Thuggery in US politics
The opposition parties in the country often called for hartal, work stoppages and transport blockade triggering mayhem, which often spread restlessness in major cities and towns. Streets were often stained with bloods of the activists who clashed with rivals compelling police to act for restoring peace.
But the opposition never enticed its activists and supporters to storm the parliament in order to pull down the government. There was no instance that any top leader of the opposition ever asked its followers to attack the parliament when it was in or out of the session.
This issue has taken the center stage as the goons of the US Republican Party stormed Capitol Hill forcing the session of the Congress to halt for several hours on January 6 last. At least four people including a woman activist were shot dead by police.
It has been proved that Bangladesh intelligence squads and law enforcers are far smarter than those US Police, who probably were not aware that the Republican activists would turn so ugly and violate the sanctity of the House that creates laws and policies to run the world hitherto largest economy of the world.
In Bangladesh, the intelligence would have gathered the motive of the opposition prior hand and would have kept the activists miles away from the target to be stormed.
However, in Bangladesh parliament opposition lawmakers often indulged in noisy debates, shouting, quarrelling, thumping, uttering abusive words before staging walkovers. But the opposition leaders never mobilised their activists to storm the parliament as did the outgoing US President Donald Trump.
The act of Trump proved that Bangladesh political leaders are more sane and sober than the Americans, who are very much fond of teaching norms of democracy and human rights to the least developed and developing countries whenever the opportunity arises. Bangladesh opposition leaders often challenge the government on the street, but they never take the political clashes to the sacred parliament building.
However, both the countries have stigma of killing their presidents. Within the first decade of its independence Bangladesh stained its images with the assassination of two presidents, who were killed by the ambitious but wrong-headed army officers. President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed with most family members at his private residence at Dhanmandi, Dhaka during a military coup on August 15, 1975 and President General Ziaur Rahman was gunned down at a government rest house in an abortive coup in Chittagong on May 30, 1981.
In the US, after attaining independence from Britain on July 5, 1776, four incumbent Presidents were shot dead between 1865 and 1963. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 pm Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally’s wife Nellie when he was fatally shot by former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, firing in ambush from a nearby building. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack. Kennedy was the eighth and most recent US President to die in office, and the fourth to be assassinated following Abraham Lincoln, James A Garfield, and William McKinley.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play. Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am, in the Petersen House opposite the theatre. He was the first US president to be assassinated, with his funeral and burial marking an extended period of national mourning.
James A Garfield, the 20th President of United States, was fatally shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 am on July 2, 1881. He died in Elberon, New Jersey, 79 days later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. His assassin was Charles J Guiteau, whose motive was revenge against Garfield for an imagined political debt. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield’s murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting.
William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, six months into his second term. He was shaking hands with the public when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot him twice in the abdomen. McKinley died on September 14 of gangrene caused by the wounds.
The outgoing US President Donald Trump stunned the world by asking his blind supporters and activists to attack the Capitol Hill in a bid to stop President elect Biden to get Congress certification of election win.
Historians said it was the first time that the Capitol had been taken over since 1814 when the British burned it during the War of 1812.
However, amid the condemnation from the world leaders for the harrowing assault on American democracy, Trump changed his stance and pledged an orderly transition when Biden will be sworn in on January 20. In a statement released from the White House on January 9, he made the pledge but repeated his false claim that he won the November election.
Earlier hours after hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol, a shaken Congress formally certified Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory with 306 votes and Trump 232 votes.
The whole world is now waiting to see how Trump hands over presidential baton to his arch rival Biden on January 20.
The writer is Business Editor,
The Daily Observer
