I reached Vietnam today for a conference. Thanks to Shubinoy Mustofi, I loaded up on my reading on Vietnam for my long arduous 15 hour plane ride from London. The story of Vietnam is a story of resurgence and the story of fighting against all odds. But ever since coming here I couldn’t help but just sigh deeply, thinking about how this could also have been the story of Bangladesh.

Don’t get me wrong, as a human rights activist, I don’t envy the fact that there is no freedom of speech or politics in Vietnam. But I also believe living a life of dignity with basic rights to food, shelter and security is every person’s most fundamental human rights. That is where Vietnam is a success story. With growths averaging to 7 percent every year, Vietnam is now the darling of investors, multi-lateral donors and every Tom, Dick and Harry. So how does this Vietnam look? A bustling capital city with eye popping sky scrapers, hotels and every signs of fancy globalization? Hardly.

The airport in Hanoi looks like the ones we have in Tejgaon — our old airport from 30 years ago. One small luggage belt, one terminal, three floors. It had 12 immigration officers on the immigration area. I was out of the airport in 10 minutes after I landed with no queue. I remember the millionaire garments factory owner who is now the leader of our business community gloating over the fact how much better the hotels are in Dhaka than London and that to him was an indicator of how Bangladesh was progressing. I wonder what he would say seeing the airports in Vietnam. He is not the only one who looks at the improvement of urban service sector as the sign of growth in Bangladesh. Look at our focus. I can only think of multi-billion dollar plane purchase by our government, and the fancy satellite cities outside Dhaka. But hardly anything for the rest of the country. This goes back to the original question that Farid Bakht asked a few days ago — we need to fundamentally change the debate in our country — quickly.

But how did Vietnam get it right and we didn’t? I am not an economist and neither am I a development expert. But from what I gather from my reading is that a big key to Vietnam’s success is because of the success of its agricultural sector. Economist says: “In the mid-1980s, with farm collectivization going horribly wrong, the country was on the brink of famine. But by the early 2000s Brazil, the world’s largest exporter of robusta coffee, was astounded to find itself being overtaken by a country most of its people had barely heard of. More recently, Vietnam has surpassed India as the world’s second-largest rice exporter after Thailand. Vietnam’s farmers have become important competitors in all sorts of agricultural produce, from nuts to peppers to rubber. They are even selling tea to the Indians.” And that did not happen out of thin air. Starting from the mid eighties specific policies regarding the farm sector paved the way for this boom. How much effort has gone in Bangladesh to prop up our farm sector? I can’t think of any recent initiatives. We need to shift back the focus from the urban areas back to the rural economy.

The car that came to pick up was not a shabby one though — it was a fancy Beamer jeep. That pretty much is the tone of today’s Vietnam — a peaceful coexistence of the opulence of the private sector and individual entrepreneurs and state’s control over providing the basic services to the average citizen. On my way to the city, I see paddy fields — one after another. Closely followed by manufacturing plants of all brand name international companies you can think of — Panasonic, Nike, Canon and the list goes on and on. Intel is starting its 1 billion dollar plant this year.

I see Krishnachura and Bougainvillea on the street and I think of the similarities with Bangladesh. The delta, the fertile land, 90 million people, situated right next to an emerging economic giant, getting liberated around the same time after a bloody war — the similarities go well beyond the Krishnachura trees. Yet, Vietnam has left us behind and is going at full steam. By 2010, it will reach the status of a middle income country and by 2020 its targeting the status of a rich country.

The story of its growth is also not of disparity like our country. The middle class is growing and the gap between the rich and the poor is slowly but steadily decreasing.

Where will Bangladesh be in 2020? I don’t know. But when I look at the hundreds of women riding the motor bikes returning from work and compare the situation with our country where Government bows down to Islamists’ threat for announcing women’s policy for equal rights of women, I can not be hopeful. Of course, we have our garments workers. But that’s another story of deprivation than inspiration. We need to get our house in order and we need to do it fast. Let’s get the election — a free, fair and a credible one — quickly, so that we can switch back our debate to the real issues. Enough of this suspending state. The world has outpaced us long ago. We can still catch them but the second chances won’t be there for long.