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PLEASURE IS ALL MINE

Hasina's year that was

SHAH HUSAIN IMAM
I Twas
Sheikh
Hasina's year in politics, literally, where other leaders were eclipsed. She wielded power unchallenged and remained unruffled in spite of controversies
stalking her.
In a unique way, even her worst critic would concede, she has displayed an uncanny genius for turning the subjective into objective, feeling or intuition into a palpable reality and a disadvantage into an advantage. This, regardless of means or methods adopted -- the perennial clash between means and ends in an increasingly imperfect world of politics.
As Deng Xiaoping, leader of the Chinese Communist Party and de facto head of the government of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to the early 1990s, said: "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.' Even a visionary man like Deng Xiaoping knew that a leader had to be pragmatist to deliver.
In a word, Sheikh Hasina is gifted with a sixth sense; she somehow knows or appears to know things although they are not based on direct evidence.
In the cusp of fluidity, though, what has been a clincher for status quo is Hasina's effective containment of extremism and terrorism with the caveat that newer fusions are taking place in that dark, dank world.
Hasina has been able to take Japan, China and UK into confidence, let alone India. And if Mozena's parting remark to the effect that the US will not try to seat anybody in power is to be taken beyond its nostalgic connotation then the US too appears to be on
the same page.
Now a 'perfect storm' is sought to be whipped up by the BNP-led alliance in the prequel to the first anniversary of January 5 election, 2014. The dates announced by the BNP are December 27, January 3 and 5 to mark a sustained agitation building into a crescendo depending upon the government's grant of permission to hold rallies or its refusal. What pushes the political landscape onto the throes of fresh danger are the BCL's threats under apparent blessings of the ruling party to hold counterrallies on the same dates. The inevitable consequence will be clamping of
opposition; for the case that has come to a closure is lost out as pressure points. This is how politics has been played out in the country in alternating sequences of change of guards.
Section 144 and the accompanying attempts to break it. Preemptively, the government's drive for arrest will be intensified.
Two important factors in the whole scenario are the proliferation of cases against BNP-Jamaat leaders, some resurrected from the dusty shelves; and the date extensions on hearings. Unresolved cases are a powerful tool to size up political
The BNP arsenal, however, looks effectively weakened. Much water has flowed down the river Padma and the party is living in the shadows of its former self. The intense desperation of the party is pronounced as divisive tendencies take hold of the hierarchy right down to the grassroots. And things are turned topsy-turvy with Tareque Zia, their future leader, apparently leading a lunatic fringe.
Once BNP's prime ally, Jamaat, is practically alienated from the rightist fold led by Khaleda. She has made it clear that her party's relationship with Jamaat is not ideological but confined to electoral adjustment, which smacks of rabid opportunism. Its second pillar of strength to wage a movement, viz. Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), is weakening through squabbles in the JCD committees.
Apart from the solemn commitment to advance the war crimes trials, AL government has played it as a political card against the vestiges of Jamaat-BNP entente. Remember the days when Khaleda Zia hammered away at the caretaker government demand and tried to build a movement around it. Typically, in her reaction, Sheikh Hasina and her lieutenants would link the effort to spoiling the war crimes trials, times without number. One wondered aloud how the caretaker issue bore any relevance to the process of trials against those who committed crimes against humanity in 1971. The advancement of the war crimes trials creating a favourable impression on the people's mind as the Liberation War values get etched in the new generation's consciousness, Sheikh Hasina's strategy stands vindicated in retrospect.
This is an anecdote from George Bernard Shaw giving way to a car driver atop a narrow hill pass who yelled: 'I don't give ways to fools.' When the driver of the other car was happily passing Shaw's car, Shaw simply said: 'But I do.'
'Madness', as they say, 'takes its toll; please have exact change ready.' It is high time, the maddening pace of political polarisation yielded place to a radical change in the rules of political game
The writer Is Associate Editor, The Dally Star. E-mail: HusalnJmam@thedailystar.net