Zabaniyah
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Source: A report and its rebuttalBadrul Ahsan
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The cry-ptically titled 887-word article Embraceable You appeared in the July 30 issue of The Economist, which drew a 1,362-word response from the Bangladesh government on August 5 signed by the Director General of External Publicity, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Anybody who cares to read might still find both the report and the rebuttal on the online edition of the magazine. Foreign readers may or may not, Bangladeshis will be disappointed. The dilemma that has been haunting them for last forty years will get once again reinforced. They won't know which is what or, for that matter, which side is telling the truth.
As a matter of fact, the magazine story reads as if an anti-government scribe was ranting inside the reporter's head. The government letter, of course, is a government letter. It is a cant written with the utmost devotion of a party propagandist, more a eulogy to the leader than a convincing argument as to why the international magazine was wrong.
In all fairness, the article is a printed version of what has been hinted before. We have heard about the Indian support, cash or kind, even both. We have heard about how the military-backed caretaker government went all out for Awami League so that it could come to power in 2008.
The more enlightened amongst us also can guess that a wary China won't be happy should we get too close to India for its comfort. And, all of us living in this country should know where the shoe pinches. Price escalations, corruption, police brutality, power shortage, traffic congestion and the declining law and order situation eloquently speak that this government has got cracks in the ramparts of its popularity.
Then, what has The Economist told us that we didn't know? Not to say that everything we know is true. But most of the things mentioned in that essay, rightly or wrongly, have circulated before.
The timing of the story is interesting though. It coincided with Sonia Gandhi's vist to Bangladesh. It was not an official visit, but a private trip to receive an award on behalf of her late mother-in-law Indira Gandhi. Why should a renowned magazine pick such an innocuous occasion as its opportune moment to embarrass two countries? That also in such details that protocol minutiae like sharing a sofa with the Bangladesh prime minister got mentioned in the story.
One can always ask what was the real intention behind running this story? Was it a warning shot fired at India prior to its prime minister's scheduled visit to Bangladesh next month? That doesn't make sense because everything the story tells, the Indian South Block must have told their boss already. Last June, it was the prime minister himself who said as mysteriously as he retracted: "So, the political landscape in Bangladesh could change at any time."
Was it a wake-up call for Bangladesh? Could it be a newsy tip for the government that it should watch out? Could it be an early warning of that same imminent change, which had slipped out of the Indian PM's mouth? Should the government spare the messenger and concentrate on the message?
In that sense, the magazine story has been merely an external projection of our internal perceptions. All of these misgivings have regularly surfaced in armchair discussions in millions of living rooms across this country. If the government were listening to its people, the story might not have been written in the first place.
The Ostrich Syndrome has sent many a heedless regimes to their logical destination. While some or all of the points raised by The Economist may or may not be true, the government should not refuse to acknowledge something that is blatantly obvious today. This country is in a pretty bad shape.
If it chose to respond to the story, that perhaps came as as natural reflex to an uncalled for embarrassment. The response, however, could have been sweet and short. When defense takes longer than offense it shows struggle.
On the issue of "hounding" Muhammad Yunus, the response could have mentioned court decisions. Instead it caddishly reads, " it was Honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself who had a distinct role in patronising and thus in making micro-credit, Grameen Bank and Professor Yunus familiar globally." The rest of the world isn't convinced. They would still like to believe that a Nobel Laureate earns his recognition in his own right, not because anybody took pity on him.
The puzzling piece of the puzzle is the Indian silence. If the finger has been pointed at this government, it has been pointed at that government also. The world's largest democracy has been accused of bankrolling and belittling the democracy of another country. Why hasn't India reacted to its own defamation?
Silence is golden, provided it isn't assent.
The writer is Editor, First News and a columnist of The Daily Star. Email: badrul151@yahoo.com
E-paper: http://www.edailystar.com/index.php?opt=view&page=14&date=2011-08-12
