"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;”
What can I say more than that? Far from my mother land I try to type some words on my note book. Recently I was monitoring some talk shows on the forth coming election in Bangladesh on a few Bangladeshi channels and noted some anomalies. The roll of media in Bangladesh seems a bit funny to me.
One of them is Channel I which airs a popular Talk Show called Tritio Matra. The host Zillur Rahman is a renowned Dhaka elite. Bangladeshi elites (Shusheel Samaj) are the 8th wonders of the world. Now who are these elites?
During the liberation war (1971) there were some notable intellectuals in Bangladesh, who augmented the cause of Bangladesh and some of them were able to escaped the wrath of the Pakistani and collaborator forces. They had representations in every part of the society and were very much near and dear to the people. Some of them explicitly dedicated their life for country. Their successors and the contemporary intellectuals had a dream for a secular and progressive Bangladesh. I can mention few names such as Kabir Chowdhury, Hassan Imam, Dr Nilima Ibrahim, Samsur Rahman, Begam Sufiya Kamal, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury and the list goes on. They fought for their Principle and rights without any compromise all through their lives. But they were countered by the reactionary forces and very often they were labeled as “Awami Intellects”.
In course of time a few of them already reached the end of their lives and the nation lost some valuable assets. Some of them like Humayun Azad was the target of fanatics because they had progressive thoughts. I am sorry to say we have not got eligible successors of them, probably they retracted out of fear. Instead, we got some compromising, power monger, rootless and people of double standard, who are now known as the elite class of Bangladesh. You will see their re presentation in almost every forum now.
A chunk of editors, retired army officers, barristers, business men, some rootless politicians, media celebrities have formed a big syndicate. Over the top they are getting support of a portion of Non resident Bangladeshi who have the fatal attraction for a non elected regime and backing of some ambassadors of some influential countries.
Coming Back to Zillur Rahman’s popular Talk show, suddenly I have found some funny kind of characters are appearing at his program. One so called businessman from Qatar, who tried to get nomination from one political party but failed, simply was slumming politicians indiscriminately and have made funny comments about the father of the nation on a free style manner. Zillur was also
fueling on the fire.
Our elites are very often teaching us lesson of democracy. Some times they forget that “the people of the country know their need more than the elites”.
In the last few days there were much brouhaha about Arafat Rahman's scandal in a Singapore Bank, which was exposed by the Anti Corruption Commission in Bangladesh. This news is making big head lines in the newspapers.
My question to the Anti Corruption Authority is, “why they chose this particular time before the election for this investigation? Were they sleeping the last two years?”
The Bangladesh media is a champion to show their allegiance to the party in power. They can also predict which party can come to power and try to show their faithfulness by going some extra miles. Some Journalists have already started to cash on Arafat issue to be near to Awami League even by resorting to some false reporting.
Over the top the High Court is giving verdict against the Election commission (EC) to include detained leaders in the polls. Now the election commissioner was seen showing emotional reactions to the media on these decisions of high court. In fact he had found ways to voice his frustrations without showing contempt to court.
But our so called Elites are silent on these issues. I don’t know if I ever will see a sane political process in Bangladesh but for now most of the so called Bangladesh elites seem to have a moral bankruptcy.
