Bangladesh's President or Awami League's President?
By Shimul Chaudhury
In the run-up to general elections, we as citizens tend to maintain extreme political affiliations and launch tireless campaign for our preferred parties. However, ideally, after elections when we have a new government, we lend our allegiance to the new leaders of the country. Equally, people in power are also expected to accept the whole country as one family and treat us all fairly. We as citizens may sometimes fail to live up to this ideal; but, our leaders are morally obliged to forget about their political biases once they assume power. Even more so because they are our paid ˜servants. It is our country and they are in power only for a certain period of time; and that with the consent of the people. If those who are in power still maintain political biases and prejudices, the country is bound to regress.
On Eid occasion, our current President disappointed us as he failed to prove himself as the guardian figure for all of us. He granted clemency to 20 convicted murderers and all of them happened to belong to his party Awami League. This selective clemency is not the first during his tenure. He did it before (during the first year of his presidency) when he chose Awami League leader Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury’s son Shadab Akbar for showing clemency.
This recurrent selection of Awami convicts for clemency may have two interpretations. The first is that, Bangladesh's prisons are full of Awami criminals, which did not allow the President to strike a good balance in granting clemency. Or, despite holding such an honorable position of the guardian figure of us all, he proved himself extremely biased and partisan. These two explanations are my hypothesis, and I do not know for sure which one is the case.
If the President's selective clemency is politically motivated and if it is wrong, we should condemn it unanimously (irrespective of our political leanings). Unfortunately, we have heard an inappropriate justification from people in power: BNP did it before. This BNP-did-it-before argument has become a chronic Awami reasoning.
Whenever the Awami League-led government commits injustices or goes against the interest of the country (for example, by giving undue privileges to India at the expense of Bangladesh's future), ministers come up with this BNP-did-it-before argument. Now, whether BNP did it to such an extent or not is a different question altogether. Let us say that BNP did it. But does this make it right? If BNP was wrong, does Awami League have to follow its example? If Awami League continues to do what BNP had done in the past, how the former is better than the latter? I know these questions do not have answers, and I know people with Awami orientation (though many of them are well-educated and apparently sensible) will maintain mysterious silence about the party's undemocratic practices. As a result, our unity is at stake and our beloved Bangladesh is heading towards an uncertain future. May Allah protect our land and its people!
Shimul Chaudhury
E Mail : honestdebater@yahoo.ca
On Eid occasion, our current President disappointed us as he failed to prove himself as the guardian figure for all of us. He granted clemency to 20 convicted murderers and all of them happened to belong to his party Awami League. This selective clemency is not the first during his tenure. He did it before (during the first year of his presidency) when he chose Awami League leader Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury’s son Shadab Akbar for showing clemency.
This recurrent selection of Awami convicts for clemency may have two interpretations. The first is that, Bangladesh's prisons are full of Awami criminals, which did not allow the President to strike a good balance in granting clemency. Or, despite holding such an honorable position of the guardian figure of us all, he proved himself extremely biased and partisan. These two explanations are my hypothesis, and I do not know for sure which one is the case.
If the President's selective clemency is politically motivated and if it is wrong, we should condemn it unanimously (irrespective of our political leanings). Unfortunately, we have heard an inappropriate justification from people in power: BNP did it before. This BNP-did-it-before argument has become a chronic Awami reasoning.
Whenever the Awami League-led government commits injustices or goes against the interest of the country (for example, by giving undue privileges to India at the expense of Bangladesh's future), ministers come up with this BNP-did-it-before argument. Now, whether BNP did it to such an extent or not is a different question altogether. Let us say that BNP did it. But does this make it right? If BNP was wrong, does Awami League have to follow its example? If Awami League continues to do what BNP had done in the past, how the former is better than the latter? I know these questions do not have answers, and I know people with Awami orientation (though many of them are well-educated and apparently sensible) will maintain mysterious silence about the party's undemocratic practices. As a result, our unity is at stake and our beloved Bangladesh is heading towards an uncertain future. May Allah protect our land and its people!
Shimul Chaudhury
E Mail : honestdebater@yahoo.ca
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