Law Commission’s Member Dr M Shah Alam’s assertion that “if the blockade-hartal is not stopped, there should be more shoot at sight,” has just shown how certain wrong persons are holding high positions for subverting the people’s cause they are paid to uphold.It is certainly a disappointment that Dr Shah Alam’s comment at a seminar in the city on Saturday as reported in an English daily showed he is rather misusing his position apparently to show loyalty to the government. Maybe, he is not to be blamed if he is applying his idea of the rule of law learned from a country where there is no democracy or the rule of law. As we know he lived and studied in Moscow in the former USSR for 10 years where human rights were a taboo under one party political system. Most people believe, the Russian society has braced changes in the meantime but Dr Shah Alam has failed to come out from his past experience where power comes from the barrel of the gun. But still it has to be accepted that communism is not democracy and those who believe in the system do not believe in the rule of law or democracy. Good or bad, that is a different system and we do not need it if we want democratic causes being upheld in Bangladesh.Everyone knows that a political crisis is now troubling the nation too much killing scores of people on daily basis in petrol bombs and police shootouts, in addition to destroying the national economy and business. Some observers believe that the government is too much under the influence of communist revolutionary ideas. The situation has so much deteriorated that some police stations have to build bunkers to protect themselves. The Chairman of National Human Rights Commission Dr Mizanur Rahman has also asked the government to use the full power of the state to eliminate the terrorists meaning the opposition. In a comment in the recent past he said terrorists are threatening the foundation of the state and the government must use the highest level of force to destroy them. It is not that he does not speak for human rights. But he has also made clear of his educational background in Russia. It is no wonder, we are going through a war like revolutionary politics within the country. We are failing the government to make understand that, apart from anything, the people in the government have no training in revolutionary politics and they cannot succeed. Those working from behind the scenes from a safe distance have already made our people suffer in violent clashes everyday. The situation is only worsening. The police find it to hard to fight their own people when there is an easy political solution available. But leaders have abdicated responsibility by asking police to do everything to bring peace in the country. People believe if the security agencies could bring peace then there would not have been any need for political leaders to run the country.It appears the government is basing its politics on the power of the guns without caring to know how easy it has become for some others to be armed as well. Even hired armed people are now available from outside.The most unfortunate part is that our leadership is inexperienced and yet so much eager for power that they are being easily exploited. But they should know Bangladesh is not fit for communist dictatorship. Only there will be more bloodshed and damage to the country. Political adventurism will not succeed.
