Will sabotage from within

As I said before, there is an unlimited supply of humor in the Bangla land. For a local, used to the way things are working or not working here, sometimes it might go unnoticed.

The latest giggle I got comes from the colorful political scene. The Jatiya Party, third largest biggest party here managed to grab 33 seats in the latest almost election, emerging as the largest force after the ruling party. Great news, you would think, even it is just around 10%, at least you have a voice to express a different opinion. Not so fast, now Jatiya Party wants to share power and be also part of the cabinet. Something along the line, I want my cake and eat it too!

According to every norm of democracy that I ever learned, a party having a single cabinet member can't be in the opposition. But TIB (This is Bangladesh)!

Learning the word hartal (general strike)

The first word a Bideshi (foreigner) must learn when he arrives in Bangladesh has to be “hartal”. What is a Hartal?

According to the Wikipedia definition, Hartal is a term in many South Asian languages for strike action, first used during the Indian Independence Movement. It is mass protest often involving a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, courts of law as a form of civil disobedience. In addition to being a general strike, it involves the voluntary closing of schools and places of business. It is a mode of appealing to the sympathies of a government to change an unpopular or unacceptable decision. The term comes from Gujarati, signifying the “closing down of shops” or “locking the doors” with the object of realizing a demand.

The hartal has very honorable roots, in Ghandi’s civil disobedience against colonialism. The thing is colonialism ended a long time ago, and the current leaders in Bangladesh are trapped in the past. They are fighting present wars with the arms of yesterday.

Bangladesh seems to have elevated the hartal to a new level and today here is usually associated with the stoppage of vehicular traffic and closure of markets, shops and offices for a specific period of time to articulate agitation.

There are many proponents of hartals who claim exercising rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of expression is perfectly acceptable. But the present day hartals are associated with intimidation, coercion and infringement on other people’s freedom of movement. They inflict severe costs on the nation. So, I am having a hard time trying to justify hartals on the principles of freedom.

The issue in Bangladesh is that legislation is meant to be discussed, debated and decided in the nation’s Parliament. Time after time, however, opposition members find themselves excluded from dialogue. As a result, Parliament does not function as the forum for dialogue and the fight shifts to other arena, it moves into the streets.
What the political parties fail to understand is that this country needs some fresh blood and fresh thinking. No outside investor will come here knowing that the country is closed for democratic dialogue, because that means it cannot possibly be open for business.

And no, I am not taking credit for the pictures.