DHAKA — Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said Wednesday that the country must abandon mob violence and learn to tolerate dissenting views to establish democracy.
He spoke at a discussion at Lakeshore in Gulshan to mark the publication of a compiled book titled “BNP in the 2024 Mass Uprising.” A documentary on the uprising was screened before the discussion.
“The most important point of democracy is that you have to tolerate the views of others,” Fakhrul said. “I will speak, but I will not tolerate your speech, I will beat you up, I will create mob violence, I will gather some people and say tear it down, demolish it, beat him to death. This is not democracy.”
“The essence of democracy is, I may not agree with you, but I will defend with my life your right to express your views. That is democracy,” he said. “Unfortunately, here we do not want to tolerate the views of others, we want to dismiss them. We have to move away from this position.”
Fakhrul said Bangladesh must nurture democracy and build democratic institutions if it wants to create a sustainable system and avoid becoming a failed state.
“It does not matter which party wins or loses. What matters is whether democratic institutions have been strengthened, whether our judiciary is independent, whether our media is independent, whether our parliament is effective, whether our country is being run by the rule of law, whether there is good governance, and whether we can ensure social dignity and human rights for the people. These are the issues we must work on in the future,” he said.
‘A democratic alliance must be built’
Fakhrul said the BNP carried greater responsibility with elections approaching. “The BNP must build an alliance that has fought for democracy in the past, will fight for it in the future, and will institutionalize democracy. This is the alliance we must build here,” he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report