Business to play greater role in society
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
The people of Bangladesh have reasons to be proud of their long history of struggles against foreign domination as well as for establishing democracy and justice. So, whenever our political leaders address the public they never forget to remind them of the proud legacy they inherit. Unsurprisingly, the movements launched by the political parties, the student groups, the labour unions or any other pressure groups to protest against any perceived wrong are usually very militant. Small wonder we are used to seeing very militant groups of people damaging vehicles, ransacking shops, tearing down signboards of shops and neon signs on the streets of the capital city or any other cities and towns of the country to ventilate their grievances.
The other methods of popular struggle to demonstrate non-cooperation either with the government or any other authorities in question include hartals, strikes, human chains and the like. Needless to say, the most popular and also the most frequently used method of movement among all these options is, of course, the hartal. However, the present-day hartals are not exactly like the ones pre-partition leaders would use as part of their anti-colonial nationalist movements. For in its older form, the people would only withdraw from work and if there were any instance of violence during the hours of spontaneous public protests, those were invariably perpetrated by colonial police or their hired hoodlums. But the modern versions of hartal, especially in the Bangladesh context, are usually very fierce as the supporters and opponents of the hartals often engage in violent clashes using all kinds of lethal weapons including firearms.
To sum up, peaceful public protest is a thing of the past. And to tell the truth, due to overuse of the violent means, the protests, including hartals, have lost their spontaneity-the most important ingredient of their credibility. Unfortunately, despite their loss of efficacy and credibility and, most importantly, their context, those anachronistic weapons of, what is often claimed from the raised podiums to be a 'proud legacy', are used to demonstrate anger against the establishment.
People in general are quite indifferent to these 'popular' weapons of 'public protest.' But what suffers most as a result of these modern forms of hartal or any other kinds of violent street demonstration is the economy and more particularly the business. The business people have long been vocal against this kind of hartal and all forms of violence in the name of public agitation or movement. They even appealed to the major political parties of the country to have a rethink of their method of protests, with particular emphasis on the use of hartal.
The business community has again become wary of the issue of street demonstrations, or more particularly, of hartals recently. The reason is not hard to understand. The issue, however, did not come to the fore since the caretaker government had taken office about two years back. Now that a political government is hopefully going to be voted to power after December 18 election, the question of political agitations like hartal have again become a matter of concern for the business houses of the country. They want to be assured that the future political activities on the street remain non-destructive, non-confrontational and pro-business. This is their legitimate concern.
The business leaders the other day held a conference at a city hotel. The main topic of their discussion, as you would expect, was hartal. The conference organised by the country's apex business body, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), appealed to the political parties to reach a consensus on the issue of hartal before the next parliamentary election. The business leaders came up with a statistics on how the hartal harms the economy by robbing the economy about 1.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
This amount of GDP loss is equivalent to what the frequent power outages have been doing to it in a regular fashion. Now if both the hartals and the power outages start to take their tolls on the economy, their cumulative impact would be around three per cent of the GDP. That is why, the business leaders urged the political leaders to even enact a law to ban hartal as a political weapon once and for all. The business leaders at the conference also pointed to the various other aspects of the street protests during the hartals and strikes such as the use of the juveniles from the roadside slums as pickets. They even demanded that such use of children as fodder of political activism be banned under the same law as would prohibit hartal.
There are, however, a lot of arguments in favour of hartal. The most important argument, as the political activists would like to put it, is obviously one of the democratic rights to protest. In truth, the question of right is often used conveniently while the advocates of such right remain oblivious of the responsibilities that go with the rights of any kind, democratic or otherwise. We are so fond of talking about our rights of destructive sorts. But what about our responsibilities during all these years that the nation has won its independence? And when one group of society is exercising its particular kind of right, what about the rights of other groups whose life and property are exposed to the violence generated from the exercise of a particular kind of right? As for instance, one often witnesses the havoc wreaked on the unsuspecting owners and operators of private cars, buses, trucks, auto-rickshaws and the shops and other establishments around the place of violent protest demonstrations during hartals and strikes. Now the big question is what those engaged in the exercise of their democratic right to break and burn cars and buses have to say about the rights of the unsuspecting victims thus caught in the crossfire? There should also be a law to protect the road users' right and punish those who infringe on it.
If we are talking about true democracy, then no particular group of society can hope to enjoy any kind of monopoly over the rights at the expense of other groups in society. In the circumstance, any claim to precedence because one has the street power is highly undemocratic, to say the least.
In that case, if one cannot be influenced either by higher democratic ideals or even conscience to forsake one's own variety of right that infringes on that of others, then there should be law in place to even the odd.
Are the business people poking their nose too much into politics by raising all these issues about what should or should not be practised in politics? Such kinds of questions are often raised among various concerned circles in the country. There is a simple answer to it. Leaving aside the fact of business interest's priority in modern politics and of the history that European democracy is rooted in the trading community's struggle to have their say in the government, the business people are also members of this society and one cannot also deny their right to articulate their opinions about what is best for their interest in their own forums and even have exchange with the those in power or those waiting in the wings.
However, the business community, too, has its responsibilities. The public often blame the culture of limitless profiteering through excessive price hike, corruption and loan default on the business community. Though other members of society are also not immune from such vices, accusing fingers are often pointed at them when they try to declare their loud presence through various important events.
So, in addition to their other contributions towards society such as economic growth and employment generation, the man in the street would also like to see business leaders playing their role in influencing the section involved in the unscrupulous practices.
Admittedly, the business community's role has gained further in importance in the recent times, especially after the deepening economic crisis in the US and European economies. The reason is that unlike in the advanced economies where the governments could come up with largesse in the form of financial bailout packages to help out the consumers and the defaulting banks, Bangladesh government has very limited similar resources.
Against this backdrop, here the government and the business community will have to work under a condition of enhanced and closer partnership to keep the economy on an even keel as well as protect the poor.
The people of Bangladesh have reasons to be proud of their long history of struggles against foreign domination as well as for establishing democracy and justice. So, whenever our political leaders address the public they never forget to remind them of the proud legacy they inherit. Unsurprisingly, the movements launched by the political parties, the student groups, the labour unions or any other pressure groups to protest against any perceived wrong are usually very militant. Small wonder we are used to seeing very militant groups of people damaging vehicles, ransacking shops, tearing down signboards of shops and neon signs on the streets of the capital city or any other cities and towns of the country to ventilate their grievances.
The other methods of popular struggle to demonstrate non-cooperation either with the government or any other authorities in question include hartals, strikes, human chains and the like. Needless to say, the most popular and also the most frequently used method of movement among all these options is, of course, the hartal. However, the present-day hartals are not exactly like the ones pre-partition leaders would use as part of their anti-colonial nationalist movements. For in its older form, the people would only withdraw from work and if there were any instance of violence during the hours of spontaneous public protests, those were invariably perpetrated by colonial police or their hired hoodlums. But the modern versions of hartal, especially in the Bangladesh context, are usually very fierce as the supporters and opponents of the hartals often engage in violent clashes using all kinds of lethal weapons including firearms.
To sum up, peaceful public protest is a thing of the past. And to tell the truth, due to overuse of the violent means, the protests, including hartals, have lost their spontaneity-the most important ingredient of their credibility. Unfortunately, despite their loss of efficacy and credibility and, most importantly, their context, those anachronistic weapons of, what is often claimed from the raised podiums to be a 'proud legacy', are used to demonstrate anger against the establishment.
People in general are quite indifferent to these 'popular' weapons of 'public protest.' But what suffers most as a result of these modern forms of hartal or any other kinds of violent street demonstration is the economy and more particularly the business. The business people have long been vocal against this kind of hartal and all forms of violence in the name of public agitation or movement. They even appealed to the major political parties of the country to have a rethink of their method of protests, with particular emphasis on the use of hartal.
The business community has again become wary of the issue of street demonstrations, or more particularly, of hartals recently. The reason is not hard to understand. The issue, however, did not come to the fore since the caretaker government had taken office about two years back. Now that a political government is hopefully going to be voted to power after December 18 election, the question of political agitations like hartal have again become a matter of concern for the business houses of the country. They want to be assured that the future political activities on the street remain non-destructive, non-confrontational and pro-business. This is their legitimate concern.
The business leaders the other day held a conference at a city hotel. The main topic of their discussion, as you would expect, was hartal. The conference organised by the country's apex business body, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), appealed to the political parties to reach a consensus on the issue of hartal before the next parliamentary election. The business leaders came up with a statistics on how the hartal harms the economy by robbing the economy about 1.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
This amount of GDP loss is equivalent to what the frequent power outages have been doing to it in a regular fashion. Now if both the hartals and the power outages start to take their tolls on the economy, their cumulative impact would be around three per cent of the GDP. That is why, the business leaders urged the political leaders to even enact a law to ban hartal as a political weapon once and for all. The business leaders at the conference also pointed to the various other aspects of the street protests during the hartals and strikes such as the use of the juveniles from the roadside slums as pickets. They even demanded that such use of children as fodder of political activism be banned under the same law as would prohibit hartal.
There are, however, a lot of arguments in favour of hartal. The most important argument, as the political activists would like to put it, is obviously one of the democratic rights to protest. In truth, the question of right is often used conveniently while the advocates of such right remain oblivious of the responsibilities that go with the rights of any kind, democratic or otherwise. We are so fond of talking about our rights of destructive sorts. But what about our responsibilities during all these years that the nation has won its independence? And when one group of society is exercising its particular kind of right, what about the rights of other groups whose life and property are exposed to the violence generated from the exercise of a particular kind of right? As for instance, one often witnesses the havoc wreaked on the unsuspecting owners and operators of private cars, buses, trucks, auto-rickshaws and the shops and other establishments around the place of violent protest demonstrations during hartals and strikes. Now the big question is what those engaged in the exercise of their democratic right to break and burn cars and buses have to say about the rights of the unsuspecting victims thus caught in the crossfire? There should also be a law to protect the road users' right and punish those who infringe on it.
If we are talking about true democracy, then no particular group of society can hope to enjoy any kind of monopoly over the rights at the expense of other groups in society. In the circumstance, any claim to precedence because one has the street power is highly undemocratic, to say the least.
In that case, if one cannot be influenced either by higher democratic ideals or even conscience to forsake one's own variety of right that infringes on that of others, then there should be law in place to even the odd.
Are the business people poking their nose too much into politics by raising all these issues about what should or should not be practised in politics? Such kinds of questions are often raised among various concerned circles in the country. There is a simple answer to it. Leaving aside the fact of business interest's priority in modern politics and of the history that European democracy is rooted in the trading community's struggle to have their say in the government, the business people are also members of this society and one cannot also deny their right to articulate their opinions about what is best for their interest in their own forums and even have exchange with the those in power or those waiting in the wings.
However, the business community, too, has its responsibilities. The public often blame the culture of limitless profiteering through excessive price hike, corruption and loan default on the business community. Though other members of society are also not immune from such vices, accusing fingers are often pointed at them when they try to declare their loud presence through various important events.
So, in addition to their other contributions towards society such as economic growth and employment generation, the man in the street would also like to see business leaders playing their role in influencing the section involved in the unscrupulous practices.
Admittedly, the business community's role has gained further in importance in the recent times, especially after the deepening economic crisis in the US and European economies. The reason is that unlike in the advanced economies where the governments could come up with largesse in the form of financial bailout packages to help out the consumers and the defaulting banks, Bangladesh government has very limited similar resources.
Against this backdrop, here the government and the business community will have to work under a condition of enhanced and closer partnership to keep the economy on an even keel as well as protect the poor.