According to the news presented by NDTV, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been announced by UNEP as one of the winners of the United Nations Champions of the Earth award in recognition of her country’s initiatives to address climate change. UNEP noted that Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries where cyclones, floods and droughts have long been part of the country’s history. But, through a number of forward-looking policy initiatives and investments, Bangladesh has placed confronting the challenge of climate change at the core of its development. According to their view, these initiatives, from climate-change adaption measures to ecosystem preservation legislation mean that current and future generations of Bangladeshis are better prepared to address climate change risks and reverse the impacts of environmental degradation. The UN body highly appreciated Hasina for setting up the country’s own Climate Change Trust Fund from domestic resources and amending Bangladesh Constitution in 2011 to include a constitutional directive to the State to protect the environment and natural resources for current and future generations.
Comment:
The irony of the news is when the western organization UNEP presents Sheikh Hasina the Champions of the Earth award; Bangladesh faces serious climate hazards all over the country. In December, 2014, the oil spill disaster from a crashed oil tanker in Shela River of Sundarban forest, a UNESCO listed World Heritage Site and home to hundreds of Royal Bengal tigers, was a serious catastrophe. The disaster was directly linked to the irresponsible decision of the Awami regime to use the Shela River inside Sundarban as a transit route for carrying hazardous chemicals. Furthermore, the coastal region of Bangladesh is increasingly becoming polluted as toxic industrial wastes are carried through various polluted water channels which ultimately end up in the sea. No proper management of toxic industrial waste has ever been taken by any ruling democratic regimes of Bangladesh. At the same time, destruction of natural vegetation, unplanned urbanization and industrialization as well as merciless encroachment of canals, lakes and rivers by the ruling elites and their allies have caused massive loss of greenery and marshlands. This results in increase of air pollution, high emission of green house gases, droughts, landslides etc. But Hasina and her government have turned blind eyes to all of these serious environmental hazards and are busy with endless corruption at the expense of irreversible environmental disasters. Moreover, despite popular protest in Bangladesh and warnings from the experts against building the Rampal coal-fired power plant at Sundarban, Sheikh Hasina’s regime has kept continuing the project in joint venture with India’s national energy company NTPC. Furthermore, the current regime has failed to bring about any solution to protect millions of houses of rural people in flood affected regions as well as the water-logged urban areas during monsoon, which brings unbearable sufferings to its inhabitants.
Despite the utter failure to tackle challenges regarding climate, and taking thoughtless and vague polices which are disastrous to environment, Sheikh Hasina is awarded by UNEP and is declared as one of the Champions of the Earth. However we should not be deceived by these cheap and meaningless awards. The truth is, a treacherous ruler like Hasina is awarded by the West because she has proved herself to be a loyal servant of the imperialists and has opened her country’s resources for them. On behalf of her western masters, she has declared war against Islam and Muslims of Bangladesh and helps them fulfilling their hateful agendas in her own country. We can realize the sheer hypocrisy of the West and these western organizations when they chant hollow slogans of environmental conservation and at the same time, awarded leader like Sheikh Hasina, who has contributed nothing to protect world climate except bringing further disaster to it. Not only that for the sake of their own agenda, the western world has turned their back on Hasina’s endless corruption and dreadful crime against her own people.
The Muslims of Bangladesh should put no hope on these western organizations. Rather, they should reject spineless leader like Hasina who is nothing but a mere puppet of the West and scar on the face of this region. They should uproot this greed driven immoral democratic politics, which is the root cause of massive environmental and humanitarian disaster throughout the world. To save Bangladesh from the hands of few greedy politicians they should replace the current capitalist system with the system of Islam, i.e., the Khilafah, which will take effective measure to protect the planet and its beautiful nature, which Allah سبحانه وتعالى has given us as His bounty. And only under the leadership of a god-fearing Khalifah, who will rule his people with the Book of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and Sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ, the future generation of Bangladesh will be ready to tackle all kinds of environmental challenges, InshaAllah. Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Quran:
ظَهَرَ الْفَسَادُ فِي الْبَرِّ وَالْبَحْرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ أَيْدِي النَّاسِ لِيُذِيقَهُم بَعْضَ الَّذِي عَمِلُوا لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
“Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done that perhaps they will return [to righteousness].”
(Surah Rum: 41)
Fehmida Binte Wadud