What did we learn from the world today?
Kamila Hyat
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The execution in Dhaka of the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul
Quader Mollah has stirred up violent protests in Bangladesh. It has also created
controversy at home, with condemnations pouring in over the hanging of a man
found guilty of involvement in the death of civilians during the civil war of
1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh.
These people included professors, doctors, students and
others – with Mollah’s walk to the gallows coming, ironically enough, just a
few days before December 16, the day that marks the fall of Dhaka
as a bloody civil war ended with the surrender of the Pakistan Army.
The sentencing of the JI leader, with more trials set to
follow, raises a host of questions. These involve impartiality, the long delay
in conducting the trial, the fact that Sheikh Mujibur Rehman himself had warned
against retribution and held on to this position till his 1975 assassination
and then the issue of whether the trials are politically motivated. These are
matters for Bangladesh
to consider.
At home we should be asking other, different questions. We
have for the past four decades refused to face up to what happened in what was
then the eastern wing of our country. The torture, the killings, the mass rapes
committed there have been buried away, deep under multiple layers. There are
many, indeed most, who do not know what happened; we often forget that the
green and white flag of Pakistan
once flew over Dhaka.
Today few of us realise that the red disk that floats across
the green of the Bangladesh flag is intended to depict not only a sun rising
over a new land but the blood that stains it. That blood, of students,
children, men and women, was shed by Pakistani soldiers – and those, like
Mollah, who colluded with them. Calling such men ‘patriots’ as the JI leader at
home Munawar Hasan has done, insisting Mollah would count as such even in Bangladesh
on the basis that the two countries were then one, can only be ranked as a
remark of grotesque insensitivity and ignorance.
Some other comments from political leaders have been barely
better. Certainly there is very limited suggestion that we should be looking
back at what happened, facing up to it and learning from the sordid events of
1971. This goes well beyond the matter of Abdul Quader Mollah and whether or
not he should have been hanged.
What is significant is that we have got into the habit, rather
like a scared child, of trying to cover up everything that has gone wrong and
then denying we had anything at all to do with it. The example of Bangladesh is
also pertinent in this case. For us, it appears that placing curtains around
the truth and veiling our eyes has become the solution to everything – just as
was the case in Bangladesh.
The problem is that this approach can solve no problems at
all. Instead they will worsen and become more entrenched. We saw this happen in
what was then East Pakistan. The signs of
trouble were visible many years before the 1971 war. The people of that part of
what was then our country had pointed out discrimination and injustice again
and again. This is visible even now in documented figures. They show that
though East Pakistan had a larger population
than the western part of the country, the resources spent on it since the 1950s
were only about 40 percent of the budget available – in some periods, falling
even below this.
Naturally, the development in which all people of a country
should have had an equal share never took place there. Today, we see precisely
the same pattern unfold again, with startling disparities between provinces and
districts in allocation of funds and development.
The perceptions of unfair play are a key reason for the
anger directed against the state and in turn the violence that shakes
Balochistan. This violence has already left deep scars across it. While the
Baloch recall the events that led up to the formation of Bangladesh, it is
questionable what the future of that remotely populated stretch of miserable
territory is to be with its regular haul of mutilated bodies that turn up in
street corners. Even the recent dramatic march made by the relatives of the
disappeared from Quetta to Karachi has not really changed matters.
The affair of Abdul Quader Mollah should remind us that when
the lessons of history are not learned, the amendments needed are not made, and
further problems arise. We should today be examining all that went on in
Bangladesh before posting messages on social media about Mollah or what is
happening in Dhaka. Quite irrespective of the trial of JI leaders underway in
that country, it is the doings they are alleged to have been involved in that
is of key importance.
We seem to have lost sight of this reality. The ability to
accept what is happening and act to deal with it in many ways marks nations
that are successful. We are certainly not headed along this path. The same
mistakes are being repeated once more and the same story of wrongdoing in other
places told. Our history books say too little about Bangladesh and quite how that
country took form as an independent state on the map. This is something we
should all know about and something we should make sure our children know of
too.
If we keep describing men like Mollah as heroes or refuse to
put before the public all that he and others like him did there can be no
change. We will have only more brutality, more bitterness and greater division
within a country that has been torn apart before – and risks this happening
again. Our assignment for the future must be to ensure this can never happen
and that this is prevented by accepting what is going wrong, tackling crime and
brutality wherever it exists and giving people everywhere in our country the
equal treatment and respect for their rights which they deserve.
This is certainly not happening today, with the curious
attempt to prevent opinions from Balochistan reaching people, inflicting a
great deal of damage and in so many ways providing an ugly reminder of what
happened just over four decades ago.
The writer is a freelance columnist andformer newspaper
editor.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
Reactions:
I have been told by a
Bangladeshi that the red circle on their flag is supposed to represent a
Bindya.
That Bangladeshi was an ignorant and an
illiterate one.
--These are matters for Bangladesh
to consider--
Not a fair assessment. Till 16
Dec 1971 whatever happened in that part of the country, is to be equally shared
and accepted. Blunders were committed almost since the beginning. We failed to
produce a leader of future,who could evolve a methodology for smooth running of
the two distant placed people who collectively struggled for a separate
homeland of the muslims of this sub-continent. To cut a long story short both
the parts of that initial state should have been given a path to run their
affairs independently with a minimum link of a confederation. No doubt this
postulation in the beginning would have been too difficult to consider. Simply
put. now this revengeful attitude might create serious threats for the
Bangladeshi society and then again someone will exploit the situation again.
She has a head start. Even Pakistani writers
have documented, or at least insinuated, what happened in East
Pakistan. I have talked to Paki soldiers who served in East Pakistan who said that rape and killing was common.
In Sindh, the so called operation against "dacoits" was as ruthless
as you can imagine. Do I need to go into tribal territory? The trouble with
Punjabi establishment is that it creates it's own enemies and the corrective is
never applied to a state that's veered off course long time ago. This Punjabi
"mitti pao" on the past cannot hold promise for peaceful and
prosperous future. You sow the seeds of hatred, you reap the same. So now is
the time to resurrect 42-year old history because a similar situation is
playing out again in an even more sinister fashion? Our land is not the land of Kabbaddi. I am not stopping at some line
in the dirt. I'll cross every line you can think of.
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