Learning from the cricket heroes
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Enayet Rasul Bhuiyan
Bangladeshis can be as good as any other people in the world in doing things that make a nation great. Members of the triumphant Bangladeshi national cricket team, known otherwise as the minnows, have proved this point through their whitewashing of a cricketing power like New Zealand, in the recent series against them.
There is no way to overlook this victory as just a fluke . International cricket is a game which is very competitive. It taxes to the maximum human stamina - physical and mental. Only the most outstanding ones can rise to world class level in this sport and remain there or excel in it. That Bangladeshis have reached that class and are excelling in it, are proofs that Bangladeshi lads in their teens and twenties are capable of overwhelming the best in the international arena of cricket.
Not only in cricket, there are other fields where the potentials of our young ones have been tested to be among the best in the world. For example, in the sphere of academics, Bangladeshi young ones are making their country very proud through their attainments. The O and A level examinations offered by British education boards throughout the world are renowned internationally in most of the countries as a measure of academic abilities. The results of Bangladeshi students in these examinations -- individually as well as generally -- have been commendable for some years to say the least. Many of them have been doing generally even better than British students and students from most other countries for some years in succession. The same only underlines the aspect of the intellectual abilities of our younger generations.
This is not to say that the older generations of Bangladeshis were any short in their mental and physical prowess in different fields. One only has to mention the likes of Dr F R Khan of Bangladeshi origin who architected some of the world's tallest and most impressive skyscrapers to the Bangladeshi scientists who worked on NASA projects that led to landing of man on the moon, to demonstrate that there are hardly spheres of human activities requiring brain power or intellectual abilities in which Bangladeshis have not made their mark.
Why then this nation of about 150 million people has to go on wearing the label of one of the poorest in the world presenting a face of hopelessness and miseries only in the different facets of its existence ? If there is one single answer to this question to explain the backwardness and underdevelopment of Bangladesh, it would be the singular failures of the persons who led this country supremely in the last forty years.
The successful cricketing squad of this country have underlined that with good leadership, training, motivation and application, Bangladeshis can reach great heights. Serious observers of Bangladesh have emphasized that the greatest asset of Bangladesh are its people. They can accomplish very successfully in all spheres of human activities. But this great asset is underperforming at the moment because the ones who established themselves in highest leadership positions in the country did not act selflessly and were not pulsated by patriotism enough or simply had not been fit enough to lead the people constructively or give them their due.
Thus, we find in Bangladesh today people in great number waiting to be properly led to greatness or betterment of their lives. Only if successive government leaders truly took as their deeply resolved mission objective the upliftment of the conditions of the people instead of their own self enrichment , then by today Bangladeshis in the greatest number would be quite prepared to be immensely productive and hugely successful in whatever they chose to do.
Bangladeshis selectively have world class talents in different areas and generally also they form a very capable nation with immense potentials. The greatest need of Bangladesh is able, scrupulous and visionary leadership at different levels to guide the ones under their charge like the successful cricketers. Bangladesh will be well set on its way to improving in all respects from strength to strength when its leadership becomes equal to the tasks.
For the moment, the cricketing success should inspire. But the coming up of Bangladesh as a great economic power will depend on transmuting the type of spirit shown in cricket into other spheres of activities specially economic and developmental ones.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina observed on Monday at a function with obvious reference to the cricketing victory that it is possible to fulfill dreams with proper leadership and hard work. The Prime Minister's observation is irrefutable in the present context of Bangladesh. But perhaps the Prime Minister should have also stated what she and her government intends to do or a road-map to address the problems of leadership at different levels in the government.
For this is the central problem of Bangladesh. It has to be supremely recognized by the supreme leadership of the country at some stage where the shoe really pinches leading to corrective and reformative actions. Ministers , top civil servants and others who have been running the show with traditional sloth and lack of integrity, the damaging effects of these individuals on the national economy and the people should be identified in time and put to an end by decisive steps on the part of the supreme leadership. Nothing short will deliver.
It was headlined in the papers on Tuesday what a respected former bureaucrat and Adviser to the government, Akbar Ali Khan, said on Monday at a function organized by a leading think-tank organization of the country. He pointed to the very regretful and very damaging irresponsibility of the ones who are presiding over developments in the power sector when improvement in this sector was identified as basic to accelerating economic activities long ago. He observed that the poor performance of the ones running the show in the power sector will take the country back 25 to 50 years in the economic sense if their follies and lack of responsibility are not immediately checked.
Bangladeshis can be as good as any other people in the world in doing things that make a nation great. Members of the triumphant Bangladeshi national cricket team, known otherwise as the minnows, have proved this point through their whitewashing of a cricketing power like New Zealand, in the recent series against them.
There is no way to overlook this victory as just a fluke . International cricket is a game which is very competitive. It taxes to the maximum human stamina - physical and mental. Only the most outstanding ones can rise to world class level in this sport and remain there or excel in it. That Bangladeshis have reached that class and are excelling in it, are proofs that Bangladeshi lads in their teens and twenties are capable of overwhelming the best in the international arena of cricket.
Not only in cricket, there are other fields where the potentials of our young ones have been tested to be among the best in the world. For example, in the sphere of academics, Bangladeshi young ones are making their country very proud through their attainments. The O and A level examinations offered by British education boards throughout the world are renowned internationally in most of the countries as a measure of academic abilities. The results of Bangladeshi students in these examinations -- individually as well as generally -- have been commendable for some years to say the least. Many of them have been doing generally even better than British students and students from most other countries for some years in succession. The same only underlines the aspect of the intellectual abilities of our younger generations.
This is not to say that the older generations of Bangladeshis were any short in their mental and physical prowess in different fields. One only has to mention the likes of Dr F R Khan of Bangladeshi origin who architected some of the world's tallest and most impressive skyscrapers to the Bangladeshi scientists who worked on NASA projects that led to landing of man on the moon, to demonstrate that there are hardly spheres of human activities requiring brain power or intellectual abilities in which Bangladeshis have not made their mark.
Why then this nation of about 150 million people has to go on wearing the label of one of the poorest in the world presenting a face of hopelessness and miseries only in the different facets of its existence ? If there is one single answer to this question to explain the backwardness and underdevelopment of Bangladesh, it would be the singular failures of the persons who led this country supremely in the last forty years.
The successful cricketing squad of this country have underlined that with good leadership, training, motivation and application, Bangladeshis can reach great heights. Serious observers of Bangladesh have emphasized that the greatest asset of Bangladesh are its people. They can accomplish very successfully in all spheres of human activities. But this great asset is underperforming at the moment because the ones who established themselves in highest leadership positions in the country did not act selflessly and were not pulsated by patriotism enough or simply had not been fit enough to lead the people constructively or give them their due.
Thus, we find in Bangladesh today people in great number waiting to be properly led to greatness or betterment of their lives. Only if successive government leaders truly took as their deeply resolved mission objective the upliftment of the conditions of the people instead of their own self enrichment , then by today Bangladeshis in the greatest number would be quite prepared to be immensely productive and hugely successful in whatever they chose to do.
Bangladeshis selectively have world class talents in different areas and generally also they form a very capable nation with immense potentials. The greatest need of Bangladesh is able, scrupulous and visionary leadership at different levels to guide the ones under their charge like the successful cricketers. Bangladesh will be well set on its way to improving in all respects from strength to strength when its leadership becomes equal to the tasks.
For the moment, the cricketing success should inspire. But the coming up of Bangladesh as a great economic power will depend on transmuting the type of spirit shown in cricket into other spheres of activities specially economic and developmental ones.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina observed on Monday at a function with obvious reference to the cricketing victory that it is possible to fulfill dreams with proper leadership and hard work. The Prime Minister's observation is irrefutable in the present context of Bangladesh. But perhaps the Prime Minister should have also stated what she and her government intends to do or a road-map to address the problems of leadership at different levels in the government.
For this is the central problem of Bangladesh. It has to be supremely recognized by the supreme leadership of the country at some stage where the shoe really pinches leading to corrective and reformative actions. Ministers , top civil servants and others who have been running the show with traditional sloth and lack of integrity, the damaging effects of these individuals on the national economy and the people should be identified in time and put to an end by decisive steps on the part of the supreme leadership. Nothing short will deliver.
It was headlined in the papers on Tuesday what a respected former bureaucrat and Adviser to the government, Akbar Ali Khan, said on Monday at a function organized by a leading think-tank organization of the country. He pointed to the very regretful and very damaging irresponsibility of the ones who are presiding over developments in the power sector when improvement in this sector was identified as basic to accelerating economic activities long ago. He observed that the poor performance of the ones running the show in the power sector will take the country back 25 to 50 years in the economic sense if their follies and lack of responsibility are not immediately checked.