Foreign Policy Blogs

AL Leadership Blamed for Conspiring to Support Criminal Student League Activity

The Bangladesh Student League is running rampant, loose across numerous universities across the country and the politicians–often, members of parliament–who support them are doing nothing to arrest the Student League’s criminal and violent behavior.

The Daily Star reports that a leader of the AL has gone on record to admonish these politicians aiding and abetting behaviors that Bangladeshi citizens and voters do not find respectable and worthy of public support.

“AL acting general secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif also admitted that the allegation of patronisation by AL lawmakers is “partially” true.”

“It is obvious that Chhatra League is involved in misdeeds under the patronisation of some ministers, lawmakers and party leaders in many places,” he said last night. “We have recently warned these leaders in person, asking them not to interfere in Chhatra League affairs; otherwise, organisational action will be taken against them.”

Interfering seems like small potatoes compared to the overt criminal conspiracies some of the AL leaders seem happy to engage in.  By franchising the Student League across different university campuses and becoming the de facto power broker in those franchises, political leaders are essentially suiting up to become criminal bosses.

As the Student League engages in more socially and economically disruptive activities, the rent from those actions are likely collating in the bank accounts of some AL leaders.  This is hardly surprising news.  But it is news that the AL national leadership must deal with and clear up.  If the next generation of AL leaders are goons and criminals, they offer the present generation no hope of salvation.  The country will lie in ruins before Bangladeshi leaders can lift their people high by and through enlightened leadership.

 

Author

Faheem Haider

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com