Sheikh
Hasina Gone Mad: Ruining Bangladesh’s
image as a hub of international sports
BY
GHALIB SULTAN
The autocratic elected Prime Minister
of Bangladesh has decreed that BanglaDeshi citizens will not wave the flag of
any nationality except Bangladesh at sports events. This Quixotic gag flag
order comes after the largely Bangladeshi crowd was seen waving Pakistan flags
at the T20 cricket match when the Pakistani team was playing. Why this venom
and animosity at the highest level when there seems to be goodwill among the
citizens of both the countries. The only rational explanation for this
irrational order is some kind of personal rage in the leadership that wants
revenge. This is unfortunate.
This also ties in to the long standing
feud between the two female leaders in Bangladesh. One lost her father to
violence from her own countrymen and the other lost her husband also to enraged
Bengalis. Under the current Prime Minister the horrors of 1971 are being
revisited in the form of ‘war crimes’ trials followed by executions as well as
the most poisonous propaganda against Pakistan. Ignoring the latent
undercurrent of violence and religiosity that exists in Bangladesh the present
government is launched on the path of promoting secularism that can be a fig
leaf at best for the reality of religion that permeates life on the street. The
execution of an aged Bangladesh Islamic scholar and leader after a quick trial
underscores this policy. No doubt Al Qaeda is watching and waiting for the
right time to strike.
Ridiculous figures like thirty million
killed by Pakistan military action in 1971 and lurid tales of atrocities only
serve to bring back horrible memories that inflame people. Perhaps that is the
agenda. In Pakistan this negative and false propaganda reminds them of the
terrible unmentionable acts of extreme violence committed on the West
Pakistanis in former East Pakistan before the Pakistan Army retaliated. The
Army that retaliated was seething with anger, thirsting for revenge and
yearning to avenge lost honor. Even then the figures quoted by reliable
researchers range between 50000 to 100000 lives lost. Pakistanis who were there
remember that the Indian trained and launched Mukhti Bahini forces and Indian
Army soldiers donned Pakistan Army uniforms for nightly rapes, killings and
mutilations to inflame the population against Pakistan. This use of ethnic
Bengalis to forge the Mukhti Bahini was the first such event in the bitter
India-Pakistan history. This act by India led to the rise of militancy that
operated across the Line of Control in Kashmir and elsewhere and is now a part of
the terrorist menus for violence. And lest we forget India did the same with
the Tamils in Sri Lanka. So the design for such militancy was patented by India
with Bengalis being used as fodder. No one who suffered imprisonment in India
after the Indian manipulated secession of Bangladesh can forget the humiliation
and mistreatment heaped on them by their captors. So the vile propaganda from
Bangladesh is not serving anybody’s cause. It is inflaming populations and
taking all three countries back in time instead of forwards towards peace and
harmony. The Bangladesh government needs to rethink its policies before
expediency for short term gains leads them into internal turmoil and the kind
of international attention they got when hundreds workers working in sub human
conditions were burnt alive.
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