On the morning of 1/11 Today is the 8th anniversary of the now infamous 1/11. The notorious clique of a couple of powerful embassies, two or three top generals with an outside endorsement of the Awami League, decided to sort out the problems of Bangladesh. Needless to mention the stalemate was created by the disastrous decision of the Rangpur Returning Officer, most likely influenced by overenthuiastic BNP-leaning bureaucrats or the Banga Bhaban of Professor Iajuddin Ahmed. In the diplomatic circles it was an open secret that the AL would pull out of the elections if General Ershads cancelled nomination papers are not declared valid. After all alliance with General Ershads JP was the centerpiece of the ALs electoral strategy. They cant afford anyone to foil it! Be it the Hawaa Bhaban or the Banga Bhaban. If the BNP or the Banga Bhaban had a role in effecting this cancellation, they had committed a political suicide. Because the AL was already unhappy with the way Banga Bhaban was handling its duties as the head of the Caretaker Government (CG). They did not like the Presidents simultaneously holding the position of the Chief Adviser (CA). Everybody knows the circumstances under which Justice Hassan refused to take oath of office of the CA as per the constitution. Perhaps the BNP or its allies could not predict that Justice Hassan would refuse to take oath at the last moment. But he had no choice but to stay away as Dhaka city was turned into a buthery in the aftermath of the unthinkable, brutal, attrocities carried out by the AL and its allies in response to the current PMs call to come out with logi-boitha in the eve of transition of power to a caretaker government on 28th of October, 2006. This post is actually a copy of my comment on Zahid Newas Khans post who raised an important point. He invited someone to conduct an anthropological reserach on whether we as a nation love strong rulers as he recalls one of his colleagues joy on the news of the army takover on 1/11. My response was the following: Interesting point! Our ethnicity may not be responsible for this. I know there are nations and groups of people who love strong rulers but I do not know one that loves dictators! The trouble with our military rulers and for most in history is that most of them turned out to be ruthless dictators and are known not for their strength in governing but the strength in oppressing their peoples. Because strength comes with the baggage of ruthlessness, corruption, torture, nepotism, arrogance, and general lack of knowledge of governance, most military rulers in history actually failed to leave any lasting legacy. Even Kemal Ataturk is unpopular in modern Turkey. And we all know of what happened to Saddam Hussain, Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and how popular Bashar Al Assad or General Bashir are. In his famous book Military withdrawal from politics: A comparative study, Talukder Maniruzzaman looked at military regimes, their interventions and eventual return to barracks in 57 countries. On nearly each occasion, people appear to welcome military intervention. However, the expectation gap soon emerges and military has to experience often humiliating return to barracks. Human beings are naturally created as liberty seekers, with ego, opinion, conscience, self-esteem. So genetically people love to decide their own destinies. Therefore, there is no reason for a large number of people to want military rule. Why, then, we see sighs of relief, welcome messages, or a general tendency of praying for martial laws in our country? This is a puzzle. And the answer is not in our gene or ethnicity. The answer lies in human beings natural frustration with status quo when status quo miserably fails to deliver. When nothing seems to work and tyrants refuse ti budge, people seek help from the invisible hand of God and military emerges as a godsend. Examples of this can be found in post-famine (1974) Bangladesh and definitely after the 4th amendment and to some extent, in 2006 when there was this standoff between the BNP and the AL. You can also see reliefs in Pakistan prior to Zia-ul-Haqs and Parvez Musharrafs takeover but not as much prior to the other takeovers such as that of Iskandar Mirzas, Ayub Khans or Yeahyas. Likewise, in Bangladesh we had several military takeovers and none was as popular as the one by Ziaur Rahman. Why? In spite of Awami Leagues tacit acceptance, the military takeover by General Ershad never made any ground among the people and the one by Moyeen Uddin and Fakhruddin, the one notoriously known as one-eleven, was clearly endorsed by the Awami League (See the then AL Secretary General Abdul Jalils interview where he admitted that he received calls prior to the intervention) and thats why survived for as long as they did. Note that in spite of noticeable infrastructural development delivered by Ayub Khan (the so-called decade of development) and General Ershad, neither could make any head way politically. The whole time Ayub Khan was in power, he had to fight for acceptance. The same happened to Mr Ershad and Moyeen-Fakhr never had any ground under their feet. They survived the 2 years because the AL allowed them to survive as the AL knew they were delivering the goods. I rather see a different phenomenon in the anthropology of our people. In the last 56 years since the 1958 martial law, our people have relentlessly fought against the army. The only popular military dictator whose legacy survived years after death is Ziaur Rahman. You can test no one else - Ayub, Yahya, Tikka, Zia Ul Haq, Mosharraf, Ziaur Rahman, Ershad, Moyeen - all these generals could be credited with martial laws but whose party even won one free and fair election in their absence? None but Zias!! This puts Ziaur Rahman in a league of his own. Doesnt it? [Dear Zahid Bhaiya, I am posting this comment on my page too. I hope its okay.]
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 03:47:53 +0000
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