[rafiq]

Well I agree with all that of course.

Take obsession, however. Some people want to guard against obsession over 1971 events, supposedly so everyone can be even-handed and fair and, to use terminology from this thread, not denounce whole groups of people as "evil". Also to "look forward", "move on", "solve today's problems" etc.

All of that is fair game, we should definitely be forward looking and not stuck in the past. But I think too many of our compatriots have swung the pendulum too far to the other side, where now they obsess over how to stop people from obsessing over 1971. And that leads to questions and doubts over this and that aspect of 1971. And in time questions and doubts become the truth because "that's my opinion". Pretty soon no one really knows what actually happened, it's all debatable and "emotional". You have to go dig up manifestos and blueprints on the Internet to read about it, analyze it and ultimately come to your conclusions. (And that is if you are interested in the first place, most people couldn't even be bothered about history.)

There are some high quality articles in the Daily Star over the last couple of days. What struck me in particular is the argument that Bangladesh was founded on a people's search for freedom and self-determination (as was the US for one). Yet the net result of 3 decades of political and social division is that those founding principles hardly matter any more and can no longer be applied. So one can ask in hindsight, why did they bother with the freedom struggle in the first place? Is that obsession?