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The fresh suicide attack in Gazipur compels us to write yet once again on a subject we wished were behind us. Unfortunately, national politics is yet to reach a stage where we can feel comfortable in the thought that our political classes will be in a position to handle the crisis. But despite all our understanding of the flaws our politicians are prone to, we have expressed our honest feeling that it is time for the government and the opposition to begin thinking in terms of a dialogue to deal with the rise of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh. Just how ferocious and daring the fanatics are can be gauged from the defiance of the injured terrorist Abdur Razzak. Not the slightest bit of remorse was there in him as he spoke of his pride in working to destroy what he called the enemies of Allah. His remarks serve as an ominous pattern of the future unless the government and the nation at large can truly gather the courage and the skill to eliminate such terrorists from this country. If the injured terrorist can have the gall to be so indifferent to the evil he has committed, it goes without saying that there are others like him all around the country ready to kill and die for a cause they believe has been defined by God for them. If the future of the country is to be secured, if stability and decency are the collective goal, these fanatics need to be crushed with resolve.
   It is, in all this gathering gloom, encouraging to know that people in different sectors of life have already begun to note the need for the ruling coalition and the opposition to come together in a combating of religious terrorism. The business community has just reiterated its belief that only a meeting of the two sides can lead to the formulation of an anti-terror strategy in the country. That expression of thought has now been added to by reports that leading figures in the ruling BNP feel that a formal invitation ought to be sent out to the opposition regarding the convening of a conference on the ways of addressing the issue. Such a move will definitely be a healthy development in a society where politics has been rendered impotent through the inability of the parties to understand the bigger objectives of democracy. We will expect the prime minister and her colleagues to undertake the task of planning a conference with the opposition at the earliest. At the same time, it remains the nation’s hope that the Awami League and its allies will respond positively to such an offer of talks, when it comes, as a way of demonstrating their good faith in the matter of dealing with Islamic extremism. Clearly, conditions have now come to a pass where politics as usual will not be enough to deal with the emergent situation. The opposition would do well to take cognisance of the public mood at this point. The people of the country are desperate about anyone taking any step to ensure their security. It is a moment the opposition can seize by making clear its willingness to talk to the government without placing any preconditions on the negotiations. The fearsome nature of the situation is indication enough of the fact that these are no times for narrow partisan politics.
   Beyond and above our present fears, it is imperative that the government reassure citizens of their security. That can be done through doing everything that will prevent the creation of panic all over the country. But it can only be done if security is foolproof. The Gazipur deputy commissioner’s office, where the latest attack has taken place, had been considered secure. That a young man disguised as a tea seller has now made a mockery of such security is not particularly thrilling.

Old politicians, ambitions undimmed

Old politicians, like old soldiers, often fade away. That is as it should be. When you hear news of Helmut Kohl undergoing treatment, you know that here is one man who will never go back to politics. In India, there is a plethora of political figures, all with their antecedents in the period of Indira Gandhi, who have somehow hung on, to almost everyone’s discomfiture. For years together in Turkey, Ismet Inonu remained the dominant figure in the nation’s politics. He only went off into the sunset when other, younger politicians emerged and finally made him feel redundant. In America, there was Harold Stassen who kept on trying to be president for years on end and each time ended up looking silly. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe refuses to go despite his advanced years and his growing cantankerousness. Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad to a certain extent overstayed his welcome and then too retired in a clearly reluctant mood.
   Now it seems that Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, the leading political players in Israel, have together stumbled on the discovery that their country is truly in further need of them. Sharon has left Likud and formed a new party with the aim of leading a moderate group to power in the upcoming elections to parliament. And now Peres, who has presided over nearly every important office in government and who indeed has been prime minister as well, has decided to leave his Labour Party as a way of joining hands with Sharon in the latter’s new enterprise. The reasons why Sharon and Peres deserted their political organisations are of course dissimilar. Sharon quit because the strident hawkishness of Likud was making it hard for him to deal with such questions as withdrawing from Gaza and, in good time, the West Bank. For Peres, it was the shock of losing the party leadership to the robust Amir Peretz that appears to have put an end to his loyalty to Labour politics.
   These are men who should have been taking the slow walk into the sunset. But politicians, being the kind of people they are, often do not take the hint. Which is why Mr. Sharon and Mr. Peres will be around in Israel longer than a lot of people might imagine.

With all these young men deciding to take the poth set by Allah Rabbul Alameen, as they believe, you wonder what is happening to our world. All these atto-ghati people are becoming a cause of real dushchinta for us. They have set out on a mission to kill lawyers and judges and the bhoyonkor nature of their chintadhara has been exposed by what they have lately been doing in Jhalakati, Chottogram and Gazipur. These men with the bikrito thoughts have decided in their gigantic bokami that all manush rochito laws have to be flung into the river and the law of God must be our guide. Now, you can, if you wish to, demonstrate your ghrina and krodh at these misguided people who try to blow themselves up in their sinister mission. They are willing to kill others and in the process kill themselves, all in the cause of making Allah happy. But Chintagrosto knows as well as the rest of you do that Allah has no time for nonsense of any kind. There are far too many things He has to deal with in the whole wide universe than providing guidance to bad men. If He had wanted blood sacrifice from His own creation, He would not have formed all these worlds in the first place.
   Essentially, when you try going into the mindset of the extremists or terrorists (ugroponthi and shontrashi have become somewhat overlapping and synonymous in the past few years), you cannot but go back into serious reflections on the dhormio rajniti that has left al of us maimed in this upomohadesh. Beginning with the rise of shamprodayikota in the 1940s and ultimately leading to the srishti of the Pakistan rashtro, we have seen how religion has been made a plaything in the hands of all those kharap people in our midst. Gandhi was murdered by men in whose dhormio chetona there was a lot of hatred for people of other faiths. In the ponchash doshok, the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Abul A’la Moududi, caused serious riots in Lahore with his mission of shedding the blood of Ahmadiyyas. The Ahmadiyyas, as he and a lot of other people have been saying, are not true Mussulmans. Okay, but if they describe themselves as Muslims, why must that bring out the pashobik nature in other men? Moududi was ultimately put down by General Azam Khan and was even handed the mrityu dondo. But before justice could be done, he was freed. In subsequent years, he went on to do more mischief, as millions of Bengalis will remember. It was the Allah-loving (in their crude, murderous way) members of the Jamaat who went on picking up good, honest, creative Bengalis and then bayoneted them and threw their bodies in Rayerbazar. As for Moududi, it might be of interest for you to know that this sachcha Mussulman, having preached hatred for everything and everyone he did not like, died in a Jewish-run hospital, Mount Sinai, in America where he had gone for treatment. What lojja! He could not find Muslim chikitshoks to help him. So much for dhormo procharona.
   The bishoy here is that these suicide attacks we are beginning to witness in our priyo maatribhumi have their origin in the politics of the Jamaat and other Islamist outfits. People like the khatib of the jatiyo mosjid and the members of the Islami Oikyo Jote have always brought our dhormo to a bekaida situation by their odbhut interpretations of the Quran and Hadith. But try telling them that. All hell will break loose. And there is also the other side of the situation. Most of our shashoks in the last teen doshok have happily indulged in playing the religion card in their politics. The muktijoddha Ziaur Rahman, without seeing that he was violating the law, put in Allah’s name in the shongbidhan. He and his dostos probably thought that the gesture would please the Almighty. In the event, the Almighty was not bothered at all. Then came our Ershad shaheb, going through dreams one after the other and visiting mosques one after the other. He was keen to show that he was Allah’s pyara banda. He was not, of course, but that did not put any badha in his decision to give the rashtro a dhormo. It was not just a matter any more of men having a faith. The state too had every right to put a kisti tupi on its head.
   All of these factors must go through our bibechona when we try to study the problems playing havoc with our jibon-japon. But after the study must come thoughts of what the shorkar, the rajnitiks and the jono shadharon can do to contain and suppress this nonsense of suicide killings. It cannot go on. The muktijuddho chetona is once more needed here. Just as we drove out the bideshi shotru and its dalals, so we must pursue these enemies of the rashtro to their secret lairs and have done with them. Nothing else can ensure our nirapotta.
   
   Montris and bideshi chikitsha
   There are many people who are demanding that a new, joggo shorashtro montri be appointed for the country. Allah be praised for such a dawning of intelligence. The previous montri, now at banijjo, made a complete mess of things. Since his departure, it has been the protimontri who has been at the job. And he has not been doing his job at all. He is now, as Chintagrosto understands, in some bideshi desh for treatment. Now that raises another proshno. Must the montris and protimontris of this goreeb dukhi rashtro always travel to foreign lands to have their chikitsha? It is always the rule with good and powerful men that they give utshaho to their fellow countrymen by being with them instead of trying to prove they are special. But in the recent past, we have seen many of our shorkari wallahs and even some birodhis fly off to foreign countries to see whether their shoreer shastho is all right.
   It is a manoshikota that we must change. There is no glory in telling people that you have been to Singapore or London or Kolkata for chikitsha. It does not suit the ambience in which you are puffing yourself up in this manner. That is not the way of the bhadralok. What the bhadralok does is to stay in his country, share in the shukh-dukkho of his deshobashi and not pretend at all that there is something bishesh about his bektitto. In other words, it is only the nouveau riche or the arriviste who will give you such nonsense as flying off abroad to keep their shoreer deho in order. Our montris will earn our respect on the day they realise that they are part of the shorkar of an impoverished jaati. It is a shame to see some of our montris getting the best of medical attention in bideshi hashpatals when millions of their nagoriks are going without treatment of any kind. Besides, try to imagine what those foreign doctors treating these montris must be telling themselves. The country these VIPs come from, they will be whispering, is so poor that it cannot do without help from the data goshthi. And here they are quite happy not to remember why they were elected to office by their emaciated peasants and workers. It is a naak-kaan kata situation.
   
   Just a dawat ...
   The prodhan montri has asked the birodhis to give her the shohojogita she needs to curb the activities of the militants. But why can’t she or the birodhi dolio netri learn from the rest of us? They can invite each other to pulao korma at their homes and spend a good, whole afternoon talking of their shongshar and children. On a Friday, the prodhan montri might invite her rival to a dawat at her residence. The next Friday, it could be the turn of the birodhi netri to return the gesture.
   Any bhadralok will know that people will always have differences. But that does not mean they cannot sit down together and share a shush-shadhu repast and talk of the variety offered by life and experience.

No matter what the prime minister and the ministers, especially the state minister of home affairs, members of parliament of the alliance government, police officials and intelligence officials are saying now or may say in the coming days in defence of their role, intentional or unintentional, collective or individual, in the proliferation of Islamic extremism that climaxed to suicide bombing throughout the length and breadth of Bangladesh, the common people on the street are outright rejecting it with a degree of abhorrence not seen before. And the common people on the street have the uncanny ability to perceive things with greater clarity than many of the giant policy makers. This time the ‘voice of the people’ is not only loud and clear, it is defiant and rebellious too, and only fools will fail to perceive the upshot of such a mood when it takes hold of the entire nation. Such a mood had pervaded, prevailed and united the Bengali nation in 1971, and unless afflicted by a debilitating impairment known as ‘memory loss,’ the lawmakers and strategists in the citadel of power who participated in the War of Independence will be able to remember those days once the smoke from the exploded bombs begin to clear away.
   The minister in charge of the home affairs has told the nation the other day that through the application of four strategies the government will effectively contain the spread of militancy in the country. He suggested psychological counselling of the militants, stopping their money sources, plugging the sources from where they are getting the bombs and punishment for the perpetrators would work out to weaken the organisations. Surprisingly, he never mentioned the necessity of identifying those within the government who are now known to have provided support to the militants for years together. Since the August 17 series bombing, similar strategies have been announced by the government but very little has been done on the ground. The Islamic NGOs continue to receive money from their mysterious foreign donors and indigenous bomb-making factories continue to make the devices in the numerous lanes and by-lanes unnoticed by the law enforcers. Therefore, the common people are taking his words as mere lip service, all sound and fury.
   Today the common people on the street feel that the flag is under attack no matter how the sad and maddening developments are being explained by the government spokesmen. More often than not, their weak arguments are going in favour of the covert endeavours of providing shelter to the jihadis by the ‘sympathisers’ lurking within the government and law enforcing agencies. Though newsmen, social researchers, economists, lawyers, teachers, students, physicians, housewives, shopkeepers, bus drivers and CNG drivers have been able to sense the stealthy progress of the jihadis in various nooks and cranny of the country, and numerous politically impartial people of the country, with no malice intended, had spoken out and written thought-provoking articles on the consequences of harbouring such extremists in a country that incorporated secular democracy in its constitution as one of the guiding principles of governance, the government has been in a mode of denial right from the beginning. From the series bomb attacks and the latest suicide bombing incidents it is too obvious that the government utterly failed to pre-empt the actions of these elements despite having numerous intelligence agencies at its disposal. The questions that naturally pop up is: Did the top level policy makers know about it all along but had no power to act against the surreptitious machination of some powerful people within the government? Or is it that they had been fed with wrong intelligence reports by the lower-level party people who reaped personal benefit by allowing the Islamist outfits to operate in their constituencies? To the obvious dismay of the government, some scandalous facts are coming out of the mouths of some ruling party lawmakers. More similar statements are expected to come from more such lately-turned-rebels within the government in the coming days.
   Whatever the explanations may be, the common people on the street are beginning to lose confidence in the government. They have been sending distress signals to the rulers for the last four plus years urging it to act promptly and judiciously to stop the hydra-headed monster before it came out of its lair. But all signals, all pleas, all urging fell on deaf ears. The monster is out in the open and beginning to wreak havoc in society. The obstinacy, ruthlessness and recklessness already demonstrated by the jihadis since August this year and particularly in Gazipur and Chittagong this week have not only befuddled the people, it has succeeded in stupefying the government as well. From the perplexed look and statements of the senior ministers, mostly in defence of their position, it is becoming more and more apparent that they also were caught unawares. One gets the feeling from observing the policy makers, their body language, and listening to their explanations that somewhere something is amiss as far as sharing of the field level intelligence on the issue is concerned. Whatever went wrong, now that the dirty work has been done, the government has no option but to clean up the mess and shoulder the responsibility of all the deaths and destruction.
   As said before, the common people have little faith left in their protectors and as the only strategy left to defend them, they are getting united as they did in 1971 to foil the attempts of the perverts to take the country back to the pre-liberation era. The memory of how others, supposedly more powerful, so-called mighty and invincible were vanquished when they tried to rule this nation by resorting to bluffing, deception, cheating, lying, obstructing, obfuscating, conniving and torturing is still too strong in the collective minds.
   Thus, there is no denying the mood of rejection and resolve of the people on the street this time around, and except some perverted politicians, every single individual is getting ready once again to defend the green and red flag of this country — the pride of the nation — from the clutches of the blood-thirsty hyenas. How much of this can be discerned from the far away fort where the powerful reside remains the pertinent question today.