Bangladesh and its people's march to democracy
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
With the acknowledgement of the equality of all people so far as their rights as citizens of a state are concerned, the struggle for democracy starts. The great philosophers, thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries did hold aloft the ideals of democracy under the slogans of equality, fraternity and brotherhood. And it is through their revolutionary ideas and the political upheavals those ideas triggered in those times in France that the masses of the people started to think that they have a say in the affairs of their governance. Gradually the divine authorities of the Church and the monarch in the political lives of the people began to be challenged by these secular ideals of democracy that spoke of common people's right to change their own lot. The popular social revolutions that humanity witnessed in Europe did not stop there. The revolution continued in different forms and turned out to be the grandest ideal of emancipation that man has conceived of in modern times.
In the political life of a nation, democratic form of the government is now universally accepted as the model to be followed by every society. As it happened with other great emancipatory discourses in the pre-Enlightenment epochs, democracy, too, has now become a tool in the hands of the powerful in society.
As the adage goes, it is with the best of intentions that the path to hell is often paved. Democratic slogans, too, have often been by used by modern dictators and tyrants to usurp political power and then forget everything after they are successful in their mission. The gullible masses in different countries have again and again been deceived by the political tricksters. In spite of the deceptions and false promises, the people's dream for a democracy could not be shattered. So, the struggle for democracy goes on with the common people's faith in this 'enlightenment era discourse of emancipation' undiminished.
The history of independent Bangladesh is also one of the common people's unflinching faith in the ideals of democracy. The struggle for democracy in Bangladesh is not a post-independent phenomenon, either. The common people's disenchantment with the earlier form of nationhood based on religion was the reason why they decided to part ways with the past. It is only then the secular basis of nationhood of the Bengali people was conceived of. Or in other words, our struggle for an independent nationhood and the struggle for democracy remained inseparable from one another during the entire epoch of our political history.
How do we as a nation conceive of establishing democracy in our day to day life? Needless to say, it is through establishment of a government run on democratic principles. The best practices available until now to establish democracy in national life is through installing an elected government. We as a nation cannot claim that our earlier attempts at establishing a fully functioning democracy could be realised in its truest spirit. As noted before, charlatans and time-servers masquerading as the champions of democracy did from time to time come in the way to frustrate people's dream to this end. This is exactly the reason why our attempts and experiments with democracy have often gone astray.
In fact, such failure is not quite unique in the case of Bangladesh only. Other nations, especially in the Western Europe and the North America, claim that they stand for democracy in its most undiluted form. No doubt, those are very advanced forms of democracy. But a closer look into their individual histories will reveal that theirs, too, was not free from failed attempts and experiments in the beginning. They have corrected their own systems of governance and developed and strengthened the institutions that work as the foundations of democracy. And they perfected their systems over the centuries. But in our case, as with many other third world countries, time itself was the biggest hurdle to prove ourselves. Moreover, the advanced democracies of the West, sometimes proved themselves to be the Job's comforter for the struggles for democracy in the third world nations. From Indonesia to Nicaragua to Nigeria to Iraq, one can show that democracy was never given a chance to strike its root, if only for the tinkering and meddling from the global champions of democracy themselves.
To put more bluntly, it has often been the case that the champions of democracy themselves were not really eager to see that democracy should flourish in these third world nations. Often on the plea of fighting one threat or another against democracy and peace, the experiments with democracy in the poor nations were stopped midway and the so-called strongmen were installed in place of poorly functioning, albeit democratically elected, leadership. The result of such external meddling has been very harmful for those fledgling democracies, for the first casualty of such developments have been the democratic institutions of those nations at the receiving end. At the end of the day, the conditions of society, economy and governance in those countries worsened further. It created the ideal condition to perpetuate the vicious circle of bad governance, corruption and political instability in the countries in question. Can we say that Bangladesh has remained immune from such developments all around? The country's intelligentsia, who are so concerned about the future of our democracy, need to delve deeper into our history of the thorny path to democracy and then put our failures and success in their proper perspective.
It is not just another attempt at laying the blame for our own as well as many other post-colonial third word world nations' failure to go the democratic way at the door of the advanced democracies of the West. Nevertheless, we have also to share our own responsibilities in the matter. But while doing so, we cannot always take all the blames and shames being showered on us constantly.
Our struggle for democracy has a lot to do restore our pride in ourselves as society with glorious past and heritage. But the self glory need not be vain one either. Exposing only our weakness to the external world can win us neither pride nor democracy. As a nation, we certainly have our weak points. But which nations, including the very advanced ones, do not have their own weak points? America has its history of slavery and segregations. The Europe had its inquisitions, the Nazis, the Fascists, the fourth columnists, Vichy, Hitler and Quisling. They have their histories of poverty, corruption, terrorism, natural calamities, extremism and lack of human rights. If truth be told, these are but the growing pains of all societies and civilisations. Need we have to be too ashamed that we have also such dark spaces in our existence? So like other advanced nations, we want to leave these dark patches in our life behind and build a prosperous, democratic Bangladesh. In our march to democracy, we hope the ninth Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or national parliament will be the trailblazer. The main task of the ninth JS will be to keep it running in spite of the serious political differences among the lawmakers belonging to parties and groups still antagonistic to one another. The quotation with which the French philosopher of revolution Voltaire is generally credited, though apocryphal, should be the motto of our parliamentary spirit which is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Nothing is perfect in the world. So, is democracy. We too would one day build our own institutions of democracy and build it on a stronger foundation. Let the present election and the ninth parliament to be formed will be the most important milestone in our march towards democracy.
With the acknowledgement of the equality of all people so far as their rights as citizens of a state are concerned, the struggle for democracy starts. The great philosophers, thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and the 18th centuries did hold aloft the ideals of democracy under the slogans of equality, fraternity and brotherhood. And it is through their revolutionary ideas and the political upheavals those ideas triggered in those times in France that the masses of the people started to think that they have a say in the affairs of their governance. Gradually the divine authorities of the Church and the monarch in the political lives of the people began to be challenged by these secular ideals of democracy that spoke of common people's right to change their own lot. The popular social revolutions that humanity witnessed in Europe did not stop there. The revolution continued in different forms and turned out to be the grandest ideal of emancipation that man has conceived of in modern times.
In the political life of a nation, democratic form of the government is now universally accepted as the model to be followed by every society. As it happened with other great emancipatory discourses in the pre-Enlightenment epochs, democracy, too, has now become a tool in the hands of the powerful in society.
As the adage goes, it is with the best of intentions that the path to hell is often paved. Democratic slogans, too, have often been by used by modern dictators and tyrants to usurp political power and then forget everything after they are successful in their mission. The gullible masses in different countries have again and again been deceived by the political tricksters. In spite of the deceptions and false promises, the people's dream for a democracy could not be shattered. So, the struggle for democracy goes on with the common people's faith in this 'enlightenment era discourse of emancipation' undiminished.
The history of independent Bangladesh is also one of the common people's unflinching faith in the ideals of democracy. The struggle for democracy in Bangladesh is not a post-independent phenomenon, either. The common people's disenchantment with the earlier form of nationhood based on religion was the reason why they decided to part ways with the past. It is only then the secular basis of nationhood of the Bengali people was conceived of. Or in other words, our struggle for an independent nationhood and the struggle for democracy remained inseparable from one another during the entire epoch of our political history.
How do we as a nation conceive of establishing democracy in our day to day life? Needless to say, it is through establishment of a government run on democratic principles. The best practices available until now to establish democracy in national life is through installing an elected government. We as a nation cannot claim that our earlier attempts at establishing a fully functioning democracy could be realised in its truest spirit. As noted before, charlatans and time-servers masquerading as the champions of democracy did from time to time come in the way to frustrate people's dream to this end. This is exactly the reason why our attempts and experiments with democracy have often gone astray.
In fact, such failure is not quite unique in the case of Bangladesh only. Other nations, especially in the Western Europe and the North America, claim that they stand for democracy in its most undiluted form. No doubt, those are very advanced forms of democracy. But a closer look into their individual histories will reveal that theirs, too, was not free from failed attempts and experiments in the beginning. They have corrected their own systems of governance and developed and strengthened the institutions that work as the foundations of democracy. And they perfected their systems over the centuries. But in our case, as with many other third world countries, time itself was the biggest hurdle to prove ourselves. Moreover, the advanced democracies of the West, sometimes proved themselves to be the Job's comforter for the struggles for democracy in the third world nations. From Indonesia to Nicaragua to Nigeria to Iraq, one can show that democracy was never given a chance to strike its root, if only for the tinkering and meddling from the global champions of democracy themselves.
To put more bluntly, it has often been the case that the champions of democracy themselves were not really eager to see that democracy should flourish in these third world nations. Often on the plea of fighting one threat or another against democracy and peace, the experiments with democracy in the poor nations were stopped midway and the so-called strongmen were installed in place of poorly functioning, albeit democratically elected, leadership. The result of such external meddling has been very harmful for those fledgling democracies, for the first casualty of such developments have been the democratic institutions of those nations at the receiving end. At the end of the day, the conditions of society, economy and governance in those countries worsened further. It created the ideal condition to perpetuate the vicious circle of bad governance, corruption and political instability in the countries in question. Can we say that Bangladesh has remained immune from such developments all around? The country's intelligentsia, who are so concerned about the future of our democracy, need to delve deeper into our history of the thorny path to democracy and then put our failures and success in their proper perspective.
It is not just another attempt at laying the blame for our own as well as many other post-colonial third word world nations' failure to go the democratic way at the door of the advanced democracies of the West. Nevertheless, we have also to share our own responsibilities in the matter. But while doing so, we cannot always take all the blames and shames being showered on us constantly.
Our struggle for democracy has a lot to do restore our pride in ourselves as society with glorious past and heritage. But the self glory need not be vain one either. Exposing only our weakness to the external world can win us neither pride nor democracy. As a nation, we certainly have our weak points. But which nations, including the very advanced ones, do not have their own weak points? America has its history of slavery and segregations. The Europe had its inquisitions, the Nazis, the Fascists, the fourth columnists, Vichy, Hitler and Quisling. They have their histories of poverty, corruption, terrorism, natural calamities, extremism and lack of human rights. If truth be told, these are but the growing pains of all societies and civilisations. Need we have to be too ashamed that we have also such dark spaces in our existence? So like other advanced nations, we want to leave these dark patches in our life behind and build a prosperous, democratic Bangladesh. In our march to democracy, we hope the ninth Jatiya Sangsad (JS) or national parliament will be the trailblazer. The main task of the ninth JS will be to keep it running in spite of the serious political differences among the lawmakers belonging to parties and groups still antagonistic to one another. The quotation with which the French philosopher of revolution Voltaire is generally credited, though apocryphal, should be the motto of our parliamentary spirit which is: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Nothing is perfect in the world. So, is democracy. We too would one day build our own institutions of democracy and build it on a stronger foundation. Let the present election and the ninth parliament to be formed will be the most important milestone in our march towards democracy.