Shooting down the emaciated poor

THE problem with capitalism being foisted on poor societies is not hard to understand: it demeans the individual. And it makes a mockery of the poverty-stricken through humiliating them at nearly every turn. Reflect, if you will, on the mayhem and murder that ran through Tongi a few days ago. The police felt little qualm in shooting down men whose only fault was in asserting their right to a livelihood.

The owners of the garments enterprise they had been employed in had decided, stealthily and without any moral scruples, to shut the factory down. And this they did knowing full well that the workers, all those emaciated men and women struggling for bare survival from sunup to sundown, had not been paid their wages for months.

And then observe the irony. The owners quickly made it known that the workers had indulged in disorder. Their fellow garments manufacturers in the BGMEA swiftly drew the conclusion that a deep conspiracy had been hatched to destroy the sector. There are too the intelligence agencies of the government, with their dubious reports on arson being in the pipelines at the various garments units in the country.

Watch all those talk shows on television. You will come by the spectacle of garment industry chieftains waffling in their bid to explain their position. Not a sign is there in them of regret. Not one of them is apologetic about the sufferings of these workers, about the wages that have not been paid. And that is capitalism for you. You inform the country loudly that your mills are incurring losses because of global competition, because of a worldwide recession. But that hardly stops you from going off on junkets around the world.

There are all the telltale signs of how these new capitalists, many of whom scaled the heights of prosperity through hanging on to the coattails of all the bad men in power, are today pushing the poor to the fringes even as they go around projecting a sophisticated face for themselves at home and abroad. These men have homes abroad.

These men spend endless money on their elitist parties at home day after day. And yet they feel little shame in not paying their lesser employees the meager salaries that are theirs by right. And what else do you stumble upon in a poverty-driven capitalist society? Think. And you will likely come by realities that will leave you reeling.

Transport owners in the northern region of the country have for years waged a "movement" to get the vehicles of the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation off the streets in order for their buses to run on those routes. Hooligans and hoodlums have pelted stones at BRTC buses, have set up barricades on the roads as a way of instilling fear in citizens who have always been dependent on public transport. Go into the antecedents of these private transport owners. In politics, they tear one another apart, for they belong to different parties. But on the BRTC, they come together. They are not embarrassed at all.

It is a lopsided social order we have set into motion. And now that we have that bizarre idea called globalisation (really a condition where the world's powerful nations dump you with their products and refuse to take yours), the power to exploit has gone up by leaps and bounds.

Industrialists borrowing from public banks are given waivers on their interest (ask the prime minister, for she knows). But have you noticed the barbarity with which these same banks hound the poor farmer who may have borrowed as little as three thousand taka, and will not leave him in peace until he coughs up his miserable interest? Or dies?

Note the anti-poor fundamentals on which we have operated ever since the free market made an entry into our lives. The poor rickshawpuller no more has a view of the highway or avenue, for that has been given over to owners of second hand and reconditioned vehicles. The not very healthy-looking police constable feels no pity as he lets the air out of a rickshaw tire (the puller has committed an offence). He does not do a similar act when the driver of a car commits a similar offence. You own a car and you are a VIP!

When you humiliate the poor and let the affluent off, when despite a decision that ministers and lawmakers too will be taken to task for breaking traffic regulations they barge through the roads in unauthorised manner, you know you have a quasi-feudal society at work. Which takes you back to that garments question.

For years these businessmen have refused to let workers form or operate trade unions. That is not only undemocratic but also goes against the principles of modern political thought. Now that the government has agreed that trade unions in the readymade garments industry will be there, we should be happy. But will those unions work without inhibitions? You raise that question … and wait for an answer.

Meanwhile, what should we be doing about the men who called the police in Tongi and had them shoot those bullets into the exhausted beings that were the poor? It was murder. There were the murderers and those who instigated them into firing into the crowd. How should the law be dealing with them?

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk