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PLEASURE IS ALL MINE

Feet firmly on the ground ...

Shah Husain Imam
LET'S get our basic assumptions right, if we are to reach a conclusion that will help effectively address our current political imperatives. Some hard truths are in order so as to subject the hay-
wire political positioning of the major players to reality checks.
With the countdown on the largely predisposed January 5 election into the numeral 10, the scroll is descending fast to an event of mere formality. At a time like this, BNP is unrealistic in asking for a change of the election schedule. It is even hoping to get a 90-day breathing space since 'the dissolution of parliament,' another condition it has tried to lay at the doorstep of the government. It can't eat the cake and take it home too - even the AL has failed to do so. This under circumstances where the ruling party is single-mindedly geared to hold the election on the appointed date.
You face up to the fact that national politics has lost touch with morality, ethics; most of all, idealism or dedication to a higher cause than capturing and retaining power. Through means foul as no scope remains for the fair to come into play.
None of the major political parties can even pretend to be speaking on behalf of the whole people; public having been treated shabbily to a betrayal of trust that they had reposed in their elected representatives.
We wonder whether both our leaders are hoisting themselves on their petard, meaning they are being caught up in their own traps or the people have been entrapped for no fault of their own except to have elected them.
A non-issue like caretaker system was made an issue of despite a note of dissent from majority members of the parliamentary committee going into the proposition duly backed by High Court observation to continue the system for two more terms. It was nothing but inviting trouble that only kept snowballing.
On the other hand, the BNP's reluctance in power to allow the caretaker provision in through a parliament born of one party election but then later succumbing to pressure of public movement was not the stuff of which a principled stance is made.
Now the BNP is honing its claws to give the AL a taste of its medicine applied in 1996 in a perceived reversal of circumstances. For, the AL is presiding over a one-sided election that cannot give legitimacy to the government it will form.
Is it a reversal of circumstances, chapter and verse? Not quite, because in 1996, the initiative was with the AL as a legitimacy-seeking Jamaat fell in line with it on caretaker demand; but now the opposition politics gone increasingly virulent, the initiative has been seized by Jamaat-Shibir combine. It has waged a virtual war against the state on the question of War Crimes Trial holding a substantial portion of the country hostage to their terroris-ation campaign.
We have been continuously hammering away the point that mounting violence on both sides, one packing their agitation programme with risks of confrontation and the other bent on resisting it not to give a mileage on the street is a recipe for disaster. All that it does is spike the vulnerability of terrorists seizing the initiative from recognised political parties by exploiting religion for politics.
Besides Jammat-e-Islami and Islamic Chhatra Shibir, the defunct elements of Harkatul Jihad (HUJI) in cohorts with the so-called Jihad movement, a common name for several Islamic groups, are perhaps trying to regroup. Transnational organisations like Hizb-ul-Mujahideen
(HM), Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA, presently known as Hartak-ul Mujahideen), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJ1) are said to have their websites for networking purposes. We cannot rest complacent that homegrown fringe elements will not one day link up with them.
However, a redeeming feature is the prime minister's indirect recognition of the hollowness or lack of tenability of the lanuary 5 election which cannot confer on her the legitimacy of a truly representative government. That's why she has hinted at a snap poll to ensure participation of the opposition alliance through a negotiated settlement of the contentious poll-time issues. It has long since ceased to be a question of right or wrong but one of perhaps a mini transition potentially making way for a proper maximal transition of power. The flickering prospect cannot be brushed aside.
The PM has the pressure to legitimise but the opposition perhaps reads into it a tactic up her sleeves to continue in power. This is only hypothetical at this stage; the immediate issue concerns mounting tension centred on the oppositionprogrammed long march of democracy to Dhaka on the 29th. And, if the government's arrest of political leaders is any clue including implicating senior leaders in a new arson case, an all-out confrontation is in prospect.
The grave uncertainty needs a troubleshooting role from respectable quarters to bring the parties across the table once again. The PM can lead the way by releasing opposition leaders and spelling a roadmap for the 11th parliamentary election indicating the dates for the polls based on an assured level playing field firmly signaled to the opposition. We hope both the ruling party and the opposition live up to Khaleda Zia's words of wisdom: 'Compromise is not a climb-down.'
The writer Is Associate Editor, The Daily Star. E-mail: husa in J ma m @theda ilystar, net