Clarity of speech, candour and outspokenness are qualities which are rare among our politicians. Circumlocution, evasion and prevarication, on the other hand, are quite common.
In the present day, political parties in Bangladesh are constantly changing their faces. While they seem to possess some inflexible individual principles, there appears to be attached to them an unmistakable sign of preparedness to profess any philosophy that may help in winning public sympathy and support.
One of the greatest ambiguities for example, lies in the respective attitudes of the two major political parties in these turbulent times regarding the position, priority and future of religions, or more specifically Islam, in Bangladesh. There is a huge lack of clarity and definition. The public is thus actually told little about fundamental differences between the philosophies of the two principal political parties.
Both parties demonstrate similar pugnacity, lack of spirit in adhering to moral principles and a malicious loathing for one another. Insufficiently educated or simply inept leaders also confuse the picture by failing to enunciate before the public the fundamental principles of the political party with which they are associated.
Therefore, it would not be unreasonable by any means to state that little actually separates the two parties except individual prejudices.
The public gets the impression that one of these two parties is strongly in favor of ensuring that religions, most particularly Islam, will only be allowed to persist in this country in its most docile form. That is to say within the boundaries of individual life and to a limited extent, social life.
Islam, according to their beliefs, has no legitimate right to cross the borders of mosques and enter the realms of economics, governance, jurisprudence and general ruling of the state. However, while these impressions can be unmistakably found to be present in measures taken and policies upheld by this political party, there is a hint of a fervent effort to sustain an Islam-friendly image, even if only outwardly.
The other principal party meanwhile is demonstrating a greater fondness of Islam but that might very reasonably be characterised as spurious. It could just be a ploy to secure support from the conservative Muslims in the country, who are undoubtedly a substantial number of people.
The second of the two parties mentioned does not clearly state its perspective on Islam. There is a subtle ingenuity in this approach considering that they are willing to move away from intolerant secularism to allow Islam to take part, in a restricted manner, in some areas of life in Bangladesh.
However, as has been mentioned earlier, none of the parties seem to have an understandable outlook on Islam. Often there seems to be an embarrassing lack of knowledge of religion both within the parties and among the people they would like to rule.
The very first piece of knowledge which seems to be entirely ignored in Bangladesh is that orthodox Islam does not champion the idea of female leadership. Islam believes in gender-specific roles in society, and that leadership is a responsibility with which men have been entrusted.
Secondly, Islam has clear, unambiguous and balanced laws and regulations for all sectors of life; it by no means is a philosophy that has operational scope only within the mosque.
The question arises, do the major political parties and their leaders really appreciate these well established facts about Islam? If they do, there is little doubt that there is an intentional feigning of ignorance to hoodwink the gullible and inadequately knowledgeable.
If this is a case of natural ignorance the leaders should really spend some of their spare time studying the values, principles and ideals of Islam.
Islam in its original form is not a religion that can coexist in a submissive fashion with secularism simply because the former is itself a complete and independent way of life. There is also no space to reform Islam since the fundamental ideals of the religion abhor any innovation or adjustment.
These political parties should let the people know clearly and finally what they think of Islam and what position they would expect the religion to occupy in the lives of the people of Bangladesh.
If that is accomplished without lying, prevarication, pretension and debauchery, the people would be given a fair opportunity to know who they are going to choose before they actually cast their votes.
Like it or not, in the next election, the attitudes of political parties towards Islam is going to be of considerable importance because our era is witnessing an unprecedented struggle between conservative religiosity and secularism.
