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A Diplomat’s Quest for his roots
by - Wali-ur Rahman When the Greek king Milinda Nagasena visited Buddhyacharya Nagsena, Nagsena in a dialogue with Milinda asked the king, The answer was as convoluted as vague. There was a cultural hiatus, an ignorance of a kind – but the meeting of the two great wise men and two great civilizations, gave them both a sense of accomplishment. Edward Taylor’s definition of culture is still considered as a classic one “People faith, behavioural pattern, language, libertine religion and religious beliefs, rites, more and moral, societal values, rules and regulations, celebration of various occasions like the Eid, Hindu rites and religious celebration, Buddhists rites, Christmas celebration, Adivashis cyRv (puja)– all combine to make for the culture and civilization. A Bangalee is proud to have a rich history and culture of its own; Pundra (Mahastangorh) is 2500 years old. In Munshigonj even an older civilization in the process of excavation; this is all a part of the Bengalee history. Rabindranath Tagore said, “the history of Bangladesh is a history of division: East Bengal, West Bengal, Rarh, varendra is not only a geographical division. Spiritual divisiveness also formed a part of that, nor was there much similarly in societies they lived in. Yet a unity has always been discerned through the commonality of Bengali language. We are Bangalees because we descend from the Vanga, (on Banga) tribe and because our language is Bangla – we speak Bengali. The quintessential commonality of the Bangalees is Bangla. Bangalees have been searching for a common land, a common platform of their own over the past thousand years. Bangalees have many shades of character. While one may not agree with Macaulay’s broadside against the Bangalees, the US Ambassador Diplomat – Professor Kenneth Galbraith attempted to sum up the Bengalee character in his own way nearing the twilight Zone of truth. Bengal is a nation of contrast, which has a tendency to compromise; but they may also become rebellious. After all the first shot against the British Raj was fired by a Bengali in Chittagong: the British in armory Chittagong was also looted by the Bangalees – the Raj had to shift their capital from Calcutta to a safer place in north India – Delhi, the seat of the great Mughals. While Bangalees overwhelming voted for their autonomy in 1970 election, they also allowed West Pakistanis to be nominated from East Pakistan – a generosity rarely seen in human history: yet the Wadera – military – bureaucrat combine of Pakistan opposed anything do with their language and culture, let alone economy. It was left to a young Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who raised his voice for the first time in the Pakistan constituent Assembly. It was something like ‘no representation, no taxation’. To the discerning readers it was very clear that the East Pakistan leader was pitching in for economic autonomy, cultural freedom and recognition of Bangali language as one of the national languages of Pakistan. He would not hesitate to remind his colleagues in the Assembly that after all it was Bengal, without whose support there would have been no Pakistan, a closer reading of the speeches would leave a distinctive hallmark of the man Mujib, who was consumed with the idea of a Bengal free from the shackles of tyranny and autocratic rule. It was at this moment when his intentions were unmistakable, he, as it were, realized in Flaubert’s words, “Just when Gods had ceased to be and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.” Chapter II On February 12, 1993, Friday when I returned to Dhaka from Italy to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I was personally told by then Prime Minister that I would take over as Foreign Secretary by July the same year, when the incumbent was to take over as the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh in New York. When we reached our home (this number has a touch of history because the house adjacent to ours was used by the Albadr-Alshams as a torture centre against the Freedom Fighters) my eyes fell on a news item in the weekly Holiday. I called my wife and other family members to read it; the news stated that I was sent to forced retirement together with Mr. Mohiuddin Ahmed, Deputy Permanent Representative in New York in ‘Public Interest’. The words ‘Public Interest’ was an irony! Where were these elements when the last battle was being fought in the paddy fields of Bangladesh for a sovereign independent country. The decision thus, was taken more in ‘personal interest’ than ‘public interest’. My daughter who was only 14 was overwhelmed with shock and disbelief. She asked me with an innocence that comes with youth and idealism, “Papa why have they done this to you?” I was at a loss for a credible answer. How could I explain to a child the jealousy and enmity towards a partisan? I could only tell her the story of Cain and Abel, the story of jealousy, envy, greed, the story of hatred and malice. I briefly told her about Vichy France and how the collaborators there conspired against the partisans. I also told her the story of Major Alfred Dreyfus, and that I too shall fight like Dreyfus. I shall fight the case and win because I did not do anything wrong or prejudicial to the interest of my dear motherland for which I resigned and became a refugee in Switzerland for 9 months during the war of liberation. And of course, I won the cases framed against me in “jealousy, that green eyed monster, that feed upon itself”. On a later date I told my daughter of another story from Shakespeare—when these very same elements made me an OSD – soon after Sheikh Mujib was brutally murdered along with his family and then too no ostensible reasons were given. How can you explain to a child that her father was reaping the benefits of his participation in the glorious war of liberation? Yes I told my daughter about the Dreyfus case. I challenged history – distortion of history of this country. Following the tragic events of August 15, 1975, has the history of this country been in any way normal? I explained to her when the great war hero President Ziaur Rahman was trying to cobble together a system of governance, all his efforts were frustrated by the same anti-nationalist forces, and finally he also was brutally assassinated. It was a tragic moment for the country. The perpetrators wanted the country to go back to the pre- 1971 situation – as if nothing had happened in the war of liberation! And 1975 was only a hiatus! The murders of both Sheikh Mujib and Shahid Ziaur Rahman was done with a clear strategic intention of reverting the Bangla history that was created on December 16, 1971. When in January 1997, President Nelson Mandela asked me why we killed Sheikh Mujib, I only looked at him with wistful eye along with the CDA ai, but the President said “it was a historic mistake.” Only a man of history could predict this. I went to the QEH Oxford as a fellow on a short research work for my book in the works ‘untold story of a nation’. Around the middle of September, I returned to Dhaka. I returned to fight my case. On September 13, my wife and I watched the historic handshake between Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin. That was a historic moment in many ways. We too felt reassured. Here we were watching the moment of truth – a historic wrong being righted. Premier Rabin’s Biblical reference had an eclectic effect on me when he said: “ To everything there is a season …… “ I made up my mind then – I told myself that there is a rot in the state of Denmark. I felt it was my duty and right to expose the distortion of history of the war of liberation and write everything that will relate to the savage experience I and many others had suffered so that such injustice is not done again in the Republic, and full respect will be paid to the Constitution. On one thing I was very sure, I would never compromise on principles. I did what I thought was right. So I started writing columns in the journals and newspapers the Daily Star, the Dhaka Courier, the Morning Sun, the Bangladesh Observer and later the Independent. My columns under the subhead, ENCHIRIDION in the Daily Star were immensely popular and read at home and abroad. I started this series after being personally requested by editor Mr. Mahfuz Anam whom I first met at a sitar recital of my Oxford friend Dr. Tawfiq Nawaz. I met Tawfiq in 1974-75 when I was doing my sabbatical at the Trinity College. I also published a number of articles under –non-de-plume: I had to be careful, especially so after my late lamented friend Attorney-General Aminul Huq, a great freedom fighter, visited my Dhanmondi House at Road # 5 one late night and warned me to be careful: these are his words “this lady can be very vindictive”. He even asked me to change my nameplate from my apartment building! I was stunned! Was it the new Gulag? Or the Voodoo democracy of Haiti under Papa Doc? Were we experiencing the Mobutu kind of Kleptocracy? Mobutu would throw his enemies in the crocodile ponds as stories go, albeit after informing them! The freedom fighters had to face court cases and trumped-up-charges! What a shame, how Bangladesh had fallen to such a nadir. And I was not spared. After my article was published under the heading ‘Trivialization of Politics’ where I referred to Begum Zia’s remarks to her young followers, I received threatening phone calls, my wife was told that our daughter would be kidnapped etc. Such threats only enthused me more to expose the seamy side of the reign of terror, unleashed by the autocratic regime. (a grim reminder of today’s political situation foreshadowed as early as the early nineties. The country reached a political and moral meltdown having taken place in the 15 yrs of democratic rule under both the major political parties! The brave patriotic defence forces of the country have come to rescue the Republic and reclaim democracy and the dreams enshrined in the constitution of Bangladesh). The late Foreign Minister requested me to stop writing these articles! If I heeded his request I would get my service back! I had not compromised in the past, I was not ready to do this now, not for a mere job. On the contrary I started writing with renewed trust in me and truth, to bare the injustice perpetrated in the name of democracy.’ It must be borne in mind that the war of liberation was fought to say ‘No’ to the Two Nation Theory’ as well as to disprove the fundamentalist approach to the definition of nation states. Banglees have always lived in peace and harmony—Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Adivash’s living in peace with the majority group Muslims for over thousand years. Thus when Pakistan together with its economic exploitation of the Bangalees wanted to convert the Banglee ethos into an alien culture, the Bangalees had no alternative but to resist Pakistan. It is no wonder, therefore, that justice Albee Sachs of South Africa, said that constitution of a country is the autobiography of a nation: the Constitution of Bangladesh reflects those principles like nationalism, secularism, sustainable economic development and fundamental rights—the cardinal principles which propelled the Bangalees to fight the war. The majority being sincretic Muslims, care was taken to make sure that religious sentiments are fully respected. If we read the constitution in its entirety, it will be clearly seen that those elements are the piece-de-resistance of the entire book. Another element that is easily visible is the element of protest, the protest transmuted from personal to philosophical, from incidental to national, from national to transcendental. There was a feeling of oneness before 71 and after 71: everybody wanted to help each other. One nation, one country, one experience bound them all together. I remember a cousin brother of mine who got a live saving drug from Geneva and sent it to a stranger who was not even known to him ........ . But this special esprit-de-corps started unraveling because of the activities of those elements, small in number but motivated as ‘fifth columnists,’ forces which never accepted the war of liberation. As the American historian Prof. Stanley Wolpert wrote in his Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan how the Pakistan leader was pouring in illegal funds in Bangladesh to destabilise the new nation, the country born on the sacrifice of 3 million Bengalee martyrs: I quote “ Bhutto had been funneling secret “discretionary” funds to several anti-Mujib parties during the past two years, and before the end of August 1975 that investment would pay off handsomely. Abdul Huq, general secretary of Bangladesh’s Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, had written on 16 December 1974 to “My dear Prime Minister” Bhutto, with “much pain and anguish” to appeal “for funds, arms and wireless instruments” to use against the “puppet Mujib clique …. today totally divorced from the people”. That “top secret/most immediate” letter reached Zulfi on 16 January 1975, when he minuted on its margin. “Important” authorizing “help” for this “honest man,” whom Bhutto rated as “fairly effective”. (Page – 248) During Bhutto’s visit to Dhaka, he helped reorganize those anti Bangladesh elements by creating a nexus that finally delivered the coup de grace on August 15, 1975. Further, this same group supported by Bhutto actively engaged themselves in misinterpreting the Amnesty granted by Bangabandhu in the greater interest of national solidarity. No Amnesty was given to those collaborators against whom specific charges of rape, arson and criminal activities were found. Thus the new country soon became the victim of a venal propaganda machine and psy-war. Simultaneously, the wrong advice given to Sheikh Mujib led to the dropping of the International War Crimes Trial against those Pakistan Generals who were found guilty of crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. (More on this to be found in my forthcoming book ‘Untold Story of a Nation’ and the views of Maxplank Institute of International Criminal Law at Friebourg West Germany). The anti Bangladesh forces supported these destabilizing elements in the country: this deterioration was further exacerbated by those high officials surrounding Sheikh Mujib who never accepted the reality of Bangladesh. In this situation, the enemies struck and struck with a vengeance: In history many assassinations have taken place: but I do not know of any incident, which can match the ferocity and hatred associated with the events of August 15, 1975. As I said earlier, the release of the Pakistani war criminals was a mistake: no, it was a blunder. As someone rightly said blunder is worse than crime. We are thus still paying the price: the price of the loss of the Father of the Nation and the Great War hero General Zia. With the benefit of hindsight we notice the reality—the naked reality that the anti-liberation forces were busy in reversing the very basis of our sovereign and independent nationhood. The corruption and looting of national assets by the subsequent Governments also posed a similar threat to our national security and sovereignty What is the lesson then? What happened to me and thousand others was only symbolic of the ongoing struggle between the forces of darkness and obscurantist elements whose normal habitat is the nether world. They spin their evil designs in darkness. They are scared of the light of truth as truth shall triumph and so shall Bangladesh. The common mosaic of experience is as relevant today as it was yesterday. And it will be no different tomorrow. The problem of a senior Ambassador illegally removed from service was compounded with the sudden demise of my mother on March 1, 1993. She along with my grandmother, a Persian scholar, was a great source of my strength in search for ideals. In the same manner in search for my roots I often sat with my cousin Syed Altaf Hossain, State Minister in the last Cabinet of pre – 1975 Bangladesh. He taught me never to compromise on principles. I did not see my father too; he expired when I was attending a Non-aligned meeting in Nicaragua: hazards of La Carriere, as the French call a diplomat’s life.
Chapter III From December 16, 1971, Governments services started taking shape. From 1972-75, system was based on certain criteria, one of which was unjust: like the antedated seniority. The idea was divisive. But after 15 August, the situation made a dramatic shift – towards discrimination of a different kind. An officer made OSD for no ostensible reason was asked by then Foreign Secretary to walk his dog’ (if he had one)! Career officials normally desire for promotion for the work they do –Military officers to the flag or general officer rank, while the diplomats eye for an ambassadorship. When lateral entry disturbs ‘La Carriere’ the entire service moral is disturbed. Thus Norton H. Halperin of the Brookings Institution suggested in his much regarded Bureaucratic Politics “The knowledge that the good opinion of his supervisor is crucial in determining whether an officer advances at a normal rate or falls behind is eventually selected can act as powerful deterrent to his forthright expression of views on policy –matters which may be at variance with the views of his supervisor. “In Bangladesh when an officer reported against his predecessor’s corruption at the Embassy, he was penalized rather than rewarded. In the French Diplomatic service – La Carrier – the saying goes: “Le predeasseur est tojours un embecile: le successor est tojours un intrigant”! The search continues. The British, by and large, succeeded in setting their house in order much earlier. The abdication of Napoleon in March 1814, left great Britain the most powerful nation in the world. By settling the posting of Wellington at the house of Princess Borghese, sister of Napoleon, the British started buying houses for their Ambassadors since 18th country. La Carriere in the FCO took a difinitive form. Not that we in Bangladesh expected things to happen so smoothly. The search continues. “Ambassadors,’ said Demosthenes, ‘have no battleships at their disposal, or heavy infantry, or fortresses; their weapons are words and opportunities. In important transactions opportunities are fleeting; once they are missed they cannot be recovered. It is a greater offense to deprive a democracy of an opportunity than it would thus to deprive an oligarchy or an autocracy.” When a diplomat enhances export to the country of his assignment from $35 million dollars $ 250 million dollars in 2½ yrs., he is not recognized. When a diplomat facilitates the work permit for 10 thousand illegal Bangladeshis, which now has jumped to 1 lac 50 thousand in 10 yrs, that goes unheeded. When a diplomat receives the President of the Republic 4 times in 5 yrs, the Prime Minister once, the Foreign Ministers (3 of them) 15 times and other Minister over 50 times in 5 yrs. he is penalized rather than rewarded. Even his Pension is withheld or stopped or he is faced with harassment from the Government agencies under myriad excuses, the diplomat starts wondering if this is how a diplomat is recognized for the services he rendered to the Republic from the day he declared his allegiance to the Mujibnagar Government in exile. The search continues ………….. The First World War finished the Austro – Hungarian, German and Ottoman Empires and the Czarist regimes in Russia. The Second World War eliminated the Empires of Japan and Italy, and the military power of Germany – the initial sources of our diplomatic inspiration. The French aristocrat diplomat Alexis De Tocqueville forecast over a century ago the rise of another great power in his Democracy in America. One of the main factors leading us inevitably to the war of liberation was again the experience of Europe in the wars fought over religion. In the ‘thirty years’ of the religious wars, third of the population of Europe perished. But this was quickly forgotten with the removal of Mujib, and the nation is still paying the price since both the political parties lost their trust in some high moral values, values which inspired the Bangalees to fight in the War in 1971. Thus should I start believing what Montaigne said, “To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is loved by him again.” Lord Palmerston used whatever means at hand as Walter Bagehot suggested, but for a diplomat Abba Eban was perhaps somewhat nearer the truth when he said in his The New Diplomacy, “Whatever changes take place in diplomacy, the professional Ambassador is the loser on all fronts.” The search will go on. Again just as Montaigne in his famous essay ‘Of Cannibals’, `wrote indulgently of the so-called savage peoples who killed one another for food or with dry relish kill, torture, devastate or slaughter for no reason save religious or political dogma, or just as Homer and then Thucidydes, could look at the primitive peoples around then – Homer’s Cyclopes, Thucydides Pirates as examples of how the Greeks themselves once had been ……………. A diplomat will perhaps, get some comfort from what I call the piece de resistance of the City of God by st. Augustine, who likens the growth and development of mankind to a ‘river’ or ‘torrent’ that has carried man’s virtues as well as his vices down through the time. But that is only evaluated in its transitoriness just as human existence is ………… Harken back to the beginning of the story. |
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