Do not aim for headlines, please
IF nothing that needs to be changed is changing; something is slowly but surely undergoing changes deep within many of us. Somehow, we are not thinking and talking the way we did one year ago. We are not analysing things the way we did a year ago. For some unknown reasons, we are thinking, analysing, talking and acting more like those cynics than anything else. We were not cynics a year ago, and we have not become hardcore cynics, yet. But we are scared, as we can feel the changes taking place in the labyrinth of our minds.
In a social get together conversations are beginning to sound more like conversations that take place in a cathedral. One bewildered person asks another more bewildered person: " Bhaisab, what is going on?" There is no response from the other side, no initiation of dialectic invectives, no intelligent interaction, only two pairs of blank eyes lock and at one point disperse. Why is it happening this way?
The answers are to be found in the print and electronic media news items. Read newspapers on Monday and do your own analysing. "IGP to be elevated to 3-star general"… now the cynic inside you will ask, will it make the police force more powerful overnight and help bring down the crime rate in the country? Your guess is just as good as mine. Read: "Redesign university curriculum," and ask yourself… who will do it? Where is the expertise? Where is the finance? No one knows.
Here is an interesting one: "Corruption at court starts from the listing of cases. Bench officers of courts indulge in corruption due to inefficiency and carelessness of judges concerned." Well, is that breaking news? Not at all! We have been writing on this issue for decades but no one cared to listen. Just because the attorney general has said it today does not mean things will improve like a miracle. If he has some idea of where the problem lies then he should ask the government to take immediate steps. Judiciary is the last resort of the oppressed, therefore, there must not be any room for incompetence and the corrupt.
There is more to turn you into a cynic. "Law Commission left out of focus. Government yet to respond to its 2-year reform plan." We all know that modernising the legal system and updating some old laws are vital for ensuring justice as well as good governance, yet nothing moved towards that direction till yesterday. Therefore, we are exactly where we were left stranded by the previous governments as far as law reforms are concerned.
Another headline that we have been reading since the time of Adam and Eve goes like this: "No more unplanned housing in Dhaka." It is the favourite line of the ministers -- past, present and future. While such speeches are being delivered from the podium, hundreds of trucks unload bricks on the sidewalks for the under-construction buildings, and hundreds of water bodies and playgrounds are turning into housing plots every day.
Today the headline reads: "JS sits today without BNP." Yesterday it read: "JS sits today without Awami League." You see, media people just have to change the position of names. It's not a difficult task, as our politics is so predictable. Please go ahead: "8 highway trauma centres to reopen." Cynics want to know why did they close down in the first place? Who own and run them, actually? They also want to know whether those centres would turn into money-making sources for the political workers of the ruling party if started again? Can the government assure us of qualified physicians, nurses and medicine available 24 hours?
To say the least, we are suffering from tremendous mental anguish after reading big talks concerning solving of traffic congestion (while a couple of hundred cars hit Dhaka roads every day), reopening of circular waterways, building expressways, doing bazaar monitoring, protecting our forests and rivers, removing brick kilns from unauthorised locations and so on and so forth. We can read the lips of the political leaders when they deliver speeches from the podium. We know what they would say next.
Has anyone in the government thought about the fact that already one year has gone by from a term of five years? Only "four years" are all that is left to them. They have "many promises to keep." But how? Cynics wonder what mechanism the government has up its sleeve to ensure implementation of all the major projects that are supposed to increase national output, alleviate poverty, generate employment, address global warming fallout, tackle the yearly floods, increase electricity production and ensure digitalisation of Bangladesh.
Therefore, cynics request the government not to go for the headlines with big words, but to go for intense implementation work to achieve the targets to fulfil election pledges. Let the media find out about your good works and give them due place in the news.
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