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Why hartal not withdrawn?

Syed Badrul Ahsan
The nation's expectation that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasin, would make a telephone call to Leader of the Oppositior Khaleda Zia has come to pass. We would have been happiei if the call had come sooner, but that it has finally come is i move we certainly welcome.
The PM's act of inviting Khaleda Zia to talks and dinner a' the Gono Bhaban tomorrow is a gesture that can truly bt regarded as a breakthrough, given the culture of animosity and hostility that over the years has taken hold of nationa politics.
An important component of the PM's conversation with the BNP chairperson was her call for the latter to withdraw the 60-hour hartal announced at the 18-party alliance rally on Friday. That was a reasonable request, given that the opposition leader had made it clear that unless the ruling Awami League made a gesture of engaging with the opposition on ways of resolving the current crisis, the hartal would be imposed on the country. The gesture has been made. The BNP chief has reneged on her promise and her party has now informed the country that she is willing to meet the prime minister at the end of the 60-hour hartal on 29 October.
The BNP's response to the PM's call leaves the nation stupefied. It gives us reason to think that the door that has been opened by the PM's call to Khaleda might get shut again if the ruling party now chooses to retreat from its gesture. The opposition could have responded to the ruling party move in a way that could have reignited the national belief that the BNP is truly and fully ready for a proactive involvement with the government in the search for a solution to the impasse. Of course, the BNP has not rejected the PM's offer. Neither has it accepted it in the way the nation had thought it would.
That is the reality. And the ramifications of what the opposition did not do (read hartal here) following the PM's call to her rival just might cause new despair to arise among people of the country. A 60-hour hartal is a clear call to danger, in a number of ways. It promises incalculable damage to the economy, which in turn will likely push us more into being a backwater in the international community. It increases the risk of violence taking more and more of an upper hand, with the political classes unable to rein in their followers. It could provoke the government and its security agencies into going for tough, and then tougher, action against opposition activists on the streets, thereby leading to a spiralling of the crisis out of control.
It leaves patients in hospitals and elsewhere as well as their families in a state of panic. It threatens the movement of commuters in the country and travellers coming in and going out of it with premonitions of danger. And it does unimaginable damage to education, a sense of which comes through reports that O-Level examinations could well be shifted well away from Bangladesh and into India because of the anarchy hartals have caused to the system here.
The BNP has tried explaining its position on the hartal issue through suggesting that it is too late to consult the leaders of the 18-party alliance on a probable withdrawal of the shutdown programme. The explanation is not good enough. If a hartal announcement can be made without a thought to the consequences, it can easily be withdrawn with thoughts to the immense public good such a withdrawal can do.
The PM and the government, for all their disappointment over the opposition response, would be well-advised to maintain the spirit they have now demonstrated. The law enforcers, while making certain that violence is firmly tackled, must draw a clear line between necessary action on the streets and an excessive show of force. For the opposition, it is important that it respond positively to the PM's offer of talks, without preconditions. All issues can and must be sorted out around the table.
Imagine, simply imagine, the far bigger crisis we can all fall into if Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia do not meet, do not reach an understanding. Today, as far as the nation is concerned, the question is much more than a matter of which party will be in power after January 24 next year.
The critical question is one of how this nation can come back from the brink its leaders have pushed it to.