On the verdict
I missed the liveblogging of the final verdict on the 15 August trial. Perhaps just as well, because this has given me the time to gather my thoughts. It goes without saying that I unambiguously and unreservedly welcome the verdict. This post is going to touch on some points that I feel have not been covered well in the discussions in the blogosphere, print media, or in television. Not being in Dhaka, I am in no position to reflect the public mood. But I claim that be a good thing because it allows me raise contrarian points and uncomfortable questions.
My main points are these.
1. Many have said ‘this is not about vengeance, it’s about justice’. What is the theory of justice here? How does that relate to death penalty?
2. I offer my personal views, where vengeance is a part of justice. But more importantly, we need our leading thinkers to spell out their concepts of justice for the People’s Republic.
3. ‘The nation gets a sense of closure after 34 years’ — goes a very common refrain. I think this notion is profoundly wrong.
4. Real closure may come when the generations whose hands are bloodied are gone, but only if we actiely make the right choices. We made a right choice with this trial, and that’s the real significance here, not some confused notion of justice or closure.
These contrarian views may hurt people’s feelings, for which I apologise. But these are important issues that we must reflect on, and this sombre morning is as good a time as any.
You are not a contrarian, you are quite confused, jumping back and forth between justice and
vengeance, and uttering some quasi-ethical line about the vanishing of the generation with bloodied hands.
Pardon me, I just don’t get your cleverness.
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Justice and Vengeance is NOT the same thing and the difference is in their respective “aims”.
Aim of vengeance is to satisfy the anger of victim’s closest ones, whereas aim of Justice is to make sure similar crime never occur in the society again.
Vengeance usually comes from the victims, whereas justice is chiefly collective or governmental. Vengeance can be secret or covert, but justice must be open.
It can be argued that vengeance is a form of Justice which prohibits further crime and satisfy the victims. However, one needs to differentiate the aim of vengeance (satisfying the victims), from the aim of justice (establishing law and order).
Suppose “Karim” has been killed by “Nandailer Younus” and after his death, Karim’s brother Rahim and the government is looking for the killer. If Rahim can manage to find the killer and secretly kill “Nandailer Younus” to satisfy his anger, then it is vengeance. If the government finds the killer and, through proper trial, executes him, then it is justice. Why?
Well, if Rahim can prove that the death of “Nandailer Younus” was an accident, then it will do no good to caution other potential killers from doing such crime. Or, if Rahim plays it the RAB way, i.e. the court will know it was an accident/cross-fire (which will acquit Rahim) but other potential killers will know that it was ‘eye for an eye’, even then it will not help the society. Other potential killers will then judge the retaliation power of the potential victim before the strike. That means, only those with higher retaliation power will stay safe, but vulnerable citizen will remain in danger.
But if Justice is served, potential criminals will realize that you cannot commit the crime no matter what (while the victims can satisfy their need for revenge). Which means, Justice can satisfy the need for vengeance (and more), but vengeance cannot satisfy the need for Justice. Unlike Justice, vengeance often triggers a cycle of counter-vengeance.
However, the sentiment of vengeance is not unexpected from the victim/victim’s family and it is quite understandable why someone will seek revenge. But if vengeance comes from government machinery, the result is abuse of power and trickledown effect of crime in the society.
That makes the 19 November verdict all the more remarkable, where the head of the government herself was the victim party who chose the path of Justice, not vengeance.
[all those vengeance-driven summary trials, court-martial, and government sponsored covert operations during the post-1975 coup -counter- coups didn’t do any good to the country).
(Have already talked a lot, so resisting commenting on capital punishment.)
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Tit-for Tat , is it vengeance or justice ? Hard to tell. Depends on interpretation. There is no healing process in vengeance, justice may involve a healing process. To many human right activists death penalty is not a justice , it’s vengeance. ” Idea of Justice ” is a moral issue. It’s a virtue. It simply can not be served as Sayeed suggested. We need to be careful not to mix up Rule of Law with Rule of Justice. We may have enforced and established Rule of Law, but it may not be a Justice if the applied law itself is Unjust !! e.g SPA 1974, BAKSAL , Marlial Law, CTG, Cross-fire etc.etc.etc.
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I can see exactly why Jyoti feels this trial was a vengeance. I hear many people express their dissent at this trial, feeling similar sense of AL vengeance on “AL’s trial”. The reason is clearly cos the assassination itself was Super-political, and aftermath of 1975 was also SUPER-politicized.
Besides, those accused were tried once in court years ago, why need re-trial again ?? Because when AL is in power, its easier to find them ALL guilty?? Does AL manipulate court decisions when they are in power, because of AL’s ‘vengeance-ful’ emotions? Is there no way that any of the accused, not directly involved, may be given lesser punishment? Those raise questions of AL-influence in court trials, and neutrality issues remain questionable.
OTOH, many books have, can, and will, be written on the assassination and its political reasons, justifications, timing, etc etc. Many folks (incl myself) avoided stuff like “UV Live Blog” intentionally, to avoid such politicization.
However, and this is most crucial – true justice has been NECESSARY to uphold RULE OF LAW. The killers had SELF-CONFESSED in a major assassination, and therefore prosecution was necessary, whether or not it was politically justified is a different story.
So, I believe this is a major victory for Rule of Law, (not necessary for AL), that self-confessed assassins have been convicted. NOW, the Nation will benefit significantly, if AL stops publicizing, and GLORIFYING the trials politically any further – but MOVE ON to address the millions of other trials and miseries that people are facing.
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When people say they feel a sense of closer, I believe they mean that they feel some solace in to thinking the murderers are brought to justice, and all the legal procedures have been exhausted. There can never be absolute closer for the immediate family for a loss of this proportion. As for the republic, this verdict gives hope that other grave crimes committed against the people will be tried in court, and criminals will be brought to justice.
It is not true that the general public did not want justice in the 70’s or 80s, but their voice was eschewed by the govt that took power for long two decades in a row, by inflicting fear of persecution. The judicial system may not be completely free, but the Mujib murder trial has been very fair. When AKM Mohiuddin’s petition for asylum was denied by the US court, the verdict clearly stated the following,
**Ahmed failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that his in absentia murder trial and conviction in Bangladesh was fundamentally unfair and thus deprived him of due process of law. Therefore, the IJ properly relied on the conviction.**
Syed has done an excellent job discussing the difference between vengeance and justice.
I’d like to add that death penalty is widely accepted in the context of Bangladesh because majority of the people in Bangladesh are Muslim, even though our constitution is based on secularism. In Islamic faith, punishment by death is not only allowable; it is what mandated for someone who willfully (not in self defense) takes another person’s life.
It would have been better if the convicted murderers could be sentenced to life behind bars, and there was some guarantee that any political party who hates AL will not find a loop hole let them free.
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Depending on how one interprets vengeance, there is an element of it in every single judicial process. Those who committed this heinous crime will face the gallows after 34 years. In many ways, it will be better for them to take leave this way rather than sit in a condemned cell for the rest of their lives.For them it will definitely be closure.
For the rest of us, life will go on without the slightest perceptible change.Will it prevent any future acts of such nature? not if history is any guide.Man has never learned from his mistakes. Every country, every generation has seen its own set of heroes and cowards, murderers and rapists.Sadly, capital punishment never seems to deter the next Hitler or Karadzic.
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Sheikh Mujib was a flawed leader who was preparing to take Bangladesh down the one party rule. His family members often involved themselves in corrupt practices eg. accusation of rape and bank robbery against Mujib’s son. His murder and that of his family was an inevitable reaction to this.
Unfortunately in developing countries like Bangladesh, nothing short of the deathbed or assassination can end a political career. There are no mechanisms for constitutional political change.
While murder is wrong and justice has been done, lets not forget the sad context of the actions leading to the murder.
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Akash Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 6:10 am
I absolutely like your socio-political vision for developing countries. You are an original. The “rapist” and “robber” should be killed without mercy. In his home. And his wife should be killed too, pregnant or not. And his mother. And kill too his younger brother. And while you are at it, kill
the father. Only then the “children of the sun” will be able to usher in justice, civility and lustre to a bumbling developing country as ours.
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Justice must be done and also must be seen to be done. In this particular case the death penalty for self confessed killers must be the correct one. Whether an element of vengeance is also present is not relevant. It would be inhuman for there to be no sense of vengeance towards murderers who kills so many of one’s family members. I have absolutely no problem with the PM Hasina for having such feelings against the perpetrators.
However, 34 years later we are looking at this with a different perspective. People of Bangladesh in 1975 was of course crying out for deliverance from a tyrant and his cronies who had let loose an evil force in the form of Rakkhi Bahini, rampaging through the country, torturing and killing anyone suspected of being against the Government. Do the families of those victims have no right to justice? What about the victims of crimes before 16th Dec 71 and after? While we are all for the trials of War Criminals, who defines who or what a war Criminal is? Are you by definition not a war criminal if you fought for the Liberation? When Kader Siddiqui bayonets to death some rajakars with their hands tied behind their backs, is that not a war crime? I knew someone who came to do PhD here in UK who lost 11 members of his family in the hands of Freedom fighters following liberation. Did they get fair trials for whatever crimes they may or may not have committed? Will this guy ever get justice?
I am afraid the world is full of examples where the powerful get vengeance in the name of justice while the poor downtrodden masses cry in vain for justice against the crimes of the same powerful authority. If we favour action in some cases and deny the same in others then we are nothing but hypocrites.
Lastly, I am rather intrigued by the following sentence in jrahman’s write-up, “My views here are heavily influenced by Islamic study circles I frequented in a misspent youth”. What do you mean? What did you actually do when you attended these circles? How might you have spent the time better?
With best wishes to you all,
Kamal Ahmed
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