My 2 cents on hartal
When we are taking a lot of the decisions unilaterally, and most of them controversial enough to raise eyebrows, why not take this also unilaterally, at least this would not be controversial. The general public will not question the motive, the business community will not question the motive and above all, all the parents who are paying thousands of taka for the education of their children will not question it. I really do not understand why on this issue the government takes the initiative of bringing all the parties to the same table and say that nothing can be done if the political parties are not involved in the discussion. The BNP government or rather any government of Bangladesh thinks twice because of the thought of them becoming the opposition party some day. We should not rely on hartal to have our voices heard. We should promote non-violent demonstrations. That way, throughout the whole world, people would have the sympathy of the unheard. But what we see now is violence in the name of hartal. What does that do? It tarnishes the image of the country and loses sympathy from all over the world. The government should take the initiative to show that they really want hartal to be banned for the sake of the country. The government should start believing in that and translate this into law. Once you start practising what you believe, people one day would follow you. We as general public always look upon the government and if we see that the government is serious about banning hartal , very soon people would refrain from such activities and that would make all political parties realise that like the general public they also love the country and refrain them from those activities.
Since we are a democratic country, the government should call upon the political parties to get together to have the hartal banned and if these political parties do not answer to the call, take the decision unilaterally and I can bet my life that this would be welcomed by all quarters.
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