The post-blast political complications

Twelve days have passed since a series of explosions at an Awami League rally killed 20 people, including a central leader of the party, Ivy Rahman, and wounded over 200 on Aug 21 in Dhaka.

No one has so far been arrested in this connection. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police has been assigned to look into the case, while a two-member advance team of Interpol is in Dhaka to make an initial assessment.

A team of Interpol investigators is expected to arrive soon. Besides, a one-man judicial commission, with a serving High Court judge, was set up the day after the incident.

The judge has been asked to produce a report on the issue in three weeks. However, there has been no headway in the case - the latest of 15 bomb attacks at public places over the last five years that began with explosions at a cultural function in the northern district of Jessore on March 6, 1999.

As many as 135 people have been killed and several hundred injured in such incidents. But politics is heating up and certain diplomatic complications have surfaced around the latest act of terrorism.

Sheikh Hasina, president of the Awami League, who narrowly escaped the Aug 21 blast, has rejected all kinds of investigation that the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has initiated.

Claiming that the government was behind the explosions at her party's rally, she has demanded an "international investigation" under the direct supervision of the United Nations or the Commonwealth.

"Interpol only provides assistance to local investigators and any investigation under the government supervision will not be fair and neutral," Sheikh Hasina told the press last week.

Earlier, she rejected Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's offer to meet her and have a dialogue to "jointly work out" ways to find out the criminals behind the heinous attacks on public places. (Six incidents of explosions at public places have left 67 persons dead and a few hundred severely injured when Hasina was in power).

Sheikh Hasina, rather, found involved in the blast "all those advocating a dialogue with the government". Notably, those who have pleaded a government-opposition dialogue at "this critical juncture of national crisis" include the leaders of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) and the US ambassador in Dhaka, Harry Thomas.

Hasina has preferred to exploit the emotive post-bomb attack situation for political gains. The Awami League enforced four countrywide shutdowns in the week that followed the blast and made efforts to strike a "broad- based" political alliance with all opposition parties under a "one-point oust-government programme".

The first two strikes were success stories while the other two were not. Similarly, the opposition parties, especially left-and liberal democratic groups comprising the 11-party opposition alliance, initially agreed to join the AL's one-point movement, but some of the major components backtracked.

They are now arguing that the left forces cannot join a movement meant only for change of power from one bourgeois party to another. However, Rashed Khan Menon of the Workers Party believes that the left parties should try, jointly with the Awami League, to dethrone Khaleda Zia immediately, arguing that it would help deter further strengthening of religion-based politics.

The alliance is yet to make a final decision. The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which initially did not blame the AL for the explosions, has started raising questions about the possible involvement of the opposition party.

Although the party's chairperson, Khaleda Zia, has not yet accused the AL of involvement, some of her senior colleagues in the party and cabinet have. Addressing a public meeting in the capital on Monday, the secretary general of the party, Abdul Mannan, said: "It was unfortunate that the Awami League refused to accept the probe by a judicial commission, and investigation by Interpol. The party seems more interested in heating up political atmosphere than helping the investigators to hunt down the criminals concerned."

Health minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain has questioned why 28 Awami League leaders left for India after the arrival of the Interpol team. Shipping Minister Akbar Hossain was more suggestive. "Initially, we were confused about the identity of the perpetrators of the bomb attack.

We thought that the AL could not kill so many people through a bomb attack on its own rally. But the confusion is about to be cleared, as the party appears to have been more interested to use the tragic incident for partisan political interests."

Clearly, the BNP is warming up for a political offensive. The United States on Tuesday expressed "willingness" to help Bangladesh investigate the attack and on the same day, Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, in a letter to his Bangladesh counterpart, Morshed Khan, expressed his government's eagerness to assist in the enquiry.

The coordinator of the counter-terrorism office of the US State Department, Cofer Black, is to arrive on Sunday to hold discussions with government officials, political leaders and a cross-section of the people.

Prof Mumtaz remembered

A memorial lecture to recall the noted academician the late Prof Mumtaz Hussain was held on Tuesday under the aegis of Irteqa Adbi Forum and the Arts Council. The lone speaker, erudite philosopher Dr Manzoor Ahmad spoke on post-modernism with Dr Mohammad Ali Siddiqui in the chair.

Prof Mumtaz Hussain, it was later told, was inclined towards the study of modernism and allied philosophical thought in socio- political context of the third world countries.

Dr Manzoor in his discourse from the very beginning "forewarned" the audience that the modern critical theories were hard to comprehend, and that he would try to be as simple as possible, but his talk attracted full attention of everyone and was received with clapping at some points.

The learned doctor first defined the modernism and said that the modern thought and the scientific knowledge which came to us from the West could not become the part of our creative knowledge, so much so that our scientist were unscientific in their studies "Searching gold through science".

"The enlightenment which influenced the West and due to which the modern philosophy, science and scientific knowledge were born were part of the Western nations and of their collective experience.

The industrial revolution, the changing mode of production, the feudal and tribal system and separation from those values and the industry of knowledge were not our historical legacy.

The modernity in literature and arts came due to new thoughts. The scientific and technological innovations, the upheaval brought by the industrialization, transfer of population from the villages in the cities, the rising problems of civic life and the political movements all of them brought with them basic changes in literary thought.

There was therefore, a rise against classical values, classical writings and everything associated with classics," Dr Manzoor said. He quoted Joyce, Yeats, Kafka, Eliot and many others in the West who were pioneers in modern thought. But, the new western and modern values could not change the attitude of the Urdu- speaking majority, he observed.

He was of the view that they could not absorb modernity in their writings despite some changes in the use of language and idioms. It was Ghalib, and later Sir Syed guided by the former as harbingers of modernity in Urdu. But, the modernity could not totally eclipse the classicism nor it could became the part of our lives to an extent due to the force of religion.

Post-modernism rose against the domineering role of modernism and as the professor said "it was the movement of the contemporary bourgeois culture". The term 'post-modernism' was introduced by some artists in New York in 1960 and adopted in 1970 by the European thinkers.

It erased the line between the life and art and eliminated the difference between the culture of the elite and of the "loke" culture. The literature was debased and all creative activities lost their dignity and seriousness.

Post-modernism introduced new set of idioms, distorted those which were commonly used and discarded the reading of text "including philosophy, history, and social sciences" taken as irrelevant because they do not provide any real system. Similarly, a person may derive any meaning from a text, ignoring the writer's contention.

The post-modernism - the agenda of the rising globalisation - could destroy the entire culture and literature if allowed to prevail, Dr Mohammad Siddiqui said. This ideology was being introduced in our literature, to prepare a ground for the global interests to prevail.

Modernity, he said, was an attitude in thinking and had some characteristics, but post-modernism was the negation of philosophy and the society itself, Dr Siddiqui said.

Earlier, Jamal Naqvi briefly introduced the late Prof Mumtaz Hussain, his life and works, Adab aur rooh-i-aser being the latest in his wide collection of creative writings. The memorial lecture to pay homage to the late professor would be an annual feature, organized by the Irteqa.

Shahid Mumtaz, Prof Mumtaz's son also spoke about his father and paid complements to Dr Naheed Sultan and Asif Farrukhi for their efforts in the compilation and publication of his books.