2 qwik pts:
1. Adviser Hussain Zillur Rahman has invited AL to join a pre-official dialogue at the state guesthouse Padma by sending an invitation to the acting AL president Zillur Rahman via SMS! Zillur Rahman graciously accepted the invitation, no doubt in the greater national interest. Kudos to him. I don’t know if I would have. I’m no Ms. Manners, but an invitation from the state via SMS, to talks this important, this has got to be a first! How about making a phone call? Hand delivering a letter? What if the adviser picked the wrong number from his address book? What if he mistakenly sent it to AL and BNP both? What if he “mistakenly” invites both BNP factions to meet at the same time via SMS next? Isn’t there any protocol to follow? Are SMSs a safe way to communicate sensitive issues of national interest? Am I not hip and with it anymore?
Ok, here’s a pet peeve disclosure. SMS lingo is annoying. Please no plz.
2. Food riots, they’re almost here. Yesterday garments workers clashed with police demanding wage hikes. 50 were injured.
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April 21, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Nizam M. Selim
As a sequel to the 1968 movement against Ayub Khan, Sheikh Mijibur Rahman’s “Agartala Conspiracy” trial was dashed to the ground, and he was freed under Maulana Bhashani’s threat “Jeler Tala bhangbo, Sheikh Mujibke anbo” (Mujib admitted at the “Race Course Maidan” after returning from Pakistan in 1972 that he has indeed gone to Agartala, proving the allegations to be right, after all!).
Exit Ayub Khan, and enter Yahiya Khan by the declaration of Martial Law.
Political pundits and the exponents of East Pakistan’s autonomy, and Bhashani in particular, exhorted Mujib not to participate in the “Elections: in Pakistan in 1970 under the Legal Framework Order (LFO) promulgated by Yahiya Khan. Mujib preferred to aver and did participate; in 1971 again Bhashani and scores of political leaders and activists advised Mujib not to participate in in the 1971 Round Table Conference (RTC) with Yahiya Khan and Bhutto. Again Mujib disobliged and preferred to sit with the military doctator at the RTC. THE REST IS HOSTORY!
Awami League’s and its leasers’ propensity to have entente cordial with the Martial Law regimes and military dictators is amply evident in their welcome of General Ershad in 1982, in supporting him all through and in Sheikh Hasina and AL’s participation in the “Election” under Ershad in 1986. Nothing new indeed!
In character with this intrinsic trait of the Awami League, Sheikh Hasina lent support to General Nasim and his abortive Coup in 1996! In 2006, the most ardent supporter of CTG, Emergency and 1/11 have once again been Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League!!!!
No wonder, therefore, Zillur Rahman and the Awami League are once again seen cavorting the CTG, General Moeen, “Election Commission”, “Sanglap” and the elusive “Election”. Schemers of conspiracy (Agartala) and advocates of autocracy (BAKSAL) can only be expected to ditch and dump Democracy and the constitutional process that is an apanage of Democracy; even if these mean digging the grave of the Nation and the Nation-State, that is Bangladesh, arguably Awami Leaguers shall neither flinch at it and nor bat an eyelid. Volte face and turning somersaults are ingrained in the Awami Leaguers.
We wait to see what Bangladesh’s quixotic misadventure by way of 1/11 shall throw up from the Awami League this time around- Awami League off the people, bye the people and fore the people.