Is it nationalism?
Some days ago in a dinner party with the Bangladesh cricket team in Sri Lanka, our state minister for sports quoted from a speech given by Field Marshall Ayub Khan (during the 1965 Indo-Pak war) to inspire the Bangladeshi cricket team where there was a dialogue "Pakistan Payendabad". Now in our country the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is in power and our honourable minister is a lawmaker of that party. From the name of this party it is clear to us that the motto of the BNP is to uphold nationalism.
The movement, engineered by the great minds of the then East Pakistan, to oust the military government headed by Ayub Khan is a milestone in our history of independence. But is it the definition of Nationalism that a minister of this free nation would quote from a man's speech who was one of the masterminds of Bengalee bashing? This speech thus has revealed the deviation of our leaders from their own political motto.
This is not the first time; earlier we saw in the newspapers that the ministers and the big-wigs of the ruling party made this type of statements several times, even while conversing with foreign guests.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. If our national leaders think like that, then how can we expect anything from them for the benefit of the country?