The questions keep piling up, much to our discomfort.
Why should an academic at Dhaka University come forth with the curious suggestion that the existing parliament can have its mandate extended by five years, that fresh elections in that case need not be gone through? One can only imagine what his students, and by extension people around the country, make of the suggestion. Is that ingenuity? We wonder.
When the vice chancellor of Dhaka University informs us that had our national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam been in a state of good health, he would have dedicated his Agnibeena to the Father of the Nation. Here's the reality: Nazrul's Agnibeena appeared in 1922, when the future Bangabandhu was a mere two years old.
One doesn't quite get the drift of the idea placed before us by the vice chancellor. The bigger point, though, is one of whether that statement was at all necessary. Such statements are not exactly inspirational. More than anything else, they undermine the very entity or personality they are meant to look upon with reverence.
Besides, Bangabandhu made history on his own. It is a fact which not even his detractors can take away from him. Look at the bigger picture. Individuals like Rabindranath, Nazrul, Netaji, and Bangabandhu are part of the national pantheon of heroic figures, existing independently of one another but wedded to common ideals of literature and politics. Let's keep it that way.
And then you have another question. It relates to a statement by a lawyer to the effect that Barrister Amir-Ul Islam will have no more access to the Awami League -- and it is a party Islam has loved and served for decades -- because he has dared to question the public comments of a city mayor in court.
Are we being informed that people do not have the right to express dissent, to voice disagreement with individuals they believe have given vent to sentiments which need to be responded to?
The point we ought not to miss, especially those of us who hold fealty to the principles which powered our War of Liberation 52 years ago, is that there are or have been all those men and women whose dedication to the national cause has never wavered.
Amir-Ul Islam has not only been part of history but has, in a way that does us all proud, made his particular contribution to the making of history. In company with Tajuddin Ahmad, the courageous leader who took up the banner of freedom once the Pakistan army pounced on us in late March 1971, Islam made his way out of a burning Dhaka.
He was not seeking safety or refuge per se. It was his belief that resistance needed to be shaped, that a concrete and credible strategy towards the establishment of Bangladesh had become an inevitability.
It was Amir-Ul Islam who did for us what Thomas Jefferson did for a fledgling United States in the latter eighteenth century: He drafted the Proclamation of Independence, the same that was read out by Professor Yusuf Ali at Mujibnagar on April 17, 1971. And in free Bangladesh, he not only served in Bangabandhu's government but also played a pivotal role in the making of the country's constitution.
It then follows that individuals like Amir-Ul Islam and indeed so many others like him must not be denigrated but accorded the respect which they deserve. Indeed, in these troubled times that we are trying to navigate, respect for people has been going through a deficit. That debate and dissent strengthen societies and give democracy the energy it requires to thrive is a truth we need to reaffirm in these times.
And we do that by informing ourselves, by spreading the word that civil society matters, that when civil society comes under threat or is humiliated in words and deeds, it is a nation which turns out to be the loser.
Civil society comprises men and women to whom conscience matters and for whom it is a ceaseless endeavour to have their pulse on where the country is headed and what advice can be proffered, in the larger interest of the state, to those who administer the state.
Civil society is not the enemy. Nor is it its goal to undermine politics. Those who are part of civil society have it in them to see the larger picture, for they are all well-read and in tune with the ways of the world.
When things go wrong, or when the government does wrong, or when administration falters, it is for civil society to rise to the occasion with suggestions pertaining to the corrective measures that ought to be taken.
A truly democratic society does not seek to place civil society members in sacks and drown them in the black waters of the Buriganga. If and when that is done, there will be turbulence all around. Politics will be in turmoil. Decency will be the casualty. Democracy will bite the dust.
We need social security for our citizens; we need to be able to buy food at affordable prices; we need to have those who have been playing truant with national resources face justice; we need to acknowledge that money laundering is a thriving business which calls for strict and stringent handling; we need to ensure that the media are not subjected to punishment under draconian laws when they raise legitimate questions.
We need the state to ensure that resources are distributive, that everyone has his or her share. We will not have an egalitarian society when the corrupt are not penalized, when the influential bend the law and thus strike at the values which underpin society. We are unquestionably in requirement of institutions which are administered professionally, where personnel serve the republic in line with the constitution.
We underscore the point that illiberalism is always a huge impediment to a flowering of ideas, that a nation which experiences a steady erosion of liberalism runs the risk of cutting itself off from the world beyond its frontiers.
Back in June 1996, this nation resumed its journey toward a recovery of principles and a reassertion of the national ethos that had influenced our march to sovereign nationhood.
Today, it is that moment we need remembering. If we mean to uphold the spirit of 1971, we must do everything that went into the making of that spirit.
The spirit was forged through a worldview which stressed respect for citizens by the political classes. Today, through demonstrating respect for civil society, for our political icons, for our public intellectuals, we can reclaim the old spirit.
Political loyalties are a necessity, but the danger arises when political partisanship is weaponized to score points against individuals whose patriotism is as deep as that of those who are infuriated by people they are convinced are up in arms against the state.
And, by the way, a chief justice was certainly brought down and hounded out of the country. Let us be clear: It was not something that was edifying. It was not a celebratory moment for the nation. It did not enhance our self-esteem as a people's republic.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune
