Where everybody is king

[This was published on 20 June 2014 in Dhaka Courier]

Nowadays habitually everybody here in Bangladesh is speaker, teacher, preacher, administrator, technocrat, technical expert, scientist, businessman, politician, leader, statesman and master and come what may not and, hence, nobody likes to see herself/himself as follower, apprentice or learner. It is, in fact, called a ‘state of being jack of all trades, master of none’, which is in the final analysis and summation neither good for anybody of us nor it is appreciable from sociological point of view at all. Sense of being a king overnight without any necessary cause and effect is now a reality. Here knowledge and experience need not be earned and stored, leadership and statesmanship need not to be learnt and practiced organizationally and/or institutionally as if all these are the birth-qualities, which go inherently and without human intervention with them all. Respects, norms, values, traditions and so on upon which grow, develop and depends one’s culture are at the present under such ghostly spells. Teachers, trainers, speakers and alike in formal institutions fell shy or embarrassed to play roles routinely and duly. Religious leaders in mosques, temples, churches, pagodas etc are disturbed and sidetracked in their respective fields as well. In public administration hierarchical position is no more a measuring rod to understand powers and functions of the executive concerned. Rather a kind of informal leaderships and pressure groups decides there the most vital issues through the possible veins of sycophancy, philistinism and cronyism. Corruptions in many forms, scales and dimensions are rampant and unbridled even under the very nose and collaboration of so many agencies, open or secret, including the highly talked-about Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) in the Bangla language "DUDOK", Durnite Domon Commission (it is branded by its former chief as toothless tiger). More frustrating landscapes are prevailing in the field of political parties where all the political parties from right to left to centre are the worst victims of such crumple A sway of phobia is clouding  the firmament of optimism, hope and aspirations of the nation.

Understanding and realizing these possible and available standpoints, one may not be of different view and perception that Bangladesh is the most unique land on this earth planet of the star ‘Sun’. This very acuity has been haunting the nation in so negative mood and mode that the overall order and chain of command at each and every station of life, starting from familial to social, religious, local, regional to national standing, is almost at crossroads, which at the same time also passes on record a message, plain as the nose on one’s face, of our speedy falling down in almost all respects.

Asking is why does it happen? Who are mainly responsible for such catastrophes? How can such negative moves and escalation be restrained and controlled? Yes, replies are not far away since it happens because political parties upon which rest the wheel of the nation and who through elections, parliament and local bodies, get chance to take the leadership to run government following respective agenda, vision and mission. Obviously, therefore, we must conclude that  it takes place necessarily because of lack of determined political will and approaches of the two major political parties AL and BNP to take note what are the best pragmatic, accommodative and reconciliatory steps to get rid of all these and, to suit the very purposes, it must be ensured that (a) honest, sincere and transparent drives backed by necessary political will of the party/alliance in power are made and (b) opposition political parties come forward with unprejudiced and reasonable bent of mind and stand by the party/alliance in power to put the right initiatives into practice accordingly.

To reach at the goals, we have to go to the root i.e. smooth functioning of parliamentary democracy. Logical conclusion is that ‘where is a will, there is a way’ and, hence, ‘where there is a happy marriage/understanding between or among the position and the opposition(s) in parliament, there are lot of ways to do good accordingly’. Does such understanding grow without condition-precedent? Definitely not, because ‘give and take policy’ is the basis of such understanding, which one may call mutually rewarding first and secondly it should warp up national interests going beyond the limits of party line of approaches. For such intersection both the position and the opposition need to be accommodative, reconciliatory and sacrificing and this mindset or state of mind is called statesmanship. Is Awami League is ready to listen to Bangladesh Nationalist Party and vice versa? There is no denying the fact the diametrically opposing stands of these two political parties plus widening chasms between the two topmost leaders Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia need to be minimized and bridged for the smooth functioning of Parliamentary Democracy in Bangladesh. It is now Hasina’s turn to pay attention to the smooth running of parliamentary democracy coming out of the state of intoxication of the great march of democracy after the 05 January2014 so-called elections to the 10^th parliament.

Sheikh Hasina has to take into contemplation with utmost seriousness and authenticity that to survive and continue in power people’s perception about her newly installed government is very significant.  Therefore, until and unless perception of the people gets refreshed and reset that she is wise enough to weigh and evaluate the post-effects of 05 January 2014 parliamentary election, in that case no doable and promising feedbacks can be expected of. Leader of BNP Begum Khaleda Zia shall have to be less emotional, pugnacious, re-active and sensitive while dealing with AL and Sheikh Hasina in particular. There we need a melting point, which is otherwise recognized as ‘consensus’. Let us not sidetrack or forget ‘real sometimes is more ideal than ideal itself’. Let us not encourage the ongoing state of standing of our sickest politics and statecrafts. Let us say goodbye to the reign where everybody is king since we are definitely not living in Hobbes’ state of nature, which he visualized in his epoch-making book ‘‘Leviathan’ more than hundred years ago.