Dialogue or no dialogue

" Angels sing, fairies dance, and, gosh, there is music in the air. At long last, they have managed to talk, first time in eleven years!

Don't ask what took them so long. One reason could be destiny, which has designated time for everything. Nations don't get their independence until the time has come for it. Leaders don't emerge until the hour strikes. There is a time for the problem, and there is a time for the solution. Destiny is when what happens happens, when it happens.

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We can find another reason if we descend into the fog of Freudian discourse. Psychological compulsions often undermine intelligence, and people do stupid things. Here are the three pillars of human psychology. The id contains "primitive desires" (hunger, rage, and sex), the super-ego contains internalized norms, morality, and taboos, and the ego mediates between the two and may include or give rise to the sense of self.

In my view, the ego has badly messed up. Our politicians have been hungry for power. They have also known the moral dilemmas. Reforms are needed for free and fair elections. Corruption is bad and the government should deliver on election promises. But the poor ego has let them down. It has been a bad mediator. The politicians have lost their way in the smoke of pride and prejudice.

There could be even a third reason, which may be called the handyman syndrome. A handyman takes long lunch breaks, frequently goes to the toilet, smokes cigarettes, enjoys siesta, while the taskmaster worries if the work will get done within the agreed time. But the handyman is not bothered since he knows the job and confidently sets his pace of work.

Likewise, maybe the politicians know something we don't. It's their trade and they know it best that no matter how complex is the problem, they can always do it like a snap of their fingers. Maybe that's why the politicians were hardly worried over the deadlock when rest of the country was going to faint in anxiety and fear. We have to wait until the dialogue is finished to see if it proves the point.

But the question comes to mind in circles. If they can sit now, why couldn't they sit before? Perhaps it is a kind of brinkmanship, wasting time to get the kicks from the last-minute suspense. Perhaps this is called cliffhanger politics, when the outcome is as uncertain as a blind hand in the game of cards.

Let us say, the blind hand wins. Let us say, all goes well; either one side gives up everything, or both sides give up something and the dialogue is fruitful. Then what? Will a quickly cobbled deal between the two sides tie all the loose ends? There will be elections and one party will come to power. But will the other party concede the election? Will both parties go to the parliament? Are these going to be sorted out in the dialogue? If not, then why so much ado about nothing? Why start something with a big bang, if it must end with a whimper?

True, this nation is eagerly waiting for the outcome of the dialogue. But will that outcome encompass all solutions? And will those solutions help or handicap democracy? Take the case of the caretaker government. We thought it was a solution, which would ensure free and fair election. But now it is our biggest problem. Democracy, like a spider, has got tangled in its web.

Hence, we need to make changes so that we can have free and fair caretaker government. Next time, we might see more changes so that we can have free and fair changes. Beyond that we might even argue over the definition of free and fair changes. It's like the sad story of that suspicious king. He put more people to keep an eye on the milkman and then even more people to keep an eye on those who kept an eye on the milkman. The outcome was that the supply of milk incrementally depleted.

In fact, the entire controversy around the dialogue is based on a fallacy. It is rooted in our delusion, or should I say, in our arrogance, that we are safe if we change the watchman while the culprits are hiding in the house. In the two elections held so far, neither the head of the caretaker government nor the chief election commissioner is said to have influenced the outcome. At least there hasn't been any evidence other than the losing side fussing over some imaginary concoctions.

Indeed, there is a difference between cunning and intelligence. Intelligence is to do your job so that nobody gets to put the blame on you. Cunning is not to do the job and point finger at others so that you don't have to take the blame. If the flow of democracy has been disrupted, it is not because any caretaker government or election commission has goofed up. It is because the politicians have been downright dishonest, always blaming their mistakes on others.

Thus the politicians have weakened our democracy like a virus weakens the human body. It is the politicians who have been unreliable in their reckless pursuit of partisan interests. The government sits in power and plunders the country. The opposition boycotts the parliament and does nothing more than threatening to topple the government over the next five years, its hands itching all that time to put the fingers in the pie.

When the secretary general and the general secretary return to the negotiation table on October 16, let them sort out their mutual conditions and find new heads for the caretaker government and the election commission. But will they also consider one and only one condition from the rest of us? Is it possible to change their party bosses? Their egos have become liabilities for this nation. Dialogue or no dialogue, it is time to cut them loose and cut our losses.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.