Sense & Insensibility
Naked truth and more …
Some of our readers take a quizzical view of things we write in our columns. But, despite their occasional whimpers, our columns always reflect the naked truth, and truth is possibly the only thing people do not object to seeing naked. And when it comes to "stripping" those blokes in the full glare of the camera we cannot help but be cruel (only to be kind!).
It's a pity that many of our brothers and sisters think we use our pens with a great deal of indulgence that occasionally borders on effrontery. They have their own reasons to think that way. All we do is make public what the public representatives and the public servants do in "privacy." It is our job to keep the people updated on what our netas and netris do, and what they are not supposed to do.
So, when we write the naked truth about how they let the nation down by lying again and again on each and every issue of governance, they lose their appetite for breakfast in the morning. When we write how they have failed in doing their job properly, and honestly, they lose their demeanor and call us names.
Take for example the recklessness of the passenger launch owners, who showed no compassion whatsoever when their vessels carried double the capacity passengers and capsized, one after another. When we screamed a bit too loud, pat came the now jannatbashi minister before the TV camera to tell us all sorts of incredulous stories about actions being taken against those owners. Nothing happened, and poor passengers continued to die on the river.
Then take the incident at Kushtia, when some senior journalist leaders went there to protest the reign of terror unleashed by the goons of the local MP. The MP and his armed cadre got furious and attacked the meeting with everything near their hands, injuring a senior editor of a national English daily. And a contingent of the police force that stood nearby demonstrated how yellow-bellied they were in stopping the hoodlums belonging to the ruling party.
Then we wrote miles of columns and reports on the strange ways a senior minister ran his ministry, first the vital home ministry and then the equally important one that handled commerce and trade of the country. He has become immortal with his wayward and at times apathetic comments about law and order, murders and deaths and a crazy market where prices jumped like kangaroos.
We loved to delve deep to find the clever tricks played from behind the curtain by the (in)famous law minister of the country. He was the wickedly witty one and it was truly challenging to unearth his ploys, machination and maneuvering that were aimed at keeping his party perpetually in power.
Then we wrote how our other bloated barristers, the guys from the legal profession, took the liberty to write their own laws. Power made them "powerfools" and they enjoyed the short-lived power having no inkling that one day they might have to answer for it.
We wrote tirelessly for the last fifteen years about many other ministers and MPs and chairmen and party cadres but no one read them. Oh, we wrote about our (in)famous public servants too! No, we did not forget them either.
They were the ones having immense power to wrong the rights, instead of righting the wrongs, and by Jove did they do it with a sense of impunity? And the midnight mêlée at Uttara would remain etched forever in our minds.
These government officials never cared to serve the people because there was nothing to gain from such service. Rather they thought of serving the interest of the ruling party and gain immensely thereby. As a result, we saw officials getting promoted to the highest rank, jumping over the heads of other senior officials.
Tale of erosions
Bangladesh is in the grip of two kinds of erosion. One is that of the riverbanks and the other of the political parties. While we, on one hand, see strong currents taking away large chunks of riverbanks, on the other hand, we are witnessing how strong distrust is slicing away groups of self-declared leaders into the void. We believe that in the process some will be able to return but others will get lost in the abyss of disrepute. Nowhere have we noticed so much of divergence, distrust, suspicion, malice and feeling of animosity against one another existing among the leaders of the same political party. It is the same story in BNP, Awami League, Jatiya Party and LDP. They unite only when it is the question of sharing loot. But on other points they hardly see eye to eye. Because of this loose bonding they easily get eroded and washed away like loose pebbles, to gather no moss. Minus one another game
Now political people in various parties have started their own "minus one another" game and this has already splintered BNP into two groups, but there is no guarantee that two will not further breakup into four. Wait and watch what happens in the Awami League. Here are a few words of raw public wisdom to end today. People often ask us, brother, if the political party leaders are so disenchanted with one another then how can they serve the country as a group? Why don't they do social work individually with the huge sums of money they invest in politics and thus become immortal in their own area? They further ask, brother, tell us, we take the names of great personalities of this country, like the famous teachers, professors, doctors, writers, scientists, philanthropists, architects, social reformers, researchers and performers with so much of adoration and reverence, then why do we take the names of most politicians with unsavoury (dis)honourifics? And even knowing this why do people get involved in such activities? Why many respectable people join the rotten kind of politics to destroy whatever name and fame he or she had earned in life? Dear readers, if you have the answer please enlighten us. Bottom line
The fact that the front ranking leaders of the major political parties are not at all talking in unison about the needs for reforms within the party goes to prove the point that drastic reforms are badly needed there. Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
Bangladesh is in the grip of two kinds of erosion. One is that of the riverbanks and the other of the political parties. While we, on one hand, see strong currents taking away large chunks of riverbanks, on the other hand, we are witnessing how strong distrust is slicing away groups of self-declared leaders into the void. We believe that in the process some will be able to return but others will get lost in the abyss of disrepute. Nowhere have we noticed so much of divergence, distrust, suspicion, malice and feeling of animosity against one another existing among the leaders of the same political party. It is the same story in BNP, Awami League, Jatiya Party and LDP. They unite only when it is the question of sharing loot. But on other points they hardly see eye to eye. Because of this loose bonding they easily get eroded and washed away like loose pebbles, to gather no moss. Minus one another game
Now political people in various parties have started their own "minus one another" game and this has already splintered BNP into two groups, but there is no guarantee that two will not further breakup into four. Wait and watch what happens in the Awami League. Here are a few words of raw public wisdom to end today. People often ask us, brother, if the political party leaders are so disenchanted with one another then how can they serve the country as a group? Why don't they do social work individually with the huge sums of money they invest in politics and thus become immortal in their own area? They further ask, brother, tell us, we take the names of great personalities of this country, like the famous teachers, professors, doctors, writers, scientists, philanthropists, architects, social reformers, researchers and performers with so much of adoration and reverence, then why do we take the names of most politicians with unsavoury (dis)honourifics? And even knowing this why do people get involved in such activities? Why many respectable people join the rotten kind of politics to destroy whatever name and fame he or she had earned in life? Dear readers, if you have the answer please enlighten us. Bottom line
The fact that the front ranking leaders of the major political parties are not at all talking in unison about the needs for reforms within the party goes to prove the point that drastic reforms are badly needed there. Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
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