If This Isn’t Terror, What Is?

 By Ekram Kabir

December 06, 2013

Life in Bangladesh has come to a standstill with several lives lost in the past few weeks. Rail tracks are uprooted, buses are burnt, businesses have all collapsed, foreign buyers are all turning their back on us, prices of essentials have shot up, there’s no work for day labourers, farmers are in trouble with their produce, people are afraid of coming out of their houses, schools and colleges are closed, exam routines have been blown apart. The list could be longer, and this is the list that our politicians, for that matter, our leaders have left us with. Till Wednesday, December 5, 47 Bangladeshis have been killed. And the majority of them were innocent people who didn’t have anything to do with politics.

 The sounds of hand bombs exploding everywhere and locomotives slipping away from the tracks across the country have become part and parcel of our lives now. Setting property on fire is another feature of the so-called movement for upholding the process of democracy. This is where our politics has come down to. The two political sides have vowed not to allow the other to take the country’s managerial post. In the meantime, another terror-mongering section has already struck. The perfect example of that is how a well-equipped and flawlessly compliant garment factory in Gazipur was set on fire and destroyed. The factory incurred a loss of Tk12bn. Now, sympathising with the victims of these terror acts (which our media has been affectionately terming as “arson”), opposition alliance leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has said that she was agonised, angered and surprised at these acts. She added that her alliance workers were not behind them and she didn’t know who actually did these.

This reaction from our former prime minister beats our wits as to how the chair of a large political party such as BNP didn’t know about these acts. She has been the chief executive of Bangladesh more than once. She formed an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami, fully anticipating the consequences. And these acts of burning buses and uprooting railroads have been going on for quite some time now. The statement that she didn’t know who was behind it sounds like a lame excuse. We, the commoners, are having great difficulty in believing what she is saying. We would urge her to stir her mind thinking about what would happen if these kinds of unfortunate incidences had taken place in the heart of London, Washington, Canberra, Paris or even New Delhi. Would they call these “arson” or “unfortunate incidents”? We’re pretty sure they would have termed it as no less than acts of “terrorism”.

Now, our question is: “Isn’t it your responsibility to stop whoever is burning these buses full of people and derailing the trains?” We’d be dumbfounded if a former prime minister says: “No, it’s the government’s responsibility, not the opposition’s. The opposition’s responsibility is to raise a movement against the government and uphold democracy.” Let’s ask some more questions: “What would happen if the BNP-led alliance fails to come to power? Would the sky fall on BNP’s head? Would the party be extinct?” The same questions could be asked to the government as well: “Would the sky fall if you are not in power anymore? Will you perish if the other alliance takes charge? What do you have to fear?” We think both sides are responsible for this. The opposition is responsible for engaging its workers in such acts.

The government is responsible for luring the opposition into this. The situation didn’t come to this overnight. In the past two years, we could all see that it was coming. The local analysts, the media, and international observers were anxiously alerting both parties. The unfortunate fact is that no one had cared, and therefore no one had taken any initiative for solving the looming ego-mongering. Now, the opposition alliance has again announced another round of blockades from Saturday morning to Tuesday morning. We won’t be surprised to see them extend the program to Thursday. More lives would be lost, more property would be damaged. If we could see the common people among the blockaders, we’d understand that they had public support, but we haven’t seen anybody. The common people participating in the blockade wouldn’t have been raising terror across the country. We want this to stop.

Source: http://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2013/dec/06/if-isn%E2%80%99t-terror-what#sthash.EZtiqEtn.dpuf

URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/if-this-isn’t-terror,/d/34815