From a modest housewife to a widowed national leader who rose to the highest political office in the country, Begum Zia’s life was a testament to resilience and moral fortitude.
But to me, she remains the woman who could slip through a military blockade as easily as she could appreciate the simple sanctuary of a family meal. She taught us that true power doesn’t come from the title you hold, but from the responsibility you carry for those you love.
This piece was originally published on July 27, 2008, at rumiahmed.wordpress.com during a time when both sons of Begum Khaleda Zia were in detention in Dhaka and both were reportedly being tortured. Khaleda Zia was facing intense pressure to leave the country for Saudi Arabia.
Khaleda Zia’s moral authority came not just from her political positions, but also from her very persona. She was the epitome of dignity and grace. Authenticity is a virtue in politics, something she exhibited all her political life.
When the history of modern Bangladesh is eventually written with the clarity that distance allows, Khaleda Zia will not appear only as a former prime minister or as the chairperson of a major political party. She will appear as a woman who challenged inherited assumptions about power in a society unprepared for her presence.
She now walks the pathways of the afterlife, while we who remain must honor her legacy by continuing the struggle she led: the struggle for democracy, for justice, and for the betterment of the people of Bangladesh.
Debate is one thing. Disinformation is quite another. Let us have an open, honest, nuanced conversation about the Liberation War, but let us always be guided by the truth.
On this December 14 we should neither forgive nor forget the atrocities that were committed against the Bangladeshi people, not just on that day in 1971 but throughout the nine months of the Liberation War. Some sins are unforgivable, and December 14, 1971 is one of them.
If Tarique wishes to be prime minister and lead this nation, as his mother and father did before him, then a time comes when he needs to step up and stand up, and show the nation that he too is made of the stuff of leaders. This is such a time.
What is needed is neither complacency nor catastrophizing, but a sober, hard-headed assessment of the threat and a realistic and tough-minded plan for how we should deal with it.
If anyone is in a position to claim that they have not received a full measure of justice, it is the victims and their families, and not the fugitive from Bangladeshi law contemptuously evading justice from her safe house in New Delhi.
