Sense & Insensibility
Why not clone honest politicians?
The country is faced with an insurmountable crisis. It all started after our political seashore had been devastated by a small tsunami. Now, there is a short supply of honest and credible politicians in the country and, as a result, politics is in the doldrums. With the general election approaching fast the country's major political parties have to showcase 300 credible candidates for the 300 seats in parliament, but in the changed circumstances they have only about two or three in their bags. The rest are either in jail or bhagawat in some distant lands. All the parties are now on the lookout for anyone whose features give the slightest impression of having some honest dispositions and ethical endowments. Political leaders are allegedly going through the CVs of such people in their constituencies and in the jails (where they had sent them in the past for being honest and not joining their party). Because of such desperate scouting, we have heard that honest people now fear to go out and expose themselves to the political leaders. So, dear readers, it has come to this. Now honest people in Bangladesh feel threatened once again for a reversed reason. It is not safe to be honest in this country! As we said before, the number of good, honest politicians is dwindling in the country, hence we have a suggestion to make that might help circumvent the problem. Let the political parties clone the honest, upright, courageous and most importantly knowledgeable politicians. Why not? This is a technology-driven world, and we are cloning seeds, lambs, fish, horses and many other organisms so that we can have as many of them as we want. By cloning the honest politicians we shall ensure credible candidates in the election, people will love to go and vote for them, and we shall fill the 300 seats in parliament and form the next government. If the cloning fever catches on then our economy will also get the desired boost, and we shall be able to reach all the desired digits on the development graph. Since we have abandoned the jute industry, and since our garment industry is faced with various overseas tricks, we should innovate and go for setting up laboratories for doing the cloning. Think of it brother politicians. But you shall have to take caution not to clone by mistake those who remain sleepy all the time or play taped speeches of others at public meetings or threaten to produce trump card every now and then. Frankly speaking, if you look around you will find the political sector filled with unworthy people, who cannot even speak and argue with conviction or great bursts of brilliance. The pity is, we are stuck with them, as we have very little option. Unless political parties find candidates acceptable to the people, we shall be forced to see Looting Part Two. But there is the other side of the story; the brighter side if we may say so. There is no reason to believe that our society has totally run dry of honest candidates of good character, dignity and strong personality, who can lead from the front. We do come across such personalities in our daily interactions in life. They make us look at them twice, with veneration and awe at times, by the amazing works they do for the common people. Then why don't they come forward to join politics? They must come forward like the missionaries to bring light to the dark forest. They must come so that the corrupt and the mean can go. They will rally round themselves more good people, and restructure politics in this country. They will do the necessary reforms because the reform process cannot be undertaken by the thieves who have been in the looting process. Let such people be encouraged by everyone of us in our constituencies. The literate, honest section of the people must not leave politics in the dirty hands of the professional politicians any more. The corrupt must perish for good. Shahnoor Wahid is a Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
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