“Perspectives need to be reshaped and redefined. And one way of doing that is through hearing the voices of the young”, says DS in its intro for the roundtable it did to find out what the younger chaps in desh are thinking. But how are you going to “reshape and redefine perspective” when you are perfectly happy to just interact with people who are just like you? Going through the list of participants in the roundtable, the first thing that struck me was how undiversified the group was. This was a group of people who probably bump into each other in social gatherings on a weekly basis. Yes, I am talking about the representation of the wider spectrum of the society in such talks. For a change, it was refreshing to see the young bloods in the round table. But when at the end of the discussion with the youth reps of Bangladesh, the moderator says, “One thing that did not come up today is employment. There is a large number of youth in Bangladesh. How can we employ them? The unemployment problem is pushing people into drugs and crime. This needs to be addressed. “, you just know there is something wrong with the representation in that talk.
People in that talk did not really deal with the issues what millions of youth in Bangladesh deal with. While the participants are all high achievers and well accomplished and a lot of them I admire highly and are my friends, I can’t stress enough how important it is to have people from all strata in these talks. Don’t get me wrong. I thank the DS for taking this initiative. But please don’t try to create another Sushil Samaj junior where there is only a certain group or class of people who are trying to speak for a much greater population they don’t represent. Where is the student leader from Dhaka University? Where is the Madrassa student ? Where is the student activist ? Where is the young politician? Where is the grassroot NGO worker or the young government officer from Borguna? The list goes on.

I stress this repeatedly in my writings that I just find it amazing that our fellow country men are so reluctant on breaking out from their familiar comfort zone. Of course, it is always nice and comfortable to interact with people who are just like you. But let’s try to break out of that comfort zone and really try to hear what the rest of the country is saying. Take the example of this young lad that I met in Fatulla last year.

He went to Madrassah because it was free and that’s the only education that he could afford. (To its credit, this issue is discussed in the meeting). But now after passing his Dakhil exam, he has no job, no skills and nothing to do. While on one hand he sees one group of people flaunting their djuice lifestyle, he is staring at a bleak future. Are we really talking to him or are we just happy branding him as an “Islamic Fundamentalist”? If you are not talking to him, you can be sure that someone else is and you may not like the outcome of that conversation. There are millions like him who are unemployed and are looking for direction and they are the majority. Can you really talk about the aspiration of the youth in Bangladesh without talking to him?

Perhaps I am totally going on a tangent, perhaps DS invited a lot of people and they did not show up but make no mistake this is the larger trend in the Bangladeshi society today. An elite few complacently think they can speak for all and decide the fate of millions. If you don’t know what I mean see the headlines in the newspaper today. Election Commission is going to talk about electoral reform today with 60 preselected “eminent personalities”. In this era when the word politics is widely hated, you can bet its these eminent personalities whose advice will stick and not the political party’s. Too much power to the “ignorant” mass may just be somthing we will not be comfortable with. And some of you, the people who come to this blog and proclaim that you speak for the people, you are guilty of the same sin and perhaps us, the bloggers, too.

That is the single most valid reason why democracy is still the best option by any means because it reflects the will of the larger majority and not an elite few. It is in democracy where a Mahfuz Anam is just as equal as the young madrasah student in the picture above. A lot of us talk about democracy but how many of us actually have internalized it? How many of us actually practice it at home? Or office? Ask yourself if you are really comfortable with an electoral system which does not differentiate between you and your domestic help.

Last six months, as Bangladeshis, have been trying for us. On the positive side, personally speaking, its been a huge learning opportunity for me to truly realise what my political beliefs are. Ironically, it is Mahfuz Anam who sums it up nicely.

I think in the last fifteen years we have found out that the democracy that we have practiced needs to be improved. Governance, parliament all of these need to be improved. When we criticize the parliament, it is not to do away with the parliament. When I am criticizing an MP, I am not criticizing the institution, but the role that the MP has played. Let us not have any doubt about where we stand, we stand for democracy, we stand for what we have achieved, but the regret is that we could have done better.

For the full report, go here. Hope to highlight on some of the other things discussed there in separate entries.