"We know people want martial law, but we can't print that!"

I remember, back in the late '90s, I submitted an article to the Daily Star, the last line of which Mahfuz Anam refused to publish – and I refused to alter. His sub-editor, Modon Shahu, called me once day and urged me to change the line.

He chuckled and said: "We know people want martial law, but we can't print that!"

Pause and ponder the implications of the sub-editor's statement.

The battle-cry of The Daily Star is "Committed to the People's Right to Know"; also, "Journalism Without Fear or Favour". Add "Not" before the first, and change "Without" to "With" in the second shibboleth, and you have an accurate idea of the newspaper's ethos.

When a newspaper knows what people want, and what they are saying, it is its duty to report that. Instead, we have a so-called newspaper in cahoots with western donors and NGOs, trying to force-feed democracy down our collective throat.

Well, we finally regurgitated on January 11, 2007 – the day democracy ended: the conclusion of a sixteen-year-old nightmare.