Beyond the gloomy predicament

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K. B. Ahmed Bangladesh is at the precipice and that it is visually evident. A nation founded on the claim of founding democracy is now run, in turn, by the autocrats and tyrants. The struggle that galvanised the overwhelming majority of its population is now discredited by aggressive practice of graft, debauchery and injustice. Resources are systematically squandered and vast section of the population is deprived of all services which are taken for granted in other less developed countries. Protection to life and property is non-existent. Bangladesh is a country where population growth is surpassing all other country in the region which is eating away arable land by 1.4 per cent every year. Land value is soaring and soon will constitute 67 per cent of any investment to be made in the country. This will escalate cost of production and as the labour demand for wages will rise, it will be very difficult to compete with other emerging nations in the international market. In the short term, the country is enjoying some relief due to receiving remittance from the overseas wages of its workforce, but this cannot be an economic fundamental for national growth in the long run. Political management is in tatters with narrow shellfish perspective. Bureaucracy is incompetent, the intelligentsia is conceited and the businessmen are unscrupulous. Internationally, the image at best is that of a "dysfunctional nation." Donors are gradually getting disillusioned by the dim prospect for the future. Over 85 per cent of the population by any definition is poor, victimised and trapped in a cul-de-sac. They suffer from the wrath of God in drought, floods, cyclones and earthquakes. Theyare betrayed and cheated by the enlightened earthlings. But they persevere, rebuild and survive. Following recent cyclone devastation, a visiting Minister from a neighbouring country was offering clothes and money to the victims. A survivor accepted the clothes and suggested that the money should be given to an old lady who was at that time busy rebuilding her dilapidated hut. The visiting Minister asked him why. He answered, saying that she lost her husband and two able sons and her cattle. She now needed to pay Grameen Bank installments in a day or two. It is perhaps upon this sense of charity and more importantly this camaraderie among those who has nothing to lose, the services of some one of us are internationally acclaimed. We care not to give them any recognition. Plato once said that "it is indeed human to seek and establish truth, defy a truth already established to establish a new truth. Kings will not like the defiance, but truth must live anew." Truth about Bangladesh is horrifying if 2.0 per cent of the population is precluded from any assessment. They are the fortunate ones, connived and conspired to acquire wealth, power and a new identity of being a nouveau riche. They are seen in expensive clothes, driving expensive cars and dining in rich cafes of affluent and modern cities. They collect their share in Bangladesh and save in a safe third country and spend it in Europe and in America. About 98 per cent of the population, on the other hand, is left to fend for themselves--hapless, leaderless and careless only to bear the wrath of God and the unpredictable nature that surrounds them. This, in a nutshell, is about the nation, we know as Bangladesh. French philosopher Albert Camus argued that in the twentieth century, murder has become "reasonable," "theoretically defensible," and justified by doctrine. People have grown accustomed to "logical crimes"-- that is, mass death either planned or foreseen, and rationally justified. Thus Camus calls "logical crime" the central issue of the time, seeks to "examine meticulously the arguments by which it is justified", and sets out to explore how the twentieth century became a century of slaughter. After the Holocaust, Bangladesh is the witness to the history for premeditated slaughter of 3.0 million innocent people, annually hundreds and thousands of people perish under floods and cyclones, hundreds die in political murders and thousands die a living death in the squalor of depraved environment. But "truth to live a new", as Plato defined it, must regenerate hope in human. The dynamic commonly at play will naturally replace the "unworkable, unacceptable and undependable truth", that 2.0 per cent of any population can sustain control only by connivance and coercion over the fate of the vast majority, their freedom and their entitlement. Plato suggested new ideas, new leaders and disciplined and organised defiance. "King has the right to levy," he argued "but King must protect life and property and ensure peace" in return. In Bangladesh, we were not fortunate enough to have a "Philosopher King" as Plato envisaged not even a "thinking leader" with ideas, with vision or with commitment for doing service to "common good". From the very beginning, we neglected to establish a good and efficient system of education and it appears almost as a conspiracy that all our educational institutions were allowed to run down on a self-destruct mode. A potential of hope, prosperity and an opportunity to establish human dignity and national pride is lost. Among all these gloomy predicaments, our farmer rose to the occasion and caused an agricultural revolution which has made the nation almost self-sufficient in food. Our unskilled men and women labouring outside under extreme conditions bring home hard-earned money for the prosperity of our nation and yet we deal with them cruelly. Our cheap labour becomes an economic advantage for the investors to export goods manufactured in Bangladesh. "Their resilience and tenacity is unmatched in this world", as said Audrey Hepburn. Who is it going to push this nation over the precipice? Beware, when this nation comes together resolved to fight for their pride and freedom, no autocrat, tyrant and conniving rich will be able to confront them. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free. Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Where words come out from the depth of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection. Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit. Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action. Into that heaven of freedom, my father, Let my country awake!" — Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali Bangladesh will soon wake up again. The writer is an economist, business consultant and President of Bangladesh Myanmar Chamber of Commerce (BMCCI). kbahmed1@gmail.com