Use and abuse of democracy
Bangladesh and the United States of America are likely to go to polls at the end of this year. In the USA voters might be in the mood to try something historic. It is hard to remember a time when a black American has been in such a prime political position. Barack Obama is the first black American candidate to have serious chance of winning the presidency. Unsurprisingly, in Bangladesh we are perhaps going to witness business usual once again. A majority of our politicians from both the major parties are considered loyal sycophants. Perhaps they are waiting in the forlorn hope that their leaders will be released from prison soon and make the politics of Bangladesh business as usual. Their excessive optimism and naive idealism suggest that they are still in love with the past politics. They are interested for next election only, but not for next generation.
Silent majority reckon that our politicians' culture of corruption mainly imprison vast majority of our people into poverty. Our maverick politicians preach moral and democratic values; constantly speak for greater rights for ethnic and religious minorities. They also speak about protecting human rights, reducing corruption and increasing the quality of governance, yet they practice antithesis of these values. In public speeches, they call on the people to practice benevolence, justice and brotherhood, yet they routinely violate these ideals themselves. Political parties are unused to the idea of sharing power and working together.
On the other hand, the present caretaker government may not be running out of ideas, but surely running out of time. Despite public dissatisfaction over the economy, the administration's approval rating has not fallen significantly as yet. Ordinary people sincerely believe that this government has made a firm decision to tackle the country's massive graft and sleaze problems. Some shrewd politicians try to convince the electorates that this regime is living on borrowed time. It should not indulge in abstract principles and high-minded long-term projects in the face of public's growing impatience with inflationary price spiral. Man in the street demands easy answers and immediate results.
It is rather difficult to explain politically to the people that these policies are very carefully designed for the country's best long-term interest. Across Bangladesh prices are rising fast as domestic output fails to keep pace with surging demand. Naturally, we can distinctly hear the buzz today about discontent about social gloom and political drift, a crisis of faith in the future. I wonder whether mass people will be able to stand up to the crueler economic conditions if crop fails once again. Such hopelessness may drive ordinary people to desperation. The paradox is that, although people sense a lack of choice in politics, yet most political activists are not in a mood to dump the political misnomers into wilderness.
Conventional wisdom now is that, there will be an election in accordance with government's planned road map and at the same time, caretaker administration will make necessary political reforms to change the political complexion of the country. Hopefully, political parties will see sense and bring new brand of politicians into the political mainstream. Only goal-oriented politicians with governing skills and high ethical standards can resist corruption and make necessary concession to political reality.
We need to face up to the fact that in our country, democracy never worked very well. Most of our elections have been followed by governmental paralysis and massive corruption. Does anyone sincerely believe that forthcoming polls will change the essential reality in country's politics, such as corruption and bad governance? Good governance is far more important to Bangladesh's development than the issue of more democracy.
The basic problem confronting this country is not a shortage of democracy but an absence of good governance. Most economic commentators say that fast growth is essential to pull millions of people out of poverty. As we all know, that open market, better education and investment in infrastructures are the three chief ingredients of East Asia's success. Most of the South East Asian nations staked their country's political and social stability on export led job creation, by taking unique advantage of the vast pool of cheap labour. Countries like China, India, Vietnam and Thailand have experienced a significant degree of industrialisation, urbanisation and social transformation in comparison with Bangladesh. Bangladesh's demographic structure is rather beginning to look like that in East Asia.
Population growth by itself does not add to prosperity, unless young people are educated and new jobs are created. Most of our children in rural areas either lack basic education or are educationally disadvantaged. Approximately half of our women are illiterate. Now it is time to tackle the public sector. Infrastructures, such as roads and electricity and public services, such as education and potable water, are woefully inadequate and limit our growth. India's economy has grown by an impressive 9.2 per cent and policy makers think, at some point, India's growth rate could even outpace China's 10.4 per cent. Apparently under the leadership of prime minister Manmohan Singh, India has broken free of its bureaucratic cage and its inventive private sector is shining bright. Tata Steel, Infosys and Wipro are storming global markets.
On the contrary, in our country most of the big private companies are either heavily in debt or are defaulting borrowers and state owned industries have become expensive white elephants. Most political analysts still tussle over how to interpret the period, especially the last two decades, where our political leaders were misguided and blinded by the desire to preserve their power when they should have been building industry and infrastructure as others in South East Asia were doing.
However, it is our cherished hope that now our fractious politicians will be willing to make the necessary concession needed to achieve national reconciliation and help ensure smooth transition to democracy. Evidently, in many Third World countries often criminals become legislators and criminal politicians take power democratically, but the advantage of democracy is that people can get rid of a corrupt and inefficient regime, after a certain period of time. We should not push the country further away from liberal democratic future.
__._,_.___ Silent majority reckon that our politicians' culture of corruption mainly imprison vast majority of our people into poverty. Our maverick politicians preach moral and democratic values; constantly speak for greater rights for ethnic and religious minorities. They also speak about protecting human rights, reducing corruption and increasing the quality of governance, yet they practice antithesis of these values. In public speeches, they call on the people to practice benevolence, justice and brotherhood, yet they routinely violate these ideals themselves. Political parties are unused to the idea of sharing power and working together.
On the other hand, the present caretaker government may not be running out of ideas, but surely running out of time. Despite public dissatisfaction over the economy, the administration's approval rating has not fallen significantly as yet. Ordinary people sincerely believe that this government has made a firm decision to tackle the country's massive graft and sleaze problems. Some shrewd politicians try to convince the electorates that this regime is living on borrowed time. It should not indulge in abstract principles and high-minded long-term projects in the face of public's growing impatience with inflationary price spiral. Man in the street demands easy answers and immediate results.
It is rather difficult to explain politically to the people that these policies are very carefully designed for the country's best long-term interest. Across Bangladesh prices are rising fast as domestic output fails to keep pace with surging demand. Naturally, we can distinctly hear the buzz today about discontent about social gloom and political drift, a crisis of faith in the future. I wonder whether mass people will be able to stand up to the crueler economic conditions if crop fails once again. Such hopelessness may drive ordinary people to desperation. The paradox is that, although people sense a lack of choice in politics, yet most political activists are not in a mood to dump the political misnomers into wilderness.
Conventional wisdom now is that, there will be an election in accordance with government's planned road map and at the same time, caretaker administration will make necessary political reforms to change the political complexion of the country. Hopefully, political parties will see sense and bring new brand of politicians into the political mainstream. Only goal-oriented politicians with governing skills and high ethical standards can resist corruption and make necessary concession to political reality.
We need to face up to the fact that in our country, democracy never worked very well. Most of our elections have been followed by governmental paralysis and massive corruption. Does anyone sincerely believe that forthcoming polls will change the essential reality in country's politics, such as corruption and bad governance? Good governance is far more important to Bangladesh's development than the issue of more democracy.
The basic problem confronting this country is not a shortage of democracy but an absence of good governance. Most economic commentators say that fast growth is essential to pull millions of people out of poverty. As we all know, that open market, better education and investment in infrastructures are the three chief ingredients of East Asia's success. Most of the South East Asian nations staked their country's political and social stability on export led job creation, by taking unique advantage of the vast pool of cheap labour. Countries like China, India, Vietnam and Thailand have experienced a significant degree of industrialisation, urbanisation and social transformation in comparison with Bangladesh. Bangladesh's demographic structure is rather beginning to look like that in East Asia.
Population growth by itself does not add to prosperity, unless young people are educated and new jobs are created. Most of our children in rural areas either lack basic education or are educationally disadvantaged. Approximately half of our women are illiterate. Now it is time to tackle the public sector. Infrastructures, such as roads and electricity and public services, such as education and potable water, are woefully inadequate and limit our growth. India's economy has grown by an impressive 9.2 per cent and policy makers think, at some point, India's growth rate could even outpace China's 10.4 per cent. Apparently under the leadership of prime minister Manmohan Singh, India has broken free of its bureaucratic cage and its inventive private sector is shining bright. Tata Steel, Infosys and Wipro are storming global markets.
On the contrary, in our country most of the big private companies are either heavily in debt or are defaulting borrowers and state owned industries have become expensive white elephants. Most political analysts still tussle over how to interpret the period, especially the last two decades, where our political leaders were misguided and blinded by the desire to preserve their power when they should have been building industry and infrastructure as others in South East Asia were doing.
However, it is our cherished hope that now our fractious politicians will be willing to make the necessary concession needed to achieve national reconciliation and help ensure smooth transition to democracy. Evidently, in many Third World countries often criminals become legislators and criminal politicians take power democratically, but the advantage of democracy is that people can get rid of a corrupt and inefficient regime, after a certain period of time. We should not push the country further away from liberal democratic future.
Anam A Choudhury is a former investment banker.
We suppport his thoughts and ideas and firmly belief that a change is higly needed for better Bangladesh.
-Change Bangladesh Team, USA
www.changebangladesh.org
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___