Faruque Ahmed
The government is becoming utterly intolerant to almost everything in an apparent haste to ensure control on the seat of power although its January 5 election remained fraught with legitimacy question at home and abroad.
The hysteria is all over and even on matters that could be easily sidetracked. And the disproportionate oppressive reaction at times appears highly embarrassing to the image of the nation.
Political observers believe there was hardly any justification for dropping the message of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon from the newspaper supplements on September 17.
The supplement was published to highlight Bangladesh’s joining the UN body 40 years ago. News reports say the government had earlier requested the UN chief to give a message on this occasion and he had done it accordingly.
But a section of the message that appeared critical to the government and the whole speech was dropped. The Secretary General in the message has just mentioned that the country’s ongoing political crisis that called for talks to sort out the crisis.
Deleted UN SG’s message
Such talks are part of developing democracy all over the world and Bangladesh should also pursue it by resolving the crisis peacefully for the future of the nation. There is no alternative to arriving at a consensus, he said in his message for newspaper supplement that was sent to Foreign Ministry in Dhaka.
Senior foreign ministry officials however was alarmed and immediately brought the matter to political level. They decided to drop the UN Secretary General’s message and replaced it with a message from the UN resident director in Dhaka Neil Walker. People hardly read newspaper supplements and the absence of Ban’s message remained unnoticed. But the dropping of the message from the supplement turned out to be an interesting event as most national dailies carried out it next day. The message reached direct to them.
This didn’t happen for the first time. According to media reports, when President Abdul Hamid visited New York earlier in June this year and met the Secretary General, his views on Bangladesh politics were edited before being published locally.
Bangladesh Permanent Representative to the UN Dr Abdul Momen told the media that President Hamid had told Ban Ki-moon that there is no shortage of goodwill from government side to talk out political crisis through dialogue. But it must be after the end of the tenure of the government. He had told the Secretary General that if anybody had opted to stay out of election, how the dialogue could be held.
Govt. averse to dissenting voice
Dr Momen said Ban Ki-moon had shared President Abdul Hamid’s views during the meeting meaning that the opposition was to blame for missing the election. But to the surprise of many, the Secretary General’s Office issued a press release two days later to remove the misunderstanding.
The statement actually said that the Secretary General had expressed regret for failure of major political parties in reaching an understanding before the January 5 election. He had moreover laid emphasis on holding talks with all parties outside the Parliament to sort out the political issues.
Another media report in 2011 highlighted how the government had misled the media on Hilary Clinton- Sheikh Hasina telephone talks. The former US secretary of States had talked over Grameen Bank issue with Bangladesh Prime Minister but the government side said the talks had covered developmental issues. The matter became later clear when the transcript of the telephone talks of the two leaders became public with disclosure of many sensitive issues relating to how the ruling Awami League won the January 5 election in 2009.
Many people can’t understand as to why Awami League is so sensitive to dissenting views. It is not always necessary that everybody would agree to its policy and it is not expected either. Awami League is a big party and wants to stay indefinitely in power. But distortion of views of a person like the UN Secretary General is not acceptable.
Intolerance to judiciary, criticism
It appears that the government has also turned highly intolerant to the higher Judiciary. Its latest amendment to the constitution passed last week has buried the move for separation of Judiciary from the Executive branch of the government and the whims of the Parliament.
Parliament can now remove Supreme Court judges. Looking at the present Parliament where more than half of its MPs were not elected but selected by the ruling party and a dummy opposition controlled by the Prime Minister with some of its members sitting on the cabinet, the fate of higher Judiciary has become sealed from this moment.
Supreme Court judges may have two options now – either they must be loyal to the party in power or stand to lose the job if they face confidence deficit with the ruling establishment.
Intolerance of the ruling party cadres now knows no limit. Only last week some of its members physically assaulted Dr Mahbubullah, a retired professor of Economics of Dhaka University in the city streets.
A high-profile academic, Mahbubullah was leaving Bangladesh Supreme Court premises after attending a book publication ceremony when he came under attack in the broad day light.
He is a regular participant to TV talk shows and most people believe that he was intimidated to stop going to such talk shows. It appears that the government intolerance is at work at all level right from the UN Secretary General down to Prof Mahbubullah in the street.
We are at a loss why the government can’t stomach constructive criticism or suggestions like Ban’s reminder for a political dialogue with the opposition. We wonder why critics can’t express views without fearing physical assault and intimidation including forced disappearance and killing. After all it is the responsibility of the party in power to be more accommodative to allow democracy to work.
Source: Weekly Holiday
