Misplaced priority makes a poor commentary

So, the 20-party alliance -better say the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) - relaxed its hartal for 12 hours on Tuesday. The reason why it granted the nation this gracious reprieve is to celebrate the victory of the Bangladesh cricket team over England. It surely is a victory worth celebrating because it opened the door for the Tigers to enter into the quarter-finals -an achievement Bangladesh have made possible for the first time ever. But it surely is debatable if bringing out victory procession is not too much. The ruling parties, the opposition in parliament and the BNP-headed alliance were euphoric about bringing out such processions. It is only a quarter-final berth, not one to the final or even semi-finals. However, no victory rally worth its name brought out by the BNP was seen on the streets of Dhaka, according to reports.
The issue though is not victory parade as announced by different political organisations. Everyone wants to share a slice in success, there is no taker of defeat. What prompted the BNP and its partners to relax the hartal? Mind it, they did not relax the indefinite blockade that is in force. What an arcane political perception! Did the agitating parties think such a move will make them popular to the people? If they count on such a consideration, they are surely living in a fool's paradise.
During the past two months of political violence they organised, 116 people died -about two-thirds of them from burn injuries inflicted by crude and petrol bombs lobbed by their cadres or hired goons. Apart from such deaths, several hundreds sustained injuries and about two thousand vehicles were burnt down. Not for once did any of their leaders expressed sorrow or sympathy for the unnatural deaths and injuries caused mostly to common and poor people. The impression is that the country's people are to blame for not giving the BNP and its alliance political space. Take your fight to the ruling parties which are denying you what you think is your right.
Saving democracy does not give anyone the right to kill or burn common people who should be at the centre of politics. The BNP and its allies are doing exactly this. Nothing matters to them except their archaic perception that if they continue with bomb attacks on people travelling by bus or other vehicles, the ruling parties will accede to their demands. Life perishes, property destroyed, business counts losses and common people suffer -some of them severely on account of unemployment. These are no issues. Then there are more than 1.5 million examinees appearing at the Secondary School Certificate examinations and almost equal number of Higher Secondary Certificate examinees about to begin theirs.
The examinees have been subjected not only to all kinds of sufferings but also trauma on account of repeated shifting of their examinations. This too is non-issue to the agitating political parties. What a shameless display of insanity! When the party activists and their leaders are nowhere to be seen, they make it a point to celebrate the cricket team's victory! By their own reckoning this is no normal time. If it had been, they would have at least spared the common people and the examinees so that they did not fall victim to their insane political programmes. Why the parties cannot announce their protest rallies and give a demonstration of their moral courage is baffling. That one will do politics and be afraid of police action is not the norm of politics here.