Government's monga position

This comes on the heels of the commerce minister's statement that prices were normal for this time of year and the finance minister's dismissal of the Transparency International report on corruption in Bangladesh.

These are only the most recent attempts of the government to deny reality and pin the blame for bad news on media exaggeration or opposition propaganda. It seems that whenever it is faced with reports or accounts of bad news, the government's first response is to simply deny it or blame the media for it.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

If there were any indication that these denials were for public consumption only and that the government was at least in private working to address the problems, we would not be so alarmed. But what is so alarming is that the government appears to believe its own propaganda and act accordingly.

We will be the first to admit that the media may occasionally be guilty of exaggeration and even sometimes, though rarely, of error -- but to take the position that any criticism of the government or its policies is false and politically motivated renders the government totally incapable of actually responding to the very real crises that this country faces.

This denial syndrome is self-defeating. If the government does not even acknowledge that a problem exists, how can it even begin to redress the situation? The government's refusal to even acknowledge when there is a problem in the country destroys its credibility and creates an ever-widening gulf between it and the public it is supposed to serve.

For its own sake as well as that of the country's, the government must snap out of this knee-jerk denial mode if it hopes to ever be able to effectively minister to the affairs of state.