A nation\\\'s search for a way out

We live veritably in a society devoid of love, compassion and human feelings. This is becoming evident as days wear on, with the 43-year-old nation getting closer to the enviable event of its golden jubilee of birth. We should thank Providence for not pushing the new-born nation in the early seventies on to the tragic fate of Biafra. The short-lived nation in Africa, finally, ended up being a tragic victim of Nigerian revanchism.
But the irony is, we never feel grateful to history and its players, let alone recall the favourable geo-political condition in which we were born as an independent state. We would like to remain oblivious of the tragedies and supreme sacrifices that accompanied our process of attaining nationhood. Perhaps these gaps have made inroads into our greater ethos, leading to many a behavioural aberration.
For forty-three long years of our survival as an independent nation, the nation's identity has kept becoming convoluted. The men and women who comprised society, the economy and politics in the bygone days appear to be completely alien now. Even in the relatively confused days of the early seventies, one could detect the modicums of humanity and kindness among all social strata. What do we see now? Journalist Jaglul Ahmed Chowdhury, a well-known TV-screen face, lying wounded on a busy road after slipping from a running bus as he tries to get off. The pedestrians look on nonchalantly, maybe a few let out cries of shock or agony. None comes forward as the noted journalist goes on seeking help in his feeble voice. It's only after a while that a couple of youths approach him, and take him to a nearby clinic. However, Zaglul Ahmed could not be saved. Had he been taken care of immediately after his fatal fall from bus, he might have come out alive. Almost the same fate had awaited late journalist and poet, Yusuf Pasha, who was looking for a bus at a stand at the city's Banglamotor. His case was worse, as he, badly bruised and bloodied, had to wait for twenty to twenty-five minutes before being taken to a hospital. He was hit by a speeding bus. Mr Pasha was declared dead by the doctors attending him.
These are but two instances of indifference and insensitivity that have taken hold of this nation. Irrespective of social or economic classes, everybody in this country nowadays suffers from psychological bankruptcy. We have become bereft of emotions and the finer sensibilities. Nothing moves us. We go about our business, or look the other way, when somebody is being mugged or a young woman is being pushed forcefully into a car. The scenario is almost similar in both the cities and the villages. However, in the rural areas, if robbers swoop on a house a section of brave villagers come to the rescue of the victim. In spite of being beset with many urban vices, the villages appear to be still nurturing the traditional values. In the so-called metropolitan areas, inhabited by urbane people, the rot of egocentrism has long been eating away at the vitals of age-old values.
Many city lovers extol the virtues of urban life. They find the best of all modern-life attainments in the cities. They say the village blends with everything raw and crude, notwithstanding its universal affinity with nature. The urbanite philosophers explore the essence of polished human life in the cities, as man has reached the heights of many disciplines in the ancient city-states.
In today's restless Bangladesh context, we find the bankruptcies of every imaginable kind engulfing its broader society, be it a city or a remote village. The reasons are not too far to seek. One might raise the case of socio-political tensions; others will point at economic mismanagement, or glaring flaws in wealth distribution. After a dispassionate overview, all the sectors and their players seem to have their respective shares in the prevailing volatilities. An anarchic and violent politics with roots in the post-war jitters, accompanied by pervasive corruption, rent-seeking and other economic ills began to rule the roost in the early eighties.
It continued in the later years with varying degrees.  Where are the persons to whom we may turn to for a way out as the nation has entered its forty-fourth year of victory?
shihabskr@ymail.com