Zafar Sobhan

He who saves one life, saves the world entire.
–Talmud

A traveler was walking along a beach when he saw a woman scooping up starfish off the sand and tossing them into the waves. Curious, he asked her what she was doing. The woman replied: “When the tide goes out, it leaves these starfish stranded on the beach. They will dry up and die before the tide comes back in, so I am throwing them back into the sea where they can live.”
The traveler then asked her: “But this beach is miles long and there are hundreds of stranded starfish, many will die before you reach them — do you really think throwing back a few starfish is really going to make a difference?”
The woman picked up a starfish and looked at it, then she threw it into the waves and said: “It makes a difference to this one.”
–Popular fable

It’s a never-ending story: floods, cyclones, death, destruction. Inside the country, the events had a deadening familiarity. The days of foreboding as, literally, the storm clouds gathered The heightening anxiety with the periodic escalation of the official danger level. The collective holding of our breath and sense of impending doom as the storm hit. And the desperate rush for shelter and safety before, during, and after, that sadly left far too many behind and unprovided for.

The aftermath bears all the hallmarks of previous disasters to which we have all grown all too familiar. The valiant efforts, governmental and non-governmental, of groups and individuals, both inside the country and out, to help the distressed in their hour of need.

The absolute heroism of those millions who have had to suffer through the cyclone’s ravages. The desperate search for the survivors and to get relief to the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands stranded without food or water or shelter. The mounting death toll from disease and lack of safe drinking water that we would have hoped we could minimise.

There will be time enough later for recriminations and a full accounting. Certainly, we have done many things right, such as the building of thousands of shelters, but, as ever, it is never enough. Relief efforts and coordination have been decent, but, as ever, they could and should always have been better.

The word trickling in from the outlying districts and sandbar islands is that the death toll may be far higher than anyone had originally imagined. In an on-going tragedy of this scale, it is simply extremely hard to come up with a full picture so soon. Sadly, the death toll will continue to rise as all the information comes in.

Hardened reporters and relief workers are shocked and appalled by what they have seen. There are some things in life you can never get used to, no matter how many times you see them.

Disasters like this one always prompt enraging editorials and comments overseas about how Bangladesh is a benighted, God-forsaken country. How hopeless things are. How we are conspired against by the elements. How there is nothing to be done.

These perspectives are infuriating, but in the final analysis, not so important. But what is truly distressing is that many inside the country have also internalised this view and also believe that Bangladesh is doomed, that it doesn’t matter what you do to improve it, things of this nature will always come along and wipe out the good.

Indeed, there is credible fear now that with rising ocean levels that vast swathes of the country might be submerged beneath the sea within the next few decades. This being the case, why, the question goes, should we bother to do anything at all?

It is perhaps this mind-set that emboldens the looters and plunderers who have got so rich feeding at the public trough and made their fortunes by robbing the nation. The nation is sinking anyway, so one might as well grab what one can. We can’t save Bangladesh, so we might as well save ourselves. This is, sadly, what too many people in the country think, and this is reflected in the direction the country has gone all these years.

In Bangladesh, we need to come to terms with the fact that we suffer from a real morality deficit as a nation — or at least among the moneyed classes — there is a real moral problem with our indifference to the plight of our fellow countrymen and women.

They say that rats desert a sinking ship, and the root of the problem is the belief that Bangladesh is sinking and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

But while the cyclone may give support to those who believe this, it has also provided a timely reminder to all of us who do not: the vast majority of well-meaning, public-spirited Bangladeshis who get up every day thinking about what we can do to for the country to bring it into the light of a new day.

The cyclone has reminded us of why we do what we do. It is immaterial that Bangladesh might be submerged beneath the seas by the end of the century or if we are besieged by floods that carry away millions. Yes, thousands have died, and in the next cyclone thousands more will — but thousands have been saved, too.

Even as Bangladesh heads towards possible environmental oblivion, we should never stop the work we are doing. Every life saved or made better is precious and worth every effort we make to that end. Perhaps some of those saved this year will be swept away by floods in the next, but still we must continue to save them and do what little we can for them while they are still on this earth.

This is what it means to be a Bangladeshi. I firmly believe that we are on the path to better days and brighter futures, that we can one day create a land of hope and opportunity and safety and dignity for all Bangladeshis.

But whether we eventually can or not is not the issue. Whether I will ever live to see the Bangladesh I dream of in my life-time is not the issue. It is the struggle that is important, not the result.

The cyclone is a tragedy for Bangladesh. And chances are we will be hit by another tragedy of some kind before the decade is out. We will perhaps never be able to save everyone or provide every Bangladeshi the decent life that he or she deserves. But that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying.

Even if millions remain mired in misery, it is not a futile effort to try to lift them out. We won’t get them all, but for the ones we do get, the ones we have lifted out, and for the ones we will lift out in the future, it makes all the difference in the world.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.
The Daily Star
Nov 23, 2007