The Awami League's First Broken Election Pledge

We all knew it was coming.

The Awami League broke a key election pledge in the inaugural session of the 9th Bangladeshi Parliament.

They said if they were elected to power, they would appoint a deputy speaker from the opposition, and require the speaker and deputy speaker of the house to resign from their party positions. The reason for this was to make parliament effective. Opposition support is important when legislating, to make sure everyone's interests are met.

The Awami League-led parliament appointed loyalists for both positions, though, and made no such requirement on resignation from party posts.

After doing this, they then announced that they would amend the constitution, to allow for two deputy speakers. The second one will be from the opposition. With reassurances, that the two deputy speakers would have equal rights and privileges.

Bangladeshi taxpayers, who can barely afford to pay for half of the annual development plan to build infrastructure in the country (foreign aid pays for the other half), will now be paying for salaries, and extensive government benefits for two deputy speakers where only one was sufficient.

The first rule of government spending: why pay for one, when you can have two for twice the price?

If there's anything a corrupt third-world democracy loves to do, it's breaking election pledges, and amending the constitution. Mmm-mmm, nothing like the smell of amended constitution in the morning.

IT in Bangladesh Will Suffer Without English

BASIS (Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services) is the national trade body representing the software and IT sectors in Bangladesh, and is holdings its annual event, the BASIS Soft Expo 2009 over the next few days.

They hope to capture 1% of the USD 300 billion software outsourcing market in 5 years.

Bangladesh is very firmly behind most of the outsourcing powerhouses of Asia: India, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

The main reason is the most important language in IT. Not Java, C++ or Perl, but English.

Barring Bangladesh and Nepal, most of the SAARC countries (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) have outstanding level of English education.

Apart from the select private schools in the major cities, which in all fairness produce students with excellent levels of English, most education in Bangladesh is in Bangla, and English language training is grossly insufficient for international standards. Many Higher-Secondary students with high grades in English have trouble putting together a complete sentence in the language. Testing in the country-wide standardized tests is based on rote memorization.

The domestic market is very well-versed in IT, though. I needed to fax some documents when I went to Bangladesh in the summer of 2007, and went to a store in Mohammedpur, in a grimy, grungy back-alley, with piles of garbage by the roadside, open drains, and walls that had long seen any paint.

I saw a young man very adeptly using Adobe Photoshop to forge what looked like tax documents. I dare say he did a very good job of fudging those numbers.

The market in Bangladesh is poised to produce and consume very high level IT services.

This remarkably deep and broad pool of talent, though, will remain stinted if quality education in the English language is not made more broadly available.

Strides are being made, and most of the men and women of my generation are catching on, and making the effort to learn and master the language. Some of them are arguably competitive with the Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, seeing as how the Bengali English accent (in my biased opinion) is not as strongly inflected as the Indian accent.

But government intervention and good policies would go a long way in giving our enterprising youth a leg-up in competing internationally.

More specifically, the government could:

1. Begin general reforms within the Ministry of Education (increase teachers' salaries to retain quality staff, more progressive and accountable human resource management, retraining teachers and principles in education)
   
2. Directly train teachers in the English language. Many of them are simply not comfortable with the language. I know firsthand graduates of government universities with Masters Degrees in English Language & Literature who could not for the life of them write a coherent paragraph in English. Their entire degrees have revolved around rote memorization.
3. Reform of English language testing in the government board exams (strides have already been made on this front under the BNP government with the reform of the SSC and HSC examination system) to de-emphasize rote memorization
   
4. Improve two vital infrastructural needs of the country: energy and connectivity, so that more people have ready access to computers, can go online and interact with other people worldwide informally in English
5. Repeal archaic laws demanding all government paperwork be in Bangla and move to a bilingual system. This will encourage foreign businesses to operate since the language barrier to engaging in commerce is much lowered, and will require all government employees to be adept in English to process said paperwork, while not compromising on the use of Bangla
6. Slowly enact laws and bring into practice the system of making public signboards and vehicle license plates have both English and Bengali rather than the current setup of consistent inconsistency: some highways have signs in English and Bengali while some streets in Dhaka and smaller highways don't, and some license plates are in English and some aren't

Maybe then we could think of a lot more than just 1% of the global market.

The Awami League Win: Flawless Victory

My predictions scored 1/3. At 33%, that's a fail. :P

The Victory

The Awami League won not by a landslide, but by an avalanche. They now control 87% of parliament at 263 seats out of 299.

This is unprecedented. In 2001, where allegations of some voter fraud were substantiated by local and international observers, the Awami League did not lose by this big a margin.

In 1996, the BNP did not lose by this big a margin.

The only other party in Bangladesh's history to undergo such a dramatic reversal of fortunes was the party of H.M. Ershad, the Jatiya Party (People's Party). He was a former dictator and president discredited for rampant corruption, and the Jatiya Party today is a shadow of its former self, relegated to its stronghold in North Bengal.

I genuinely hope a similar fate does not await the BNP; without a functioning opposition, a democratic government cannot be expected to function.

Is This Good or Bad?

The standard answer to a question like that is: a bit of both.

It's bad because we all know power corrupts. And in the world's most corrupt country, power corrupts absolutely. Without a functioning opposition, the Awami League will think it has a carte blanche, and attempt to do whatever it pleases.

You'll notice that in press briefings, Sheikh Hasina (or Khaleda Zia for that matter) is very limited in her praise for the elecotorate, the people who actually voted for her.

There is a disconnect in South Asian politics between the governed and the government. Those who come into power feel as though it was their right all along, and that this has simply been "restored" to them.

A bad side-effect, perhaps, of dynastic politics.

So yes, this is bad. The Awami League won a bit too much.

But it's really not all that bad, within the context of just the election.

This is a "known bug" within democracy. Yes, the common will can't always be depended upon to take the nuanced, correct route. People don't go protesting in the streets shouting "BE REASONABLE!"

But in bad economic times and incompetent governance, this is the rule, not the exception. In the US elections of 1928, Herbert Hoover and the Republicans came into power with 84% of the popular vote, a landslide. 4 years and a Great Depression later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, won 88% of the vote.

Barack Obama won by a small margin in absolute terms, but he defeated John McCain very handily as US elections go. In bad times, people make large political moves toward "change", whether it be substantiated change or merely rhetorical change.

One should look at this huge shift in Bangladeshi politics less as a slight upon the institution, and more as a massive reprobation against the BNP-Jamaat.

Votes are binary, you either vote for someone or you don't. It doesn't measure the fact that according to a pre-election poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of the electorate in Bangladesh is completely jaded by politics and have resigned themselves to more of the same no matter who comes into power. The high voter turnout is not a credit to the campaigns that were run by the Awami League or the BNP, but a credit to the enduring spirit of democracy among the people of Bangladesh.

Many people voted for the Awami League not because they liked them, but because they hated the BNP more.

Let's not forget, of the 4 years Bangladesh appeared as the most corrupt country in the world, the last year of Awami League rule in 2001 was the first, and set the precedent. The BNP-Jamaat merely ran with the baton for an additional few years until Nigeria and Afghanistan caught up.

Jamaat-e-Islaami

They contested in 32 constituencies and won only 2 of them. Their party leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami lost his own constituency.

Quite frankly, I didn't expect this. I was under the impression that the Jamaat-e-Islaami had an entrenched voter base that would vote for them no matter what, and this now seems untrue. Well, you live and you learn.

It seems what most people really want is food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. The failed anti-corruption drive of 2007 by the interim government discovered huge amounts of foreign aid stashed away in party leaders' homes, and this must have left a lasting impression in people's minds; it was, after all, stealing from the poor. Accompanied with massive inflation that, admittedly, they weren't responsible for, this must have been a concern.

What I found most amusing was that in Khulna-5, the Jamaat-e-Islaami candidate Miah Golam Parwar was running against the Awami League's Hindu candidate, Narayan Chandra Chanda. He was running a negative fear campaign, telling people to choose to vote between "the Quran and Narayan," no doubt using the rhyme to good end.

He lost by 35 thousand votes in a Muslim-majority area.

Fiery sermons and bigotry are the hallmarks of the Jamaat-e-Islaami in Bangladesh. These people colluded with criminal elements in the Pakistani army during 1971 war, and aided and abetted in atrocities against people they considered subhuman (the Hindus) or invalidly Muslim.

I'm ashamed that their party bears the name of my faith. Intolerant and hateful, they should be spurned and turned away, and I'm left wondering now how they even won 2 seats.

Well, that's democracy for you!

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

The quasi-military caretaker government (CTG) failed miserably at its anti-corruption drive. After separating the judiciary from the executive in 2007 (after the BNP promised it for 5 years without delivering), they pressured the judiciary into releasing all the candidates on bail in 2008, staying their cases so that they can contest in the elections.

They only caught a handful of bigwigs of corruption, and corruption is as much an institution in third-world Bangladesh today as it was in January 2007 when the CTG came into power.

The few that they jailed may serve as a deterrent for future politicians, but in reality, they are so few that it's more attributable toward random bad luck than people getting their just deserts. It's still uncertain which precedent will have a more lasting effect.

That being said, the CTG promised elections in calendar 2008. And they delivered.

This election campaign has been one of the least disruptive campaigns in the history of the country. Walls were not defaced with posters, banners and leaflets were suspended on ropes across the street giving it a festive feel.

The practice of "Mic'ing" (pronounced Mike'ing, where rickshaw-wallahs retrofitted with loudspeakers ride around town with a gruff voice blaring at high volume and high speed for people to vote a certain way) was limited to certain hours of the day so as not to disrupt or distract trade or commerce.

Campaign gatherings were limited to certain gathering points so as not to block traffic, and the street prosessions politely gave way to oncoming traffic.

The photo essay of the BBC shows an election atmosphere much like that of Eid, a festival, with people talking to each other while standing in line and sharing laughs.

Roughly 15% of the population is urban. Of these, most are from the villages, where they probably registered to vote. At 80% turnout, that means many people from the village actually travelled home to vote.

The enthusiasm and well-executed nature of this election is unprecedented. That's an achievement of the CTG, and something to be proud of.

Despite their massive failures in the anti-corruption drive and their "Minus Two" policy, this achievement alone is enough to redeem them.

Lets not forget, the very political parties that got voted into power in these elections couldn't make this happen.

The Future

I'm deeply concerned that the free and fair elections of 2008 will be the last piece of good news that's going to come out of Bangladesh for at least the next 5 years.

I'm not a betting man, but even if I was, all bets would be off. I'm hopeful and optimistic, but I'm going to prepare for the worst. The Awami League did a bad job between 1996 and 2001, and I have seen little to no indication that they'll change for the better.

The onus right now, though, is actually on the BNP. As most foreign media outlets put it, it really doesn't matter who wins, since policy-wise, both these parties are pretty much identical. What matters more is who loses, because it's the sore losers who agitate and paralyse the country.

But a man's got to hope.

Elections: Bangladesh Decides

Hell, it's about time!

This is the culmination of a very long wait. The elections were supposed to have been held in 2006, after a 5-year term by the Bangladesh National Party (BNP)-Jamaat-e-Islaami alliance. They delayed it until the very end of 2006, and by attempting to doctor the Election Commission, sparked nationwide protests and violence which cost lives.

Never a dull day in Bangladeshi politics.

The caretaker government took over in Jan. 2007, and promised free and fair elections by the end of calendar year 2008. And by golly gee, they delivered. Elections on Dec. 29th, 2008. Cutting it a little close, hey?

A lot has been achieved in the past year. A digitized national voter list, which is supposed to, in theory, lessen the impact of vote fraud, and new election campaigning rules which has made life a lot easier for businesses and commerce to continue in the midst of the changeover.

I have a few predictions. These are casual, by-stander predictions, and are at best, guesstimates. I'm not an analyst, but I feel the winds on the ground, and if I see the clouds on the horizon, it's reasonable for me to think there's rain a-comin'.

1. The Awami League will win.

5 years of the BNP-Jamaat's hardline right-wing politics has left people a bit angry, so I imagine a lot of people will sway the Awami League way, just to spite the BNP-Jamaat.

But the Awami League is left-leaning, so I'm not sure what to make of their victory, if they do win. But in today's world, it doesn't matter which way you lean. India and China has shown the developing world which way works best, and when it comes right down to it, the policies of increased trade liberalization, deregulation and decentralization will continue no matter who comes into power.

The Awami League has been in power in the late 90s, and they did a terrible job of it. But people remember with more clarity the mess-ups of the BNP right now, so I think the negative sentiment will buoy the Awami League.

In 2001, the BNP-Jamaat alliance got a very strong mandate from the people. There probably was lots of vote rigging and vote buying at the time (I can't say for sure, I didn't follow it that much at the time), but you can't rig your way to a win of the magnitude that was recorded. So the Awami League is certainly no panacea.

But I still think they'll win. That's the way the wind is blowing now.

2. Lots of people will vote blank votes.

That is actually allowed this time, the no-confidence vote. I think a lot of people will, and that will indicate very powerfully how jaded a lot of people have become about politics in Bangladesh. Neither of these parties have delivered sufficient results, and the steady clip of 6% GDP growth over the past few years has been despite the government, not because of.

3. Jamaat-e-Islaami will possibly lose a bit of their votes, or gain a little bit, but not move much on the electoral map.

For the record, I'm not a fan.

They have a terrible human rights record when it comes to ethnic minorities (the Hindus and the Ahmediyyas in particular), they're holding back the emancipation of women in Bangladesh, a very important facet of social and economic reform, and I feel that they are complicit in some of the terrorism in Bangladesh with vitriolic sermon rhetoric.

But their support base is deeply entrenched, people who believe it is their duty to "save Islam" as Khaleda Zia put it in one of her speeches. As if Islam somehow needs to be saved.

Do I wish I were wrong?

If I had a wish, then I'd wish the Jamaat-e-Islaam voter base decreases in size dramatically. It would prompt them to do some soul-searching, and maybe some young'uns can come forward with a better strategy for a new age. Chances of that happening? Very, very little. Arguably many of the young'uns coming out of the Jamaat are as extreme, if not more extreme than their aged counterparts. And religious sentiments run deep and strong, and you can't reason someone out of an opinion they came to through emotion.

Since I'm wishing, I also hope the no-vote category is very large this time around, and that the Awami League still win. A large no-vote would signal to the political parties a large bank of potential votes that they may try to woo through proper social, political and economic progress.

And I'm not into ponies, so really, I wish for a warp-10 Galaxy-class starship with transporter and holodeck capabilities.

The Awami League Campaign 2008

If wishes were wings...

From The Daily Star:

"If we are voted to power, we shall bring down the price of essentials, increase power generation, make education up to degree level free, give agricultural subsidies and ensure community health care facilities," Hasina said.

"Besides, more schools and colleges will be set up, allowances for freedom fighters, widows and elderly people will be doubled, fertiliser will be sold on open market and loans will be given to shrimp traders and unemployed youths," she said.

"We want to give something to the country. Give us a chance to serve you and the country. We shall build a developed Bangladesh where none will starve or live without clothes, education, housing and healthcare facilities," the former premier said.

Reality calls:

1. Bring Down the Price of Essentials

It's the economy, stupid! The world is already going into a deflationary spiral, although it probably won't last for long. They'll probably claim it as their doing, although they have no control over this. The quasi-military caretaker government also had no control over the inflation of 2007 and 2008, so it's tough for anyone to take blame either.

Whoever comes into power, though, will take credit for the deflation. Welcome to democracy!

2. Increase Power Generation

I've actually read a bit more about the planned policy changes the Awami League is looking for. This includes sanctioning new power projects as well as refurbishing old power plants. Refurbishment is, as far as my limited knowledge goes, a new promise: I've never heard any political party talk about refurbishment or the expansion of existing infrastructure in the past.

Refurbishment is not as profitable as new power plant projects. The tenders from new projects are far larger (more bang per corrupt buck, you may say), and come from outside bidders, some of who are either new to Bangladesh and so can be "educated" as to how things work here, or old players who have established contacts and can facilitate the "speed money" through established channels.

This is an understood fact of Bangladeshi government. Ask anyone in Bangladesh, and they'll give you the "don't be naive" frown.

The rallies Hasina is holding now costs money. This isn't the US where campaign donations from the masses can fund Barack Obama's 600-million-dollar campaign. Apart from key stakeholders in industry who contribute to secure their interests, the politicians invest their own money into their campaigns, and have to make this money back when they get back into power. And this can only be done through corruption.

3. Make Education Up to Degree Level Free

The taxation rate in Bangladesh is still extremely low, despite the BNP's efforts to increase the tax net (and in all fairness, they have arguably done a good job of it), and depending on loans from the ADB (which comes with the accompanying slow hemorrhaging of interest payments) or foreign aid (with its strings attached) won't cut it for long. We're aiming to become a Newly Industrialized Country by 2020, but we've shown that public spending has thus far been very irresponsible. The Annual Development Plan (ADP) has been set at more and more ambitious levels every year with double-digit year-on-year growths in ADP spending, but with consistently failing levels of implementation.

4. Agricultural Subsidies

Agricultural subsidies are the lifeblood of Bangladesh. Even the United States and the European Union are loathe to remove their agricultural subsidies, a very contentious point in the Doha Round of Free Trade Talks (what actually caused its collapse). Agricultural subsidies serve a very crucial function. This is money being invested in food, and it's a policy that's proven to work.

Whether the Awami League or the BNP comes into power, agricultural subsidies are here to stay. This is a mainstay and a staple of Bangladeshi government, and provides a crucial service to the economy.

5. More schools, colleges

The problem here isn't building the brick-and-mortar structures. The problem is in expanding the Education Ministry's capacity. Hiring more quality teachers at competitive pay rates (government wages in Bangladesh are infamously low) to attract proper talent, bringing in consultants from the private sector to train and equip these teachers, and hiring new and effective administrators and bureaucrats in the ministries to oversee these operations, that's where the challenge lies.

As an indication of the challenges ahead, the most corrupt sectors in Bangladesh are the Education and Healthcare sectors.

The education system in Bangladesh is nothing short of crumbling. One of the downsides of the fervent Bengali language movement (the "bhasha andolon") pre- and post-independence has been the overzealous banishment of English from the public sphere. Public schools today have an appalling standard of English education, which sets back most of the students from these schools significantly when competing in the global arena.

This is one of the reasons why maturing (and increasingly expensive) India is exporting its call centers to Pakistan and the Philippines (both countries with excellent standards of English), but not to Bangladesh.

Japan and Europe can afford not to adopt English, because Japan has been the world's second largest economy (until China squeezed it out very recently), and Europe has been a key player in innovation and engineering for centuries and they have a rich colonial history of theft to buoy them. Witnesses and the prime beneficiaries and drivers of the industrial revolution, they are not playing catch-up like we are. This irrational attachment to Bengali has cost us billions of dollars in potential GDP, jobs, industries and opportunities for our youth.

That being said, even in Bengali, the education system is crumbling. We are bad at being bad. Education comes to a virtual standstill after A-Levels (what we call "Intermediate"). The best schools in Bangladesh: Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and Dhaka University, are frequently beset by political wrangling and fighting among the student chapters of the main political parties. This is affectionately and euphemistically called "session jam." 4-year degrees take 6 years to complete.

Students in university are supposed to be debating the finer points of capitalism versus socialism, or the ethical dilemmas posed by modernity to the pre-modern legal precepts of our culture. But instead, our university students fight with each other in the streets.

A university student from Dhaka University once put it to me very simply: it was either beat, or be beaten, and he wasn't about to take hits from anyone.

Professors are politically aligned and engage in partisan bickering in and out of the class. The Vice Chancellors in university are actually publicized political appointees. How do you expect an education system to function?

So building more schools is really not going to help. Deep institutional and cultural reform is needed in the education ministry.

5. Allowances for freedom fighters, widows and elderly people will be doubled

I was thinking "how would you fund this?" Well, 0 multiplied by 2 is 0, so it might not be that hard.

Freedom fighters, I think, have an allowance. A pittance though it may be, I think it hasn't been adjusted for inflation for decades, and the list of freedom fighters in Bangladesh is extremely flawed with many low-level soldiers totally omitted from the list (there have been reports in the Daily Star on this).

This has been an election promise since the 90s. We had a Bangladeshi painter back in Abu Dhabi, an elderly, hard-working chap with a very colourful personality. He cared enough about politics to actually schedule his annual leave around elections. Sheikh Hasina promised elderly benefits back then as well, and I remember him mentioning it with much skepticism and good-hearted cheer.

This must have been a good 10 to 12 years ago.

Here. Have a pinch of salt.

Layman's Perspective: Lolitics in Bangladesh

Looking at it at face value, we've had a handful of leaders over the years. H.M. Ershad (who was a president), K. Zia, S. Hasina, (who were prime ministers) and now F. Ahmed (who is a chief adviser; not a politician, but a bureaucrat).

Personally, I will look upon the 2 years of F. Ahmed's premiership with somewhat fond memories. Okay, not exactly fond, but memories accompanied with less dread. He brought some measure of control back to a country on the brink of losing it, he managed a powerful cyclone excellently (just look at how a comparable cyclone that hit Myanmar a few months later caused human suffering an order of magnitude higher than Bangladesh's), coordinated a nation-wide food response which helped the people of Bangladesh cope with hunger where other countries at a similar level of development (like Haiti or Pakistan) suffered much more than we did. And he was erudite, and spoke good English.

K. Zia speaks terrible English, and somewhat faltering Bengali. More seriously, though, she has no personal credentials apart from being the wife of a former dictator (who engaged in wanton political assassinations during his regime and then was eventually assassinated himself). She is only barely educated, and that may be okay for the United States of America, but it shouldn't be for us! (Okay, after suffering 8 years of Dubya, we have a right to poke fun at this. Electing Barack doesn't exonerate you people all of a sudden!)

S. Hasina, though, goes around as an opposition party leader around the world, to the United States, and accuses the incumbents of terrorism. This reflects the psychology of Bangladeshi politics: whatever it takes to win, even if it means blackening the name of your country to others. Even as an opposition party leader, you're still representing Bangladesh when you go abroad. She, however, didn't get the memo.

In all fairness, though, the BNP-Jamaat alliance has engaged in terrorism. And S. Hasina has been a victim of them. The 5-year BNP-Jamaat term has set a dangerous precedent for subsequent elected governments: winning an election gives you the right to attempt to systematically eradicate the opposition.

These two women, though, are two sides of the same coin. In all their time in power, they've enacted many laws for the protection of women's rights, but very little by way of real empowerment has come to women. A woman construction worker, today, in Bangladesh, earns half what a man earns. For the same, back-breaking work.

Acid attacks continue, and very little by way of resolution of these cases ever occur in courts, with few proper public trials to serve as proper deterrents, although these cases cannot be that difficult to solve. The friends of the perpetrators would no doubt be privy to the details of the relationship between the young lady and the criminal in question. We're a country of romantics, after all. It's all poetry, flowers, hugs and kisses until the aqueous hydrogen-sulfate hits the wall.

In the three terms these two women have exchanged the seat of power, the issue of young beggar girls in the streets of Dhaka, sexually, physically, emotionally abused by callous passers-by, by drug-peddlers, by the elements of the variable summer-winter weather, have all largely been ignored.

The last time I went to Bangladesh, I saw with my very own eyes a young girl carrying a baby in a posture in which any other baby would not be able to keep quiet, much less sleep. It was very obviously drugged to sleep, begging in the streets. In the rain. And these two women have done nothing for them.

So we may be able to claim that we elected a woman as a premiere, but it's really not done much at all for people on the ground.

F. Ahmed, on the other hand, is well-spoken and very presentable, but he sounds like an autocrat in all his speeches abroad, by highlighting the pitfalls of an "imperfect union" like his address at the UN General Assembly last year. I think he's a little bit flustered at the negative response of a military-backed caretaker government having to take power in Bangladesh, so when he is abroad, his agenda is dominated by why the military has to settle matters in a country that has been making inroads in consistent civilian rule. All the Western countries collectively went *gasp* when the civilians couldn't settle the issues amicably. But that's not his fault. Politically-speaking, nothing is ever his fault; he's a career bureaucrat, for goodness sake, and he wasn't elected. He deserves some slack, and although he has decidedly underperformed, he has been less bad than the others.

Even a shallow analysis will give the following grade to Bangladeshi politics: fail. This "state of emergency" is the longest running imposition of martial law in a South Asian country since partition. It's unacceptable, but it's not the CTG's (Caretake Government) fault. It's S. Hasina's fault, and K. Zia's fault, because they were too busy inciting riots and fixing elections, that the military had to take over. They were only filling a vacuum created by the incompetent civilians. The CTG has been a force of stability in some ways, like how the Taleban was before they got bombed back to the Stone Age. Not exactly an ideal solution, but at least you can go to and from work to feed the family.

But we really do take things too personally in the sub-continent (and Asia in general). If an employee hands in his resignation, it's all cuss words and "you ingrate" and "how could you stab me in the back." Seriously, boss. It's nothing personal, this is just business. After these politicians cuss each other up in parliament, they should be able to go home, chillax with their families and watch Bohu Brihi. But no, they're in this fight to annihilate each other with ridiculous ideological banter and hyperbole.

Our devotion to our political parties is almost religious, anybody that changes parties is labeled a turncoat, an unacceptable apostasy. Well, I think for a democracy to function, the electorate has to be swingers. It's like Keynes famously noted (roughly paraphrased): "If the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"

W's worldview is wrong. (paraphrased) "This is a president that believes on Wednesday, what he believed on Monday, no matter what happened on Tuesday," said Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner. We need to foster more rational thought in our country, through education and free speech. And then, perhaps, we will be able to achieve "a more perfect union."

Bangladeshi Election Turmoil

The Bangladesh National Party's (BNP) 4-Party Alliance is making a list of 4 demands of the Election Commission (EC). In summary, they are:

1. Lift the State of Emergency

2. Remove some clauses in the amended Representation of the People Order (RPO)

3. Defer Upazila (municipal) elections for a month after the parliamentary polls

4. Reschedule polls to ensure Hajis can cast their votes

Lift the State of Emergency

This makes sense and warrants consideration, and the Caretaker Government is already considering this. The Caretaker Government has reason to be skeptical. The two parties have a penchant for street protests that turn ugly very frequently, and none of these parties have signed off on any common agreement to stop economically disruptive protests (hartal). But an election under what is effectively martial law isn't exactly what I would call ideal.

The State of Emergency has been a Godsend for these 2 years for many people on the ground. The streets haven't been all that much safer, and although the military has come in with its fair share of heavy-handedness, businesses have generally functioned without let or hindrance. Perhaps I'm damning it with faint praise but it could've been a lot worse.

Remove some clauses in the amended RPO

The RPO, first enacted in 1972 is generally a good piece of legislation from what I understand. The legislators from our "founding fathers" were a competent bunch, from the rich tradition of the Pakistan Civil Service and before that, the British Civil Service. 3 parliamentary elections have been held under it so far, as well as a few military dictatorships thrown into the mix (we are a sub-continental country, after all). And some of the amendments made to it this year by the Caretaker Government have also been good, like barring anyone who hasn't paid their utility bills from contesting (you'd think that was obvious).

But as usual, the military's heavy-handedness has to eventually cut through. It's like they get a sense that they're doing well, then suddenly get over-enthusiastic and overshoot. I'm fuzzy on the details here, but it seems like they've added a clause barring teachers from running for public office. I think their intention may be to separate the universities from politics, but this policy sounds heavy-handed (my favorite word for this post).

Let's not forget, the Caretaker Government was the one that tried to put price controls in the telecommunication industry, probably the only sector in Bangladesh that is working perfectly well and serving the population for the collective good, under free-market capitalism.

Defer Municipal Elections for a Month after Parliamentary Polls

I'm not exactly sure as to the reasoning for this, but it's possible they're trying not to over-extend the Election Commission. But with proper management it's possible to vote on more than one thing at a time. Americans in the recent presidential elections very controversially voted for a black president, and voted against gay marriage rights, among other things. This was all on the same ballot.

The big caveat here is that it needs organization and management.

Reschedule Polls to Ensure Hajis Can Cast Their Votes

This is simply preposterous. The BNP and her Jamaat allies have become masters at playing the religion card.

There are no more than 50,000 pilgrims going on the Hajj from Bangladesh according to revised, lower Saudi quotas this year for Bangladeshis. Out of an approximately 80 million-strong voter roll. That's 0.06% of the electorate, and that fraction is probably smaller when you factor in voter turnout.

If their vote is so crucial (which I don't think it is), then the 4-party alliance should have raised this before. After all, we've known elections would be held at the end of 2008 for more than 18 months now. The Election Commission would have evaluated accepting absentee ballots (something I would very much like) for the pilgrims, in that case. If we don't have the capacity to handle absentee ballots, which the Election Commission has already announced, then I don't see a way out.

I don't think this request should be entertained. But then, what do I know about politics in a country I never lived in. The BNP is a monolith in the political landscape, outsized only by its counterpart, the Awami League. If they sneeze, everybody gets wet.

Is the Problem Technical or Managerial?

I was invited to a very distant relation's home for Iftari yesterday. Apart from a lovely traditional Iftari with chick peas, butter milk, dates, and fruit, I enjoyed pleasant company, and a family environment.

I met a fellow by the name of Mustafa, who was working in alternative energy in Bangladesh, particularly in biogas. It was heart-warming to hear people on the ground realizing what I read about on the internet so much. It's the common folk such as him who make the realities of solving our social problems a reality.

As usual, in our five-minute conversation, the topic veered toward the state of Bangladesh. Systemic corruption has crippled the country, and Mustafa suggested a sentiment shared by many Bengalis: all we needed was one good leader. Malaysia had Mahathir, Oman had Sultan Qaboos.

It's a common enough sentiment among the common folk, but that, of course, doesn't mean its necessarily true. Pakistan had General Musharraf, who, at the time, was welcomed almost unanimously. Power does corrupt, and politics will be politics.

But there is truth behind it. I wouldn't fully agree with "just one person" being sufficient. One person need not be the be-all and end-all; I think South Asians are too quick through the door into hero-worship, and just as fast to put a bullet in him. But the spirit behind the sentiment is the same as mine: the problem is, and always has been, leadership.

This belief was vindicated by the newspaper headlines just today. In Bangladesh, power load shedding has decreased from a 1,200 megawatt nationwide energy deficit, to a 200 megawatt deficit. The solution? Good management.

27 power plants last year generated 2,800 megawatts of energy, against a demand of (approximately) 4,000 megawatts. Those same 27 plants today, with the exception of one additional 70 megawatt plant that was installed earlier this year, are generating 4,100 megawatts of power, reducing the national shortfall of energy to a mere 100 to 200 megawatts.

The problem wasn't technical. The gas and oil was there to be burned, the transducers were there. It was managerial.

Solutions involved staggering holidays in industrial zones, stricter controls on bill collection, decentralized decision-making. With that, they fixed a problem that had threatened the economic development, the sacrosanct goal of any developing nation, of a 150 million people.

Like the Bengali saying goes: obhab na; shobhab. It's not poverty. It's attitude.

Suffering of Minorities in Bangladesh

In the December 10th issue of the Daily Star Weekend Magazine, they put up a cover story on the plight of Hindus in Muslim-majority rural Bangladesh.

"[...] the community that was subjected to merciless beating, humiliation and [continuous] persecution by a group of miscreants out to grab their land, saw no signs of empathy from the local authorities. [...] I ask her how old she is. 'Four kuri and five,' a villager chips in. This means four into twenty, plus five; which makes her 85. At this age she has enough reason to worry over the safety of her community. The land the usurpers are out to grab is the sacred cremation ground that has been a part of this village for as long as she remembers.

"[...] during the atrocious attack, the whole community found itself at the receiving end of a premeditated aggression. Some received severe beating and some ended up with near-fatal injuries. Gouri Das, around fifty, was brutally attacked. On the palm of her right hand, she bears the deep gash of being struck by a sharp weapon. There is another cut on the right side of her head. As she speaks it becomes clear that there is little she remembers of the mayhem, as she was knocked unconscious from the first few blows [...]. She does however, remember her first attacker. "It was Kader, son of Mafizuddin, who struck me on the head with a sharp weapon," she asserts. She cannot tell "who else beat her up later". As she gained consciousness, she found her sari missing.

"Hari Dasi, another 40 year-old villager, found herself in the same predicament. She was literally trampled by a bunch of men, men who knew no mercy. [...]

"The patch of land, the main cause of the atrocity, lies [beside] a pond. [...] For the Hindus of this region it is a sacred ground, as it is their final resting-place. Broken earthenware is scattered all over the ground, signs of cremation punctuated by mounds of earth, under which the remains of the dear ones are buried. [...]

"[The] girls of the Hindu community at Gopalpur village have stopped going out of the house in fear of these miscreants who openly harass them on the streets.

"Malati Rani [is] a seventeen-year-old girl. [...] Faced with the question of why she stopped going to school from which she received a stipend, Malati is hesitant. Her answer to why she quit school is short: 'they swear at me.'

"In the face of the worst attack on the Hindu community by the group of land-grabbers and their henchmen, not much has been done by the authority to mitigate the victims.

"Lakhshan recalls the previous year's incident. 'When they scooped out all the fishes out of the pond beside the cremation ground and the temple, a case was filed. Even the newspapers took it up. At first the law enforcing agency seemed very active, but soon everything died down,' laments Lakhshan.

"[...] a group of people installed a water pump to siphon out the water from the pond next to the cremation ground. The ground is only 27 acres, but it has been a source of a lot troubles since the day the land grabbers targetted it as the next piece of land for usurpation. The miscreants consisting of Lal Miah , Ibrahim, Jahangir, Kader, Mojibor, Zohurul, Ziaur, Malek [and] Hashem [...]. There was a string of women who stood in a circle, guarding the water pump. When the people of the community rushed to put a stop to the siphoning, one of the men said, 'charaler po (son of a commoner), don't cross the limit; if you do, we will file a case for repression against women and will throw you out of this country.'

"They waved off the threats [...]. 'If we cannot protect our own religion what's the use in keeping on living. This small patch of land has been our cremation ground, it has been so since the time of our ancestors.'

"What followed after that was something no one from Subhash's community ever anticipated. The band of men, who installed the water pump and were trying to siphon the pond, rushed toward the paddy field, where they kept their weapons hidden. Armed with machete, sticks and lances, they swooped on the community that had little protection from the authority, let alone any influential group or men.

"The invading men went looking for women and children. They scrambled inside their houses. They beat them up, slashed them and plundered their homes [...].

"Sixty-five families have categorically being victimised by this 'land-grabbing clique.' It is more a case of wresting properties from the weak than of religious persecution. As Hindus of the locality are the weakest, they keep losing their lands to aggressors who reign the localities with their muscle as well as social and political clout. This is the reality of Bangladesh, and the village of Gopalpur is no exception."

I find little solace in recognising this as not so much a religious issue as it is merely an issue of victimisation because of one's locus on some pecking order. If being weak is tantamount to welcoming oppression, then we are no better than animals.

Bangladesh's human rights records has plumetted in the past few years and chronic lawlessness fanned by gusts of misrule and irresponsibility has become the law of the land.

All of the names of the perpetrators were Muslim names.

"Do not oppress and do not be oppressed."

- The Prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Patriotism and Objectivity

The Daily Star has done it again! Some time in October, I stumbled across a "Letter to the Editor" on the main page of the Daily Star, a newspaper I check daily (except during Eid, because, hear this, the newspaper stops publishing during Eid! Wow, only in Bangladesh).

In this very interesting "Letter to the Editor," a man laments the "international conspiracies" hatched against Bangladesh, one such accusation levelled at Bangladesh that basically says Bangladesh is "Asia's most dysfunctional country." I believe he was referring to Time magazine's infamous article, "State of Disgrace." Although, I think the article was a bit harsh, I think it hits the mark close enough.

Rather vexed by the argument that patriotism dictates being blinded to realities that may be harsh, I wrote a reply, which I thought never got published. But apparently, it did, and I discovered it in the Daily Star's archives just tonight! Almost a month after they published it!

"In response to Md Shahidul Islam's letter to the Editor on 27 October, I couldn't help but chip in my opinion on this matter of patriotism and reality.

"I believe the common man should make it a point not to believe in "conspiracies" like the "international conspiracies" Md. Shahidul Islam quotes to "stop [Bangladesh's] progress." It is extremely naive to think that in this world, with problems as deep as looming water shortages, global warming, energy crises, genocide and wars initiated for purely political and economic ends, anybody would care about a small country in South Asia that most people have never heard of. It is indeed true that truth is stranger than fiction, and on most occasions, conspiracies are very easily mistaken for stupidity. The two are divided by a very fine line. The harsh reality about Bangladesh is that nobody really cares what happens in this far corner of the world, and no international conspiracy is out to get us. Disregarding the vast majority of our politicians that come from the lowest crust of our society and academy, if notable intellectuals say something, it's time to listen. If intellectuals say Bangladesh is a den of terrorism, it's time to give the situation a look.

"People, however learned, are always subject to their ego [sic], and it is possible that some intellectuals are known for their verbosity and over-emphasis, the academic equivalent of making a mountain out of a mole hill. As such, I would agree that to say Bangladesh is a den of terrorism like, say, Afghanistan was, is libellous. But to say that our patriotism dictates that such a claim, or any other claim that potentially reflects on our nation negatively, is an international conspiracy to hamper the progress of a fledgling, immature democracy, is no less than sheer denial.

"The fact that our bureaucracy is viciously corrupt is undeniable. Whether we are the world's most corrupt is debatable, but the fact that corruption is a part of life is as true as the sun rises from the East.

"To be patriotic is admirable. To be blind to your own mistakes is blameworthy and will harm nobody but yourself."

In response to my response, another fellow wrote a Letter to the Editor.

Maybe I should write a reply.

So much for my Blog Hiatus.

Rethinking the Solutions, Revisited

The Daily Star is Bangladesh’s premiere English language daily. It runs a website which it updates daily and has archives as far back as November 2001. This website is at the top of my list when I want the lowdown on what goes down in and around Bangladesh.

It hosts, from my perception, an above average array of patrons of the sciences, with frequent op-eds that come from some of the more intellectually inclined from among our educated middle and upper classes.

One such piece caught my eye the other day, a rather detailed essay on long-term solutions to the floods in Bangladesh by a Dr. Nazrul Islam. My previous blog entry, “Rethink the Solutions,” was partially inspired by his latter piece on October 2nd, though after blogging, I discovered the Daily Star’s archives and dug up his article from August 10th and the opposing article on August 13th, both of which he refers to.

They make for some interesting reading, and so the links are here for reference in order of appearance:

1. A Permanent Solution to the Floods, by Dr. Nazrul Islam, August 10th 2004
   
2. Permanent Solution to Flood: Point to ponder, br Engr. Amirul Hussain, August 13th 2004
   
3. Cordon Approach or Open Approach?, by. Dr. Nazrul Islam, October 2nd 2004
   

At the time of writing my October 2nd blog entry, I wasn’t familiar with Dr. Islam’s complete opinion. Though after reading the entire chain of articles, I find a startling similarity between the approach of Dr. Islam and Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad’s article on the Turkish earthquakes.

Rethink The Solutions

On September 13th 2004, the capital city of Dhaka was completely inundated after a 72-hour splurge of torrential rain. One of Asia’s megacities, for three days thereafter, came to a grinding halt, and the centre of the economy of a nation of more than 120 million people was shut down.

The rainwater inundated 25 of WASA’s water pumps, used to pump water out of the city, rendering them unserviceable. The remaining pumps were ineffective anyway, as the heavy winds that accompanied the rain took down the power lines servicing them. As Mother Nature’s attack, seemingly engineered for the suffering of her inhabitants, withdrew, and the city officially at a stop, rickhsaw pullers were charging exorbitant rates for trafficking passengers because of the increase in demand, businesses were forced to close down and drinking water became scarce as 10 million souls in and around Dhaka, bewildered, wondered if God had no decency, sending down such untold suffering only weeks after the “official” floods receded.

It is too simplistic to say that the natural disasters God sends at us are divine punishment. However, we pave the way for our own suffering, by divorcing ourselves from the land and from ourselves, unleashing the forces of nature, long held at bay by our connection and realization of the realities in which we live.

The world exists as a play between the attributes of the Divine. The Compassionate, The Merciful and the Gentle also appears as the Overwhelming, the Just and the Avenger. Thus the world is a play of darkness and light, of joy and hardships and of celebration and mourning.

It is a strange thing to witness that after so many years of thriving civilization in the low-lying delta lands now known as Bangladesh, only with the advent of the promises of “modern technology” do floods cause suffering to more people.

As Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad so eloquently puts it, modernity serves but one idol: money. What is termed today as “progress,” serves neither the people nor the realities of the land, but dedicates itself wholesale to the outward semblance of the corporal world.

As Dhaka grows horizontally and vertically without rest or restriction, already-impotent city authorities are being pushed to the blinding edge. Their incompetence, indulgence in bribery and corruption, short-sightedness and complete disregard of their responsibilities are destroying one of the world’s largest cities.

The concrete monstrosities that have mushroomed in modern-day Dhaka are partly to blame. An inflated indicator of economic progress, many of these ill-constructed, badly maintained and sometimes abandoned structures are built on former water bodies that served as buffer storage for the sudden deluge of rainwater that hits randomly. These high-capacity structures also put a tremendous strain on a neglected low-capacity sewage and power distribution system that the authorities just cannot be bothered to cope with.

But we all know this. The news regurgitates these reasons every day. Where, then lies the solution? A thousand-kilometre coastal barrier along the shores of the Bay of Bengal? I believed Bangladesh missed an immense opportunity at being a miracle of modern innovation by reverting wholesale and without thought to the architecture of her former European masters.

The "modern" outlook of infrastructure in Bangladesh should be completely abandoned and the traditional solutions brought back to the fore. The roads that line Bangladesh's countryside and run shamelessly through what used to be rivers should all be dismantled, and the nation put on a program to regenerate the rivers, ultimately to be reinstated as the primary mode of locomotion through the country. A new industry of research, development, innovation and ingenuity should be built from the ground up for these vehicles. Major roads such as those that run between Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna and other major cities should remain intact, but remodeled to allow rivers to do their job.

Dhaka and other major cities should be cordoned off, their limits set and the city authorities should set up long-term plans for raising these cities to the skies if they need to expand outside their generous boundaries. Major cities should be modeled after the villages, dotted with ponds and lakes that the villagers know are excellent storage for excess rainwater, and sections of the city should be leveled and gardens planted to improve the water uptake of the soil that is essential to ground water regeneration. All areas within city bounds should be landscaped to allow water to run off into these water bodies and parks, that have the capacity to store the excess rainwater.

If corruption was erradicated, funding even these ambitious projects would become much less of a problem. International aid has always been ready, but our politicians don't have the credibility to make our case. International organizations like the World Bank come in, sanction multi-billion dollar projects modeled after the solutions they used in wherever, by foreign engineers who have never lived in the country, that know nothing of the realities of Bangladesh and spend a lot of money churning up good, God-given soil only to be hit harder by the floods the next year. The politicians don't mind, because they get a healthy 10% of the aid and several hundreds of thousands of taka in bribes from local contractors who need the contracts. Overpaid foreign specialists are brought in, that siphon most of the aid money back with their luxurious salaries as engineering graduates from our most prestigious institutes loiter unemployed and after wallowing for years, take their brilliance to a foreign land. This vicious cycle must end.

Our people stand at a crossroads. We can either choose to realize the realities in which we live and mend our ways, or we can continue on the path to perdition, in which case natural disasters are just the beginning. The world’s climate is changing, and Bangladesh will be among the first nations to be swallowed by the sea. Radical solutions are needed. We must do something.

Highway Blocked, Cars Set Ablaze on Student's Death

http://thedailystar.net/2004/09/07/d4090701022.htm

"A female student of Jahangirnagar University [...] was killed in an accident on [the] Dhaka-Aricha highway in front of the university main gate yesterday morning, sparking [a] massive protest by the grief-stricken fellow students."

" [...] they vandalised about 10 roadside shops and set fire to three. They set three buses, four trucks, three CNG- run three-wheelers and five pick-up vans ablaze."

"Jakia Sultana Sumi, [...] perished on the spot."

" [...] seven people including associate professor of English department Kawsar Hossain have been killed so far in road accidents near the campus. Kawsar was killed on February 1, 2002."

"The demonstrators demanded construction of speed breakers at important points on the road and setting up of traffic police boxes where required."

"The university authorities held an emergency syndicate meeting to take decisions on the students' demands."

Another tragic and pointless loss of life, and another round of my countrymen practicing unlimited freedom of expression. I don't know what's scarier now, freedom or tyranny.

The sad truth of it is that had the students not gone on a rampage and directly threatened the very operation of a crucial institution of tertiary education, nobody would have cared to install these basic safety facilities, which previously actually killed an associate professor. This reactive attitude is appalling; safety measures should be implemented regardless.

I'll be glad if we ever get out of this pit of irresponsibility, immorality and unruliness within my lifetime. Second generation Bangladeshis (those born after independence, i.e. after 1971) are turning up to be even worse than their predecessors, who today run the country, and a fine job they're doing.

At least the first-gen'ers had to fight for something, their independence. Not only did these vandals not fight for anything, they're fat on corrupt, undeserved money and 30 years of ill-governance and consummate lawlessness. We're a nation on the edge.

Even if global warming convinces the Bay of Bengal to swallow us into oblivion, I'm afraid it's just gonna spit us back.