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.
He will be judged relentlessly -- by the standards set by his parents, both as leaders and as human beings. This is not merely the end of a prolonged absence abroad; it marks the closure of a painful chapter shaped more by political banishment than personal choice.
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.
I look at a black and white photo of our maternal grandmothers from the 60s, and wonder if they ever imagined their descendants would get together like this in the New World. We are continuing the journey of immigration, something that started thousands of years back for humankind.
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.
Earthquake scientists consistently warn that Bangladesh is overdue for a major earthquake. We cannot predict when it will occur -- but we can and must prepare for it. Our future depends on it.
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.
November 20, 2025 was Tarique Rahman's 60th birthday. With elections around the corner, and the country on the cusp of transformative change, here is a well-wisher's wish-list of what he would like to see from the BNP and its leader after the February polls.
Can Burkina Faso reshape Africa’s politics and provide the blueprint to chart a new future for the continent?
The Bhola cyclone is primarily described as a natural disaster. That is not wrong, but the description is incomplete. It was also a political event. It helped turn anger into a project, and a project into a nation.
