To the Chief Adviser, Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed
This message has been in the making for a long time. We were hoping that we would not have to send this out. The fact that this is published now, it should act as an alarm for your government.
A note to readers: If you agree with this message, please each one of you forward it to feeedback@pmo.gov.bd, so he knows how many people favours this. This is very important!
A valid question or issue that can be raised is this - why did we change our position on the issue of trial of war criminals now - whether it shoudl be done by the interim government, as opposed to our initial position of trying them by an elected government? We have touched on the issue in earlier occassions, but we did not really address the issue directly. Why change position in such an important issue and why risk embarrasing the current government whose capacity is alreay limited by a time bound roadmap and also, they have taken so many projects that it should be already too much for them. We agree. Still, we changed our position with a sane mind. Why?
Frankly, changing our position on this issue has nothing to do with the issue itself. Surprised, huh?
Let us explain.
Just look around. There are many people who do not beleive that this issue will be addressed by the government who will be elected through the election for which your people are so on-work. Your promise of free and fair election in a level playing field. Yet, people still do not beleive that your project will be eventually successful. Why? It seems the perception is that the old faces will be coming back to form the government.
Not only the other people, your own government, including yourself, are part of the same public. You also do not beleive that there will be new political parties coming to power. It will be the same AL or BNP or their combination with other smaller evils. This is - even when - they have not changed their actions and words a tad.
The fact that you think they will be coming to power again is demonstrated through the words of your governemnt. You guys talk about why AL or BNP is not reforming themselves. Why do you care? If they want to keep the culprits on top, if they want to stay un-reformed or ill-formed, let them be. Shouldn't a level playing field ensure their defeat - if they do not reform? Can you see the logic? People are not stupid. People of Bangladesh never voted the wrong people - they always vote for the best choice at the time. The question is whether there will be alternative to traditional choices?
So, what is the problem? You can not achieve what you initially thought? At least, the body language suggests so. Or is it the fact that you plainly can not complete the project, the project definiiton was faulty given the resources? If you think its doable, why dont you talk about resources? Why not get people on board with what your thoughts are on this?
So, if that is the case, then why shouldn't we expect that you do at least one thing. Try those criminals. At least, you can do that. Changing a corruption economy is much more complex a problem than trying some criminals - specifically when that was done at the birth of the country. So, we thought. Do you see the logic that justifies change in our initial position on the issue? If you can not deliver the real thing, why dont you at least deliver this? Hope we have communicated our logic well so all know.
Lastly, as we do always, here are some problem solving.
Is there still any way to salvage the project? Yes, this is a great project of reconstruction to many of us Bangladeshis. That is why they have given you - an unelected government - to govern more than anybody could even think. We would be inclined to say that yes, there is still time to achieve the mission. We have written about it before. Let us repeat for the benefit of the readers.
You can not change nature of the politicians, with the resources you have (particularly less time). It is true. But you can change the dynamics of the socio-political structure. There are many ways to do that. Given the timeframe you have left, here is the most effective one.
There have always been a competition for the elected positions in various level of governance system (starting from UP member to MP). Many people vie for those posts. But so far, only the corrupt ones have gone for that.
No serious people who are also honest have ever dreaded to compete for those, except for few lucky ones who were born in very rich family. You have to make these positions attractive to the honest people. This has to be done in such a way that being rich is no longer a pre-condition. Our suggestion is that you give a monthly salary of at least 50 paisa per month per voter for these elected office-holders (instead of current declaration of meagre doubling the TK 1500 to TK 3000, that is funny). If this policy is adopted, that would make these positions attractive to the competent people in a way that will change the dynamics of politics in Bangladesh. For a posting on a related topic, see this link:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdresearchers/message/2607 The specific numbers are not important, but it has to be big enough to make any substantial change.
We know what many of our readers are thinking. We do not blame you guys. Its not your fault. Even our best intellectuals will also be saying the same. For example, you ask Dr. Wahiduddin Mahmud or Dr. Yunus or Dr. Muzaffar Ahmed or any other respected intellectuals, they will tell you that its not a good idea. People should come to public offices to serve the country, not for money, blah blah blah. Behind this assumption, they think that only the sons and daughters of the rich are entitled to compete for the election. That basic assumption is false and that is destroying our democratic foundation. If our this assumption is true, that would explain the root cause of many of our problems. This mindset is coming from last century.
You guys assume that all who are competent are born in the elite families. You couldn't be more wrong. Look at the local level leaders. Lives of most of these leaders are not only a story of rise in corruption, there are also many a story of rising economic condition. They become ward member because they think that is only way to make a decent money. To do that they first become mastan. And some percent eventaully succeed, the smarter ones. Though that is wrong way. But what is the alternative? If a honest person even somehow becomes elected, what is he supposed to do after being elected? Run his family for 3000 taka and still be popular chairman? Or do you want these few honest people do the impossible jobs, and then go asking for money to the rich of the soceity to run his family?
Our system do not prize the honest and competent. We currently have a system which punishes, if you are foolish enough to be honest and talk your mind.
Say for example, somebody does a job which pays him taka 30,000 per month. He has achieved this through hard work, honestly, during his last 35/40 years of life. This monthly salary is probably his only life-line to support the family, because none of his father or father-in-laws were theives, let alone himself. So, what choices do you give him, if he wants to go back to his village and fight for the UP chairman or a ward member position? Being elected itself a big challenge. Your election commission has a lot of work to enable this type of candidates to get a level-playing field in the villages. Is there a legal way for this person to raise money for election spending? Can he open a bank account and receive donation for running for office?
Or say a person who is earning 1,20,000 taka from a job, and he is considering to go for MP candidacy.
There is no legal framework for these two person to raise their funds from their personal network, if they want to. Election commision will have to figure that out soon. Time is running out.
But our today's talk is not about that. We are assuming that election commission will do that effectively and sooner than later. But then comes the policies that you make or your advisory council make.
Once these type of candidates get elected, if they gets upto there, what does he do to make sure that their families are still being fed well and their children being sent to a good school? Have you ever thought of making a budget of your elected official - the type that you so often talk about - the honest and competent ones? If you have not done so, you better do that. Do not assume that all of them will have their savings account or father's money to support their families. Few might and be still honest, but many wont.
Do not expect that their budget will come from out of pocket. It will either come from corruption (the traditional candidate) or from the government exchecker (because most of your honest and competent candidates do not have money or do not come from rich families)!!
Off course, unless you make a provision to receive donation for personal spending which we think is a bad idea.
So, unless you make sure that you change the incentives and framework so that the nature of the competitors are changed, you can not make any significant effect in the system. You have to change the stuctural parameters, if you really understand the problem and you really mean what you say. If you do this, the positive result will be much better than you can think of. Don't beleive us? Ring in some top rated professor in social system dynamics or application of complexity theory in social systems and ask them to run a simulation on this. MIT or Stanford or INSEAD or Tokyo or NUS or many other similar schools have such experts. To do this, to pay for the expenses of the elected officials, is not a big amount for the nation. If we expect a positive result, the money figure is manageable. The other article for we earlier provided link has some calculation. This seemingly insignificant injection of energy into the structure has the capacity of changing the system within a very few years time. Moreover, you do not have to go that far in doing simulation. You have a real example closer to home. Singapore and many others are reaping the benefits of such policies.
If you can not or do not have the courage to do this, then give us a break - bakhwas should be stopped. The fact that your government is not stealing money, the mastans are mostly gone, you are trying to reform the bureacracy and the police, etc are good enough reason to praise you. But there is no need to increase the expectation of the populace in saying that they should expect a good government or good leadership after this election. Beyond your tenure, let "A story of a thirty some" to continue for some more years (To read the story, see
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/vinnomot/message/10977). It won't be as bad as it were pre-1/11. But there is no gurantee that your cosmetic and half-hearted reform efforts will make a strong enough dent to reverese the degeneration in the system.
Dear readers, still there is no need to be dishearned. Our changes will be much slower than we thought we would be getting. After all, you represent a failed generation - what better could you do? For the same reason, we had earlier opposed the idea of Dr. Yunus's joining politics with the banner of NaShok. With such a bunch of incompetent, hypocrite and closed-minded generation, we actually should not be expect much better than this.
If public thinks that the current government is not doing everything in their reach to establish good governance, it would be an opportunity lost. Please, please, please. Take actions to inject some honest energy in the system. Take actions to make a competition among honest and competent, not a competition among the corrupt and culprits. The fact that you are running the country, is unconventional. So, do not hesitate just because some bureaucrat tells you that its unconventional, or can not be done. Think for yourself.
If you do have have the will to do that, then try the war criminals, at the least.
We think both can be done. Start the war crimes commission by this Independence Day. Then start the elections of the local government bodies, under the proposed policies. And once all is over, hold the general election. All of these can be and should be done.
May the Almighty bless them all.
If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the columinsts in regular traditional media, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.
Dear readers, also, if you thought the article was important enough so it should come under attention of the head of the government please forward the message to them. Email address for the Chief Advisor: feeedback@pmo.gov.bd or at http://www.cao.gov.bd/feedback/comments.php . The more of you forward it to them, the less will be the need to go back to street agitation. Use ICT to practice democracy. It is already proven that this government responds to the feedback.
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