The July Charter is a Secular Project and a Betrayal of the People of Bangladesh
News:
The National Consensus Committee's proposal to issue an executive order to implement the National Charter issued in July (Constitutional Reform), and to conduct a referendum based on it, has sparked a sharp division among political parties, and a dispute among legal professionals about its constitutional basis. The dispute revolves around two directions: politically, whether the order should be issued by the President or by the Chief Advisor of the Interim Government, and legally, whether such an order and referendum are possible at all within the existing constitutional framework.
Comment:
The National Consensus Committee failed to resolve the disputes over the National Charter issued in July, but rather revealed its fundamental flaws. Instead of uniting Bangladesh, the document has become a cause for division and a betrayal of the aspirations of its people. The Charter focuses on structural reforms in the democratic system and governance, as if the blood of the people that was shed against Hasina's regime was for democratic reforms!
The preamble of the Charter invokes the will of the people during the popular uprising, but it blatantly ignores mentioning Islam, which constitutes the core of the Bengali people's identity. This is a falsification of history, as it portrays the uprising as a purely secular project and obscures the fact that the main motivation behind it was the aspiration of the youth and the masses to overthrow the tyrannical regime from an Islamic standpoint.
This confirms that the Charter is nothing but a tool in the hands of the Western-backed interim government to eradicate any political presence of an Islamic nature from the public sphere. It sends a clear and frightening message: If you want to participate in politics, you must abandon your authentic Islamic identity in favor of a secular version that is acceptable to the West and the state!
The current political disputes are merely symptoms of this deep structural defect. Secular politics in Bangladesh has a long history of division and failure. It has reduced governance to a game of power struggle, and a frantic race among the ambitious, where the discussion is not about the purpose or values of governance, but about its mechanisms and form. The debate about the July Charter is not a discussion about a national vision, but a dispute between the elites over who sits at the head of the same eroded table.
The overthrow of Hasina was a necessity, but the betrayal of the interim government, the deception and inability of the previous political parties, reveals a deeper truth; which is that our problem is not with the government, but with the system itself. Bangladesh does not need a new government, but a new system. We cannot continue to put a patch of failed democracy on a wound that needs radical treatment. Bangladesh yearns for an alternative policy, an alternative system of governance, alternative leadership, and an alternative way of life. People are fed up with the empty promises of positive systems that put power above principle, and the party above the nation.
The time has come to move beyond this democratic illusion. The real change that we seek will not be achieved in the articles of a corrupt charter or in the halls of a secular parliament, but in adopting a system that unites us under the banner of our faith, a system based on divine justice, true mercy, and leadership that serves the nation, not itself. Bangladesh is not waiting for another secular party, but is waiting for the true change that can only be achieved by establishing the Rightly Guided Caliphate according to the method of Prophethood, for it is the true charter, and the only future that promises liberation and dignity.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir
Irtiza Choudhury - Bangladesh Province
