IT’S difficult to define a man who barks more than he bites, and that ineptitude last week drove Hussein Muhammad Ershad to his wit’s end when he made a Mephistophelean deal with his destiny and sold his soul for political pittance. He frantically went from pillar to post, holding clandestine meetings, seeking holy blessings and hectoring avowals of political resurgence. In the end, his maneuvers proved nothing more than the centrifugal force of his mind tied to a post. A paradox unto himself, he created an illusion of change while reinforcing the constant.
For the first time in all these years even his most bitter critics should take pity on him. Never before has the former strongman looked so weak. Never before has the self-aggrandising giant shrunk into such a pitiable pygmy. Ershad must consider removing all the mirrors in his house after last Monday because he shouldn’t be able to look himself in the eye again.
We don’t know what compelled him to make a parody of himself. It could have been misguided ambition or the fear of being thrown in jail. After all it has been his choice in life to live in this fix. He has reduced himself into one dubious enterprise, repeatedly subjected to grievous humiliations for the sake of what nobody knows. It can be compared to strip poker when players remove a layer of clothing after each round they lose. Ershad has been doing that same thing before each round he wished to win.
In this winning frenzy, what we saw last week was a ribbon worm cannibalising itself when it got hungry. Ershad has been hungry for power ever since he lost it, but that hunger pushed him to the fringe of his mind and rendered himself powerless. His future looks no more promising than that of a domesticated opposition leader, now that the fallen dictator has fallen again.
For twenty-three years since he was ousted from power, Ershad has been waiting to restore his political balance. Frankly, that has been the raison d’etre of his political existence, hoping to prove someday that he was no less popular than his opponents. Only a few months ago he threw down the gauntlet to them that he could defeat both if elections were held under the presidential system.
It was a Freudian slip that gave away his subconscious thinking. If Hussein Muhammad Ershad has withstood so much opprobrium, it has been because of his undying hope to seek political restitution. He doesn’t probably wish to regain power so much to be powerful again as to overcome his powerlessness. The public scorn has been haunting him since it toppled him in 1990. The man has been waiting for one last chance to prove himself.
Last week Ershad missed the last train. It was his absolute last chance to prove himself. He could have proved that at long last he had matured into a politician. Yet once again he succumbed to a dictator’s instinct, and sacrificed conviction on the altar of convenience. The tragedy of Ershad’s life is that whenever he thought he was winning over people, people hated him more than before.
The back flip Ershad performed most recently only showed that once a dictator is always a dictator. Yes, the disgruntled people of this country may have occasionally considered him as a better choice amongst the leaders. It may have convinced him that his popularity was growing. One wonders if he ever read the story of that washerman who threatened to marry his daughter with his donkey whenever she got him upset.
Ershad has rudely disappointed people again because he is not a politician. Politicians lie all the time, but he will not find another politician who has lied as blatantly and shamelessly as he did. In his blind imitation of politicians he has mastered only half the trick. He knows why to tell a lie but not when to tell it with a straight face.
The sum total of this 84-year-old life is that its supposedly hard-earned reputation gave way to ribald laughter. If one watches television shows, reads the newspapers and talks to people on the street, cartoons, criticisms and cynicisms embellish the smirk that forms on people’s face at the drop of his name. Some day his name will be synonymous with comic proportions to ridicule frivolous things.
Ershad has taken people for granted, and people are catching up with him. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, he turned out to be a goat in a tiger’s skin. If the last impression is the lasting impression, his future is sealed. Last week the curtain fell on the final episode of a slapstick comedy.
Source: The Daily Star
