Opinion
1998: The Year That Was
Bangladesh, positive: remained where it was, therefore stable in some far-fetched way. It is a difficult job with strings of liabilities and negative situations piling up on this poor country with rich imagination, and expectation beyond the confines of changing budgets. The 'stability' is polarised. Neutrality is short supply worldwide.
In Dhaka, political polarisation was taking place by the end of the year, for obvious reasons, because things were not working the way it should. Former President Ershad is back on the active list, backing the Opposition. His negative qualities are many (as a political leader), but he has some exclusive assets which strangely seem to work with the Bengalee psyche, when needed, either way. He is the most experienced politician in the country, having managed the ebullient Bengalees for nine long years through a regime at once 'autocratic' or otherwise. Those who 'dismiss' him do so at some stage of national peril, because he is not alone, remembering that he 'helped' thousands of small VIPs during his regime, who would also like to make their presence felt (it is not politics, it is human nature).
The party is power achieved its major goal, namely, the legal proceedings of the prosecution of the assailants of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The political mileage out of these court judgements have to be watched, carefully.
The main opposition party is hartal-oriented (the world 'hartal' is becoming an English word, patronised by 120 million). This is supposed to be the only way the people in the street can get actively involved in a passive manner. Some pundits predict that we are seeing the last phase of hartals as a political weapon, and this tool will be phased out during the next century, as political wisdom dawns on the populace.
There are reasons for this type of prediction. People like to improve their lot doing business. The country was on the point of taking off economically in the mid-'90s (ignoring the speed of the transformation), but perhaps heavenly forces decreed otherwise, as the masses and the leaders were not clean enough in a disciplined way. The infra-structure cannot come before the structure, as some higher ups had imagined. More than once we have faced this cart-before-the-horse situation. It is for the experts to analyse this syndrome.
The age of changes has started, and will speed up during the initial decades of 1999 (equivalent to number one), on the global count. International diplomacy has acquired a new tool by the nickname of Monica missile. The dubious credit goes to the current president of the United States of America. The Iraqis are experiencing showers from the heavens during the holy month of Ramadan, and the other Muslim brethren are counting the beads.
The world of Islam is passing through a critical phase of looking at ways of uniting and presenting one solid front. It is for survival, not for show. The problems in the Islamic countries are similar to that in other third world countries; or coming closer, what the DCC (Dhaka City Corp) is faced with: too much garbage awaiting quick disposal. Unfortunately, new and high technology has not focussed on the garbage problem, political, social, municipal, surplus weapons of war, and so forth.
Regional cohesion is drifting apart in practically all regions of the world. In South Asia, the two big neighbours have sharpened their big common wound (Kashmir), and fabricated solutions (nuclear) bigger than the problem (the right to self-determinism, as could be gathered after 50 years of debate). The human mind is a peculiar product or entity: cannot come up with the right solution at the right time.
This is easily confirmed by the cyclones in the global and regional financial markets. The tides of recession are changing, and will never come up to the previous comfortable marks. Time and tide wait for none, and this universal truth has to be accepted, the earlier the better for reconstruction. The new emerging countries are passing through the birth pangs, and the old and mighty are desperately seeking the status quo ante. The bitter backlashes have to be faced.
It looks like that the 21st century is for Asia; and accumulated surplus prosperity is shifting from the West to the East, like it or not. Perhaps the 22nd century is for Africa. The CIS region, one of the cradles of civilisation is stirring after centuries of slumber; while Hebron, the oldest city in the world, is taking hard knocks, perhaps unnecessarily. Some of the old values of life are surfacing again. The twins (of the E&W) have to meet, for peaceful coexistence.
The greatest human motivation is the struggle for survival, The next powerful incentive is to try to be a bit comfortable. The earlier the coming changes are accepted, the more is the contribution towards the establishment of more peaceful conditions for coexistence. The ultimate target is empathy, not sympathy.
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