We shall overcome
Angela MV Robinson (Rev Mrs), Headmistress Girls' Section, Bangladesh International Tutorial
In many recent articles I have read that Bangladesh is a 'bottomless basket' as though this is what Henry Kissinger meant when he referred to Bangladesh many years ago as a 'basket case.' I fear the true meaning of what he said is much more cruel and challenging than that.In the lunatic asylums of England, in the days long before such places understood mental illness or had at their disposal the numerous drugs and therapies that are available today, their managers were at their wit's end to know how to restrain and care for the inmates. Those who might be violent were chained or tied up or put in 'straitjackets'. As for those who were totally helpless and hopeless, they were just put in a foetal position and tied into large, round baskets so that they could do minimum harm to others, or themselves. Thus these 'basket cases' wasted away their brief existence. I am horribly aware that some Bangladeshis see their country, however much they love it, as a hopeless case and cannot wait to get their visas to live elsewhere sometimes via a marriage for which their parents are prepared to pay a handsome amount, maybe in dowry. I am sure I am not the only one of your readers, sir, who is fighting like a tiger to make Bangladesh a place where young and promising people DO want to live and who view the coming election with both hope and fear. It will surely be a test case for many as to whether they will want to leave the country or stay. So much will depend upon the honourable behaviour of those who will be under great pressure to behave very badly indeed. Situations will surely arise (indeed, they have arisen already) in which good behaviour will be in the long-term interest of the country but NOT in the short-term self-interest of individuals or their factions or parties. I fear the moral test ahead will be more crucial than the political one but, as usual, it will be impossible to fail one and win the other. It is up to every person in Bangladesh, inspired by the tremendous achievements of our Nobel laureate, to brush aside in anger the cruel verdicts of the past and by his and her conduct show the world that the citizens of this country, far from being helpless and hopeless , are capable of the discipline and national pride necessary for free and fair elections and that their country can stand tall in the company of other democracies. Basket case? What an outrageous judgment on a nation that knows that the price of freedom is in the mastery of the skills necessary to hold a free and fair election - and then, please God, accept its verdict!
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