Going Deeper
For whom the bells toll: They toll for us
FROM the time authoritarian regimes passed into the twilight of history and democracy became the catchword of the people of the world, debate has been raging as to whether primacy should be given to social and cultural changes as opposed to industrial and economic ones.
Social change, defined as "alteration of a social system over time" caused by complex and interrelated dynamics, cannot take place in a short period as its gestation period, by definition, is long. On the other hand time required for economic and industrial progress can be compressed because technology and capital as the driving forces for these changes can be imported in a comparatively short time.
The very fact of the militancy displayed by and the challenge thrown to the government by bigots over suggested amendments to the National Women's Development Policy when the country is under emergency rule is a testament to the medieval character that a part of the Bangladesh society still nurtures even in the 21st century.
It is difficult to gauge the extent of public outrage in the absence of systems like that of professional and non-partisan polls. This incident alone, though condemned by the "educated class" and the "intelligentias," proves that our society remains largely influenced by religion and hence cultural confusion can be one of the impediments in our socio-economic progress and may doom the large majority of impoverished people to greater depth of poverty.
Even if we discount the Freudian interpretation of religion as a surrender by mankind to unexplainable post-death state of human beings because we have no experience of what happens after death except what is described in different religious texts, third world societies continue to be patrimonial and deeply "religious," not always practiced as prescribed in religious texts and interpreted by people of impeccable credentials, but as is dictated by village imams, who, more often than not, are not conversant with the real meaning of the different religions they profess.
Albeit there are exceptions, but the third world societies, even if the influence of religion is taken out of the equation, is based on a "highly flexible and paternalistic public order in which the spoils of the office are used by the ruling groups to reward friends, co-opt actual and potential opponents, to satisfy local and regional allies, and generally to incorporate newly emerging groups into the system" (Randall and Theobold: Political Change and Underdevelopment).
Can we, in Bangladesh, with not so hidden followers of Osama bin Laden who consider the "degenerative" influence of Western culture as the greatest obstacle to our path to heaven and hence has to be obliterated from the earth, expect our country to move towards development as defined by Donald Rutherford as "the movement of an economy from agricultural activities using simple technology to the production of industrial products and a range of services using modern technology"?
Rutherford does not advocate total alienation from agriculture, as it would not be acceptable today in the face of global food shortage due to conglomeration of higher price of oil, agricultural inputs, cultivation of bio-fuels in place of cereals, etc.
What is not debatable is that the contribution of agriculture to GDP has to decrease, keeping in mind food security. Chandrababu Naidu lost the elections in Andhra Pradesh, despite impressive progress in ICT, because he had allegedly neglected the peasantry who in a country like India could remain the mainstay of the economy for quite some time to come.
World Bank lead economist Branco Milanovich in his analysis of the poor countries (1980-2002) falling further behind the middle-income and rich countries has reached the conclusion that the poorer countries have much greater likelihood of getting involved in wars and civil conflict (Darfur, DRC, Somalia, as a few examples).
He has estimated that this factor alone accounts for an income loss of about 40% over twenty years. In other words, stability is the key word for development. Bill Overholt (formerly of Harvard Kennedy School) gives US credit for winning the Cold War to a "joint military and economic strategy of nation building and reconstruction."
The Western leaders brought about stability by creating major global institutions e.g. World Bank, IMF, GATT (now WTO), Asian Development Bank; created strong polities and economies in Western Europe, Japan and South East Asia prosperity though unevenly spread over the regionsuppressed extremism.
The advent of al-Qaeda, however, as a non-state actor capable of inflicting huge damage in the name of "religious purification" has added a new factor in the maintenance of global stability. The world, however, is determined to cleanse itself of this cancer not only through military means but also through immersion in liberal political values.
Bill Overholt and others hold the view that the post-Cold War case of treating democracy as a prerequisite of aid and assistance rests on the theory that democracies are better in economic development than non-democracies. That democracy is the best form of governance is no longer debatable, though, as pointed out by Leila Nadia Sadat (Yale Journal of International Affairs), extraordinary rendition by the Bush administration has not only shattered the Nuremberg Consensus but has opened the US to accusations of violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law and violation of the Geneva Convention.
But then, since President Bush may have to account for his misdeeds one day we, in Bangladesh, have no reason to stray from the path of democracy that has been promised to us again and again. Despite the mal-governance (2001-2006) by the alliance government, the keen awareness of the general public and the civil society give us hope that the politicians will not tread the trodden path and refrain from using public office for private gains. It will take a few elections for the people to regain their trust in the people they will elect in the coming elections. But then every journey has to begin by taking the first step.
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