Democracy and Intolerance

EGYPT: Muslims protest Coptic Christian governor in Qena | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times: "Thousands of mostly Muslim protesters swelled through the streets of the Egyptian city of Qena on Friday to demonstrate against the recent appointment of a new Coptic Christian governor.

Crowds gathered Immediately after prayers outside the city’s mosques, chanting against Gov. Emad Mikhael and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf: “Oh Sharaf, say the truth … you’re being unfair to us or not?” and “Oh freedom where are you ... Mikhael is standing between us and you.”

Mikhael, a police general who served under former President Hosni Mubarak, is the only Copt among 18 new governors named by Sharaf on April 14. The decision was met by anger and exasperation from the city’s Islamic extremists and ultra-conservative Salafi groups.

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Democracy will bring out the worst in any people - Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims.

The people of the Middle East should learn from the (brief) democratic experience of the world. The democracies unleashed two major wars in the previous century. The first has been described as the "most democratic war in history" by historian J.M.Roberts.

The question of whether democracy promotes violence is an old one and goes back to Thucydides (his answer was 'Yes'). Two thousand years later, Thomas Hobbes translated Thucydides to reveal the horrors of democracy.

The free world in history stands in sharp contrast to the subjugation of the rest of the world by it over 500 violent years. Where there was parliament, there was violence inflicted mostly on foreigners.

China could have conquered the world, and started out to do so, but then stopped. The Portuguese took up where they left off.

In Bangladesh, lynching - absolutely unknown during dictatorship - has become so commonplace, nobody even notices. In 2007, the country nearly experienced civil war between the two political parties, and the west had to call in the army to restore sanity.

We must remember that it's a western idea - democracy - that's causing all the mayhem.

OCHLOCRACY (article)

OCHLOCRACY

(click above for article)

Events in the Middle East and elsewhere are being increasingly shaped by the crowd. Since the French Revolution, the crowd has emerged as a legitimate force, not always with happy consequences.

Vendetta in Bangladesh

15 August, 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and part of his family killed



June, 1996 His daughter Sheikh Hasina comes to power after western donors restore democracy


April, 2001 High Court confirms death sentences for 12 of the accused

October, 2001 Shaikh Hasina loses election and Khaleda Zia becomes prime minister


December, 2008 Sheikh Hasina reelected

August, 2009 Final appeal hearing begins


November 19 2009 Appellate division confirms judgment of death by hanging



Thus, we see that the case had lain dormant, under the protective mantel of an Indemnity Ordnance, promulgated by President Khandker Moshtaque Ahmed, and later ratified by General Zia as Indemnity Act of 1979.

The "assassins" were rewarded with lucrative posts and given heroes' status by every subsequent government until the election of 1996 produced Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Mujib. She had survived the killing becasue she had been out of the country in 1975.


Therefore, the pattern that emerges is this: killers are hailed as heroes till 1996, the dynasty acquires state power in that year, loses it in the election of 2001, when proceedings against the killers stop, and are resumed again after Hasina, the daughter, returns to power in December, 2008.

A personal vendetta? A lynching? Victors justice? All three.




I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was fourteen, and I lived in Dhanmandi, very near the scene of the killing. At dawn, I heard the booming of guns, and woke up in fear. Later, we learned that Mujib and his family had been killed: there was rejoicing throughout the land!

Against this background, what are we to make of the Supreme Court verdict? Well, to put it mildly, it opens up an enormous gap between law and morality. The law must posit that every killing in peacetime is murder; but a moment’s consideration will show that morality can never posit that every killing in peacetime is immoral. Was the killing of Caligula murder? Certainly. But was it immoral? Certainly not.

Furthermore, we cannot consent to the proposition that the law, and the legal process, is always just.



Take Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. When the Bengal terrorists were gunning down British officers and, after due process, were being carted off to the Andamans, Bengalis hated the English for that: now, several streets in Calcutta are named after 'terrorists'.


Moreover, the Supreme Court, respect for which must be implanted in the heart of every citizen if we are to live in peace and with a clear conscience, has been sullied by a case that was basically moral, not legal. Now, no one, except the narrow band of fanatics devoted to the House of Mujib, who reck with neither morality nor logic, will regard the ‘due process’ as little more than an elaborate charade. The Supreme Court came into bad odour the day democracy was introduced: December 6, 1990. On that day, after General Ershad resigned, the Chief Justice became president, instead of the vice-president per constitution; later, he had this illegality legalized when parliament sat and passed two amendments. Since then, no one has ever believed that the Supreme Court is above politics.

Now, they will say, there goes the last institution to the democratic dog.

Scoop reports a non-scoop

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0909/S00160.htm

This ridiculous article fails to mention the connivance of foreign donors in the extrajudicial killings and torture. It says that Bangladesh is an independent country: what a hoot! Bangladesh is run by foreign powers, who allow two psychopaths to run the country in turn. These powers rig elections to ensure the parties rotate to create the illusion of democracy. Since our democratic transition, extrajudicial killing has escalated: now it is practiced by ordinary people on the streets. Every few days, we read about lynchings. There have been around 27 lynchings this year so far (and 78 last year). People are fed up with the violence that followed our "democratic transition". Extrajudicial killing enjoys immense public support, for the people feel that those killed are criminals.