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EDITORIAL
Yunus: Utopian dream
and ground realities
The country's politicians seem to be nonchalant and ill at ease at the pronouncement of Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Dr Yunus who is now seriously contemplating joining politics. The Banker to the Poor, by all means a Mr Clean, and the country's highest achiever so far in terms of practical output and impact of his Grameen Bank model of poverty alleviation, Dr Yunus will be enthusiastically received anywhere on this planet to do politics, but in his own home professional politicians do not seem to wish him well in his new venture. What a queer country is this, Selukas!
Everyone knows, the other day in an open letter to the people Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus asked for views on his plan to float a party to establish political goodwill, proper leadership and good governance and build a new Bangladesh. Meanwhile, in a newspaper poll, over 65 per cent people have voted in favour of Yunus as the founder of a political party; and they are genuinely good people who respect social, human and moral values and norms. But are they aware of the ground reality where grave malaise is deep-seated?
The country was on the verge of a catastrophic situation as violent anarchy was let loose, leaders of a party declared that 'Rakta Ganga' would ensue if Justice Hasan were invited to head the caretaker government (CG), and activists of that party began dancing on the corpse of an opponent activist killed by them, all sane people said enough is enough and almost began losing faith in politics as such. On all the satellite TV channels the nation as well the world has witnessed the worst killing spree on Dhaka streets soon after the end of the immediate past regime. TV watchers at home and abroad have seen with horror the murder of a man at Purana Paltan area. At that time Dr Yunus offered a wonderful panacea for streamlining politics, but that was instantly rejected by the traditional politicians. What a queer country is this, Selukas!
So, as a citizen who else can be the fittest person than him to do politics? When he intends to reduce poverty he performed it intently and changed the life of over six million neglected, disadvantaged women. The magic wand of Grameen Bank micro-credit helped them throw away their begging bowls and stand on their own feet. In defiance of the principles of conventional banking he gave textbook economics a new dimension. Notwithstanding the debate on its call rate, his Grameen Phone project pioneered in expanding cellular phones to remote rural homes.
Since the independence of the nation from foreign domination, barring a brief phase of reasonably quiet circumstances, the country has journeyed through the vicissitudes of adversity, affliction, misfortune and critical crises of cataclysmic proportion. After downfall of Ershad in 1990 democracy was thought to be born again in the country, and the country has journeyed through a democratic order for long sixteen years when opposition parliament members walked out and boycotted Jatiya Sangsad, busied themselves in street agitations, squabbled on flimsy matters, called Hartals demanding the government's resignation. Neither of the parties could live up to people's expectation.
World history has witnessed the emergence of great emperors like Law Giver Suleiman the Magnificent and Kemal Ataturk who changed the course of history. Great generals like Napolean Bonaparte became the icon and role model for the whole of Europe as he left a lasting, indelible imprint on the politicians of his time. Even a doctor by training, Mahthir Mohammad, has brought about very significant economic progress and social uplift for his people. What's wrong if an internationally celebrated personality like Yunus enters politics?
One may term his political aim a Utopian dream, for he wants to build a good society in which the polity too will echo his result-based programme. To say the least, this is going to be a gigantic task, if not totally impossible. We are living at a time when the ideals of giants among our statesmen - Sher-e-Bangla, Maulana Bhashani, Suhrawardi and their close collegues- would have been simply odd men out had they been alive today.
But Before Yunus takes a plunge into the river of politics he must thoroughly circumspect and reflect on its dimension, pros and cons. He will have to learn the dynamics of the country's typical politics and politicking. Does this idealist know that in this country old values have taken the back seat, major change has taken place and political Mastaans have been ruling the roost for the past decades?
Dr Yunus has worked for the uplift of the rural folks but may not have been in villages for a considerable time. If he does so, even in his own village he is sure to discover formidable virulent human vultures and wolves -- under the veneer of sober innocent faces -- deceiving and ruthlessly exploiting the innocent and the powerless poor. Many of these crooks swindle the last resource of hapless folks. We presume he is aware of these home truths and ground realities, and is prepared to confront them successfully.
The country's policos will do well to memorise the adage: A politician looks for the success of his party; a statesman looks for the success of his country.
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Will Yunus of Grameen Bank join Politics, bring necessary changes?
Mohammed Ali Sattar
The merriment of the great event-the Nobel peace prize- quickly subsided. The receptions and welcome addresses by individuals and bodies showering praises on Prof Yunus have also swiftly receded. WE have, it appears, conveniently forgotten the mega attainment by Prof.Yunus.
Prof Yunus, immediately after returning to Dhaka from attending the award giving ceremony found himself in a critical situation. The country was in grip of political violence and there was no rule of law prevailing. Soon as he landed at ZIA, he was repeatedly asked to give his reaction to the prevalent political impasse. He was also asked if would accept the post of the Chief Adviser of the Caretaker government. He quite expectedly declined.
Later, he came up with proposals as solution to the political crises that we found ourselves in. His proposal was probably not even heard by many in the society. The political parties, especially, the AL was first to react. M A Jalil, the General Secretary of Bangladesh Awami League, brushed aside the proposal as unconstitutional and undemocratic and never talked about it. No big reaction or comments came from the any corner. Civil society members did not care to study those. Therefore, the proposal was dumped.
Recently, Prof. Yunus again raised a storm in the press and politics of Bangladesh. This time his reported statement about the politicians has offended the politicians. He reportedly said that the politicians are in politics just for money. This has wider implications. We can interpret his comments in more than one way. To this the AL and BNP reacted, though not quite sharply, as one would expect.
The AL leader's criticized the comment in that they claimed that not all politicians are corrupt. But this will be very hard to prove. No debate was initiated from any quarter. Actually, the politicians were rather reluctant to get involved in such a sensitive debate. They probably know that they might lose the battle against Yunus and others like him.
One cannot deny the fact the politicians in many ways have let the people down. They have almost destroyed whatever ethics was left in politics. The science of running the government and statecraft has developed over the years. The philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Locke, Homes and many more gave spent their time to finally come out with an acceptable definition of state, government, constitution, rule of law, democracy and democratic rights and tried to give solutions to the ongoing conflicts between the individual and state, religion and state, political conflicts, the status of the constitution, freedom of speech and fundamental rights, and so on.
Their successors, though split into different school of thoughts, have managed to wield considerable influence over the world politics. Today there are thousands of democratic institutions, human rights organizations, and child and women rights bodies; bodies for protection of rights for the almost all professions of the world. People have democratically elected governments in many countries, they also have democracy being practiced in many, and they have transitional society where everybody is trying to establish acceptable democratic state machinery.
After Second World War, Germany and Japan made amazing progress and today stand out among the prosperous states of the world. Vietnam after having fought the US for over a decade has, in the last 30 years, made tremendous progress, one can draw many more examples.
Look at country's leaders. What have they delivered? The society has given birth to numerous people with shady background who rose and made it big in the politics with zero commitment to patriotism and responsibility to the people. They are a highly partisan group with zero tolerance. They have, in most cases, set bad examples. Instead of generating hopes and aspirations through realistic approaches and development efforts, they have rather delivered crony capitalism, hopelessness and frustration. The patience and tolerance of the people have now reached a stage that they are ready to embrace anybody who is a doer, has a known track record of success and achievements and who will say a few soothing words of peace and truth, give them hope and show them the way to a continued dignified existence.
Starting from a member of the Union Parishad to the senior most ministers and MP's all have tainted images. And not without reason. Why can't these politicians change the image and come out with fresh vows? If people are the real source of their strength why don't they just do something for the people?
Prof Yunus, who started a noble venture back in the early seventies, has now caught the imagination of the people. He has been much sought after these days because the people really do not have any other individual to look up to. He has a non-political image and an outspoken character and clearly he stands out among the present lot. But he has already made adversaries in the national arena.
His recent declaration in India, which he has also repeated on his return to Dhaka about his willingness to join politics will have an interesting impact on the country's volatile state of affairs. According to press reports he expressed his willingness to join politics but doesn't want to be the powerless President. No wonder, he wants to be in politics and that too with power to deliver something, nothing wrong with that.
If Prof Yunus decides to be in politics with new political beliefs and principals, he should be welcome in the rough waters. People will look at him with lofty hopes.
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Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Yunus
Mustafizur Rahman
This is in appreciation of our national hero - Dr. Yunus - the Nobel Laureate for Peace. It may apparently and superficially arouse some sort of query and question to many humble minds. Primarily, Dr. Yunus is an Economist, a doctorate in economic theories. Grameen Bank is his revolutionary concept. But he is not merely a celebrated theoretician only. He is a reality-based and practice-oriented theoretician. His scholarship is demonstrated on the ground realities yielding commendable success. He is an economist not only of theories on papers and books, but at the same time he is an activist of his theories and scholarship showing a unique success in concept.
His economic theory and scholarship have proved to be a method for poverty alleviation. Poverty and economic disparity have been rightly identified as the biggest obstacle to peace both locally and internationally. So Dr. Yunus received the Nobel Prize primarily for peace and for economics as well, in a greater sense.
In the Nobel Prize Award history, this is unique and exemplary on many counts. Here we have observed astonishingly unique combination of theory, practice and success. He has not only elaborated his theories and philosophy. He has demonstrated his ideas practically through organizations and enterprise yielding amazing results and success. Indeed, he is an uncommon Nobel Laureate in view of the above. The philosophy and written theories of Dr. Yunus, have benefited mankind in general, and the poor people of the world in particular.
Again he has ushered in a noble and novel concept of business. Normally, business is money-based on honest profit. He has shown that business can also be based on humanism and humanity. He has made his Grameen Chek internationally famous. He is a proactive person. Mostly we people are the talkative ones, reactive and complacent. On the contrary, Dr. Yunus has achieved success, not rhetoric. There is another recent example of "Shakti Doodh" (milk for babies) - a Grameen - Danon product (a joint venture with famous French company). It may be highly a prospective item, nationally and internationally.
Dr. Yunus attended a conference in Taipei (Taiwan) where he delivered a goodwill speech as the guest of honor, where he ventilated his desires regarding Fresh Flower cultivation specially Orchids, and its onward overseas exports from Bangladesh. To him, Bangladesh is ideal for fresh flowers cultivation particularly. Orchids grow in village homesteads all over Bangladesh. I had the opportunity of studying about floriculture (fresh flower cultivation) and I understand that Bangladesh is highly prospective for floriculture and exports.
Dr. Yunus has rightly identified the subject. And he is yet to do it on fresh flower production and exports. Fresh flowers have immense prospect of earning huge foreign exchange. It constitutes one of the largest turnover and foreign exchange earnings in the world Re: CBI, Rotterdam / Alassmeer, Holland.
*The author is the Chairman, Society Watch & Research
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VIEW POINT
Foreign interference in our internal affairs
Muhammad Afsar Ali Farajee
Bangladesh is an independent democratic country. The nation achieved independence from the Pakistani occupation after a great armed struggle in which many people sacrificed their lives. During the liberation war the US administration opposed our freedom struggle and supported Pakistani military Junta. Nixon administration always sided with Pakistan and extended both military and economic help to Pakistani military Junta against our freedom struggle. About one crore people had to become refugees in India.
Bangladesh was fully liberated on 16th December, 1971. After independence Bangladesh was recognised by UK within a very short period but USA did not recognise Bangladesh till Sheikh Mujibur Rahman brutally killed in a military coup in 1975. This is US policy of imperialism. US imperialism got a good lesson in the Vietnam War in last century.
There was a time when Britain had great colonies in Asia, Africa, America. There was a saying that "the sun never sets in the British empire". Those are matters of the history and it is not possible to take any military action by UK without climbing on the head of USA. Some critics opine that UK has turned into the 51st state of USA. But, Bangladesh is a fully independent sovereign state like many other independent states; our country is also democratic.
The citizens of our country are competent to choose their representatives in a free and fair election. But very recently, US ambassador to Bangladesh Ms. Butenis has uttered very derogatory remark regarding our internal politics, which is quite undiplomatic and already violated all diplomatic norms and code of ethics of international diplomacy. Ms. Butenis should remember that she has no right to make any comments about our internal affairs. It amounts to clear violation of all international laws. It amounts to interfere in our internal affairs against which every Bangladeshi will protest.
During the last part of a party rule we have observed Ms. Butenis invited both the party leaders and the party alliance leaders to a tea party for political dialogue between the two alliances which was not held. No patriotic citizen of our country can be happy at undiplomatic remarks of Ms. Butenis.
To speak the truth, there is no democracy in USA; but- there is 100 per cent 'Bushocracy' there. We, the Bangladeshis do not need any 'Bushocracy' in our country. USA is the biggest corrupt country of the world. President Bush is the greatest war criminal of 21st century who should be tried in international criminal court along with Tony Blair. The remarks of Ms. Butenis had already been criticised by many quaters.
Even, Ms. Butenis has uttered remarks about the activities of our president and the caretaker govt.- I do not find any justification for interference in our internal affairs by US ambassador Ms. Butenis and by the European Union.
We have nothing to learn from Ms. Butenis in this regard, it will be wise for her to refrain from such undiplomatic activities.
All the diplomats of all the countries- stationed in Dhaka should urgently realise it, we don't want to see any undiplomatic behaviour of foreign diplomats.
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LETTERS
Clean-up drive
Dear Editor:
It was so good to see all those illegal buildings and tinsheds being demolished in Dhaka. One tumbling tinshed had the BNP logo! What utter disgrace that criminal gangs attached themselves to political parties and openly displayed their power in Dhaka streets. And now one wonders what will become of the crime merchants. I know that the real losers will be the daily toilers and their children who now will have even less than before.
The next challenge is to remove all the crooks at BTTB, Bangladesh Biman, PetroBangla, etc who have plundered the country and brought shame on all of us who have Bengali genes. Not only should their ill-gotten plush homes be demolished with the entire family watching the event (like those daily toilers) but even worse; some of them should receive the Saddam treatment. Of course I am jesting! It's a fantasy, but one that will give pleasure to 99.8 per cent of Bangladesh's honest, decent, courageous, patriotic citizens.
Taslima.
N'ganj readers want Holiday
Dear Editor:
Narayanganj is a district town. It is adjacent to capital city of Dhaka. All kinds of dailies, weeklies, monthly journals are available at N'ganj. It is surprising that the weekly Holiday where people of Bangladesh find their thought and ideas, is not available at Narayanganj. The hawkers or news agents say that they do not get Holiday nowadays. The readers have to collect Holiday from Dhaka. It creates unnecessary expenditure against conveyance and wastage of time. I urge the Holiday authorities to make arrangement for Holiday so that readers can collect it from Narayanganj hawkers or news agents.
A.M.K. Chowdhury,
West Masdhair, Narayanganj.
GMG's passenger handling
Dear Editor:
We came to Dhaka by GMG airline from Delhi on 30th January, 2006. At the airport, we were one of the first people in the queue. We checked in 3 hrs earlier before the departure time. My husband earnestly requested the ground staff: "could you please provide a seat with a bit more leg room as my wife recently had a total knee replacement and bending could be bit of a problem."
When we boarded the aircraft we found our two seats in the near-middle. Later on we noticed (when it was perhaps too late) that one side the front row of the economy class was completely empty and also the emergency exit area- seats with more leg room were also empty.
Do you think it was right? Do the GMG ground staff members handle elderly passengers like this? If the seats were all full or we were late in checking then we could console ourself thinking that they could not help.
Dr. S.N. Syed,
Dhaka.
On expansion of D-8
Dear Editor:
D-8 or Developing-8 was formed in 1997 with a view to co-ordinated development of eight Afro-Asian Muslim countries. The countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Nigeria. As the countries have historical familiarities so have abundance of various resources. Recently the membership of SAARC has risen from seven to eight with observer status to China and Japan. D-8 may have a limited expansion like the previous one. The most likely country to be considered for inclusion is Gabon from Africa.
Gabon is a country in central Africa, which has abundance as well as diversity in mineral and other natural resources. The forest resources include timber and the mineral resources include petroleum, iron, maneganese, gold and diamond. Gabon is a member of the organisation of petroleum exporting countries or OPEC.
Besides, she is a member of the OIC. Although, almost twice the size in comparison to Bangladesh, Gabon has a population of only about 14 lakh. The President of the country is Omar Bongo, who is at the helm of affairs since 1967. Though a Christian by birth, he converted to Islam in the early seventies of the past century. Familiar as a respected and influential personality in and around Gabon, he has not a strong connection with rest of the Muslim world. But Nigeria, one of the D-8 countries, is a neighbour of the former and the only country in between is Cameroon, which is well known to football lovers around the world. There is also easy sea and air communication between Nigeria and Gabon.
Hence, inclusion of the aforesaid country in the D-8 is likely to enhance the momentum of the forum and this may be considered in the next summit of the organisation.
Khalique Mashrequi,
Mirpur, Dhaka.
Our democracy faces 'acid test'
Dear Editor:
It is payback time in Bangladesh, five-times unbeaten corruption champ. Law enforcement agencies have picked up more than a dozen leading figures so far, and others are counting their days. The country's top politicians, including lawmakers and former ministers, are on the run due to their alleged association with corruption and underworld godfathers. It was the biggest such action against high-profile figures since the declaration of a state of emergency.
The country's 140 million are deprived of the fruits of democracy, while a handful of politicians, bureaucrats and underworld dons looted billions of dollars worth of resources from the public treasury.
One of the advisers to the administration said that they don't want to chase small fish, but have launched the crackdown to grab the big fish first. Bangladesh's 15-year experiment with democracy faces its 'acid test' now.
Shakeel Ahmed Ibne Mahmood, MPA
Dhaka.
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