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Thursday, July 2, 2009

[chottala.com] Re: [khabor.com] Moeen was no De Gaulle, but . . . by Syed Badrul Ahsan



The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw
 Man and Superman (1903)

 
On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:36 AM, <mrahman246@yahoo.com> wrote:

AL will never be a sane party. Those who advocate and says AL is a sane party he is insane too. A sane conscious party man can,t come out on the street with logi boita and can,t set fire on a bus loaded with live human being!!

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From: Syed Aslam
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 20:49:18 -0400
Subject: [khabor.com] Moeen was no De Gaulle, but . . . by Syed Badrul Ahsan

Moeen was no De Gaulle, but . . .

Syed Badrul Ahsan

THERE are hordes of people baying for Moeen U. Ahmed's blood these days. They would like him to be taken into custody. They would love to see him tried for the way he "violated" the constitution. Their happiness will know no bounds if he is hauled up to answer the question of why he had kept the country captive to an "illegitimate" government for two years. They would applaud uproariously if the guillotine came down on his neck. All of that is a matter of opinion. It is a free country, which means every citizen is free to speak his mind on men and matters in a way he sees fit.

But beyond that matter of freedom of speech comes the truth, at once unavoidable and palpable: General Moeen U. Ahmed, for all his follies and foibles, will be remembered as the man who engineered a return to political sanity for the people of Bangladesh. Expand the idea and what you have is something fundamental and historically necessary that Moeen accomplished in January 2007. He simply stepped in and helped the country send the dishonest, venal caretaker government led by Iajuddin Ahmed packing.

Whether you like it or not (and you will not like it if before January 2007 you had looked forward to rigged elections), the general did a job that should have been done by the political classes in the first place: he made it possible for us to hope once more. Sit back and reflect on the slippery road to disaster the country would have taken if the state of emergency, the better to give legal cover to the installation of a new caretaker regime, had not been imposed on January 11, 2007.

And this is what would have happened: even with the Awami League and its allies opting out of the general elections scheduled for January 22, the Iajuddin cabal would have gone ahead with the voting and the discredited Bangladesh Nationalist Party-Jamaat alliance would have cheerfully marched back to power. Of course, people would have stayed home and the voting centres would have stayed bleak and empty, but the votes would be counted anyway.

A hollow victory would have been announced over state-controlled media and public opinion would have been given short shrift. Anarchy would have been loosed upon our world and the very real prospect of a civil war, for all our pretence about it not coming to pass, would be at our doorsteps. But none of that happened. The emergency put paid to all that. Because it did, we are a little better off today than we were in the days and weeks immediately prior to the ouster of the Iajuddin government.

Of course, a goodly number of wrong moves were made on General Moeen's watch. The unseemly manner in which Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia were carted off to imprisonment will remain a sad thought for the nation. The alacrity with which politicians of the stature of Abdul Jalil were put through the humiliation of remand shamed us as a society. Our embarrassment over the action against the students and teachers of Dhaka and Rajshahi universities, specifically the clear attempt at undermining the reputation of respected academics, is a story we are not likely to forget any time soon.

General Moeen should have avoided being selective where dealing with some men of questionable reputation is concerned. He could have stayed away from association with those responsible for the scandal of fifty-two first class results at Dhaka University. His prestige took a hit when some individuals, despite the emergency, happily went ahead with forming political parties destined to be ridiculed and laughed out of existence.

Like every other individual who finds himself at the crossroads of life, Moeen U. Ahmed has demonstrated his shortcomings. But weigh those flaws against the positive good that came of his being at the centre of things. He was no Charles de Gaulle. Neither did he allow himself to be tempted into staging a coup d'etat, and thereby taking us all back down a potholed road we have known so well.

With him effectively buttressing the Fakhruddin caretaker government, it was possible to run a corrupt Election Commission out of town and replace it with men who truly meant business. A toothless, partisan Anti-Corruption Commission was swiftly swatted down and men of integrity (you think here of Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury) were able to take charge of that comatose body and breathe it back to life.

A corrupt Public Service Commission made way for a decent, well-meaning one. And do not forget that when General Moeen spoke up in defence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, it was the first time in more than three decades that an army chief in Bangladesh had publicly acknowledged the Father of the Nation's place in our history.

The just departed army chief could have reinforced the dark tradition set and cemented by Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq, Pervez Musharraf, Ziaur Rahman and Hussein Muhammad Ershad. He did not. That in itself is a tribute to General Moeen U. Ahmed.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star. E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk.

 
 



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[chottala.com] Gen. Moeen Trial issue & BNP ideology : few questions by Syed Borhan Kabir



 

Gen. Moeen Trial issue & BNP ideology : few questions

by

Syed Borhan Kabir

 
Please comment.
 
Sent by:
 
Syed Aslam


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[* Moderator's Note - CHOTTALA is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political and non-discriminatory organization.

* Disclaimer: Any posting to the CHOTTALA are the opinion of the author. Authors of the messages to the CHOTTALA are responsible for the accuracy of their information and the conformance of their material with applicable copyright and other laws. Many people will read your post, and it will be archived for a very long time. The act of posting to the CHOTTALA indicates the subscriber's agreement to accept the adjudications of the moderator]




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