'71 to '17 : 46 Years in Wrong Direction!

Shattered. The ‘word’ that came into my mind while I was thinking of a ‘journey by time’ for my beloved country. She had passed 46 glorious years and I am of course someone to judge how she passed these long years since 1971. I preserve all rights to do this. I myself is a voice. A voice of her own. A voice of her own growth since her birth. I born during her puberty in 80’s. An age when a young girl gets her biological license to become a mother. I was born then and started growing up along with her changes. Changes which were not only biological but also Logical, typical and proto-typical.

I followed (read and heard) her changes in 80’s from authentic, unauthentic and all other sources those were available to me within various environments. I started observing her changes in 90’s and figured them out slowly later on. I started understanding her changes in late 90’s and in the 21st century, until very recently, I started realizing a fact. A fact. The basis of this writing.

Well. This country has been going through many devastating challenges since her birth in ‘71. The glorious 1971. I always feel proud of. The untold reason is I am the descendant of some hugely courageous people, who has not only been fighting for their birth right (1971), tongue right (1952), political (since 1975) and other rights, but also fighting so positively with natural calamities and unforeseen situations with a smile on their faces always. I am a true descendant of a nation who knows how to fight against error, terror and uneven tortures. But the fact that I mentioned earlier is something else.

The fact that I realized very recently is that these fights have not always been driven to the right direction, for the right cause, neither to the right destiny nor toward the right consequences. The word ‘right’ refers to relatively exact expectations for which my forefathers and fathers sacrificed their lives in 1971. So our leaders led us to a wrong direction since 1975, when we learnt how to fight and achieved our so called 'rights'. All the major movements since then were led for mostly political changes with political motivations, outcomes, results and targets, no matter how depressed or deprived we have been with our rights of food, social security, freedom of speech, education, health and safety and many other primary needs those are not mentioned in Maslow's Pyramid. Interestingly enough, this nation had always been made to see or find the solutions of those needs through 'political' spectacles. So the results have always been through 'political polarization' and 'regime changes'. They were never motivated for a real change within themselves (!) and to starve for that 'real change'. Political regime change is beneficial for political leaders but 'not always' for the nation or people at large. We have never been taught that understanding a problem is actually half of its solution. But we have always tried to jump into an anonymously defined solution before understanding our deep rooted problems at first. Sellucus, isn't it?

Who are our teachers? Political Leaders, so called Intellects, Social figures, You, Me, WHO?

Crisis! I bet crisis is the best teacher. Crisis can make a nation fit for its survival. Lets put some light on why I reached to this conclusion.

Every nation possesses some critically logical, habitual and biological phases of problems just like a human body. Ours have some similar issues. All the problems cannot be solved by any government alone in a day. If those problems have been being created through last 46 years, then we need to be patient enough while sorting for solutions. All our problems cannot be solved by the people themselves. It needs a tie among the government, the people, the institutions (if they are free) and some luck, of course. The leaders need to lead the nation to the right direction while the people need to trust and follow their leaders. Some autonomous institutions need to judge and keep track of this correlation. Otherwise, no matter how efficient any political party is or was, the result will be detrimental as always it has been the case for us. Now, the relative question is what is that direction that we need to search for? What is that outcome that we need to strive for? Fight for? And dream for?

At large, I realized the following three basic areas are the right causes that we need to strive and fight for building a better and improved Bangladesh. The ‘Bangladesh’ that the freedom fighters dreamt of.

Those three areas are as follows.

1. Institutional Reformation: We need to fight for the right of our judicial systems. Though they are so called ‘free’ from the legislature and executive authority but in fact, they need more and complete 'freedom' in order to fight against any government or power. They are the platform that we need for our rights to establish on a legal ground. As long as they are not fully free, I believe I and more explicitly we are never free and never be able to exercise my as well as our freedom of rights. There should be absolutely no thin lines between the legislature and the judicial authority in the country. The Judicial system must be independent enough to challenge any government anytime and be able to 'impeach' the highest authority of the country anytime. Otherwise the eye-washed independence of the judiciary is just a nocturnal enigma for the people, the country and our independence at large. Some other institutions need the same independence through a phase by phase basis in this course like the Election Commission, institution those serve for public rights, Anti-Corruption Commission and many more. The authority of these bodies need to be elected through an autonomous and independent selection process without any sort of government or legislative intervention or dependence. They need to be ‘independent’ as truly independent, not as ‘seemingly independent’.

2. Educational Reformation: Our Education system has been going through many experiments in many hands since the British taught us how to pass public exams. The journey has been long but ineffective. The byproduct (the learned people) are the greatest example of this very truth. This reformation need to be conducted in many folds. The different mediums (i.e., English, Bengali and Madrasa) need to be unified to make a 'common platform' to produce relatively unified product (educated people) to serve the nation at large. The content of the lessons need to be mature and age-specific as far as 21st century is concerned. For an example, ‘behavioral science’ need to be taught in early ages to develop modern and legitimate behavior pattern among the young people. People should learn about their own responsibilities and they need to be cautious about their rights and freedom of ‘whatever’ in the right scale and direction. They need to be taught how to think 'rational' and act accordingly in any phase of life. The outcome will be nation-wide and thus helpful for all in future. The reformation need to be continued until keeping handy capital budgets for research and thesis works during higher educations in universities. There are many areas of this education system where we need immediate attention of the appropriate authority. We must need to reform these areas as soon as possible. The sooner the better, otherwise that dream will fail, no doubt.

3. System Reformation: All our legislative and executive public systems along with some semi-public ones need full reformation within; to eradicate corruptions, correlations in many folds, malpractices, operational errors etc. in order to ultimately foster advanced as well as effective service toward the people and nation at large. For example, the transportation system, Tax management system, Utility Billing System, Communication System, Water Management System, Municipality system etc. Thus we can not only eradicate the loopholes of the government fishing mechanism but also install some fresh new transparency into these public owned services. We actually forgot that these are public owned services, not politically owned services.   

Mental reformation may not be possible but reformation of mentality is very much possible and only this can bring a better Bangladesh in return. We must be able to challenge our thought processes to understand the difference between 'what we are' and 'what we can be'. 'Self challenge' is the 'best challenge' to bring an ultimate 'renaissance' for the people, society and nation at large.

Until then, I better remain shattered.

Shattered. The ‘word’ that came into my mind while I was thinking of a ‘journey by time’ for my beloved country. 'Bangladesh' - the name of a dream, but alas the name of a consequence. 71 to 17 - what a dilema! Where have we been going! ....... Shattered.

                           Written By - Mohammed Saef Ul Arifeen