When Indian politicians started demonising and blaming each other before the recently held national elections, I was quite relieved to see that members of the ruling elite in another country can also get engaged in comical mudslinging. Well, Indians aren’t much different than us in terms of manners and behaviour. When the British politicians blamed each other for regional floods, you can’t really hold our politicians responsible for sounding amusing when they lock themselves in the blame game.
The blame game, in the political arena across the world, is as old as history itself. During the run-up to the last presidential polls in America, for example, the candidates also played the blame game, accusing their opponents of being responsible for many events, statements, or incidents that they refused to be held responsible for. Blogger Danny Schechter wrote in Al Jazeera online: “Blame gaming has become a ritual with candidates, advised by political advisers and consultants, on how to shift accountability or accuse another for actions they clearly had nothing to do with.”
Although the blame game in politics has never benefited the common people of any country, politicians perpetually continue to engage themselves in it. They perhaps fail to realise that no one actually believes them when they accuse each other. But in the process, they, perhaps unknowingly, do a great service to the media. The media is perhaps the best beneficiary of their blame games. For the media, from a selling point of view, nothing could be saucier than making headlines that evoke amusement among the audience. Politicians want to demonise their opponent, in trying to prove themselves as angels, but at the end of the day, the media makes demons out of them as well. Quite intriguing.
Let’s look at a few recent demonising statements from some of our politicians. The BNP’s Senior Vice Chairman Tarique Rahman said that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib was a failed politician. Also, he said, Ziaur Rahman was a successful politician. Then a few days later, the Awami League’s Joint General Secretary Mahbub ul Alam Hanif stated that many people suspected Khaleda Zia to have links with Ziaur Rahman’s assassination.
He stated that Khaleda Zia was the beneficiary of Ziaur Rahman’s death. He was actually replying to BNP leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir’s statement when he said Sheikh Hasina may have had links with Zia’s assassination.
The problem with our politicians is that they want to prove others as having “failed” in order to prove themselves “successful.” In Bangladesh, we cannot prove ourselves successful without branding others as failures. It’s a pity that we have to demonise our opponent to prove us as angels. For us, the commoners, branding Bangabandhu as a “failed politician,” and linking Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia with Ziaur Rahman’s murder don’t only evoke a sense of exasperation. They also show us how the politicians make laughing stocks out of themselves.
Tarique Rahman could have easily glorified Zia without demonising Bangabandhu, and Mirza Fakhrul and Mahbub ul Alam Hanif had many other ways to impress their respective leaders without demonising the other, but they didn’t. To me, it would be a mistake if they thought that they could also convince people with their statements.
It reminds me of Ohio University psychology professor Mark Alicke’s explanation: “The human impulse to blame grows out of the evolutionary need to avert harm. If a group of early humans thought their survival was threatened because a member wasn’t carrying his load – hunting, gathering, whatever – they’d point fingers, throw rocks, even commit murder.”
“Our blame culture is rooted in both nature and nurture. We still succumb to primitive impulses: If we stub a toe on a chair, we’ll kick it and curse at it, even though we know it’s irrational to blame inanimate objects. From childhood on, we’re schooled in the art of blame-shifting. Parents blame each other, teachers blame students, parents blame teachers,” said another US psychologist, Margaret Paul.
That was a psychological explanation. I think politicians in this part of the world practice demonising their opponents not because they want to prove themselves as angels, but because they want to hide their own failures. As I understand, this practice is quite unhealthy for the politicians themselves. No man is perfect, and there is nothing wrong in confessing one’s mistakes. People who make mistakes are those who actually work. It has been proven in all countries since the beginning of history. The people would also hold those in high esteem, who confess their failures and look forward to correct them.
We need to remember: No one is as good as he or she looks, and no one is as bad as he or she looks.