An OPen Letter To The Prime Minister Of Bangladesh By Mohammad Zaman,USA Dear Ms. Prime Minister, Please, forgive my ensuing vociferous HO-JO-BO-RO-LO. If reading is no fun to you,please, have it read by some OSD. Or if you wish, let him tear it in billion smithereensfor he really longs for some darn thing to do! The news reports emanating from Bangladesh, if true, are not flattering to your stewardship as the Prime Minister of my beleaguered country. A right to dissent is the essence of democracy. This essence is being trampled ostensibly under your watchful (?)eyes by your own henchmen. May be, Mr. Jalil is a crooked guy, but you should have known his business for long, for he was your own man! The day he exercised his inalienable democratic right to dissent, he got tangled with myriad troubles. Thugs began to shout at his door. Tax man shows his ugly face in his neighborhood. Being a reasonable person of average intellect, can you advise how should I put these events together? Your police (in fact, police should not belong to you) interfered with the rights of an honorable citizen (in fact, an eminent professor) to demonstrate and to speak his mind. Your rowdy supporters seem to an inalienable right to steal and/or dismantle the loud speakers of any and every dissent! Do you think that the loud speaker belongs only to the Prime Minister? Or do you believe that loud speakers are the only means of effective communication? When a citizen's democratic rights are being trampled shamelessly; you show the audacity to pronounce that the health of democracy is sound and well! Being a reasonable person of average intellect, can you advise how should I put these bits of events together? Dear Ms. Prime Minister, Do you remember the days when you were the leader of opposition? Do you remember that you (and your million minions) shouted to your falsetto as to the nasty reign unleashed by the other minions (I mean, the minions of the other PM)? Now, if someone compiles a DIGITAL kaleidoscope of newspaper headlines, depicting the violence and the misrule under your watchful eyes, given the matter of fact, would you advise me, how should I rate your reign? It is reported that your ministers and even your high advisers are not privy of the exact governmental role of your expatriate computer expert cum Bostonian son. Well, if a citizen like me smells a little déjà vu vis-à-vis the now infamous Hawa Bhabon, whom will you blame? Dear Ms. Prime Minister, Something seems to be terribly rotten in the sate of Denmark! Do you know that an aspiring Bappi was killed just for the joy of killing? Masum, a straight shooter reporter of an out spoken NewAge suffered an attempted straitening by a bunch of ruffians for he tells the story and his editor does not kowtow. Well, we have seen the parade of the supposed bosses (the honorable Home Minister and her Junior) of the rabid RAB at Masum's bedside. But who cares! Masum needs no sympathy – Masum deserves justice. And that is the sacred job, dear Prime Minister, is entrusted upon you... Are you up to? As you know, once almighty Hawa Bhavan is in disarray; its chief patron, having a waylaid sore back, supposedly recuperating on the distant Albinos Land and its all powerful point-man is on perpetual remand. But those, who wields the same double edged sword of power of today, for the sake of their own tomorrows, don't you think, should slow down and think a little before sliding on onto their own wayward galumph? My dear Prime Minister, Fugacious glory, like cherry, is all but seasonal …And here, Dear Prime Minister, I must say something about that all pervading "crossfire" that is nibbling away the very essence of our justice system. "It is a practice of our justice to condemn some as a warning to others. To condemn them because they have done wrong would be stupidity, as Plato says; for what is done cannot be undone. But they are condemned so that they may not do the same wrong again, or so that others may avoid the example of their wrongdoing." (Montaigne) Thus some of your not-so-well-read minister may justify that the 'extra-judicial killing' in 'crossfire' serves the same end-point of "condemnation plus warning" as Montaigne maintained. But this simplification misses the very important point of "practice of our justice". Built-in checks and balances are intrinsic to the justice system. Arguments are made pro and cons. The accused has his/her time to present his/her own stories in presence of fellow citizens (juries or assessors). A judgment is rendered and the common people know the ins and outs. Yes, justice system at its crux, at times to the chagrin of many, is an elaborate process lest we condemn our innocent. Yet when I talk to my friends at home, the paradox is confounding. They also despise the idea of killing by crossfire but still are happy with the proximate outcome. Criminals, after long, are really afraid! Such ambivalence of my friends at home sprouts directly from a feeling of helplessness, that nothing can be done and that the lesser pain is better than the greater! But, Dear Ms. Prime Minister, Your government, with its enormous machineries of power is no helpless fawn like a commoner. It just is callus and moribund. Or it just doesn't care about the inherent rights of its citizens. Hence, to do one 'small good', it embarks on one 'terrible bad'. Once upon a time, during the reign of your nemesis, it was 'Operation Clean Heart'. It eventually morphed into the then-infamous 'Operation Heart Attack'. Those pathetic operators were not sufficiently abreast of the physiology of heart attack otherwise they also could have divined the new meaning of now-infamous but much more palatable 'Operation Crossfire'. Dear Ms. Prime Minister,What a morbid inflection of a rather mundane word 'CROSSFIRE'! Yes, extreme situation, indeed, needs extreme measure. Situation arising from stupidity and apathy, however, often ends up with stupendously stupid measure! Crime and violence is not a quantity and/or entity in itself. It rather is a form of a more sinister societal ill that can aptly be described in a single sad word "LAWLESSNESS". Unlawful extra-judicial measure, not only adds further to the abysmal entropy but also acts as a catalyst for its accelerated perpetuation, especially when it is sanctioned by a legitimate government — the prime function of which, as John Locke would have argued, is to preserve and protect the rights of its citizens. ' Living in my safe sanctuary in North America, I am not subject to the abject lawlessness as experienced by my friends living in Dhaka. I, thus, am in no position to utter a single word opposing their position of staying mum. But as a person who cares for dignity and sanctity of human life, I do have harsh opinion as to the often-stated subliminal policy of an elected government that happened to be your own. And lastly and most importantly, Dear Prime Minister, I would like say something about LEADERSHIP. If you despise to hear, please, take your US-made hearing device off your ears!! "Here goes my people and I follow them" – of leadership, thus spoke M. K. Gandhi – a leader of "leaders-of-finest-caliber". He was the undisputed leader of British India and yet, he was not in the conventional league of leadership. Leadership of extra-ordinary intellect and greatness like the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru and Moulana Azad, instead of being stifled, flourished under his rather expansive shade! "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did itourselves" - thus goes Lao Tzu (Taoist philosopher). But you (and for the matter of fact, your nemesis) belong to a different genre where leaders are anointed by virtue of divine imposition. They are not followers of their people's aspiration and/or desires. They rather shall lead as to their own aspirations and/or desires. And yes, they have a following too! And that's how, one may say, they are to be measured. This quote from Dennis Peer is but a jeering memento as to the mendacious greatness of our present-day great leaders (God knows –who) - "One measure of leadership is the caliber of people who choose to follow you." Yes it is true that some uxorious kind has dubbed you greatness with appellations like Jono-Netri. And that is great.... I love it… But when I saw an avenging face a sitting Prime Minister injecting the PeelKhana tragedy in political football by advising her opponent (a Desh-Netri) to get out of Moinul Road to make room for families of yet more slain military men – I crouched in infernal disbelief. What kind of Jono-Netri shall play with a wound that still remains raw in the nation's psyche! Well, then I remembered her glowing face in Boston, thanks to the internet, after she negotiated her own release while scores of her own people languished behind …And I also wonder, what kind of Desh-Netri shall continue to occupy a state-owned stately mansion when she herself is rich enough that necessitates the so-called "whitening of black money"! Well, then I remembered that this is the same Netri who once left no stone unturned for the release of a once-enthroned prince who treated her beloved "Desh" with less dignity than a crumpled ball of discarded tissue paper!!! My Dear Prime Minister, In the aftermath of 1/11 our hope soared. We hoped for sobriety to reign supreme. We hoped for reason to prevail. We hoped for "priority" to get priority. Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome (Chinese proverb). And we voted insane. You are not to blame… Dear Prime Minister, I do not want to cram your head further with stories. You must have seen and heard a lot. Here are a few thoughts from a very ancient epic where a king despite being indisputably brave and incontestably strong was described as aloof and out of touch with his people's welfare and thus deserving of the ultimate punishment: His vanity swelled him so vile and rank That he could hear no voices but his own. He deserved To suffer and die … (Beowulf) Your ascendancy to power was on the wings of democracy. I want to believe you when you talk high of democratic ideals and principles. I do not condone the calls (from different quarters) for another election. I despise the calls to topple your government. Your failure shall be a failure not of yours only. Your failure shall be a failure for the nation as a whole. I want you to succeed. I want you to serve your people until your term ends. But I want you to serve well. Government is nothing but an institutional tool to serve. As the head of the government, you must listen to voices of the people who graciously have given you the opportunity. In democracy, people eventually prevail for they are the REAL MASTERS! And lastly, Dear Prime Minister, I wish your success. And don't listen to Paban's nefarious Dad or Hawa Bhavon's ex-Head Mistress. Follow your heart and work for your real MASTER.And in no time, you too shall become a LEADER … Mohammad Zaman Ellisville, Misouri E ,mail :doctorzaman@gmail.com http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=295135 |
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