WRT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/46479
Dear Mr. Bose,
In Bangladesh everything is topsy-turvy today. Even the rule of law and its
enforcement varies. All the three crumbling pillars of the State – the
Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary – seem to be more concerned about the
petty politics of law rather than the loftier shrine of the jurisprudence of
law.
A great lawyer-statesman and philosopher of a former age – I mean Francis
Bacon – said that truth came out of error much more rapidly than it came out of
confusion. There is a wonderful truth in that saying. Next to being right in
this world, the best of all things is to be clearly and definitely wrong
because you will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and
wrong, vibrating and fluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are
absolutely and thoroughly and persistently wrong, you must some of these days, have
the extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a FACT, and that sets
you all straight again.
Truly to a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the
infinite may be seen. Louis D Brandis, one of the father figures in the evolution of
American law, observed : 'State the facts and let the characterizations
suggest themselves'. He said this as a great judge of America. Thomas Jefferson,
a founder-statesman of the American Republican State, spoke these words as a
top politician of America : 'A patient pursuit of facts, and cautious
combination and comparison of them, is the drudgery to which man is subjected by his
Maker, if he wishes to attain sure knowledge'.
While all this is absolutely true for all time and place, yet it should be
borne in mind that the main part of intellectual education is not the sterile
and mechanical appreciation of facts but learning how to make facts live.
Those who won our independence under the inspiring leadership of Bangabondhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by non-violent and afterwards frontline war revolution
were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt
order at the cost of liberty – general or individual. To courageous,
self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied
through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can
be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is
so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full
discussion. If there be time to expose through discussions the falsehood and
fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied
is more speech, not State-coerced silence. Only an emergency can justify
repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.
Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Bangladesh constitution.
These thoughts came to my mind in the context of the blatantly uneven-handed
nature of attitude displayed by the present Caretaker administration towards
the politicians like Hasina.
The due Constitutional exercise of freedom of speech in Bangladesh today is
getting punished through the State denial of freedom after speech .The
question of questions is : 'Do we have a handful of such sturdy, well meaning
common men with an optimum combination of common sense, courage, judgement, vision
and integrity in our midst today?'
With warmest regards,
Gopal Sengupta
*****************************************
Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
*****************************************
Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
*****************************************
MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
*****************************************
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
*****************************************
Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
*****************************************
MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
*****************************************
German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
*****************************************
Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
****************************************************
VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
****************************************************
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:mukto-mona-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:mukto-mona-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
mukto-mona-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: