This land is your land, this land is her land. Whatever happened to our land?

What I find astonishing about re-reading some of my earlier work is that the political stalemate that we are experiencing has been going on for longer than we realise. Below is an article I wrote in early 2001 (again published in the Daily Star Magazine) that is as relevant in today as it was all those years ago. While we switch the BNP with the AL and vice versa, we are not making any headway. It is shocking that not one word has been changed and I could be serving this article as if I wrote it yesterday. Read this and know why it is imperative that we TAKE BACK BANGLADESH!

History is being made as we speak, the political leadership of this country have decided to discuss and arrive at a compromise to, ironically, put a stop to this impasse.

The question that enters the mind is that will this be it. Will this be the increasingly crucial direction change, so that the country under the existing politicians can make some headway in economic and social development?

However, the fact that the situation had come to be as bad as this, that the only way out was to arrest the economy is something of concern. Have the political leaders, opposition and otherwise, considered it more important in the last several months to overlook the suffering of the common man and the economy in their pursuit of the most powerful office in the country?

As any cognizant self-respecting person will attest, it did seem like that was indeed the case. The real concern is whether this was actually what had happened? But to put it simply, if it looked like an apple, smelt like an apple and tasted like an apple, it probably was an apple.

Now with a leadership that has proved that its interest lies in the office and not too much beyond that, is it prudent to allow the discussion to be held without the direct supervision of a neutral body representing the real interest of the economy? Is this to mean that the political leadership cannot be trusted to cut a fair deal? A fair deal for themselves, yes. For the people, some have their doubts.

In the last few months of this stalemate, the papers have been reporting murders committed in the name of the party. One party accuses the other of terrorism when both are equally responsible for it. We have "evolved" in our political thinking to take up weapons and participate in political action to kill people for subscribing to a different political belief. And the leadership just sits back and watches the killings and chalks it down as a price to pay for democracy!

What kind of a leadership is this, that cannot control the very people that support them? Murder is murder, no matter who is in prime minister's chair. It is a pity that it is the destiny of the people to subscribe to a leadership that does not seem to take any responsibility for the political atrocities committed by their own party members.

How can a political leader scream for justice for the killing of one member but remain silent upon seeing the carnage left behind by another? This eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth retaliation politics once out of control, assuming that it is under control, will surely remove any threat of true democracy that this country may eventually undergo.

It is time for the people to take back the country, not under the diction of any of the present leaders but under new leadership. The people have been fooled long enough, there is no gain from nostalgia. The past is past, by clinging onto the emotions of days once were we are losing the chance to make the most of the now.

If we continue on the path of nonproductive, retaliatory politics that has been played out so far, Bangladesh will be left far behind in the economy boom cycle that it rippling through South east Asia. Vietnam, a nation in economic turmoil for the last several decades, is opening up its markets and raking in the benefits of foreign investment and industry. And if we lose any more of our share of our export industries due to failed deadlines, the economic loss may be too large to makeup.

In light of these facts we still have politicians bickering over whose turn it is to "drive." What matter is it who is on the seat of government if the economy is strong and the nation is prospering. In the last few weeks the constitution has been the center of attention, the point of contention among the politicians. Since the document has to be amended, why not ensure checks and balances that keeps any one individual from amassing too much power and too much wealth.

Checks and balances and a leadership that is accountable to the judiciary. The politicians talk about their right to power, why not the people's right to have good government and their right to have the option of changing government after each term.

The leadership have made clear their demands, but what right do they have to put a city to ransom if those demands are not met? The newspapers quote opposition members threatening to burn down a certain city if their mayor isn't released. Where is the democracy? Where is the right to choose?

In a country that seems starved for a little democracy and a band of political parties competing to be the one to bring it, we should see a little democracy being played in the hallways of the parties themselves. Let the current leadership bow down and hand over the torch to more competent members, it is time that a little inside election is held to see if the political elite support their chairperson wholeheartedly. The idea is that the political party and not a political person is more important. A party stands behind ideology, the person chosen to carry out that ideology should be the person considered the most capable.

The leadership in the last few years have lost the support of the up and coming generation. A generation more concerned about development and more attuned to the state of the world and view Bangladesh in that context.

As a developing country, the responsibility we face is higher. We are expected to meet technology head-on where previously there was none. Literally from quill pens to super computers in the last ten years. Similarly, the responsibility that falls on the leader of a developing country is much higher. A person must be attuned to the vibes of the world and the directional winds changes of the economy to handle the job. Meanwhile our politicians have spent all that time foiling each other's feeble attempt to progress.

The people need a good government and an opposition to police it for the country to prosper. Opposition parties must not take the fight to the streets and encourage violence and anarchy to ridicule the ruling party. When government property is lost, lost is national assets not the personal property of any individual; lost is valuable foreign exchange that could be put to better use.
The majority of the people in this country have volatile emotions and with the economy as bad as it is and unemployment on the rise because no new investment is taking place, the country has a lot of people hurting. Harnessing all these negative emotions for destruction, is only a short term "gain," such behaviour if allowed to continue results in a crime problem that is not just the governments alone. Yet this simple thought appears to evade the political leadership, or aren't they attuned to what is happening?