Events are not merely events; as and when they happen they act as a mirror for the circumstances in which they happen, but more crucially, they serve to reflect related realities which more often than not elude attention.
The telecommunications minister, Abdul Latif Siddique’s recent remarks in New York about Hajj, the Tablighi Jamaat, and the prime minister’s son touch our lives at different points by bringing to the fore many aspects of our present-day political culture and governance.
The honourable minister’s remarks combined crime and blunder in one go. As a politician, he ought to have had enough common sense not to scandalise people’s religious faith and sentiments. He ought to have kept his ideas to himself.
The matter is more seriously reflective of the discretion deficiency of our government. Latif Siddique is an open book like every other high profile personality of the country. His personal and ministerial record is known to all. Ever since his political empowerment, even from Bangabandhu’s time, he showed no qualms about blundering along through administrative norms and state rules and regulations, abusing privileges recklessly.
How come he was picked as minister repeatedly? His own recklessness perfectly matched the recklessness involved in his selection. It is no exaggeration to say that the inclusion of Latif and his like in the government only reflects the prevailing lawlessness of the country.
There has been an avalanche of reporting on the minister’s wrong-doings, but only after he had exposed himself by his own indiscretion. The irony is that he got caught for one thing, and only then other things came out to media limelight. Without his New York self-indulgence, his other long-time irregularities would have perhaps remained undisclosed.
Why weren’t his misdeeds reported earlier as and when they were committed, as elaborately as is being done now? It is an irony of our body politic that people are not as vocal and resistant about corruption and malpractices at high places that have immediate and practical bearing upon their lives and living, as they are about distant and unrelated issues.
The militancy regarding the matter among various religious groups and parties ranging from declaring the minister “murtad,” and demanding for his death typify their other-worldly commitment. Some indication of what I mean may be found in the two following accounts.
Long ago, I had lived for about a decade in Riyadh teaching at King Saud University. One of my Saudi friends was a bank manager. One day, I was in his office on some personal business. At that time, some Dawa people (Islamic evangelists) came to the manager, and after a short but not very cordial conversation, gave the manager a chit, obviously with religious instructions. It was Ramadan time.
After a quick look at the chit, the manager rolled it into a ball and politely asked the Dawa people to leave, saying that these matters were between him and Allah, and that he was not less learned in these matters. The manager was a university graduate with Islamic jurisprudence as one of his majors.
There is a well-known religious anecdote which may be considered as an object lesson in the matter. In the year of the birth of the holy Prophet, the Abyssinian ruler Abraha made an expedition to conquer Makkah, intending to destroy the Kaaba. As the expedition neared Makkah, the custodians of the holy house got busy making arrangements for the protection of their camels. When blamed for not doing anything to protect Kaaba, the custodians said the Kaaba belonged to God, but camels were their own.
The frenzy and passion at Latif Siddique’s perceived profanity are not less sacrilegious, as they are tantamount to encroaching upon divine prerogative and taking God’s law into one’s own hands. Bertrand Russell once said: “The tyranny of passion is as injurious to human spirit as lack of faith.” It would indeed have been wonderful if such energy and force of a sizeable section of citizens was used against anomalies and corruption that touch us daily, on real-life issues.
The BNP’s stance on the issue is another matter; it surpasses all sense and reason. One wonders how they presume to benefit from Latif Siddique’s exemption from the government and his imprisonment.
The AL’s ideological basis is secularism and liberal democracy, but this cannot be said of the party’s individual members. Because of their educational standard and personal culture, most of them are not free from bigotry and prejudice. They cannot see Latif Siddique’s aberration with a free mind. In addition, they have to reckon with people’s raw sentiments.
Naturally, it has stirred fury and turmoil within the party and the government. What the BNP leaders say and do are mostly irrelevant. Even if the minister is put behind bars, the harvest is likely to be the AL’s. It will not go into BNP’s store with the possibility of public perception that the government does not spare even its own high-ups.
More importantly, the BNP will appear to be in shortage of issues to engage and agitate people; they will be seen as only trying to catch at a straw. Instead of going after an individual, especially when his own party is set to do away with him, the BNP’s sensible option would have been to use the matter as symptomatic of the prevailing political culture of the ruling party’s recklessness.