Dhaka Courier Editorial: A Futile Politics #Bangladesh dhakacourier.bd/from-the-editor-a-futile-politics/ The horrific events of December 24, which saw the capital’s Bakshibazar turn into a battlefield as clashes ensued between supporters of the Awami League and the BNP in the wake of a court appearance by Begum Khaleda Zia, are enough to fill anyone with a sense of deep apprehension looking ahead to 2015. As we all know, the BNP has been promising an anti-government movement for quite some time now. We are made to understand that they are looking to inject some impetus into this by marking the anniversary of the January 5, 2014 election as a black day for democracy in Bangladesh. Not to be outdone, the Awami League has promised to celebrate the day as a triumph for the democratic process. Provided neither side backs off, the most likely outcome is a repeat of the scenes from Bakshibazar, only this time the violence may not remain confined to just one corner of Dhaka. It is profoundly disappointing that our two main political parties still fail to avail any other avenue besides that of violence in engaging with each other. The BNP’s boycott of the January 5 polling exercise means they have no representation in parliament at present, and are left looking down the barrel of the government’s compulsions in order to change that situation. Repeated calls for dialogue from a number of quarters have failed to ruffle feathers as yet. Provided they are not faced with any serious breakdown in the administrative process, the government looks set on seeing out its full term of five years without engaging in any sort of dialogue with the opposition, since the underlying objective of any such process would have to be to set the markers for an early election. It all attests to the lack of maturity on display in the political arena, and what makes things worse is how the public is held hostage to it. The findings of a recent report by the Brac Institute of Governance and Development reinforce the view that over a span of three decades, Bangladesh’s multi-party democracy has turned into “partyarchy”, a tendency of political parties to exert overwhelming influence on state and non-state institutions. Politics, by its very nature, has a tendency to exert influence over a number of spheres in a nation’s life. The fact that this influence tends to be even more pronounced by a polity as broken as ours, is not only frustrating. It is wrong. If our main political parties are unable to sort out their differences at least to the extent that they can start being civil to each other, it becomes incumbent upon the nation to wean ourselves of their influence. Once their pettiness in fighting each other over issues that retain no relevance to ordinary people starts receiving less attention in the national discourse, it may finally bring them around to realising its futility.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:20:19 +0000
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