What is the fascists’ path? Advocate Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, BNP’s acting secretary general and political adviser to the prime minister, put the question to the Jamaat ameer. “The Jamaat ameer has said BNP is moving along the path of the fascists,” he said. “So I want to ask him: what is the fascists’ path? Which path? You have to spell it out. You have to say what path you mean. Show an example. Is it a dirt track, a paved road or a brick road?”
He was speaking on Sunday at the National Press Club in the capital at a discussion organised by the Afsar Ahmed Siddiqui Memorial Foundation on the 25th death anniversary of Advocate Afsar Ahmed Siddiqui, a former BNP vice-chairman, language movement veteran and freedom fighter.
Addressing the Jamaat ameer, Rizvi said: “After 5 August you said you would forgive the Awami League everything. You said you would improve relations with India. No BNP leader said that, nor did our chief leader Tarique Rahman. You said it. Now you say BNP is walking the fascists’ path. In fact the people can see more clearly which path you are walking. People know BNP. BNP does not stray an inch from the promises it makes. But the promises you made, you made in the name of Islam, in the name of Allah. You say many things to win people’s hearts, and the next moment you do the opposite. You have done everything you did in the past. You have followed Sheikh Hasina’s path.”
He went on: “Begum Zia said Ershad’s was an illegitimate government and she would not take part in an election under him, because he came to power by killing democracy. Hasina said the same. Jamaat said the same. Within 48 hours Hasina went to the election under Ershad, and so did Jamaat. So you have left your proof in history. You love nothing more than walking Hasina’s path. For power you sometimes try to ally with BNP, but in your hearts you walk the path Hasina showed. In the movement for the caretaker government system you walked the same path, the Awami League’s path. So you are ignoring the evidence and examples of history and saying this to confuse the people.”
Rizvi said the strength to resist fascists is part of BNP itself. “This party was built through the enforced disappearances and secret killings of countless leaders and activists, and through their sacrifice. Democracy is its goal and its ideal. Whether you have that spirit, we do not know. You have never built an ideological position on democracy or on the country’s independence. That is why people still look at you with suspicion. In 1971, in the democratic movement under Ershad and in the movements for democracy since, people have never seen you walk an ideological path.”
The discussion was chaired by Jahanara Siddiqui, convener of the Afsar Ahmed Siddiqui Memorial Foundation and BNP’s assistant secretary for nurses and health assistants. Other speakers included BNP health affairs secretary Dr Rafiqul Islam, central executive committee volunteer affairs secretary Mir Sarafat Ali Sapu, national executive committee member Munshi Bazlul Basit Anju, and information and research secretary Z Khan Md Riaz Uddin Nasu.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report