State of emergency
W Islam, On e-mail
After emergency, the country breaths freely. It is a big slap to the political parties. For the first time in last 10 years, 92 crore taka was exchanged in stock market on a single day(14/01/07). This certainly is reflecting what we want. For a crime free society, we general people welcome the law enforcers to establish their authority on it. We want our daily life to be peaceful. We are urging the CG to take strict action against the bank defaulters, godfathers (Prothom Alo-28/01/06) to prevent them from taking part in election. In this regard, the Election Commission(EC) can play a key role, otherwise it (EC) would be blamed. We want the election to be free and fair and the government should do whatever it deems necessary to achieve this goal. ***Finally, the "emergency" has temporarily rescued the nation. The turmoil has come to a halt and this is the time that our'Thinkers', 'Well-wishers' and patriotic people should think as the situation prevailing in the country is conducive for that. We should not devise things for emergency management but should evolve something, which will lead us towards a permanent solution, and the country will not again plunge into uncertainty. We have the experience of last 15 years of democracy and based on that we can take corrective measures including, if necessary, amending our constitution. This may take time but it is better to spend sometime to get a better future than to hurry up and go back to square one. There are many imperatives like correction of voter list, voter ID card, transparent ballot box, appointment of neutral CEC etc. but these actions alone cannot solve the problem. We have to find out the root cause and eliminate it for a permanent solution of our problem. First of all, our experts in sociology or social sciences should find out whether democracy as practiced in the West can flourish in our society. Again, democracy is not the best way of governance but it is supposed to be better than the other systems known to the civilised world. Both Bush and Blair got a second term through democratic process though perhaps majority of the conscientious people did not like the Iraq policy followed by them. The US and UK are supposed to be the bastions of democracy. Should we put democracy in abeyance for sometime till the conditions for implementation of it are fulfilled? Or should we continue as it is and the society will adjust itself with the passage of time? These are the questions that our Pundits should answer and guide us. Just blaming the politicians, bureaucrats or for that matter the Mastans will not get us anywhere. That reminds me of the younger days when my grandmother used to tell us that if you kill a monster, each drop of blood produces one monster bigger in size than the original one. So just by eliminating a few godfathers, the society is not going to be full of saints.
Commodore AMA Alam (Retd.) BN, New DOHS, Dhaka
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