Sense & Insensibility
Hapless wage earners, useless foreign trips
Our suited-booted big bosses are ever ready to travel to Europe or the US on any pretext. It is said that they have a suitcase packed with essentials for such trips since there is no drought of invitations. It is also said with a great deal of amusement that you will find Bangladeshi delegates in every possible UN/WorldBank/ IMF/Unesco/ILO/Unicef/EU sub-sub-sub-committee meetings if these are held in the US or any European, South American or African country.
And when under-under secretaries from other foreign countries attend those meetings to mostly sleep through the sessions, we find our big big bosses running through the VIP lounge to catch the plane. Before leaving they tell the press that Bangladesh's future depended on their attending the meetings. You see, Bangladesh has to watch and listen, wine and dine, gossip and guffaw, and come back with plentiful experience. This is the art of foreign affairs that commoners like us will never understand, dear readers.
So, off they go, the happy, patriotic bosses, to salvage the country once again. In the flight they make mental plans to meet sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, distant cousins and nephews in Paris, London, New York and Nairobi. A dinner here, a lunch there, some shopping, some gossiping -- all expenses paid for by the exchequer. Ah! Life couldn't have anything better to offer!
But, discerning readers, do you see those immaculately dressed roly-poly bosses walking through the hot and humid forests of Malaysia to listen to the plight of our boys (who send the same foreign currency the bosses spend on foreign trips) toiling long hours for a meagre wage? Do you see them negotiating with the owners of palm or rubber gardens for increasing wages and improving the living conditions? Did you ever hear them arguing with those garden owners that if all Bangladeshi workers were to leave today they would find it extremely difficult to find workers at such low wages?
Did you ever see our big bosses visiting the quarters in the hot deserts of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia where thousands of Bangladeshi workers (we so proudly call "Wage Earners") live? Did they ever set up a meeting with those employers who have the record of maltreating and often cheating Bangladeshi workers? Did they ever tell those rogue employers that they will never find such good workers at such low wages, therefore, it is for their own benefit that they should pay the workers well and give them all the befits that they are bound to give as per the law of their country? Did they ever point out the fact that actually there could be no replacement of Bangladeshi workers?
No, we never see the big bosses taking so much of trouble for the wage earners. Do you know why? Because those destinations are hot and humid! Because there is no glamour in listening to the plight of those menial workers cleaning roads or working in palm forests or rubber gardens! Because no brother, no sister, no nephew lives there. But, yes, we love to count the dollars they send to the country, which we need while going abroad. Dear me! Life would have been so dreary if we couldn't go on those trips to Europe or the US!
Have you ever taken a note of how many times our politicians, government officials, sports teams and cultural teams go abroad spending the hard earned foreign currency? It is horrendous if not anything else. We are at the bottom rung as far as poverty and per capita income are concerned, but look at them? Going to Geneva or New York every month to attend insignificant meetings! Then the entire gang going off to Bangkok or Singapore to shoot for some crappy TV play! Right at this moment possibly hundreds of our singers and dancers are abroad presenting some mediocre songs and dance numbers to entertain crowds.
A careful probing would reveal that in no developing country politicians or government officials are allowed to spend so much money for useless trips abroad. While our politicians and government officials merrily spend foreign currency to attend faltoo meetings or go to Singapore for "treatment," the actual wage earners toil in most inhuman conditions far away from home. Who gives them care when they fall sick? Does the local MP ever go to the airport to receive the dead body of a wage earner?
It is time to call a spade a spade. So, all trips titled "For observation, idea sharing and lesson learning" must be stopped right now, since video conferencing or CDs on training or idea sharing are easily available in this era of technology. It is much cheaper to have one foreign trainer brought in here than ten people going abroad for receiving the same training. And our experience shows that more often than not after a government official has been given training on a particular topic or skill, he gets transferred to a post where there is no scope for him to apply his knowledge.
For God's sake let us change our feudal mindset and learn to honour the wage earners and the foreign currency they earn by breaking their backs. That is how we shall become patriotic. Patriotism is not something you announce loudly in public meetings. You practise it within yourself, quietly. That will be loud enough.
Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
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