[ALOCHONA] The politics of history

The politics of history

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan / Courtesy Daaily Star 08/04/11

It came as no surprise when Home Minister Sahara Khatun said it last Friday. She said Ziaur Rahman never claimed that he had declared independence. If she has told the truth, she has only told half of it. The other half is that neither did Sheikh Mujibur Rahman make that claim. Not as we know it.

Why it didn't come as a surprise is because like music, our history is going through its remix phase. The politicians are using audio mixing to compose an alternate master recording of historical facts. They are simply changing the equalisation, dynamics, pitch, tempo and playing time. Everybody is busy creating an altered version of history. Everybody has his or her target audience.

That's why we have been hearing many versions of history, varying recollections and various interpretations. It now appears that suddenly everybody has started to remember everything, and history in this country has turned into a cottage industry. It's unfortunate that two of our greatest leaders are the targets of our scorns and derisions. They fought for our freedom. Why are we fighting over them?

The unpleasant truth is that we don't know how to appreciate what either man has done for this country. Our independence is akin to a family fortune. One generation has worked hard to earn it. Being their unworthy descendants, we are having the luxury to squander it in squabbles. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman never claimed credit for anything. They didn't have to. Perhaps they never wished to. Heroes don't claim achievements. Achievements claim heroes.

But let us talk about history. Veteran freedom fighter Kader Siddiqui has claimed that prime minister's advisor H.T. Imam should be tried for conducting oath to Khondoker Mushtaque Ahmed. Everybody knows Mushtaque was a prime suspect in the conspiracy behind the atrocious killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family. Siddiqui was putting that history in perspective.

Not everybody is able to do so. Forty years later, the surviving trio of the student quartet, better known as "four caliphs," is split in two. Two of them can remember a "nucleus" that existed outside the mainstream leadership and pulled the strings of some sort during the freedom movement. The third one has complete blackout. He insists he should have known if that nucleus existed since he was then the main man of student politics.

The icing on the cake came from Awami League joint secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif. He said that BNP should observe the Independence Day on March 27, if they believed Zia declared independence. He essentially fell short of asking BNP to go get its own country.

So much for the torrents of history, that also in last one month only! This nation is dazed like someone who is blindfolded and spun around before being asked to tell which way he is facing. It is said that a nation that forgets its history is condemned to repeat it. In Bangladesh, so many people are repeating history in so many ways that we might soon be condemned to forget it.

Nations often tend to have divided memory. Italians cannot agree on various periods of their history with regards to war, terrorism, disaster and fascism. Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland in USA, determined that two Germanys had different ways of remembering the Third Reich. They took vastly dissimilar directions to come to terms with their common past.

We are also facing a similar challenge in this country: divided memory of collective history. How one political party wants to remember the Liberation War is not the same way other party remembers it. Even worse, our politicians are resorting to innuendos and inferences to make up for their inconsistencies. They are turning history into stand-up comedy.

Perhaps what is most fortunate for us is also most unfortunate. We have still got a large number of politicians who can remember the history of our freedom struggle. But too many cooks are spoiling the broth. In their parochial memories of history, they have been creating many paradoxes.

Future generations will be left with no choice but to take our history with a pinch of salt. If anything, they are being cooped up in a house of horror where the walls are lined with distorted mirrors. It will be creepy and kooky for them because whichever way they turn, they will be terrified by disfigured facts.

We must put an end to political rants that treat history with the vigour of a hawker, who believes that if he shouts louder he can sell more products. We all know why our politicians distort history. They are more committed to the present than they are to the past and the future. It's politics for them, tragedy for us.

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