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STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING

Are politicians losing sanity?

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd)
SOME of them willy-nilly are, by the random comments they have been making. And if they did not rein in there tongues we shall soon have a situation where people would be taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.
It is not my intention to draw a broad brush of accusation on the entire polity because I believe in what a famous person had said, that ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten
percent a bad reputation. We can be more magnanimous and say that in Bangladesh it is probably the reverse where even less than ten percent of the politicians are giving their colleagues a bad name.
On several occasions in the past, we had ventured to comment on the importance of keeping one's tongue under control, particularly for the politicians, more so those that cannot distinguish between courtesy and political riposte. And much as one detests dignifying incivility with a response, the nature of these comments calls for a reaction, because lack of a response will lend validity to the rather insensate, and, in one case, inflammatory, remarks of a minister.
Comments of the said minister, which appeared in the major newspapers of the country, enjoining upon his audience that included teachers and students of a public university, to hunt out from houses and kill those calling hartal against, what he said, the war crimes tribunal, makes one wonder whether we are living in a sophisticated society, and if there is anything of rule of law in the country. Any act or speech, which incites people to kill, is a cognizable offence under our law. And not once, but those particular provocative comments have been made on two different occasions by the same minister.
The said minister has gone a step further than some of his colleagues, ruing the fact that he is not the prime minister; otherwise, he had said, Dr. Yunus would have been behind bars. We have lot to thank Providence for the fact that he is not the prime minister. Had that been so, most good people would have been behind bars and rascals and scoundrels would be roaming the streets.
Just imagine what would have been the reaction of the law enforcing agencies and the administration if such words were uttered by someone belonging to the opposition. Are these provocations any different from ones we hear from the Jihadis calling for the blood of those that do not agree with them? Dissenting with a verdict amounts to treason, according to the minister, and thus the dissenters should be put down. In any other country that respects rule of law, such people would have been hauled up before the court to account for their words, or at least admonished by his peers. And not a single word of criticism, let alone remonstration, neither from the so-called civil society nor the keepers of our conscience and the guardians of our democratic values.
There is also a rush to pronounce people traitors, just like some of our clerics who are fond of pronouncing people kafir, just as the same minister, who pronounced our Nobel Laureate a traitor for advocating the need for caretaker government.
In fact, Dr. Yunus' comments have come under fire fromIt was poet Iqbal who had said: "Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians." I am constrained to believe so listening to the angry comments of some of the ruling party politicians which is ca using the nation to lose its very soul.
the top rung of AL leadership for making a case for a neutral dispensation to run the next general election. This is nothing new given the highly orchestrated bout of disapprobation that he has received in the past from many ruling party members for making the mistake of winning the Nobel Peace Prize and making Grameen Bank an international icon. But that anyone should question a citizen's right to make a political comment is beyond me. Why should anything that goes against the grain of the ruling coalition's view be considered anti-state? Does one have to be a politician to offer his or her views on political issues? Why should our finance minister resent an economist's political acumen? The best he can do for himself as a politician, and for the country, is to hone his economic acumen further to improve the economy.
It was poet Iqbal who had said: "Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians." I am constrained to believe so listening to the angry comments of some of the ruling party politicians which is causing the nation to lose its very soul. When that happens, a nation all but loses its vibrant dynamic entity.
The writer Is Editor, Oped and Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.