By
Fazal M. Kamal
All too evidently the government is suffering from a
daymare (you heard that right; it’s a legit word) since the Supreme Court
issued its judgment on the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. To saner
people the ruling party motormouths’ incessant pronouncements are likely to
sound strange, implausible and perplexing especially because it would strike
sensible people as a judicial decision made in the larger interest of the
nation and for the greatest good.
In point of fact some of the declarations made by
persons purported to be members of the Cabinet and party leaders supposed to
hold “high-level” positions are so ludicrous, when not contemptuous and utterly
crude, that they are bound to boggle the mind, i.e. if it still can preserve a
modicum of sanity. In an evident rush to the bottom, often their assertions
have been comprehensively and outright contemptible.
Obviously these aural assaults on the highest
judiciary---leaving aside the threats to the Chief Justice---cannot point toward
even the least tolerant of administrative edifices. On the other hand, the
government’s stance coupled with its verbal war can only generate further
anxieties among an already worried people as they hear the intensifying venom
of the words with profound and increasing alarm.
Still more worrisome is the history of the Awami
League which is loaded with acts, activities, decisions and of course words
that indicate in brazen terms the lack of tolerance over the many decades the
party has been in existence. It simply cannot handle criticism or opposition to
its desires, which with disturbing regularity have displayed a phenomenal
weakness for total control and exclusionary political dispensations.
If we add to this the irrepressible ambitions and
avarice of its members and hangers-on it can easily lead to horrendous
consequences for the nation as, unfortunately, has occurred numerous times
during the times the party had its tentacles on the levers of state power. It
just finds such temptations as compelling as moths find a flame.
Certainly these outrageous acts of hostility against
the apex judiciary cannot auger well for Bangladesh---and indeed it hasn’t in
the past either when the Awami League had launched attacks on the courts. Now
merely because the Supreme Court has attempted to correct some
misrepresentations, misperceptions and misinformation ruling party honchos and
administration officials---astoundingly one particular employee of the state
too---have gone berserk.
To recover sanity in statecraft government leaders
must come to terms with realities and not persist with myths, personal desires
and personality cults (almost a la President Trump!). After all, even Mr. Trump
has realized that tweets and Trumps cannot supersede everything else all the
time. If there’s to be any semblance of democracy in a country, it can
faithfully function and help the people only if it’s inclusive.
While this ugly onslaught has been progressing
unabashedly there has been---of course---no let up in malfeasance and
malevolence of any kind. Many of those who display any gumption to oppose
and/or criticize the administration continue to disappear (a game from which
law enforcement tools seemingly compress a huge amount of entertainment) and
sometimes they reappear and sometimes they don’t, and oftentimes they reappear
as corpses.
Be that as it may. In their endeavor to oppose the
Supreme Court’s judgment and simultaneously drag the Chief Justice down not
only have they slithered to an accustomed nadir but their attitude, approach
and audio cacophony have exhibited to the entire world--both to its bemusement
and horror—that the ability to be loathsome is not strained, in which state
they can also easily continue to be incogitant.
Contemptible verbal diarrhea from persons apparently
with little affinity either with democratic norms or passable education or acceptable
social conduct lead to gratuitous exhibition of their disgraceful predilections
while indispensable institutions of the state are battered consistently so that
they cower to the will of the rulers. That of course is in truth tyranny of the
few many of whom would have no accoutrement without political patronage.
That, sadly for the nation, is indeed a shameful
state of affairs.
ENDS
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