Comments from Canada

Well I would love to say it is fan mail but actually it is more. I've taken permission from Dr. Taj Hashmi to reproduce what he had written in an email to many of his friends. The reason to post this was to say that there are many of us who share the same convictions. Is it not time we did something to change the way things are?

Dr. Hashmi's comment:

I am forwarding this wonderful article by Nazim Farhan Choudhury, which came out as an op-ed in the New Age, December 15, 2005. I think it is one of the very few balanced and objective analyses of the current situation of Bangladesh.

I wanted to write a similar article but refrained from doing so considering the effort an "Aranney Rodon". I wish our leaders follow Mr Choudhury's advice to contain "Islamic Terror" once for all by adopting some short- and some long-term socio-econmic measures instead of politicising terror, cynically keeping in view the possible dividends out of the ongoing terror in the next parliamentary elections.

Both the AL-led opposition and BNP-led coalition government fail to realise that blaming the Jamaat and BNP and India and AL for the terror, respectively, only benefits the terrorists. Lumping Jamaat with the JMB/ Harkatul Jihad will undoubtedly give dividends to the AL and its allies in the short-run, while the "Islamic terrorists" will benefit most in the long-run. Both the AL and BNP should come to their senses.

What I find most important in Mr Choudhury's analyses is how the constant portrayal of the Jamaat as the main force behind suicide bombing and other acts of terror in the name of Islam can force the Jamaat to turn into an ultra-rightist terrorist organization. Those who believe that imposing a ban on the Jamaat and other Islam-oriented political parties and kicking out the Jamaat and IOJ from the Coalition Government would diminish and eventually eliminate "Islamic terrorism" in Bangladesh are real fools.

Please read and re-read this well-written timely op-ed by Mr Chudhury. I wish our politicians could think in terms of long-term interests of Bangladesh and the so-called civil society (and the Bengali press) could stop the blame game for the sake of peace and order in this poor country with the potentials to become rich and prosperous!

Thank you Dr. Hashmi