Power, rumours and stock market crash

It seems a serious calamity has finally befallen Bangladesh and only those who live in caves or in the jungle with the wild animals have not noticed. For many indeed, the stock market crash, not just once but repeatedly, is a veritable nightmare akin to a rollercoaster ride going badly wrong like in one of the sequels to the lucrative film franchise Final Destination in which the passengers of such a horrifying ride all eventually get decapitated or sliced into many bloody pieces. While the average investor in Bangladesh probably feels the harsh and painful sting of having lost his/her entire savings, it would appear a good number of those in the defence forces have also been badly affected. Things have become so bad that apparently there are all kinds 'rumours of whispers' within such powerful quarters against the government. Note that it is the 'people' who are being urged to do some dirty deed (such a move could be laudable if based on principle rather than pure self-interest). It seems that the crash of the stock market has, for some such quarters, the same equivalence of the sky falling or a biblical swarm of locust's devastating and ravishing the countryside and ruining the entire food stock or even of a Tsunami washing away huge swathes of the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Should we feel sorry for those who have lost their shirts (if not their uniforms) in the stock market crash? The answer should, of course, be a loud and resounding no! One may reasonably wonder if the personnel concerned actually have the time to dabble in the stock market and if they do, then it should be concluded that they clearly are not doing their real jobs of protecting Bangladesh. If then they lose everything when a bearish sentiment hits the market, then their financial losses have logically and solely been caused by their own insane cupidity (i.e. greed) and utter foolishness. Did no one of them learn the lesson of 1996? In the face of such an idiocy, it should now become the official government policy that any serving official will not be permitted to invest in the share market. It could, however, be convincingly argued that in a capitalist system such a restriction is perverse and irrational. This scribes believes that the involvement of all concerned personnel concerned in the 'share bazaar' (stock market) is a threat to national security and also the discipline of the concerned force as a cohesive and efficiently functioning force. This would be unique to Bangladesh but the role of concerned officers in the share market has become almost obsessive and similar to an addiction. If a drug addict can be thrown out of powerful positions, then why not a share addict? It would be a mistake to blame the share market bubble for having made the personnel concerned into mindless money grubbing drones. The malaise within such forces actually set in with the United Nations peace-keeping missions. Now the sole objective for any self-respecting member of the defence personnel is to be included on one of these missions. National security and the protection of the country's territorial integrity have become secondary or even tertiary considerations to these lucrative peace-keeping operations as if the role of the defence force is to make peace. In other words, some of such personnel concerned have now become diplomats and even worse businessmen while they are still in service rather than the protectors of our sovereignty and a force opposing external enemies and other such threats to our national security. It was Professor Mahbubullah of Dhaka University who had likened the present mindset of some such concerned personnel as to that of mercenary. It seems that such personnel can be bought and sold at a whim (and a price). If in fact the forces concerned had any moral integrity then they would not have become involved in the fiasco called 1/11. At least in midstream they could have replaced the incompetent and greedy Gen. Moin U. Ahmed with someone more able and patriotic. Unfortunately, there are few of such types in the forces concerned today. Looking at the veteran officers who were involved in 1/11, many are now multi-millionaires in dollar terms and a few are allegedly involved in money laundering in the Middle East for powerful persons in Bangladesh and their contacts overseas. Even more shameful than any of this is that the personnel concerned, being disgruntled by the share market debacle, have now become active 'opponents' of the government but they could not find the courage to lift a finger when their fellow officers were butchered and slaughtered in Pilkhana like the victims of the gruesome SAW movies. Comically they expect the 'people' to rise up now that the share market has crashed rather then doing anything themselves. Such an opportunity has, however, long gone and would certainly be most undesirable, considering the mentality of a number of the personnel serving today. Bangladesh will have to wait for a real people's revolution based on principle and the interests of the country rather than the pauperised imagination of a few in the so-called powerful quarters. The writer can be reached at e-mail: sohailtaz2008@gmail.com