Political Secrets

Diplomacy. The recipe for diplomacy has secrecy, disguised statements, or sweet nothings. As politics have evolved throughout the world, we've seen how dear they hold their right to secrecy.

In highly educated societies who have a certain level of consciousness and enlightenment, the population has been ascertained certain levels of access or guarantee of openness with regard to public or international policies the state establishes.  At least thats how I perceive how things are, in contrast to living here in Bangladesh, where the politicians word, not matter how far away from reality, is seemingly final and 'true'.

The contrast to everything as it stood came in the form of the Wikileaks/Assange affair. Before that we were able to get government documents out of the USA every 5 or 10 years, a provision by which let us know that the Nixon/Kissinger regime was against granting independence from Pakistan. That seemed like quite a gesture from the biggest or loudest proponent of democracy. Wikileaks however has taken off the tablecloth off of it and now we can see who are rubbing legs or kicking under there.

We saw the website and the founder Julian Assange come under fire not long after major news vendors started peddling articles with information from the leaks. The sites were being taken down and Assange charged with rape! Assange is now eagerly waiting for a way out of his stay at the Ecuador embassy in UK, but being careful still. The man has every reason to be careful, with fear that he might disappear and no one would leak that story.

Seeing these events turn out on my TV screen, I am pressed to believe once more, that politicians are just all alike. I wish I was a psychology major, because I would like nothing better than to study the psyche of these guys in whose hands we put our tax money and all the resources of our lands.

Related:
Assange Is A True Democrat: Chomsky
Assange Extradition Fact Sheet
UK 'withdraws threat' to Ecuador embassy

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Did I wake up in the right country?

The government did a good job! Ask anyone in the government, they'll always claim they always do! Yes, they kept our (or my) heads (head) spinning like a top. I woke up every two days asking myself the question I placed as the title of this post.

When one day its 'Get lost World Bank! We don't need you!', the next would be 'We're still thinking about it, we'd like some dialog', and then followed up by 'We can do this, we don't need the world bank's money! Even little kids want to give up their lunch money... they called the Prime Minister and said so themselves!'. They had even set up policies for a special bank account where citizens can contribute for the bridge over river Padma (M is silent for all you non-bengali folks).

The citizens of course filled up with patriotic fervor, even after the rising oil prices, rising prices of goods and necessities, rising taxes and VATs. Though, some channels showed some people on the streets who were not filled up with fervor (almost the opposite).

The WB, to recap, had laid down a few conditions to releasing the money for building bridges approved. We fulfilled many of these, and were staunchly opposing a few others. The sensational of these was the point of removing Mr. Abul Hossain from the ministry while investigators made sure there were no premise for corruption in the execution of this very large project. The government really stood proud behind him and said 'No!'. At one time, they moved him from the Communications ministry to Information ministry to calm WB down, but refused to take him away completely. They loved him too much, even though as a Communications minister he made serious oversight.

There are a few parody newspapers out right now. I know of two - Dainik Motikontho, and Dainik Maghbazar. They had started putting absurd news titles and events surrounding actual events, which really reflected the lunacy of the overall situation. But in recent times, even when I read the real news, from the serious newspapers, I can't tell apart the real and the parodied.

But after months of news and parodies, reality checks and escapes, yesterday it was announced that he might be resigning. This, at the peak of our defiance of World Bank (and ADB).

MP Abul said yesterday:  "আমার শুভাকাঙ্ক্ষী এবং আমি যাঁদের শ্রদ্ধা করি তাঁরা বিভিন্ন সময় আমাকে বলেছেন, তদন্ত চলাকালে আমার মন্ত্রী পদে থাকা উচিত না। আমি সিদ্ধান্তটা নিয়েছি। কার্যকর ব্যবস্থাও নিয়ে ফেলেছি। আমি দায়িত্বে থাকব না।"
He also added: "আমি মন্ত্রী থাকব কি না, সবকিছুই আল্লাহর ইচ্ছে। আর দপ্তরবিহীন মন্ত্রী হওয়ার বিষয়ে আল্লাহ প্রধানমন্ত্রীকে ক্ষমতা দিয়েছেন। তিনিই এ বিষয়ে সিদ্ধান্ত নেবেন।"

These are from Prothom Alo.

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POLICE: Fundamentally Lacking

What they can do in broad daylight
probably surpasses anything
you might expect to see in other countries

I think TIB (Transparency International - Bangladesh) once conducted a public survey on what was perceived as the most corrupt public office. The people, not surprisingly, gave the top prize to the two which are responsible to provide justice to the masses - the courts, and law enforcers.

If you follow some of the links above, you'll see that they both cried "foul" at the survey, and loudly protested this marring with falsehood of their angelic characters.

Meanwhile, some brave journalists have shown reports even way back then of the corruption of the police force. Even the news of the Police HQ opening up for everyone to come to file cases contained an important fact - that the public was having a hard time getting regional police stations to make simple general diaries:

থানায় সাধারণ মানুষের ভোগান্তি দূর করতে ঢাকা মহানগর পুলিশের (ডিএমপি) সদর দপ্তরে সাধারণ ডায়েরি (জিডি) গ্রহণে বিশেষ সেল খোলা হচ্ছে। তবে আগের মতো সংশ্লিষ্ট থানায় গিয়ে জিডি করার ব্যবস্থাও চালু থাকছে।

... এ বিষয়ে জানতে চাইলে ডিএমপির কমিশনার বেনজীর আহমেদ প্রথম আলোকে বলেন, ‘অনেক সময় থানায় জিডি করতে গেলে নানা ধরনের ভোগান্তির শিকার হতে হয়। কখনো কখনো পুলিশের বিরুদ্ধে টাকা নেওয়ার অভিযোগ আসে। এসব বন্ধ করতে শিগগিরই ডিএমপির সদর দপ্তরে জিডি গ্রহণে ওয়ান স্টপ সার্ভিস চালু হচ্ছে।’
(March, 2012)

One TV report showed how a police officer was in shady operations with confiscated drugs in either Gazipur or Ashulia. And now, its back again on today's news: থানায় ফেনসিডিল ব্যবসা!

We've all also seen how they've stood back during hartals/strikes while the student wing of BAL played vigilante against the opposition.

Another report even more disturbing, since it tells about the state of our humanity and not just the police: Cops 'discipline' orphan kids

There are plenty that we received through the news and there are plenty of stories we as citizens can tell from our own experiences, and the only answer we seem to be getting is a denial. That is to say that we are all liars, and to look away from the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system, something deep rooted that needs to be taken care of immediately to ensure that a country's citizens don't fear and loathe the very people entrusted with their safety! What the DMP commissioner admits above, doesn't make sense of the solution he is offering. Again, a lack of focus on the what is really wrong. We need a system that trains people to serve the public, instead of a system which ensures they can turn the public away, or worse, play them for a quick buck! (I wonder who had the idea to change the color of their uniform and put the slogan: "ও পুলিশ, বন্ধু আমার" (~o police, my friend)! I bet they had many meetings to get that far. If someone could just let them know, it was a waste of time and money!)

Related:
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Citizen Help Request
DMP's Feats
Guerilla Street Art (The police-mime photo manipulation is from here)

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Honesty, Transparency VS. Greed and Lack of Vision

When an established actor, sets up a TV channel, can you expect him to run things differently? There is an expectation, on my part, that he will remember the hardships that went into getting to where he is today. He would have experienced first hand, what goes into making a show, the people, the story writers, the post production team. All that should amalgamate into an executive who values his employees, values the creative people who are contributing to the success of his channel, and he will reward them justly so that they may continue to contribute and excel. What happens when he doesn't keep an eye on things and people within his organization are withholding rightful payments? An aggrieved client may write a public opinion that this is wrong, and force them to pay up to avoid a media scandal. Should the reaction then be to announce that the client can expect no more business with the channel?

Our country lacks the amount of universities to cater to the amount of students graduating out of high school. So new universities are starting up all around. My wife recently almost signed up to one of them for a job as a lecturer. Why would a new university advertise faculties they haven't been able to staff at a point of time? Should this not be taken as an urge to earn a lot of money rather than to start small and establish a good base? Why would a university urge that salary should not be important since the person applying as a lecturer has a family that can support her? Taking all that into consideration, when signing up she found out that they also want her to teach something in another faculty. The grand total of subjects she would be teaching at the university, had she taken the job would have been 7.

Music, as with other fields in the arts, are areas where you are nothing without passion. Lets face it, parents don't push their children into the arts - there is no future there, not like becoming a doctor, or a banker. Musicians die of old age, and some of them through lack of treatment they could not afford. Since the birth of this country, I have felt that we've seen a decay in the quality of music, and cinema. I cannot claim to know much of the literary world, but a few friends who are passionate there have claimed similar. Its not that there aren't excellent people in those fields, but that the mediocre are crowding up the space by their ludicrous large numbers. Had we had proper nurturing of the arts by those who could, instead of a run for quick bucks through cheap thrills, I might have been in a different mood this morning.

"Piracy" is another thing that we hear of these days when the music industry comes in question. Labels have been under scrutiny from artists for not establishing intellectual property rights and being greedy with the income of music. Musician get a down payment of money for handing over al rights to their work to the label - that was the norm. The storm that was kicked up did well in some aspects, since now someone like Grameen Phone wants the labels to show that they have the rights to distribute the music in the form of 'welcome tunes' or ring tones, etc. I just signed such a paper yesterday to a song my band recorded. Labels have joined in the fight to stop piracy, and to them, its the fight to stop their sales from diminishing. We have so far, given away three singles to a series of compilations from the same label, so I have signed away the rights before, also, but the last time I was not there for the 'lecture' The 'lecture' is what the labels are telling kids who are forming bands and eager to release their songs and eventually make an album. Its goes like this:

"Tell your friends, not to download the songs! Buy the originals, stop piracy. Don't put up your singles on your websites! If you know the administrators of the forums where they put out these songs, try to get in touch with them. If they are downloading for free, its like 'stealing'!"

At that point I just smiled. There was one reason we are giving our singles away - we wanted these songs to be out there, for people to listen. We knew the risks, yet we complied. BUT, I have a feeling that the label was so short sighted, they didn't realize there could be other ways of doing this - mainly, taking a lesser cut to make the bands feel appreciated. A compilation CD is packed with singles from different bands. Considering the costs of putting out a CD here, the label will make enough with just the sales from the friends and family of each of the bands' members during the ecstasy of eid. More friends than family. The label is just paying up the recording costs of the songs, and then its the cost of pressing CDs and printing the sleeves. This is the 4th release in this series and the third time that its a double CD. I believe they have figured out the marginal cost/profit ratio here of releasing one CD vs. two. What they could've easily done in the third cycle, is to arrange some royalty for the bands' works, instead of buying it up and advocating against piracy. Oh, the irony! Its almost like they are counting on the bands to carry on a few years like this and then to get disheartened and disband along the way. Instead of establishing good faith between these fresh, passionate bands, they choose the old ways. Talking of intellectual property rights, I don't see much relevance here since most of the labels are unscrupulous businessmen who would just lie about album sales and you have a far worse fate than the old down payment.

I heard the chairman of a start up software company once say, "we want to make money, but if we wanted it to make it quickly, we could have gone into internet pornography or internet poker, but we wanted to do something that helps people, even if it takes time". That software company makes billions a year now creating software for a niche within the health sector in USA. The proper mindset is needed, a bit of humanity alongside the profit seeking. The lack of vision and greed I see, I blame it on our education system (not just schools and teachers, but parents too), which puts us in a race very early in life that helps shed values.

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Protest and You Shall Perish

One of the remarkable things about AL is the iron hand with which it is dealing with protestors of ANY kind. When the opponents try to get out of their party or organization offices to take part in a rally, no matter how peaceful it might have been intended to be, the Police has been playing their devoted roles in breaking them up and inciting arrests, so to speak. It happened last week when BNP tried to go out to protest the dismissal of the Caretaker Government system (don't confuse yourself, but it was put in place by AL in the first place by means of rigorous protests which had the country in a standstill for a looong time back then) which takes care of holding elections. Now, prior to this, the caretaker government held a brief stint in which it tried to bring forward corruption charges against the leading politicians from both camps. There has been a lot of talk about it on the TV talk shows and the newspapers, but all in all we've managed to put our apathetic hats on for the most part.

Some people, didn't care for that hat last sunday (03/07/2011), when the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports (NCPOGMR) called a strike to protest the deal thats in the making with ConocoPhilips to do some offshore drilling for gas which sleeps underneath us. Bloggers of Bangladesh got out, tearing up their hats, and under the sun and held before them long cloth banners which told of their protest. And the police, faithful to their leaders and not the tax-paying citizens came out piously to break them up and make some arrests. Law and Order, Gentlemen, has been ... er... restored. Educators and bloggers, and non-political citizens who are concerned are now prisoned.

Coming up, is a 4 day strike called by the bigger guns, the political and shaky BNP and Jamaat. I wonder, after their last attempt at a strike was so vividly broken down by the police, what they are planning to redeem themselves. Kinda scary, and at the same time soap-opera-exciting.

That what this is... a political soap opera.

Related:
Interview of an activist of NCPOGMR
Dinmajur Blog
Half Day Hartal (Prothom Alo)
The Wall Street Journal Picks up this story
Our Students in Sweden Protest for the Protestors

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More Buses (and sure to continue)

An update from my last post on buses, which are affectionately also called "public transports"

A video ..

And also, fresh from yesterday's episode of 'life', a picture:

This, of course, came with the title -
"দুই মিনিবাসের পাল্লায় প্রাণ গেল দুই যুবকের"

Honestly, if we cannot hold the bus company owners liable for such incidents, we can continue expecting this kind of public service in years to come. When, riding speeding buses, commuters are happy to feel they're getting home or to work faster, but the injured commuters of the bus shown above, took part in beating the bus, which I imagine didn't have much of a well kept body anyway. And fellas, you were a little too late with the outrage don't you think?

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Corruption: How to fight this Way of Life?

The Prothom-Alo "Bodley Jao, Bodley Dao" billboards once filled the cityscape and airwaves, tv channels. What I thought was a well made campaign and empathized with, also met with a lot of sarcasm from a lot of people. At the same time, a lot of anti-corruption billboards also blocked the skyline along with the usual commercial ones.

Government offices are also adorned with posters with such messages, the same offices where they are still practicing what the the posters are frowning on. This really makes me think that we have no way to fight this! Its so deeply rooted into the characters of these people who get these jobs, after passing the BCS examination, which tests their knowledge on the government and history and I don't know what else.

I can understand that some of us are helpless victims of that corruption, but its also not unusual to find a so-called educated man accept this corruption as a rightful way of life. They would tell you, there is nothing wrong with paying for a service! Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering food, and the waiter is looking the other way and not listening to you, in wait for a bribe to take your order and bring you your food. A payment over the price of the food, the VAT, and Service Charge that the restaurant has set for their services. This is right?

So, for those of us who do think this is wrong, is there really a way to fight back or stop condoning these practices? If a thief who nabs a purse and runs away, can be beaten to death on the streets, what makes us feel that bribery is an acceptable thing?

NOTE: Hope no one responds with a 'Every country has corruption' or 'Everyone Does It' like Mr. Suranjit Sengupta did on TV. I am not looking for excuses and you're blind if you do not see we're taking corruption to a new level.

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The Right to be Right

It seems that one property of a government is they want to be right. I had no idea that the Egyptian people held so much beef against their government, and from the news you can see how hard it was to prove to the government that they were wrong.

Relative to that, we have a news today that the TIB officials who were accused of libel have gotten their bail. Poor chaps tried to gather people's opinions on what the people thought were the most corrupt sectors of country. Through this lawsuit, TIB is being told that they are wrong, and since the TIB report, and subsequently, a portion of the country's people accused mostly government offices of corruption, the government's stance here is that they did, or rather DO, nothing wrong.

Article: TIB officials secure bails

Meanwhile, my last blog about the need for an online account of bribery in the country has led to a reader from India pointing me to this website:
www.ipaidabribe.com! I think This shows a kind of vigilance that is really required in countries where corruption and lawlessness is dangerously a way of life almost!

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Everybody does it!

TIB or Transparency International Bangladesh recently put out a survey which asked a question in the line of: Which service institution is the most corrupt you think?

Of course, what the people said outraged our ministers and broadly speaking, the government. A reaction that almost sounded like a "How dare you people! We are the government"*. Thats how I perceived it, and that was laid down in concrete last night watching RTV's Road to Democracy.

The panel had AL's Mr. Suranjit Sengupta, whose response to the whole thing was a song and dance routine which went like "Every democracy's got corruption! Even developed countries! Your survey's whack!" The survey, he complained, wasn't specific enough, not actionable. The TIB guy to this replied that the detailed report was not printed in newspapers (obviously), but is available on their website and he is happy and willing to make it available to him. To that, he just repeated himself in a louder voice, as you would expect loudmouth politicians to talk.

Here's the thing - the survey reflected what people's perceptions are of the system. If even a majority 6000 people say its true, there has to be something that needs looking into! Its not unheard of, its not unseen ... walking into most government banks (haven't been there in a while), police station**, BRTA, etc., will only give you a sense of chaos resulting from a lack of information - Which counter? Where do I start? Who do I talk to? If you find someone to talk to, what do you do if they won't give you the time of day and act human? Short of slapping the guy and getting arrested, are you expected to run off to write a complaint with someone? Where to go? The ACC? The police? Can you afford, at a time when you need to get something important done, to run around and setting things straight which should've been straight to start with? Hence the bribe or a dalal who are middlemen of the service sector.

I had hoped the government would take such a survey, no matter how faulty or inaccurate, and just humor us with an attempt to get to the root of it. I would be calmer now. Why does TIB have to tell you where exactly things are going wrong Mr. Sengupta? Most of the offices are filled with corruption and grave mismanagement and extremely bad processes, which when looked at, even a slightly bright matriculate student could suggest better solutions to!

* Some of them also tried to refute TIB's survey on intellectual grounds - like the authenticity of the survey regarding how many people were interviewed and so on.

** I once took a GD to Ramna station, where an officer accused me of not taking enough care in my writing! When I asked if it'd be alright if i corrected the text in place, he was appalled, accusing me that I wouldn't be this careless if I was writing something to the bank. He was offended! In fact, yes, the private bank I frequent would be much more accommodating to me Mr. Officer! When I asked for a piece of paper so I could rewrite it, he said they don't have any! Imagine that...

Since the mushrooming of satellite channels here, there has been a trend of politically charged talk shows. They have all been quite successful in getting people of power and heights in their guest chairs and also giving people the chance of joining in and putting forward their views via phone, sms or emails.What drew most of us in about these programs were the fact that they were raising points and debates that we are usually deprived of from our regular parliamentary proceedings. Also, historically, we've always had one in power - AL or BNP, and the other in opposition, and usually missing from parliament on some grounds, that the one in power will help carve using the mud they hold against each other. The mud slinging is also taken onto the screen sometimes in programs such as Channel I's তৃতীয় মাত্রা or 'The Third Level' which is debate centric and where many episodes saw two ministers from the opposite sides sit on either side of the host. Amusing to say the least.BBC's Sanglap was also commendable.

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