Reinventing history: To what ends?

Like a lot of people, I was somewhat taken aback by Begum Khaleda Zia’s recent brazen attempt to re-write the history of Bangladesh. On reflection, I thought it may be an act of maternal love, supporting her errant son, currently exiled in England, who seem to have been in first in making the claim that in reality General Ziaur Rahman was the first president of Bangladesh.

The response of the Dhaka intelligentsia was swift and decisive; the evidence was martialed, the facts presented, and the claim demolished. All well and good, but few people have sought to mine this outrageous claim for deeper meanings.

Why, at this point in time did Khaleda make this claim? Was this some spur of the moment utterance devised to distract attention from the parlous state the BNP currently finds itself inhabiting, or does it herald a new agenda whereby the BNP (or rather the Zias) reclaim what they have come to see has their patrimony?

When and if we have a general election in 2019, the BNP will have been out of power for 12 years, suggesting that the Zias’ grip on power will have slipped away.

Not only has the name Zia been expunged from the name of the international airport, but Tarique will have been out of country for a considerable period of time. Together, these connote that the Zia aura is waning.

The answer is to defend the diminishing patrimony by attacking the key foundational myths of Bangladesh’s historical narrative; the respective role of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s in achieving independence and the sacrifice and martyrdom of the Bangladeshi youth in confronting the ruthless Pakistani enemy.

Challenging stuff at the best of times, and potentially incendiary in their impact. Interestingly, the claims have been greeted with derision and consigned to the dustbin of history. Even more interesting is the fact that we haven’t seen the BNP apparatchiks racing to the barricades to defend their leaders and assert their interpretation of history to be the correct one. All of which leads us to ask: Why was the claim made in the first place?

A quick and superficial answer could be that the BNP is in disarray and the Zias have to re-impose their authority in order to retrain control over the party, which has become marked by a division between the Dhaka wing and the regional organisation. In one deft move, the name Zia is inserted back into the headlines and reminder issued on what really counts here.

Alternatively, the BNP policy cupboard is bare, bereft of new ideas, strategies, or tactics. Consequently, the claims about General Zia can be seen as a desperate effort to shore up BNP confidence in the context of the upazila elections.

Either of these interpretations is plausible, but I think it possible to offer a different and ultimately deeper analysis of events. Khaleda’s claims contained an implied threat; accept this interpretation because in the future we will write the true history of Bangladesh, and if you want a place in this narrative, then begin to believe.

In short, this is an attempt to capture, for want of a better word, the soul of the nation. It is an attempt to set out new parameters for a history of Bangladesh, which is revisionist and partisan.

In attempting to capture the historical highground, Khaleda fails to recognise one salient point, but at the same time grasp another. Anyone engaged in doing history will tell you that history is a very tricky subject that should be approached with caution – what appear to be facts have a habit of turning on their interpreters, that history is always provisional, open to reinterpretation and reassessment.

History is not a claim uttered endlessly in the belief that if you say it often enough someone will accept it as fact, as the Zias seem to believe. On the other hand, they have grasped, with great clarity, that history is usually written by the victors and it is this, I think, that worries them.

Despite the continuing call by the BNP for a new and fair election, and the seemingly never-ending electoral abuses of the recent local elections, there seems to be very little interest in the wider community for a new national election.

The Awami League has no need to call one and in the community there seems to have been a huge communal sigh of relief as street life returns to normal. There is little stomach for a return to the violence and disruption of the continuous hartals.

The prospect of the BNP returning to power at this point seems remote. Herein lies the problem, which leads the Zias to make two fundamental errors of judgment. A further five years of governing provides the AL with even more opportunities to expunge the Zia name from the historical narrative. The claims made in respect to General Zia, then, represent one last desperate attempt to remind Bangladeshis of his role in the nation’s history, which is now well documented and accepted in broad terms by the country as a whole. General Zia’s importance is acknowledged and understood and to try to make more of it is an egregious mistake.

At another level, Bangladesh has changed markedly over the last decade. It is more prosperous, better educated, and much better informed about events. Thus, to attempt a reversal of history displays a fundamental misunderstanding of contemporary Bangladesh.

You need more than slogans to maintain party loyalty. In attempting to re-write history, the BNP fails to grasp that the AL is vulnerable on a number of fronts; its failure to control the triumphalism of its student wing and grass roots organisations who seem to interpret electoral victory as license to settle scores are foremost. But rather than counter these excesses with well thought-out policies, the BNP, through its leader, continues to make foolish claims. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, the BNP seems to have neither the capacity nor the political will to change.