has even reiterated this statement outside the parliament. Why should she have made such a remark when she had taken
the same recourse while in the opposition?
But the Prime Minister carefully avoided banter on the caretaker issue despite the opposition leader's reiteration of the demand for CTG. Khaleda Zia conveyed a sense that she was not prepared to give out her formula for restoration of caretaker system lest it was unceremoniously shouted down by the ruling party's brute majority. The Mohajote government would do well to allay that fear in the opposition.
There are certain other positives underlying the rant and ruse.
Let's give the opposition its due; credit it with an understanding of what is involved to bring about an amendment, more precisely an addendum to the 15th Amendment in the full light of the SC verdict. The opposition cannot miss the point that it is within the precincts of the House that an interim non-party arrangement will have to be hammered out. Behind-the-scene talks may clear the deck for a mutually acceptable formula, but it has to be adopted in one shape or form through cooperation, grudging or ungrudging, on the floor of the House.
That the opposition doesn’t want to lose membership or resign their seats must be viewed positively. In theory, relinquishment of their parlia-
mentary membership would have been consistent with their demand for unseating the government, an outright unconstitutional position from which they have clearly veered away.
Even though it's too early to say that a change of heart has taken place, either in the opposition or the ruling party, given their proclivity towards keeping their cadres warm particularly as the election approaches. But intuitively, one feels the teething time is here and it can only get so much worse before it gets better.
Can the opposition live down the hang-ups of its addiction to so-called "long marches," laying the siege programmes and public rallies and settle for a sustainable parliamentary engagement with the AL to have their demand met. The ruling party need not be caught up in the opposition mode of grandstanding. This showmanship can wait for another day; now is the time for careful navigation to take the rocking ship to the shore.
Let them not step into John Quinton prescription: "Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel."
The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.
E-mail: husain.lmam@thedailystar.net