Thousands of workers left the building couple of hours before the fire was set in the Standard garment in Gazipur on November 29, 2013 but a few of their co-workers stayed back. For the former, walking into the building in the morning and leaving in the evening was the most important thing as it brings food in their plate, smile in their face, and whatever peace they had in life. Yes, there have been problems with their pay, their rights, yet they did not leave this building. They may have complaints against the owner of the factory, may even loathe him, yet the owner did not make them leave the factory or disown them. But their fellow-workers made them all jobless within a couple of hours. They do not have to come to work anymore - in the name of establishing workers' right and/or punishing the 'greedy' owner, some people destroyed their working space and opportunity.
There was a time in the history of human civilisation when materialistic outlook was seriously undermined. Material well-being was not considered as a goal of life. Running business was looked down. Making profit was despised and slandered. But with the emergence of Protestant morals in the early 16th century in Europe, this view started declining. Materialistic well-being is no more ignored rather is considered an integral component of the main objective of human life. Running business and making profit are not looked down any more. The rich are not despised either.
Many scholars argue that the spirit of modern capitalism and economic development lies in Protestant ethics. Max Weber is the most notable one belonging to this school of thoughts. He argues that the modern spirit of capitalism sees profit as an end in itself, and pursuing profit as virtuous. To understand the source of this spirit, Weber turns to Protestantism for a potential explanation. Protestantism offers a concept of the worldly "calling," and gives worldly activity a religious character. While important, this alone cannot explain the need to pursue profit. One branch of Protestantism, Calvinism, does provide this explanation. Calvinists believe in predestination -- that God has already determined who is saved and damned. As Calvinism developed, a deep psychological need for clues about whether one was actually saved arose, and Calvinists looked to their success in worldly activity for those clues. Thus, they came to value profit and material success as signs of God's favour.
Probably, the pre-Protestant ethics still dominate in Bangladesh. It is still a fashion to undermine the rich right and left on the ground of morality, without distinguish between the genuinely hard working and corrupt ones. Probably, this is the reason why we do not see any significant reaction from the media and civil society to setting fire in a 10-storied garment by some workers. No workers have died this time, only the rich owner of the garment factory has lost everything. It seems that devastation of the rich does not matter much to them.
The fire that burnt the 10-storied garments did not originate from an accident. Its source was a very well-planned heinous act of a group of workers who set fire with their own hands into the same building that has been providing their livelihood for years. Why? It is obvious from different sources that workers did not have many issues with the owner. Even the majority of workers declined to join the demonstration when instigated by another group of workers. This is why it is even harder to fathom why a group of workers set fire in this garment. It is not hurting just one rich man but thousands of their own comrades.
What is more surprising is the ostensible silence of the media and the civil society about this man-made catastrophe. A group of goons turn the whole garment into ashes. They also set fire into 19 vans parked in the same premise. When the fire-fighters arrived, they did not allow them to enter into the premise by creating obstruction here and there. What could be more unacceptable? Should a society overlook such heinous activities?
Unlike many other developing countries, Bangladesh has a very vibrant media and civil society. They are the frontrunners in raising voices against any kind of wrong-doing. Our print media rightly made the headline news of any wrong-doing committed against an individual or a particular group by another individual, group of people or the state. Our electronic media provides the space to our civil society to raise their voices against the same. But this time, they are conspicuously silent.
None of the main newspapers made the headline news on this incident, no TV channel so far had a talk-show on this either. Any columnist is yet to write any column on it. No imminent citizen(s) has issued any statement expressing sympathy to the victim of this man-made catastrophe. It seems being rich or an entrepreneur is kind of a crime to be devoid of any social sympathy in bad times.
Due to widespread corruption in our society, the dominant perception is that there is a strong causality between richness and corruption. Many people perceive that one has to be corrupt in this country to become rich, or rich people eventually get involved in corruption. The intention of this article is neither to dismiss nor endorse this perception. But this perception should not be a reason for the media or the civil society to maintain silence about a committed crime, no matter who committed it. When the society shows undue mercy to any crime committed by a particular section of people, it simply encourages them to commit more of the same crime in future, rather than abstaining from such heinous act. Therefore, the media and the civil society should be more vocal against the arson of Standard garment that destroyed assets equivalent of thousands of millions of Taka and employment of thousands of workers.
Abul Basher, PhD is Researcher at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), former economist, World Bank, and former faculty, Willamette University, USA.
 cccg67@yahoo.com
Standard garment arson: Should the criminals go unpunished?
Abul Basher | Published: December 03, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
The factory building of Standard garment is burning.
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