The op-ed I was planning to write will have to remain unfinished. It is 7:30pm on Thursday night and news has just recently come in of 19 people burned, four critically, as a passenger bus was torched in the heart of the capital little over an hour ago.
By the time you are reading this, more information will have come to light, possibly more people will have been reported injured, and, most tragic of all, the death count will most likely have begun.
Already 17 people had been killed in the violence on Tuesday and Wednesday, and what this latest atrocity shows is that the end is not in sight.
At a time like this, there is nothing else that it is really possible for me write about. This is not the time to dispassionately discuss the merits of the interim government versus the caretaker government system, the election schedule, or the constitution, or the rights and the wrongs of each party’s position.
There will be time enough to resume debate on those issues in the coming days and weeks. But today we need to focus on the continuing horror that the people of this country are suffering through in the name of political differences. There can be no question that we are deep in the midst of a crisis that shows no signs of coming to an end any time soon.
It would be easy to lay all the blame for the current carnage at the feet of the opposition, and there can be no question that that is where the lion’s share of the guilt for the recent spate of death and destruction can be found. It seems axiomatic to me that when you announce that you will cripple transportation in the country that you are responsible when train tracks are subsequently cut and buses fire-bombed.
There can be no excuse for unleashing this reign of terror on the Bangladeshi people and nothing can justify what the opposition has put us all through these last few months. They will argue that they have nothing to do with the violence and in any case that they cannot control the criminal element in their ranks or among their associates.
But this is an unconvincing line of argument and we all know it.
The opposition’s entire election strategy hinges on the mayhem that they or their fellow travelers can cause, and the more damage they can cause the country, the stronger their case.
If they didn’t think so, they wouldn’t have undertaken such programs in the first place. So who can believe them now when they cry crocodile tears for the dead and maimed and feign shock and horror at the death count?
The government is in a no-win situation. It surely cannot and indeed should not back down in the face of this kind of terrorism, and there can be no other word to adequately describe what it is now contending with. But at the same time, the question remains as to whether it has the moral authority or political legitimacy or indeed even popular support to take the measures needed to bring order and security to the country.
I think it will have no choice but to come down with an iron hand. But whether crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war will have the intended result remains to be seen. In the short run, it may lead to even more destruction as the opposition would be sure to go down fighting and the government would need to rely on its own goon squad in addition to law enforcement authorities. It won’t be pretty.
Crucially, restoring order and security might well be a task that is beyond the capability of the law enforcement services, and if the president is forced to declare a state of emergency, then this will by definition throw the upcoming elections into uncertainty and redraw the political landscape in ways that no one wants.
It should never have come to this. With the tensions at the level they are now, I am not even sure that there is any way back. But before we go beyond the point of no return, let there be a cease-fire between the warring factions, and let us take one last shot at reaching a political compromise.
It may already be too late and certainly any compromise would be distasteful to either side. But the alternative is what we are living through today, or worse.
