Viewing things from depth of solitude

Thoughts and imagination have wings with potential to travel across time and space with effortless ease. A K N Ahmed, who is no stranger to the world of penmanship, has an admirable ability to harmonise his thoughts with imagination to create what the tech-savvy connoisseurs these days would probably call virtual reality.
Mr Ahmed, a former Governor of Bangladesh Bank, who also served stints as Bangladesh ambassador to Japan and Korea and Adviser to the IMF, candidly expresses his thoughts in his own inimitable way without caring for their bitter fallout which, in real life, he often had to weather in full measure. Mr.  Ahmed has authored numerous books and articles on diverse topics ranging from central banking to Japanese culture and society; the latter, incidentally, earned him an Alexander, the Great gold medal from the Institute of Oriental Philosophy, Soka Geiki University, Tokyo.
His latest publication, Lonely Thoughts, was written at a poignant moment of his life to fill in the void created by the untimely death of his beloved daughter. It is no wonder that he hopped from one topic to another with carefree abandon to give vent to his feelings that evidently lay hidden in his inner self.
The author, who made Washington D.C. his home decades ago, presented several of his 18 articles in the American context.  In the first one titled 'Native Americans' he laments the opportunities missed by the colonial Europe to learn valuable lessons from the American natives on judicious use of resources and how to live in harmony with nature. On the contrary, in exchange for the hospitality shown by them to the early immigrants from Europe, Columbus and his cohorts, it carried out campaigns to plunder the world of the Americas which looked like Eden, free from atrocities and exploitation of people. Mr Ahmed quotes a commentator (Tom Dworezky in Modern Maturity - April, 1997): "I would like to think that in the 390 years since the first Jamestown fort was settled a different style of culture could have arisen. We would still have developed good technologies - discovered penicillin and the polio vaccine - but we would have found less necessity of weapons of mass destruction."
On a subject of topical interest --- America's Afghan war --- A K N Ahmed underlines the difficult tasks that lie ahead for the Americans to achieve what he calls 'winnable' victory. Americans have to pay bribes to the war lords to buy passage for trucks, with supplies, to pass through the Taliban-controlled territories. He quotes General Paetreus, who some time ago stated that American inputs in Afghanistan have to be converted into output and what is easy elsewhere is difficult here and difficult is impossible.  
In the article titled 'Is USA losing its grip over the world', the writer questions the folly of maintaining its stranglehold by guns, and suggests, "US has to be honest with American people that it is about time national security has to be purchased in the modern world not through military power, fighting endlessly the threat of international terrorism and small unnecessary wars. It would have to develop a vision of new world economy based on fairer distribution of resources and power across the planet..…"
China has become an economic superpower at a fast pace. It has overtaken another economic giant, Germany, as the world's second largest economy. It has amassed a staggering amount of over $3 trillion as foreign exchange reserve and plays a key role in financing the yawning deficits in the balance of payments of the USA and investment in sovereign debts of many countries. The Chinese currency-the renminbi (yuan) - is poised to take off as an international currency as rival to the mighty American dollar and Eurozone's euro. Mr Ahmed depicts the changing panorama of the Chinese economy with a caveat that high level of inflation, rapid urbanisation, speculative investments, heavy indebtedness of the local governments and small and medium-size businesses and labour shortage could dissipate the gains so far achieved in the country's economic sector.
Digital age and information technology occupy a good deal of the author's lonely thoughts. While focusing on the great strides of technology, the writer underscores their negative impacts on the time-honoured cultural and social ethos and economic and political dynamics of the world. Technology may eventually reach a point when society will split into two groups - a dominant small group having brains and money and a majority group that, despite its numerical superiority, will be despatched to 'the basement of the social divide'.  
In his lonely moments overshadowed by bereavement following the loss of a dear one, the author, known for his liberal stance based on science and reason, allowed his thoughts to wander into the world of Islam too. While recalling the glorious chapters of Islamic history, he quotes an Islamic scholar, Ali A Allawi, to suggest that the Muslim world, in its quest for renaissance,  should work toward melding three fields of knowledge - the knowledge of the inner self, the knowledge of outer realities and the knowledge that connects the two.
The dynamic banker and an uncompromising intellectual, A K N Ahmed, now over 90, has reached the twilight zone of his life from  which he can now look back with satisfaction at all the colours of the rainbow that he has brought to bear on his chequered career. We still wish him a longer life and look forward to his further contributions to the enrichment of our vision of the world and its environment.
The reviewer is a former
central banker.
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Lonely Thoughts
By A K N Ahmed