Lectures and Reality

Lectures and Reality
By Monsur Ibrahim

Recently we have heard some valuable and inspiring words from some very important persons in our country. Their roles are so important that the future of our nation depends on what they do and how they act.

Very recently, our Chief Justice said, Supreme Court will play its crucial role at any critical juncture of the nation like it did in the past. Though Daily Star Editor Mr. Mahfuz Anam on the very next day, in a news commentary titled “My Lord, We beg to differ”, pointed out how the Supreme Court in fact was responsible for the current Emergency because of its failure to act properly in the writ petition against President Yazuddin Ahmed’s acquisition of power as Chief of Caretaker Government. When High Court was about to give a verdict, the former Chief Justice deliberately interfered and obstructed justice from being served - leading to current national crisis.

We have seen Supreme Court’s role against Sk. Hasina’s cases. Sk. Hasina is a former PM and the two extortion cases were filed against her by persons who were under joint forces’ custody. In one case her name was not even directly involved. Even her enemies will agree that she is not going to escape from the country. High court gave her bail but Supreme Court is simply lingering against implementation of High Court’s judgment. These are questionable complaints and Sk. Hasina could be given bail and trial could continue. BUT that will seriously hinder Moinul-Moinuddin gongs open-secret agenda to keep her out of politics. So, we see a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice bowing head to Military backed government. When we see the heroic role of Pakistan’s Chief Justice against mighty President Musharraf’s ill intentions, we feel pity for our Chief Justice’s role. We really cannot be inspired by his lecture on Supreme Court’s role when his verdicts clearly show coinciding with rulers’ conspiracies. We do not want to contempt court but everyone has a right to criticize unfair judgment. Nevertheless, our chief justice failed to take action on BNP-Jamat appointed incompetent judges and against corruption of former Chief Justice. Like Mr. Mahfuz Anam pointed out, Supreme Court’s pro-government role might in fact be responsible for our future devastation.

Another very important and powerful person is our army chief Gen. Moinuddin Ahmed. He recently became the first General (after stripping off former army chief’s ‘General’ rank because of issuing statement involving suspected army role in August grenade attack on Sk. Hasina and AL leaders), perhaps to carry more weight. Though he is an employee of the republic and not in government, he is giving lot of political statements and lectures to the nation. Never in the history of our nation had any army chief given any statement when a government was in power. But we know that this government is basically his government with some civil faces in front. As long as you can fire your gun from another person’s shoulder, why put it on your shoulder? Similarly our army is running the country with some civil rubber stamp faces in the front. Recently Mr. Moin said, “If anyone puts his hand in fire, hand is bound to burn”. What an irony! Mr. Moin’s backed government initially was hailed from all quarters. But they started playing with fire when they wanted to put Hasina permanently in exile. Finally, they put their hand on fire after arresting her. It really burnt as we saw from recent beating of army personnel by university students. We do not want to see our army personnel humiliated like that. But again, per Gen. Moin, your hand will burn if you put it in fire.

Government still does not want to acknowledge that people have started losing faith in them. Their roles are getting questionable. Yes, Hasina is a popular leader of the largest party in the nation and she was not in power during last 5 years. People saw serious injustice, misrule, looting and corruption during BNP-Jamat rule; and yet, Hasina, Jalail are in Jail and top BNP leaders are still free! People would definitely question the fairness. And Mr. Moinul by his regular controversial statements openly proves this government’s real secret agenda. Government is saying that recent university incidents were manipulated by some teachers and two political leaders paid money. When the bank accounts of those two leaders are frozen and one of them is in custody and the other one is on the run, how can they pay money and organize a movement? Our cops are so efficient that they solved this mystery of uprising against government instantly and took the professors behind bar. Unfortunately, these same cops could not yet solve the grenade attack case on AL meeting and killing of ASM Kibria. What is the real fact? Did teachers also paid the army people to beat the students and initiate the situation?

We think this was deliberately done by Moinul-Moinuddin government. Was this a preplanned game to shut down main universities and the voice of Teachers Association before Supreme Court’s pro-government verdict against Hasina’s cases? Was this a precautionary measure?

In any case, we saw peoples’ grievances against this government. Mr. Moin embarrassed himself when people saw pictures of his mighty army member being beaten and running for life. We are not happy with this kind of picture and we do not want to see it again. But we want to remind Gen. Moin by his own words that hands will get burnt if placed on fire.