Three exits in one week

We don't need to feel sorry for them. That is the name of the game. You buy into the game, you buy into the rules. Private men go public when they want to do something for a greater cause and become recognised in the public eye for what they accomplish. At times it backfires, and people disappear in ignominy or shame, often asked to quit much to the horror of someone who has to give up the plate before the meal is finished. There are others who walk away from the table because they don't like what they see.

The first man did neither, because he died. There you don't have any choice, because, all said and done, we can't bargain with death. He lived a reasonably long life; the first public office he held was also his last. He was an astute politician and could hold the same office, if he lived to seek it again.

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The third man left office on questionable grounds, and we have to read his resignation between the lines. He quit on health ground and hard work, all at the cost of a lucrative private practice. All of them sounded like valid reasons but didn't quite convince many people. There is an aftertaste of a short story about the whole thing. The end doesn't quite feel like the ending.

But the second man who served his term and then left, remains a mystery. Nobody could question his honesty and erudition. He was ready to serve his country after a comfortable retirement from an international service. For a while we heard rumours that the government wanted to keep him. What we know now is that it was tabled at the Cabinet meeting, which declined to extend the age limit for the job. We don't know if the man was at all willing to hang around for a second term. May be, he also had his reasons to quit-- health, peace of mind, simple disgust for what he didn't like. May be the government also has its reasons to let go of him.

I am not interested in these men, any more than someone using examples to make a point. Public life has its own survival skills, the wheeling and dealing, huffing and puffing, lying and cheating. These are often required techniques to withstand the heat.

Often, it is habitual and instinctive like a foul-mouthed drill sergeant in the army, who is tough and mean as a way to raise good soldiers.

But it is also equally important that we make public life appealing to good people. For that we have to make room for those who are inept in politics, people who are professional, well-meaning, honest, and dedicated, who are committed to bring social justice and harmony, equitable distribution of wealth, infrastructural development, rule of law and much more, but shudder at the thought of politics.

Now the country belongs to them as much as it belongs to anybody else, and that is the irony of political tolerance, which brings us to the age-old dilemma of good and bad. The bad doesn't complain because good is always beneficial. But the good has to suffer the bad and all its harmful effects. Tolerance is sadly a one-sided affair. It means only the good has an obligation to make allowance for the bad.

Anyway, we can start by thinking that good folks are special people, handicapped by their terrible contradiction: high on intelligence to lead the country but low on emotional capacity to put up with politics. It is an irony that politics attracts the wrong people for the right reasons and keeps away the right people for the wrong reasons. But we need good people in good politics as much as we should get rid of bad people in bad politics.

One of the rude awakenings for those who enter public life is that everything is tied to the party line, the great mantra of partisan ululation whereby truth, justice, fairness and freedom are handled with raw emotions. I am not a great fan of the third quitter, but his subordinates and colleagues are claiming that his resignation was good riddance. Why? He was an embarrassment for the government, the ruling party and its alliance.

Ellen Goodman writes in The Washington Post that history is full of heroes who rebelliously followed their consciences as much as it's also full of people who shamefully followed orders. Politics is where these two extremes come to a head, when rebellious heroes seize power and then want their followers to follow orders. That is not a problem for the opportunistic bad guys, who come into politics for a cut or margin. But what is in it for the good guys, whose aim in politics is nothing but to serve their country and their people?

The world belongs to the brave, and bravery now belongs to the knave. At least one of the three guys who quit last week was a good guy and I know it for sure. This man brought knowledge, experience and recognition to his job. But then he is gone, probably because he wasn't "brave" enough to suck up to the party bosses and toe the party line. Subordination is a great virtue in any profession, but public office must have enough ventilation so that good people, who come to it, do not feel dishonoured and suffocated.

For politicians, it comes as naturally as mother's milk. One politician puts lot of gel in his hair, and the joke is that he carries the provision on his head for what he does best to keep the job. And he does it well, because despite his shady past, bad looks, lousy speeches and questionable manners, nobody wants to know what the hell he is doing on the job. Only thing bright about this man is the colour of the ties he wears.

The biggest challenge of public life anywhere is not intellectual but moral. Intelligent people enter politics, some of them too clever for the public interest, and then somewhere down the road their minds take an elusive turn and go to hell. That is when things fall apart, and politics begins to give away honour for money.

People don't easily quit public life, at least not in our neck of the wood. All three men, who exited the public scene in one week, didn't have a choice. One died, another didn't get an extension, and the third one was forced to resign. No more interviews, appointments, photographs and comments, at least not as aggressively as when they were in power. The glitz and glamour of public life will recede like sunshine at dusk.

To speak in general terms, three people vanished in one week. Specifically, we can call it anything we want, but the fact remains that one man is dead and two men are duds. If this is any consolation for these quitters, public life in our country is a contradiction in terms. The public have been sent home with its tail between the legs. Politicians are just having a good life in their name.

Words of wisdom from Simone de Beauvoir, who writes in her celebrated book The Second Sex that a woman is an intermediate between a man and a eunuch. Be either a politician or the public. In between you know what!

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.