Ignoring the aspirations of 1971 would be suicidal: Mahfuz Alam

Mahfuz Alam, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser to the Interim Government, said, “There are many who want to move past the aspirations of 1971.” That can't be done. It would be suicidal to move past 1971. He said, the desires of the people of 1971 should be connected with the desires of the people of today. It is not just about political parties. People from different sections of the society should be heard. If the constitution is to be rewritten, it must be consistent with the aspirations of the people of 1971.

Mahfuz Alam, the former coordinator of the Liaison Committee of Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, said these things in a dialogue titled 'Dialogue for Democratic Reconstruction, Constitution Context' organized by Center for Governance Studies (CGS) in the capital on Saturday (August 31). The dialogue was organized at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS) auditorium.

Mahfuz Alam said, how much this government values ​​people's wishes, it should be seen. The 1972 constitution was ideologically unilateral. There the principles of the party and the principles of the constitution were the same. But that place is not there now. There is a possibility of rebuilding that ideal place. The ideological position of other political parties has not changed yet. They also need to change that place.

Commenting that the fascist system still remains, a new settlement is necessary to abolish it, Mahfuz Alam said, the uprising was a concerted effort. A political settlement that existed in the nineties was broken at One-Eleven. Since then the place of desire of the people has been dusted.

Stating that there has been a struggle from all levels to abolish the fascist system, he said, “Our people are very diverse.” But this fascism was born out of an attempt to bring everyone together. The current discussion is how to accommodate everyone in the new Bangladesh. The coordinator of the Liaison Committee talked about taking the country through a civilizational transformation besides exploring how fascism originated from Bengali nationalism.

Under the chairmanship of Editor Council President Mahfuz Anam, General Secretary and Business News Editor Dewan Hanif Mahmud, Prothom Alo Editor Matiur Rahman, Ittefaq Editor Tasmima Hossain, Jugantar Editor Saiful Alam, New Age Editor Nurul Kabir, Dhaka Tribune Editor Zafar Sobhan, News Editor attended the exchange meeting. Altamash Kabir, Financial Express Editor Shamsul Haque Zahid, Pratidin Bangladesh Editor Mustafiz Shafi, Country Transformation Editor Mustafa Mamun, News Executive Editor Shahriar Karim and others.

Besides, Nasir Uddin Patwari (Nasir Abdullah), Akram Hussain, Bhuiyan Asaduzzaman, Mamun Abdullahil and Ariful Islam Adeeb of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement Liaison Committee; Among the coordinators were Sarjis Alam, Hasnat Abdullah and Samantha Sharmeen as representatives from the civic committee.

Bangladesh /KH