The evil empires are gone. Defeating the dishonests and corrupts, now the country is ruled by the knights of honesty, barrons of morality.
Lets sing the song of the successes of this honestocracy at this 3 months anniversary.
1. During the rules of the evil empires last 15 years, the judiciary was not free. The supreme court was tainted by influenced judgements.
Now, the judiciary is absolutely free. People get bail solely on the merit of the case, not at the direction of the joint forces command. The supreme court righly threw away the highcourt decisions declaring some detentions illegal.
And now you are allowed to protest against decisions you don’t like by vandalizing the court premises.
2. Attorney generals office is adjucating cases in fair succession. No case is being deferred three or four times in a row.
3. Police forces are unquestionably fair now. Cases are activated, deactivated, people are charge sheeted, removed from chargesheet absolutely in accordance to the rule of law.
4. The defence forces, unlike the last 15 years, very obedient under the civil leadership, are only helping the governmnet when it is asked to do so.
5. The print and electronic media was maimed for the last 15 years. Now they are free birds.
6. Poor people used to live in uninhabitable conditions in slums. Now they do not live there. The slums are gone.
7. Prices of essentials were sky high, now they all are ocean deep.
8. Harrassment of opposition politicians by framed cases have stopped. Politicians are now rightfully jailed for months for committing grave crimes like possessing expired and cancelled passports or couple of hundred dollars of foreign currency at home.
9. In governmnet controlled media we used to see the faces of ruling party leaders all the time. Now we do not see the governmnet leaders in the media at all.
10. I could not criticise the government leaders in the blogs. Now I can.
Congratulations to the caretaker government. Long Live our oasis of highest moral standards.
April 16, 2007 at 4:18 am
Yes indeed, we all live happily happily and peacefully and prosperously from now on. Joy Bangla!
April 16, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Does our “honestocrat” hero get the girl and live happily forever after!
April 16, 2007 at 9:39 pm
obviously . Is there any politician still in this country Rumi Bhai?
April 16, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Did I mention that I love the Generals in charge? Even if I tried I could not love them anymore. The wisdom with which they dispense with democracy leaves me in awe. The efficiency with which they have filled up empty jail cells would even leave Idi Amin in tears.
Praise be to the Generals. All Hail!
April 17, 2007 at 1:04 am
Perhaps, I have pre-senility. I don’t understand everything as clearly as I should in my present age. I don’t know where Rtd Gen. Matin’s offfice is. Which Bahvan he belongs to. But it beseems, before as people used to say, all major negations or control of the country were from Hawa Bhavan and Tarique, now it looks like every bargain, negotion, and control comes from Matin or Matinvilla.
What the biggest Kopal Mr. Matin has! If God wants to give someone something, who on this earth can prevent or snatch away! At this point, I just recite a line from Bengali poem..” Kono Ghun Ney Tar Kopal Aagoon.”.. If some is lucky, his forehead is broad and bright, he or she doesn’t have to have any quality or qualification.
Thanks.
April 17, 2007 at 3:22 am
I have been saying ill motive of this interim govt since 1/11. Once again thanks to Rumi vai for pointing in the right direction. More people have begun to wonder what is taking place in our country but price we have paid and paying may be too high.
1) 0.8% GDP loss so far in name of honestocracy. Which translate to loss of $2.5 billion or 17500 thousand crore taka, that just loss in few months. Way more than these politicians combined allegedly scammed.
2) Essential price/gas/electricity/transport price way more than what was during last elected govt. Now story of price syndicate seems more like hoax than ever before.
there are more damaging effects…….
While we wonder and question interim govt activities, someone influential is just giving Chief advisor pat in the back for achievements. Now you be the judge and hope you can draw conclusion on the source of real power and motivation!!!!!
US govt satisfied with CA’s performance: Butenis
(read the last para)
http://www.financialexpress-bd.com/index3.asp?cnd=4/17/2007§ion_id=1&newsid=58517&spcl=no
April 17, 2007 at 12:25 pm
What exactly does “authentically popular mainstream parties” mean (quoting from NYT)? Do we need parties that are led by kleptocrats who sit on top of pillars of patronage that have corrupted society to its roots?
The ease with which the NYT editorial conflates military dictatorship with Islamic radicalism suggests that we are in the presence of rhetoric rather than analysis. The editorial misses entirely the point that the caretaker administration, bolstered by the armed services, has the guarded support of US State Department, of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, of the United Nations, and of anyone else who understands how close Bangladesh democracy is getting to producing exportable religious extremism.
By “harassing and jailing many of the country’s top civilian leaders”, is the caretaker administration not, finally, breaking a web of complicity? This is the first serious inroad into the corruption of public life in the country’s history. Let’s be sure, the people being collared are not the likes of Hillary Benn or Barak Obama. It’s important that the caretaker administration acts judiciously but it also needs time. The editorial team of The New York Times does not propose viable alternatives because opinion pieces are, by definition, about proferring opinions not ideas.
Only the vaguely moronic could argue that the suspension of national legislative assemblies equated with the halt of democratic practices. In Pakistan, President Musharraf broke the cycle of iniquity created by the Muslim League and the Pakistan People’s Party but went ahead with deepening democratic systems at the sub-national level. His project was interrupted by America’s “War in Terror” at the outset of which the then Deputy Secretary of State William Armitage reportedly threatened to “bomb Pakistan into the stone age” if it didn’t come to heel. So, what exactly is the “real democracy” that The New York Times is referring to? That of a country struggling to resolve its own crises of polity through the means available to it? Or that which apes practices and assumptions that fail to deliver the goods?
The notion of transition towards liberal democratic outcomes runs deep in the minds of the well-meaning. Yet the evidence of the last 15 years suggests that the assumption transition is just that: an assumption. From Latin America to Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, societies that have emerged from non-democratic forms of governance are experiencing various kinds of “democratic deficits” that beg basic questions of the very suggestion of transition. Some countries have relapsed into dominant power politics (Central Asia); some have shown signs of a populist backlash against superpower clientelism (Latin America); others still have seen the only institutions left with national outreach–the military–taking a more prominent role (South Asia). From Bolivia to Uzbekistan to Bangladesh, the Elysian Fields of liberal democratic outcomes is a destination for the sentimentalist, and has no place in the political projects of the realist.
Sentiment: we all need it. Sentiment is never far away from lay observers and the editorials of our favoured papers, in whose pages we find mirrors of ourselves. Recall for instance the manner in which The Daily Star editorial fawned over the “return” to power of the Awami League in 1996. So much said about inheritance, history, poetic closure, and so on. Real tear-jerking stuff. Yet any observer of porous political formations in weak post-colonial states could see that we were about to replace one set of thieving opportunists with another. Now, fast forward a decade, and recall the shock and awe of the same liberal Bangladeshi whose heart bled onto the pages of the same newspaper at the alliance between the Awami League and religious extremists. Oh dear.
Sentimentality such as this has no place in determining what is right and good for Bangladesh as a viable political entity. We only need to look to China, Malaysia and Viet Nam to understand that a country’s geo-strategic place–and therefore its national interest–can be secured through ideological and institutional innovation, not a good heart and a fuzzy mind. The question is, do we have the patience to envision a future in which our political development will be uneven and non-sequential? Will we have the imagination to allow for experimentation rather than sponsored mimicry? Or will we forget ourselves, invoke our assumptions once more and turn against the military-backed caretaker administration before its job is done?
I would go one step further. Perhaps the unicameral form of national legislature is not what works for us, at least at the apex of a democratric structure. Does anyone have any ideas on what could work instead? A friendly suggestion: don’t expect to find the answer in The New York Times.
A Hannan Ismail
Lusaka, Zambia
April 18, 2007 at 10:55 am
I dont understand this knee-jerk reaction to the NY Times editorial. The Bush administration has made a lot of noice about its mission to promote democracy in the Muslim world. The NYT rightly points the finger at Washington’s tacit approval of the scrapping of the electoral process, and suspension of basic rights.
As for “authentically popular mainstream parties”, who is to say the BNP and the AL dont enjoy genuine support among the masses? Besides, what is the alternative? A coalition of ex-technocrats and retired military officers? Democracy is still the best option.
April 22, 2007 at 6:25 am
It is said that super female is not a good female. In bengali “Beshi Valo Valo Na”. I do agree that nation got rid from a turmoil temporary but problem yet persists. We cannot say that nation is cured. Now just a symptomatic relief; so we have to wait whether they can diagnose properly for treatment or cutting head for headache.
In a Least Develop Country like us we need to take some risk and out of the way strugle to survive and develop. Everything cannot go by book. For example if we follow authentic rules and regulations to treat a patient like USA then most of our patient would not get treatment.
Big power is a myth and by this we try to avoid our mistakes. It is time to correct our mistakes through democracy not by “honestocracy” or “autocracy”. We have to ensure the democracy of the people by the people and for the people not off the people buy the people and fuck the people.