Prothom Alo tells me the death toll has now passed a hundred.
Fifty-six of these people were victims of petrol bombs, which is to say they were burned alive. 40 men, nine women, seven children. Murdered in the course of going about their everyday lives. Travelling to or from work, or school, or the marketplace. Just ordinary people in their humdrum existence.
There was that family of three returning from a vacation in Cox's Bazaar -- their bus was firebombed and the father and the young daughter died on the spot; the mother, grievously injured, was hanging on for dear life the last I heard.
None of them were uprooting train tracks or setting fire to buses. We shall never know what their position was on constitutional continuity, interim elections, a possible caretaker government, or the independence of the election commission. Or indeed, if they had one to begin with.
The other 45 were killed in “crossfires” or “gun battles.” As if there was a war being fought on our streets. As if murder, arson, and destruction of public property are democratic rights of the citizenry, and shooting down its citizens are the state’s prerogative.
There are those among us who will say the state shares the blame for the mayhem in progress. They will claim those in power did the same when they were the opposition. These statements are gross exaggerations and they mask -- all too weakly -- dogmatic assertions of party allegiance; they will never take us any closer to a solution to the impasse.
Anyone looking at the situation with a semblance of objectivity will know the state did have a hand in the events that led us here. Amending the constitution to scrap the caretaker system was always going to lead us to grief. Reneging on promises made for talks on an interim election after January 5, 2014 was always a recipe for disaster. Persecuting and prosecuting opposition activists until they had no political space left was only going to result in them adopting ever more desperate measures.
But no one should ever place the blame for the murder and arson happening on our streets every day on the shoulders of anyone but the perpetrators themselves. They are hurling the bombs and their puppet masters are taking the call on where and when and whom to kill.
Saying anything else disrespects the lives lost and aids and abets the murderers. And the sheer numbers tell us that the magnitude and scale of political violence being orchestrated currently is unprecedented in the short history of our democracy from the 90s onwards, so the “they did it too” argument doesn’t really take, either.
And in any case, would this mayhem be justified if there was precedence for it? Should we proceed with gouging out an eye for eye until we lived in a country of the blind? I know many will be thinking we already do.
We have a singular habit in this country of taking a perfectly respectable word and making it dirty, specifically in the political context. A few years ago it was “aaposh” or “compromise,” that noble art that some would argue civilisations are founded on, which was twisted and stretched and turned until it emerged as a synonym for “sellout” or the pawning of one's integrity for material gain. These days, the word that has fallen out of favour is “shushil,” literally “civil.”
One would think this is a perfectly innocuous word, even quite useful at times. But no, here being a member of the “shushil shomaj” or “civil society” means that you belong to that hated class that, having achieved some sort of pre-eminence through their accomplishments or erudition, presumes to suggest solutions to crises, again of the political nature. We call into question their ethics, we ask whose interests they represent. How dare they attempt to disrupt this orgy of death and destruction?
The crime of this nebulous civil society this time is that they have had the audacity to suggest the initiation of a dialogue between the government and the opposition to arrive at a way forward. There can be no discussions with terrorists, outraged voices say, veering ever closer to the “if you're not for us, you’re against us” rhetoric of Gulf War two-era George W Bush. What does not emerge from all this sound and fury is what exactly is the alternative. If we refuse to talk, how then do we resolve?
The unspoken subtext seems to be, we do not want a resolution. Not really. What we really want to see is the complete annihilation of any opposition voices, for them to be silenced forever.
The argument that is trotted out most often to support this school of thought involves the trial of war criminals that the incumbent government has undertaken. If they ever leave power, we are told, the entire process will be overturned; war criminals will once again be travelling around in expensive cars flying the state flag. What’s more, everyone who believes in the spirit of the liberation war will become a target; there will be a bloodbath in which the defeated forces of 1971 will be the victors.
Now I want the war criminals to be tried and sentenced to the full extent of the law as much as the next person; I want this probably even more intensely than most. The atrocities that took place during 1971, and the fact that the perpetrators have been allowed to get away with it for so long, is our original sin, and there can only be expiation once justice is served.
But surely the path to ensure justice, and then to achieve sustained peace afterwards, is through some sort of a consensus? And how will we ever arrive there unless we talk to each other? Maybe even with some of those dreaded civil society members present?
Certain conditions, of course, would have to be met before the talks could happen. Anyone harbouring terrorists or militants of any kind, for instance, should not be allowed to be a party to them.
The senseless violence still taking place in the country, the work stoppages and blockades, would have to be brought to a stop and all parties would need to approach the discussions in good faith.
Let’s be realistic about this. What other options do we really have? Do we really still want to be those squabbling schoolchildren who let their fight spiral out of control until the class teacher and the headmaster step in? Do we want this to be another episode when Mr Obama and Mr Modi -- along with whoever else feels like getting their two cents in -- lock the door behind them, flip a coin, and decide our fate for us?
As long as our means of protest takes the shape of the destruction of public property and the waste of human lives, and until we see the day when our leaders stop thinking that the only means of dealing with dissent is to be a boot to an ant, we shall continue to be a third-rate banana republic. That’s as terrible a thing to say as it is awful to hear. But it is true.
The enduring mystic and songwriter, Fakir Lalon Shah, wrote this about the scripture he had studied, his own soul and the antics of his countrymen way back in the 19th century: “Eshob dekhi kaanaar haatbajaar,” which translates loosely as “this looks like the marketplace of the blind.”
We are nothing if not consistent.
