Where is the state?

There are twelve counts to measure a failed state. Bangladesh scored high in most, except in the areas of Massive Movement of Refugees and IDPs, Chronic and Sustained Human Flight, and Intervention of Other States or External Actors, where we scored 7, 6 and 6 respectively on a range of 1 to 10. We are low in foreign interference in our affairs, and not too many people are leaving the country, which is good news. But 9 other indicators spoil the fun, which show that we are to blame for our own distress.

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How does a state fail? According to Professor Robert Rotberg of John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the overriding criterion of determining the status of a given state is its ability to deliver political goods and services. States fail when such goods and services are in short supply. Civil war is then a symptom of state failure, when a nation descends into violence and chaos. Its people focus on immediate survival rather than the longer term, while saving, investment, and wealth creation taper off. Government officials seek spoils for their cronies rather than designing policies that might build long-term prosperity. A cycle of poverty, instability, and violence perpetuates itself giving the perception that the state doesn't exist.

The most important political goods, Rotberg writes, is the provision of national and international security and the preservation of order. Other goods include implementation of the law, existence of institutions of political freedom, regulation of arteries of commerce and communication, provision of an economic network conducive to growth and prosperity, and such things as medical services, power, running water and control of the environmental commons.

Recently an article appeared in a website called The Black Commentator, which includes commentary, analysis, and investigations on issues affecting African Americans. The U.S. is becoming a failed state it says, because the government is failing to provide political goods to the black population of the country. Henry C.K. Liu explains that the United States is leaving the responsibility for delivering political goods to non-state actors, i.e., the private sector through the market mechanism. Privatisation of the public sector, Liu adds, is more than the outsourcing of state functions. It is the selling off of state prerogatives.

The crux of the question for Bangladesh is whether the state is failing to provide political goods and services to its people. A failed state is when the prevailing condition gives the impression that there is no state. This impression can come at four different levels. A state can be strong, weak, failing and collapsed. According to Professor Rotberg, Somalia was the only collapsed state in 2003. There were partially failed states like Indonesia, Colombia and Sri Lanka where political goods and services couldn't be delivered to some parts of the country due to civil strife. Zimbabwe showed all the indications of a failed state except for violence. Paraguay, Bolivia and Kyrgyzstan wobbled between strong and weak states.

One of the most interesting observations of Professor Rotberg is that human agency is at the root of every state failure. Saddam Hussain failed Iraq, Siaka Stevens failed Sierra Leone, Mobutu failed Zaire and the Taliban failed Afghanistan. Who fails Bangladesh? If you ask that question, the answer will vary from mouth to mouth.

This is where it all rings hollow. Just imagine that the ruling party was celebrating its four years of success when the country was going through a major load-shedding besides other problems. There is general despair in the country, lawlessness, corruption, galloping prices, bad road conditions, plight of workers, plight of women, famine like situation in the North, and the halo of the most corrupt nation for the fifth time hanging over our head. To make it even worse, we are now heading for a deadlock over how to go about the next parliamentary elections.

What make it more strident are the bomb threats and bomb attacks, which clearly show that an organised group of people are challenging the state. If nothing else, this invisible state within the state is clearly a sign of the failing state, one that repudiates the hallowed notion that the state is a sovereign entity, subordinate to nothing but the will of the people. Our situation amounts to an aggravating status of negation that diminishes the state in its might and authority, giving rise to pockets of insurgence.

Those who doubt please answer my question: Where is the state? If the state can't give me protection, supply water, electricity and other basic utilities, if the prices go out of hand and some people get rich at the cost of many and the control of the state passes into the hands of a clique of politicians and businessmen, the state has ceased to exist. If the opposition never goes to the parliament and one party makes the laws of the country, the state has already ceased to exist. Where is the state if justice is delayed and justice is denied and the judges must worry when to duck in the trajectory of explosives?

Where is the state if there is no accountability? Where is the state if public good is undermined for private gains, when power is opportunity not to change the plight of the common men but to build the fortunes of ministers and their minions? Where is the state if politicians don't talk, holding visceral grudges as if warlords are waiting to zap each other?

Common sense is that it doesn't light a fire if you strike a match on the damp surface. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. It rains in the summer, and gets cold in the winter. The cycle of seasons turns the wheel of time, and today ushers in tomorrow. Much of the world runs on prevalent wisdom, which is to accept the world as it comes. Maturity is to learn that certain things just happen.

Yet revolutions come to speed up evolution, edgy men taking dodgy course to change what they can't accept. We are hesitating to accept that ours is a failed state. We have lots of discussions, but very little repercussions. We hold roundtables, we hold rallies, we demonstrate, we remonstrate, we criticise, we canonise. We flatter, we patter, we rumble, we grumble. But what are we doing to change the fact that the state is receding behind the vested interests?

Week before last a television channel invited politicians and their sons and daughters to a talk show. It was impressive to know that our politicians have raised good children, who are established in life and who spoke highly of their parents. Successful families should make a successful state. Why doesn't it work for us? The answer is obvious if you can't guess. The politicians don't take care of this country like they take care of their children.

Failed or not, there is the state.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.