Ensure the Right to Honor Sheikh Mujib

Opinion

“I have never written anything about Sheikh Mujib before—neither good nor bad. Many have won awards by writing poems, stories, and salutations about him. Some hoped for rewards, others allocated the skies of Bengal, but I did not take that path. The reason is that I never had the freedom to write about him independently. The Awami League had monopolized him for many years, turning him into a cliché. But today, he is in peril, and that is why I am writing.

Sheikh Mujib is intertwined with the emergence of Bangladesh in the same way sugar and molasses are intertwined in the syrup of a jilapi (a sweet). You cannot imagine the history of Bangladesh without him. You cannot erase him with bleach or detergent. Whether he is the Father of the Nation or whether it is appropriate to call him Bangabandhu are separate issues, but he was the chief organizer of the independence movement. He was the midwife who reached into the womb of history and pulled out the child named ‘Bangladesh.’

Yet, you burned down his house. You struck him with the rod of Sheikh Hasina’s sins. The leaders of the mass uprising did not protest this act because they do not have that freedom. They fear a particular group. They only say things that do not anger the devil. Everyone is eager to please the devil. Those who are concerned about the nation’s freedom of speech should also be concerned about their own. Freedom of speech is not just the right to speak against the government; it is also the right to speak against the people.

I would say to Muhammad Yunus: repair the house. Announce the trial of those involved. The burning of this house and the burning of your government are the same thing. The country you serve as chief advisor, or chief deity, owes its birth to this house. This debt is not repayable like a micro-loan from Grameen Bank.

Sheikh Hasina has fled. Her cabinet and MPs are on the run. But the innocent Awami League workers, who have never benefited from Sheikh Hasina, remain in the country. They have the right to observe Sheikh Mujib’s death anniversary with mourning. Ensure this right.”

– Mahiuddin Mohammad
Review / August 13, 2024