Blunted

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A long view of public opinion in this country since its inception will tend to blunt one's thought process blocking new deduction. After the ouster of dictatorship in 1990 of H.M. Ershad, which had taken up the cloak of democracy with the active involvement of many renegade politicians and many more opportunists, we sang the glory of democracy. Now after three elected governments -- led alternatively by BNP's Khaleda Zia and AL's Sheikh Hasina, we find ourselves having to lament and decry the massive corruption and cronyism that characterised their party-centric loose governance.
Less than two years after the independence, the Father of the Nation, who headed the then government, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman uttered angrily, " there are thieves on my left, there are thieves on my right". A year later, a famine stalked our land, taking up thousands of impoverished helpless men, women and children between its grinding jaws. The para-military forces of that time were engaged to conduct house-to-house search for detecting fake ration cards, supervise transportation of foodgrains and to stem their hoarding. While many perished due to starvation, a new rich class emerged in that twilight by creating and exploiting human miseries. It was the period when smoking 555 brand cigarettes and holding its packet in hand or keeping it in the transparent front pocket of shirts became a status symbol. Bangabandhu was assassinated along with most of the members of his family and several of his close political colleagues on August 15, 1975.
Then came the period of so-called brief-case business, when indenting for import promotion, became the major money-making activity. It thrived through the decade of 1980s. It was perhaps the World Bank's country report of 1989 which indicated that the government of the time allowed sale of the foodgrains, received as grants for food for work programme, and the sale proceeds were deposited into the state account to dubiously convert them into revenue.
As one looks back into its short history, one finds that many things did not run smoothly in this country since its inception. Some people call the piled-up heap of the wrong doings as the Augean stable. None has yet asked how, like many former wrongdoers, retired civil servants could build their palatial buildings in Banani, Gulshan and Dhanmondi from where they now issue sermons on honesty and good governance. We are being blunted by the repetitive show of double standards.

Shariful Islam
Agargaon, Dhaka