A people's agony, a nation's dilemma and some random thoughts
By Lutfur Rahman
A Princess of a well known Asian Royal family had come to Tokyo, in the sixties, for an official visit and was taken on a pleasure trip on one of Tokyo's shiny new subways. In amongst the compartment full of commuters she noticed a group of very young Japanese school children, in their school uniform, bantering away in their youthful exuberance.
At one point of the trip, one of the school children took out a candy from his pocket, popped it in his mouth and rolled the wrapper into a ball before stashing it away into his pocket without missing a beat in his play with his friends.
Later, while commenting on Japan's miraculous recovery after her devastating defeat in the second world war, the princess highlighted Japan's phenomenal accomplishments and attributed her success, not on the sophistication of her work force or on their legendary discipline and productivity but on her culture and education system's ability to turn out youngsters who, instinctively, roll up candy wrappers to stuff in their pockets rather than drop them on the floor.
I often wondered how many of our sub continental politicians or community leaders would have made that lackluster connection, in that context.
One recent News Paper report states that the river Buriganga has now, a layer of discarded plastic bags six(?) feet deep and the river water has taken on the murky color and consistency of something, perhaps, akin to light crude oil. In among the stories of wholesale grabbing of lake, river and water fronts, there are horror stories of how raw industrial and sanitary sewage are being dumped into the nations rivers and lakes with reckless abandon. This callous disregard for one's own life sustaining environment, is not only outrageous this is patently self destructive.
With the conditions of the surface water sources so polluted, underground aquifers depleted by overuse beyond their natural capacity to recharge, citizens of Dhaka, are now lining up in increasing numbers with empty pitchers and buckets in hand, while battling diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, malaria and dengu fever. Clamoring for drinking water (and electrical power) in a country of nothing but rivers is a classic replay of the Ancient Mariner's famous words of lamentations, 'water, water, everywhere not a drop to drink'.
Bangladesh, now, has a population of 160 million which is projected to reach 250 million by 2050. If things remain the same, with the dire shortage of drinking water, the dirty cesspools of rivers, lakes and water waterways, dusty grid locked, fume choked roads and highways, it is difficult to imagine what life would be like in 2050 Bangladesh.
Yet the problem that Dhaka faces today, are not unwinnable by any means. Other human societies had faced them earlier and had overcome them successfully. The Roman's had their aqueducts, the Middle Eastern Petra Nabataea's had their underground reservoirs /cisterns to conserve rain water and modern cities, all over the globe, preserve their fresh water sources in pollution free state to draw from and purify, using treatment plants, before distributing through piping systems to sustain extensive population densities even in parched landscapes.
The only thing that underlined the success of those earlier (and present day) societies, was the knowledge, discipline, and good common sense of the ordinary people, in understanding the common cause and to work in conjunction with everybody else towards a solution that was for the benefit of all.
What Dhaka city dwellers now face are mostly self inflicted. Be it the wholesale littering habits of the people, or the lack of political will or the non performing city bureaucracy this is, once again, another legacy of a society's failure in raising the awareness of its individual members to the critical nature of their actions that come back to haunt whole society in a boomerang.
While Bangladesh seem helpless in preventing such mishaps on a regular basis, successful societies, elsewhere, are busy preparing their communities against such predicament by imparting necessary countervailing knowledge education and indoctrination of their citizens from very early childhood. Guided by the belief that a human child, holds a great potential for positive contribution, if given proper education and guidance, but left uninitiated holds, even a greater potential for destructive consequences, these societies go to great lengths in trying to head off the risks by taking proactive steps in way of training and educating their citizen. .
Heeding to the oft repeated dictum 'A strike in time saves nine', conditioning of children start immediately after their birth, with the basics of society's values, starting at home through family gatherings and then through the community centers, continuing on to the early school system when a human child's brain is most agile and adoptive to learning. The basics of sanitation, hygiene, manners, etiquettes, courtesy, morals, ethics, sharing, fair play, empathy, cooperation, notion of self esteem, self dignity etc. etc., all the positive attributes of the social sciences that form the basis of all positive human inter actions
The consensus seems to be if that window of opportunity is missed, nothing done after wards yields satisfactory results.
Children in our societies, on the other hand, even in affluent enlightened families, are left to the care of care takers, mostly unlettered and untutored, whether ayahs, nannies or family members until they are ready to go to school. By that time a child's view of the world and his or her place in it has already been cast and set thereby setting the stage for another round of all the age old notions, biases and prejudices that have plagued our societies since the beginning of time.
Imparting catch-up education at that stage, in most cases, end up as something akin to slapping on a coat of high gloss paint on a rusty surface with the attendant risk of creating misguided geniuses or pompous characters like Sree Kanto's Nutan Da (Sharat Chandra Chottopodya novel), for lack of a better example. One does not have to look too far and too wide to find them
Yet as a people we are no less (or no more) capable than any other human stock, to look and learn and to devise and adopt, appropriate survival skills and strategies. Many are capable of reaching very high professional standards, yet appear to display a distorted view of life's ideals or what it means to live meaningful lives in a society or, worse still, get obsessively focused on corruption, self adulation, accumulation of wealth at any or by all means.
At the risk of being accused of belaboring a point a bit too far, look at the case of one Mr. Sirajdi Khan featured in Prothom Alo recently (http:///www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2010-04-13/news/56196).
For those who missed the story Mr Khan projected himself as a faith healer, of sort, treating young babies (and others) employing a method that included spinning them by their ankles, or thrashing them on to the ground violently enough to send them to a state of unconsciousness.
When Mr. Khan is a typical con man plying his craft the way he knows best, and of whom every society has its share, the most interesting, in my view, are his three associates who had, reportedly, formed a committee to facilitate the bilking process. Accused of being a member in a sham organization one of the committee member Mr. Nuru Member(?) had this to say, sheepishly ( " kagoje kalame to kisu nai, ekta komite ghoton korlei ki komite hoia jai ? (in verbatim, as reported ). Roughly translated, ' it is not in black and white, just because we formed a committee doesn't a committee become !"
With the finer points of legal loopholes so well grasped, even though outwardly he appears unlettered, imagine what a few years of schooling, to take out the rough edges, would do to him for a career in law or politics.
Yet Mr. Khan and his associates are no more the demons than many people in many other societies are not. Look at the subprime mortgage market meltdown, in the west, that almost took down the whole world's economic system, two years back. The only difference being, other societies are striving unceasingly to keep the likes of Mr. Khans in check devising ever more effective ante dotes all the time, we are not, and appear to be ambivalent of the danger, if not actively condoning such behavior.
Prime Minister Hasina has taken some positive steps, this time around. Whether it is her vision of Digital Bangladesh or opening up the country to our neighbors in appreciation of the facts that in today's world we rise or fall in company, not in isolation, or her efforts towards making the country truly secular irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, caste, creed or class are timely changes that Bangladesh need now.
Her efforts to bring in a new education policy, to bring education in Bangladesh, in line with what is the norm in other societies, should be at the forefront of that Din Badal process.
How Bangladesh fares, in future, among the rest of the modern world will depend on how successful she is in adapting that new education policy, a policy that will address all the issues, including that of early childhood education, that is in keeping with the rest of the world.
Needless to say that new policy will be incomplete without a lesson for the youngsters on how to roll a candy wrapper into a ball to stuff into a pocket.
http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=317560
At one point of the trip, one of the school children took out a candy from his pocket, popped it in his mouth and rolled the wrapper into a ball before stashing it away into his pocket without missing a beat in his play with his friends.
Later, while commenting on Japan's miraculous recovery after her devastating defeat in the second world war, the princess highlighted Japan's phenomenal accomplishments and attributed her success, not on the sophistication of her work force or on their legendary discipline and productivity but on her culture and education system's ability to turn out youngsters who, instinctively, roll up candy wrappers to stuff in their pockets rather than drop them on the floor.
I often wondered how many of our sub continental politicians or community leaders would have made that lackluster connection, in that context.
One recent News Paper report states that the river Buriganga has now, a layer of discarded plastic bags six(?) feet deep and the river water has taken on the murky color and consistency of something, perhaps, akin to light crude oil. In among the stories of wholesale grabbing of lake, river and water fronts, there are horror stories of how raw industrial and sanitary sewage are being dumped into the nations rivers and lakes with reckless abandon. This callous disregard for one's own life sustaining environment, is not only outrageous this is patently self destructive.
With the conditions of the surface water sources so polluted, underground aquifers depleted by overuse beyond their natural capacity to recharge, citizens of Dhaka, are now lining up in increasing numbers with empty pitchers and buckets in hand, while battling diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, malaria and dengu fever. Clamoring for drinking water (and electrical power) in a country of nothing but rivers is a classic replay of the Ancient Mariner's famous words of lamentations, 'water, water, everywhere not a drop to drink'.
Bangladesh, now, has a population of 160 million which is projected to reach 250 million by 2050. If things remain the same, with the dire shortage of drinking water, the dirty cesspools of rivers, lakes and water waterways, dusty grid locked, fume choked roads and highways, it is difficult to imagine what life would be like in 2050 Bangladesh.
Yet the problem that Dhaka faces today, are not unwinnable by any means. Other human societies had faced them earlier and had overcome them successfully. The Roman's had their aqueducts, the Middle Eastern Petra Nabataea's had their underground reservoirs /cisterns to conserve rain water and modern cities, all over the globe, preserve their fresh water sources in pollution free state to draw from and purify, using treatment plants, before distributing through piping systems to sustain extensive population densities even in parched landscapes.
The only thing that underlined the success of those earlier (and present day) societies, was the knowledge, discipline, and good common sense of the ordinary people, in understanding the common cause and to work in conjunction with everybody else towards a solution that was for the benefit of all.
What Dhaka city dwellers now face are mostly self inflicted. Be it the wholesale littering habits of the people, or the lack of political will or the non performing city bureaucracy this is, once again, another legacy of a society's failure in raising the awareness of its individual members to the critical nature of their actions that come back to haunt whole society in a boomerang.
While Bangladesh seem helpless in preventing such mishaps on a regular basis, successful societies, elsewhere, are busy preparing their communities against such predicament by imparting necessary countervailing knowledge education and indoctrination of their citizens from very early childhood. Guided by the belief that a human child, holds a great potential for positive contribution, if given proper education and guidance, but left uninitiated holds, even a greater potential for destructive consequences, these societies go to great lengths in trying to head off the risks by taking proactive steps in way of training and educating their citizen. .
Heeding to the oft repeated dictum 'A strike in time saves nine', conditioning of children start immediately after their birth, with the basics of society's values, starting at home through family gatherings and then through the community centers, continuing on to the early school system when a human child's brain is most agile and adoptive to learning. The basics of sanitation, hygiene, manners, etiquettes, courtesy, morals, ethics, sharing, fair play, empathy, cooperation, notion of self esteem, self dignity etc. etc., all the positive attributes of the social sciences that form the basis of all positive human inter actions
The consensus seems to be if that window of opportunity is missed, nothing done after wards yields satisfactory results.
Children in our societies, on the other hand, even in affluent enlightened families, are left to the care of care takers, mostly unlettered and untutored, whether ayahs, nannies or family members until they are ready to go to school. By that time a child's view of the world and his or her place in it has already been cast and set thereby setting the stage for another round of all the age old notions, biases and prejudices that have plagued our societies since the beginning of time.
Imparting catch-up education at that stage, in most cases, end up as something akin to slapping on a coat of high gloss paint on a rusty surface with the attendant risk of creating misguided geniuses or pompous characters like Sree Kanto's Nutan Da (Sharat Chandra Chottopodya novel), for lack of a better example. One does not have to look too far and too wide to find them
Yet as a people we are no less (or no more) capable than any other human stock, to look and learn and to devise and adopt, appropriate survival skills and strategies. Many are capable of reaching very high professional standards, yet appear to display a distorted view of life's ideals or what it means to live meaningful lives in a society or, worse still, get obsessively focused on corruption, self adulation, accumulation of wealth at any or by all means.
At the risk of being accused of belaboring a point a bit too far, look at the case of one Mr. Sirajdi Khan featured in Prothom Alo recently (http:///www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2010-04-13/news/56196).
For those who missed the story Mr Khan projected himself as a faith healer, of sort, treating young babies (and others) employing a method that included spinning them by their ankles, or thrashing them on to the ground violently enough to send them to a state of unconsciousness.
When Mr. Khan is a typical con man plying his craft the way he knows best, and of whom every society has its share, the most interesting, in my view, are his three associates who had, reportedly, formed a committee to facilitate the bilking process. Accused of being a member in a sham organization one of the committee member Mr. Nuru Member(?) had this to say, sheepishly ( " kagoje kalame to kisu nai, ekta komite ghoton korlei ki komite hoia jai ? (in verbatim, as reported ). Roughly translated, ' it is not in black and white, just because we formed a committee doesn't a committee become !"
With the finer points of legal loopholes so well grasped, even though outwardly he appears unlettered, imagine what a few years of schooling, to take out the rough edges, would do to him for a career in law or politics.
Yet Mr. Khan and his associates are no more the demons than many people in many other societies are not. Look at the subprime mortgage market meltdown, in the west, that almost took down the whole world's economic system, two years back. The only difference being, other societies are striving unceasingly to keep the likes of Mr. Khans in check devising ever more effective ante dotes all the time, we are not, and appear to be ambivalent of the danger, if not actively condoning such behavior.
Prime Minister Hasina has taken some positive steps, this time around. Whether it is her vision of Digital Bangladesh or opening up the country to our neighbors in appreciation of the facts that in today's world we rise or fall in company, not in isolation, or her efforts towards making the country truly secular irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, caste, creed or class are timely changes that Bangladesh need now.
Her efforts to bring in a new education policy, to bring education in Bangladesh, in line with what is the norm in other societies, should be at the forefront of that Din Badal process.
How Bangladesh fares, in future, among the rest of the modern world will depend on how successful she is in adapting that new education policy, a policy that will address all the issues, including that of early childhood education, that is in keeping with the rest of the world.
Needless to say that new policy will be incomplete without a lesson for the youngsters on how to roll a candy wrapper into a ball to stuff into a pocket.
http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=317560
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