The truth about democracy… Bangladesh style

As the dates 18 or 28 were in the air, it seems we may have settled with 29 (at least for the immediate meantime). I fear that another number may juggle itself into the circus that our political arena has become – only question is whether it will it be a 12 or 1?

One thing that looks so certain but doesn’t get said is that December or January, whichever way it plays out we need to find the right month (and date) when both parties can win. The point that these highly-intellectual advisers of the present interim (albeit, comfortably stretched) government and the appalled people in the Election Commission is missing is that in a reformed democracy – such as the kind we are hatching in Bangladesh, under the auspicious guidance of Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Begum Khaleda Zia – it is only a democracy when their respective party wins… which is what the ‘janagan’ wants in the first place.

Simple.

Now this situation would obviously baffle the average thinking person, who is clearly by that definition not part of the ‘janagan.’ So the time is right, again, for the average non-thinking person – the ‘janagan’ – to bring the party back in power.

It would seem that the very fact that we are looking at shenanigans (for want of a better term) that are slowing down the transition to the democratic process in the name of democracy is ludicrous to the nth degree! But that is only true for the average thinking person – but since the ‘janagan’ (which the average thinking person is not a part of) is ‘evolved’ and inline with reformed democratic principle, this delay is part of the evolution.

The simple heart of the matter is that should Party ‘A’ win the elections, it is not only a reflection of the resounding ‘people’s voice’ through the democratic process, but alas reason enough for Party ‘B’ to claim vote rigging and deem the results unacceptable as the ‘people’s voice’ has been stolen! This process is not discriminatory in any way (hence its ‘evolved’ incarnation) on which party actually wins, because the roles (as defined in by the reformed, evolved democracy rules being hatched, and only just being understood, in Bangladesh) are interchangeable. Simply put, should Party ‘B’ win instead, and bark the virtues of the democratic process that has anointed them crediting the roar of the people, it is now accepted (in fact, expected) that losing party can cry foul!

The difficult task at hand, for the perpetrators of the elections is finding a date when both parties can win and claim the prize. Again to the thinking person, it would be difficult to imagine such a possibility, which is why the country needs to go back in the hands of the non-thinking person for the sake of the ‘janagan.’

It is a moot point that it only is because it is the ‘people’ who are corrupt and underhanded, that our misunderstood leaders have entered into the muck and grime of corruption to sway the people back from the dark influences. Our misunderstood leaders have defaced their pure character for the love of the people. Only now is it evident that the very politicians that we have thrown in jail for corruption are the very politicians that are our true saviours – clearly they have proven their virtue and sincerity by the number of times that have performed the sacred Hajj (again for the blessing of the long suffering ‘janagan’ against the intellectual tyranny of the thinking person).

That we have been blessed by the gracious acquiesce of the apa of one party against a backdrop of defiance of the madam from the other is but democracy at work. Hartals, strikes, the ability to take up arms and sharp implements, burn cars and create havoc on the streets are only manifestations of an evolved democracy at play; the fragile democracy of opposition and mayhem, against the sinister plot for complacency and parliamentary debate. After all, our valued leaders have been elected to represent their god-ordained interests on the streets (that the ‘janagan’ wishes them to have) rather than debate in the interest of constituency and Constitution. Only a fool still clinging on to the misguided virtues of western-style democracy would think otherwise.

History has taught us that strikes and bandhs have pushed the British, and then the Pakistanis, out of the country… it has been these true and tested political tools that have subjected governments to topple and crippled their economies. Any one knows that a government that claims itself as pro-people and patriotic would rather step down than subject the economy to any more battering! A test by acid, indeed; one that subsequent governments have been put to test by the worthy opposition but have failed, to their shame.

The nation has had to suffer over the last two years, first the price of essentials were allowed to escalate beyond what economics would have us believe (because the government has allowed syndicates from BOTH parties to rule the markets and profit – when it was clear by the parties concerned that only ONE should have been allowed to); the country has passed in a state of emergency, and has proven difficult for a restless (jobless) people, accustomed to spontaneous mayhem on the street and blocked roads, to send their children to school and not have to worry about untoward incidents – to say nothing about no loss of the work week! (Thankfully, the all-supportive ‘janagan’ has risen to the occasion and created a bit of havoc once in awhile.)

But seriously…

The country has undergone several piecemeal changes – to debate the good or bad of those changes is irrelevant at this point, more so because after all the changes and reforms we are exactly where we were. I see no reason that the heads of the respective parties can still hold a nation to ransom owing to the ineptitude and cowardice of leader-followers who should know better.

Both leading parties have experienced politicians who probably have more political acumen and depth than the leader they wish to follow… yet for some inexplicable reason (hardly that really, since they are in it because they want to be ministers and feel that the legacy of the great departed leader runs far richer than their collective contributions to that legacy), they toe the line.

What is fascinating is that despite the allegations of corruption against these leaders, the time they have spent in jail on account of those allegations, has paradoxically, brought them back from political death. Suddenly we have them calling the shots again – with one only backing the present government and the elections because she thinks that she will win and the other protesting against an uneven playing field and calling to defer the elections simply because she thinks that she will lose.

To make matters worse we have them both trumpeting that the rules of the games – which allowed the morally and socially corrupt to contest the elections – remain unchanged in the name of democracy and fair play. What is more fascinating is also that now BOTH leaders are suggesting possibilities of vote rigging! (This may be of course to account for why they may lose the elections – after all it can’t possibly be their fault – and so that the people are prepared to see democracy at work and the streets are on fire immediately after the votes are in.)

In the end, whether it be 18, 28, 29, 12 or 1, however the numbers are juggled, sadly (as far as this thinking man is concerned) the ball is destined to fall but the circus is far from over.

Questions

What will the rains bring?
Will it bring solace that sates?
Will it quench the exhausting thirst?
Will it embrace the soil in fastidious copulation?

Questions that seek not answers,
But composed wisdom, long begotten.
The yin and yang of surrendered passion
Reveal answers raised much before the questions.

What will the winds do?
Will it lift the burden on the tired leaves?
Will scurry the stray paper to its final resting place?
Will it raise the dust cloud of riled misinterpretation?

Promised revenge in a bitter sweet mush soup
Memories long forgotten in pretense…
Faded and lost of colour,
When once it swore in all vigor.

What will the thunder say?
Will it spark up a darkened memory?
Will it claw through years of in-deference?
Will it clap the passing of silent moodswings?

Venture forth in brave anticipation
For a parting of minds, with no sorrow or tears
While deep down what is sought to be no less,
No more than taciturn sacrifice among the brambles.

What can the rains bring,
To a calcified constitution?
What can the winds do,
With a wavering promise?

What can the thunder say,
To a deaf premonition?
What can it all mean,
For a savior deeply tormented?

Questions that seek not answers,
Memories long forgotten in pretense…
While deep down what is sought to be no less,
For a savior deeply tormented.

- 10 June, 2008

Silent night

Lost for words.
A silent rendition of the mute;
I find my thoughts don’t
Translate into sounds anymore.

A cacophony of images
That collides; within
The confines of my mind,
But to no avail or significance.

A silent scream of perpetuity
Lost in my sore throat;
Hoarse from yester-prayers
That belie my hidden emotions.

Random thoughts swirl in
A mix of truth and what ifs.
My mind reels; in the confusion
Of mind games in flux.

Words escape me
When my mind is made up
Of mush and melancholy;
But for what… eludes me.

Suffer in silence,
When all around is the din
Of glass shard after thoughts
And missed promises.

A new dawn beckons,
In the morn of hindsight.
For retrospection brings
Fortitude and dysfunction.

Tomorrow perhaps brings
Recollection of my mindset;
For mine voice to fly free
Like a long-caged mynæ in heat.

What do the words
Mean when cognizance is
But forsaken in light of
Misguided half-truths and misdemeanors?

Since silence dogs me;
Like half-bred English
Or forgotten day-old nestlings
Gawking in the cruelty of grim realization.

But then the quiet, quaking
Bud blooms in solitude.
To spread its moist petals outwards
Seductively revealing a teat raison.

Words elude my conscious
Being in surrender;
Wither the nest egg of
Promise offers release or comfort?

I am but what I deem
Within each struggling breath
The choices long made to reasons;
Never explored but made in pithy acceptance.

Hark say I to the
Echoes of past sins long forgotten –
Take me into thy sacred bosom
For feminine warmth and devotion.

What can be made
Of these words, that
Seemingly slip off an iced tongue
Like a dew drop on a blade of grass.

Fathomless depths
Implore me to jump to
The shadowy wings; for perhaps
Within those depths lie redemption.

And the sound of my inner vice.
My release,
My thunder,
My reconciliation…

Apartments, automobiles and aubergines

Apparently the market is on fire. Not literally of course but the prices of essential commodities are hotter than Hades on a mid-July day (one would be at odds to decide which sounds more frightening – my metaphor or the possible implications of how “hot” hot really is?).

Before this writer ventures any further, it would be best that he confess that he has no idea about the prices of everyday commodities – what’s more he never really ever did. So if someone were to tell me that onions are Tk. 40 per kilogram, I would be at a complete loss as to how to react – with relief or outrage? After all, is the Tk.40 per kg onion too hot to touch or worthy of an immediate buyout? You see, I just wouldn’t know!

This of course makes for very many awkward moments, so I have perfected my response timing to immediately parrot the exact words in surprise. Lo and behold the messenger takes the next obvious step forward and reacts for me. For example:

Messenger: Onions are Tk. 40 per kg.

Me (feigning surprise): Onions are Tk. 40 per kg!

Messenger: Would you believe that it’s gone up by Tk. 6 in two days!

Me: Gone up by Tk. 6 in two days!

Messenger: Yes, how is one going to keep food on the table this way?

Me: Keep food on the table!

Messenger (with a quizzically look):

Me (still surprised): !

You get my drift. The technique might not be perfection, but it seems to get me through the conversation without sounding like I am out of my depth.

I don’t mean to sound insensitive and oblivious to the rising prices in the market, after all, despite what the government is trying to feed us, prices are rising by the day. The point is that since I have never really shopped for groceries alone I have no benchmark to compare prices. Thankfully my mother and my wife, who actually do the shopping in my house, are not so oblivious.

Now there is much talk about syndicates and middlemen and hoarders, but these parasites are a symptom of societal degradation. Imagine twelve months ago, most of the people buying the big fish, the cow’s rump, etc., etc. were people who came easy into money – societal rules were simple – if you want the good things in life you’ve got to try living life the bad way. Simpletons, like us, who are stuck outside of the jails, obviously had it backwards, since we were living life in the good way, we were stuck with the bad things.

This is true for everything in this town. Apartments, jewelry, cars, are very expensive but the businessmen-crooks running these “syndicates” were reaping in with the big bucks. It staggers the mind how land prices have gone up 1000 folds in the span of a few years, when the per capita income could only slowly inch up in USD 10 increments (if even that much) over that same period. In a country that manages a per capita income of a measly USD 460, apartments (not houses, mind you) are being sold at almost 1000 times that amount!

Let me put in another way, in a country where the average monthly income for a family would be BDT 5,000 (actually half of that) we have select families opting to pay BDT 7,500 (or more) per square foot to purchase an apartment. Now I am no economist, but that doesn’t make sense. I am sure there are quite a few successful people around to flaunt that kind of money; but the question that begs to be asked is: successful in doing what? What kind of business or job brings that kind of profit? And how is it possible that there are so many avenues of accumulating such wealth that an entire real estate industry can be fed on the proceeds.

I mean, how is it that we can be outraged when onions cost 55 cents per kg, but not bat an eyelash because apartments in Gulshan are going “cheap” at USD 150,000?

Now if all these “successful” people had the key to great fortune in business, why suddenly is the real estate industry beginning to stagnate when they can no longer justify their tax returns?

With the real estate shudder, so has the streets of Dhaka cleared of H2 & H3 Hummers, Cadillac Escalades, Porsche Cheyenne SUVs, Mercedes S-classes, most of the BMW X5s. The “bold and the beautiful” have been reduced to riding “normal” reconditioned older luxury cars, or, shudder the thought, Toyotas!

I may not know the price of a head of cauliflower, but when it comes to cars I know my unit prices (out of sheer hobby interests, I assure you). And while a 100% premium on the price of $0.50 foreign candy bar may stand justification (if only as a decadent indulgence, considering onion prices), frankly, there is little to no justification to pay a 300% premium on a $90,000 luxury SUV! Especially when you account for the state of the roads we drive on and the odds on a scrape against a rickshaw.

Thankfully we are going through a cleansing process, and people are made to become more accountable. Whether the entrance of a higher degree of accountability will spell the exit of any degree of corruption and underhandedness, time will tell. Meanwhile, apartments, automobiles and aubergines will continue to defy the price tag, and unfortunately for me since apartments and automobiles is now passé, benchmarking the market prices for everyday commodities will continue to be a favorite pastime.

Personal Religion, global repercussion, and local restitution

Religion is a rather personal affair. What I think about my religion should be as personal as how you practice yours. Born and brought up a Muslim, I would venture to say that my point of view on the religion (and most everything else, for that matter) is somewhat “liberal.” My point being is that when I say “liberal,” I do not say “right,” but most people (of a less liberal or more orthodox point of view) act like I did!

But then this is not an essay on religion or my point of view. Although since the subject was brought up, I would like to add that ironically the theology that calls for brotherhood and harmony among men and women is also the excuse behind most of the conflict in today’s world.

For example, take the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims over Jerusalem – the Jews claim that they are the “chosen” people (but the Muslims, of course, know better). My point is that if the Jews want to believe that they are God’s own, and the Muslims believe that they have been chosen to suffer in this life to be given the key to paradise – where of course there is NO space for the Jews – isn’t it enough that the chosen people will eventually burn? The Muslims can suffer for a better after-life, which they are only passing time to attain, the Jews can bask in the glory of being the “chosen” people in this world and in the end the Muslims are given their share of the virgins and wine and the Jews their “just rewards.” Peace is attained. A divine (?) win-win situation if there ever was one.

Of course, the previous passage is totally stereotypical and quite unacceptable, but it is because people believe with a vengeance what they do about these stereotypes, is why everything is wrong. The best example of this is the tarnation that has ripped through the land of the immigrants and every under-achievers dream – the United States of America; once a country of magnificent tolerance and harmony has, through the actions of one of those under-achievers with a rich dad, become largely a country of intolerance, suspicion and racial profiling (this statement itself is a stereotypical world-view). Just like in Bangladesh we got the kind of leaders we deserved, likewise in the US – in a land populated by people who have chosen to remain uninformed about most of the other states within their international borders, let alone other states outside their international borders, there was always that risk of one of those “unenlightens” being elected to the highest office! Of course Americans have to protect their soil from people who mean them harm, but first the American people have to protect themselves from their leaders who mean harm to other countries.

It’s a vicious circle, I’ll grant you – but to quote one of America’s better presidents – not coincidentally a democrat – “the buck stops here.” We were faced with a motley crew of corrupt businessmen and politicians over the last 30 years – however, the ones over the immediate past five years were especially vicious. Our situation today has more to do with reasons of sycophancy than demerit. Over the last 20-odd years we have been voting for the spirit of two people long dead. Truth be told, sycophancy is just another form of religion – more pagan-styled idol worship than spiritual cleansing. Most of us should be aghast, to witness the seeming worship of symbols, monuments and photographs (tiled or otherwise). The laying of wreaths of remembrance and the raising of hands to pray towards a monument! It’s anti-Islamic (but then what do I know, being a “liberal”).

What we have politically in this country is the battle of two “almost deities” – both pure as milk and untainted in the eyes of each respective camp. To borrow a real life conflict: much like the Jews and the Muslims over Jerusalem – none able to see eye to eye on the matter and each regarding the other a terrorist group with little or no legitimacy. The Jerusalem conflict is beyond the scope of this writer to solve, however, it is time that we say that “the buck stops here (!), when we talk about our home-grown conflict.

While the current caretaker government cannot be considered divine, i.e. pure as milk and as untainted as our fore-fathers, fore-generals, or fore-opportunists, they are human – and if you pull religion into the argument – a result of possible divine intervention. So while these ten at the helm of things may not be an appreciated alternative, currently, they are a better source of leadership than what was in store for us through the “democratic” process.

It is probably a rude awakening for those of us who choose to have short-term memories that the situation in the country between November 2006 and January 10, 2007 was borderlining on a possible civil war (and this was going to be the real thing and not one like the “patriotic” Jamaatis had suggested was what happened in 1971). We can’t possibly bicker about these people taking too much time to fix things, and forget the situation that prevailed BEFORE they took over (and not just from when they took over in January this year, but the over the last 30 years prior to). The presence of this administration and the clean-up currently being undertaken is enough to convince me as proof of the existence of a God and that the omniscient hasn’t forgotten about us (but then, I am a “liberal”).

Yaba daba doo!

You have to admit when you read “Yaba Shundori (beauty)” the next thing you feel compeled to do is see ithe “shundori” herself – but alas, she was rather elusive and RAB only just kept missing her for an hour! Which, had she had a publicist, would have been her publicist’s dream come true – just follow the line of the stories that were concocted around her and her chubby, yuppie, hubby(?) and their decadent, lascivious lifestyle.

What got the papers excited were talk of her Tk. 70 lakh plastic surgery, skin pigmentation lightening (something tthis writer would have never had known could be done had it not been for Michael Jackson – but wait, his condition was the result a rare African American disease that is so rare that it has never infected another African American!), two maids to look after her beauty, Tk. 1 lakh in beauty products a month – two things dawned on me, a) she was one of spectacular assets, and b), more mundanely, even I could be come a “shundori” at that price!

After all that hype, her picture in the papers was a major let-down. I can understand that the last couple of days would have been very trying for her, her being on the lam and all, but I would not be surprised if her boyfriend-husband-DOM* doesn’t actually sue her when all this is over. I mean, where DID all that money go?! Trying time or no, with that kind of money pumped into her face (where else could it go?), her ogling public, I’m sure, had expected much more.

Guilty or not, what a spectacular lifestyle she lived. If my opinion matters, I think she was just whiling her time away as a boy-toy with this old rich buzzard (come on, he could have used some of that money he spent on her cosmetic upgrades on himself). In all likelihood she was hoping that he would croak on one of their skirmishes – either from their frantic closed door politics in overseas chambers or from the hotel tab the morning after! As for the charges of peddling yaba, it was probably a small favor for her favorite financier. I think that as far as peddling goes, I am sure she took the limo and not the metro! Peddling? No. Courier service, more like it. But then that’s just my opinion, and I have nothing more solid than speculation and wild guesses to back my claims.

Having said that, just imagine the times she lived in! She was young(er), decadent was god, and she was above the law. Foreign trips, chartered GMG flights (this was the clincher, in my opinion, as to their real aspirations – I mean for a couple that reportedly spent Tk. 1.5 crore over 11 days in Tokyo, to charter a Bombadier to Cox’s Bazar for a honeymoon is just so sad), diamond tiaras, designer outfits, Victoria’s Secret lingerie – she was living the fairy tale princess dream; only in this story the princess was a little PG-18 (well, she was 26) and was married to the frog.

What a scandal the press can rile up; oh what lurid details they can hound out – even the ever stoic men in black seemed quite amused to relay stories of ostentation underlined with seductive overtures and insinuations. What’s more, is that you’d think I was making all this up from reading trashy tabloids and not the more respectable mainstream papers! So just imagine what the tabloid had to say! Yaba, whether you did it or not, know someone who does, or didn’t even knew what was happening, is suddenly the story on everyone’s mouth. Respectable people are sneaking peeks, between reading the other stories, at the Yaba story made famous by the Yaba “Shundori.”

Does anyone REMEMBER the six young men who were caught by RAB with Yaba in their procession at all? Amin Huda, that oldish looking 36-year old has some recall value in this development owing to his kinship with a prominent (and as one paper labeled it, controversial) businessman, who himself was quite the rave in his time in the 80s and 90s for his own PG-18 reasons. I mean, wasn’t the story leaning towards Amin Huda being the mastermind and key manufacturer of Yaba in Bangladesh? Now the Yaba story has hit its prime with the “shundori,” and following along the dotted lines of her frequent flier destinations, suddenly the drug is an imported product! At least we are on the downward slope, unless of course there are any more revelations of the “marital” bliss shared between the princess and her lovable hotelier.

As for the plight of our delinquent hotelier, with the weight of the world piling on his shoulders, Yaba “Shundori” or not, Jannatul Ferdous, no matter how cosmetically enhanced, was, at least for him, his first (and last) vision of heaven for a long, long time.

* Dirty Old Man