The growing culture of political mismanagement and poor governance
progressively moving toward a situation | Friday, 8 April 2011
progressively moving toward a situation
as the highest priorities and all others can wait, Shamsher Chowdhury We often hear of Golden Bengal but did we ever see the face of it? With the growing culture of political mismanagement and poor governance, we may never see the face of the Golden Bengal we so often talk about. Making extreme utterances has become a part of our political culture. Demagoguery and rhetoric have become an integral part of our administration. Governments come and go and the fate of the people remains unchanged, often becomes even worse. They say it is a peoples' government, is it really? With the passing of days, we are becoming increasingly arrogant and militant with our minds filled with jealousy and vengeance. Sycophants dominate our administration. The ruling party or alliance resembles a party house with umpteen numbers of ministers and advisors. It looks as though the more the merrier. Lies and self-deception seem to have become endemic and a permanent feature of our management culture. Look at the law and order situation; they say it has improved except for isolated incidents! To say the least, it is clearly a distortion of facts and misleading the people. Surely we do not reward people for their failures. The failures of our police far outweigh their successes. We would not be surprised if our police, like many others of their kind, claim themselves worthy of the Nobel Prize. After all, why not, if Yunus can get it they too are "entitled" to it, poor Nobel Prize and the Nobel Committee. For all practical purposes we have lost our sense of propriety. Our senses have taken leave of us, we have become utterly shameless and devoid of any self-respect. No other intellectual community anywhere is as poor as that of ours. It has become a blot on the conscience of our society. The downward swing of its morality and ethics has hit the bottom. We do not even know as to how to celebrate a joyous occasion. It is full of frenzy, displaying utter indiscipline and nothing more. Celebrations cannot resemble a wild orgy. Wait, until the coming of Bengali New Year when the police get busy with their whistles, riot vans and the batons in trying to control the mob from being wild. We do not know how to deal with either a victory or a defeat. The recent encounter with our cricket team during the world cup competitions tells the story. Politics like the devil has got the better of us and we are possessed by it. It is everywhere on the streets, at home, in offices, business houses, you name it. They say that there is no last word in politics, indeed there is none. Politics here in Bangladesh is likened by many to that of the oldest profession of the world. We often come across high sounding words about our being on the road to democracy and our relentless efforts for institutionalizing democracy and democratic traditions. One wonders as to how much of that is true. At best, democracy as practised here can be described as, "Democracy of the powerful, by the powerful and for the powerful". Our politicians would stop at nothing in order to preserve their self-interests. We judge an individual or an issue more on perceptions, hearsay or intuitions rather than reasoning and logic. The trouble with us is that we see, but we do not observe. Our education has undergone a dramatic change. We are more interested in posting the numbers of those who have passed and those who failed. We have begun to deal with education as an instrument and accessory for a getting a job; acquisition of knowledge and character building has become a matter of secondary consideration. We have begun to treat wisdom as old fashioned. People entrusted with administering the country are here for a limited period of time. Time is one thing we can neither cheat nor ignore. The way many of us conduct ourselves, it looks as though we shall live through eternity. Arrogance and extreme self-confidence often leads to disaster. All you have to do is to look back at Pakistan and what happened to it at the time of our War of Liberation. You can never by-pass destiny no matter what. As pointed out by none other than a number of senior party members of the ruling party, if it does not mend the ways and means of governance, it is heading for bad times. It all leads us to believe that we too are heading for further distress and disaster. The ruling party from here onwards should treat issues of public interests as the highest priorities, others can wait. There lies its salvation. The writer can be reached at E-mail: chowdhury. [email protected]
as the highest priorities and all others can wait, Shamsher Chowdhury We often hear of Golden Bengal but did we ever see the face of it? With the growing culture of political mismanagement and poor governance, we may never see the face of the Golden Bengal we so often talk about. Making extreme utterances has become a part of our political culture. Demagoguery and rhetoric have become an integral part of our administration. Governments come and go and the fate of the people remains unchanged, often becomes even worse. They say it is a peoples' government, is it really? With the passing of days, we are becoming increasingly arrogant and militant with our minds filled with jealousy and vengeance. Sycophants dominate our administration. The ruling party or alliance resembles a party house with umpteen numbers of ministers and advisors. It looks as though the more the merrier. Lies and self-deception seem to have become endemic and a permanent feature of our management culture. Look at the law and order situation; they say it has improved except for isolated incidents! To say the least, it is clearly a distortion of facts and misleading the people. Surely we do not reward people for their failures. The failures of our police far outweigh their successes. We would not be surprised if our police, like many others of their kind, claim themselves worthy of the Nobel Prize. After all, why not, if Yunus can get it they too are "entitled" to it, poor Nobel Prize and the Nobel Committee. For all practical purposes we have lost our sense of propriety. Our senses have taken leave of us, we have become utterly shameless and devoid of any self-respect. No other intellectual community anywhere is as poor as that of ours. It has become a blot on the conscience of our society. The downward swing of its morality and ethics has hit the bottom. We do not even know as to how to celebrate a joyous occasion. It is full of frenzy, displaying utter indiscipline and nothing more. Celebrations cannot resemble a wild orgy. Wait, until the coming of Bengali New Year when the police get busy with their whistles, riot vans and the batons in trying to control the mob from being wild. We do not know how to deal with either a victory or a defeat. The recent encounter with our cricket team during the world cup competitions tells the story. Politics like the devil has got the better of us and we are possessed by it. It is everywhere on the streets, at home, in offices, business houses, you name it. They say that there is no last word in politics, indeed there is none. Politics here in Bangladesh is likened by many to that of the oldest profession of the world. We often come across high sounding words about our being on the road to democracy and our relentless efforts for institutionalizing democracy and democratic traditions. One wonders as to how much of that is true. At best, democracy as practised here can be described as, "Democracy of the powerful, by the powerful and for the powerful". Our politicians would stop at nothing in order to preserve their self-interests. We judge an individual or an issue more on perceptions, hearsay or intuitions rather than reasoning and logic. The trouble with us is that we see, but we do not observe. Our education has undergone a dramatic change. We are more interested in posting the numbers of those who have passed and those who failed. We have begun to deal with education as an instrument and accessory for a getting a job; acquisition of knowledge and character building has become a matter of secondary consideration. We have begun to treat wisdom as old fashioned. People entrusted with administering the country are here for a limited period of time. Time is one thing we can neither cheat nor ignore. The way many of us conduct ourselves, it looks as though we shall live through eternity. Arrogance and extreme self-confidence often leads to disaster. All you have to do is to look back at Pakistan and what happened to it at the time of our War of Liberation. You can never by-pass destiny no matter what. As pointed out by none other than a number of senior party members of the ruling party, if it does not mend the ways and means of governance, it is heading for bad times. It all leads us to believe that we too are heading for further distress and disaster. The ruling party from here onwards should treat issues of public interests as the highest priorities, others can wait. There lies its salvation. The writer can be reached at E-mail: chowdhury. [email protected]