Lessons of history

Reading history is a pleasant pastime of living as a tourist actively in the past, when the book is not treated as a textbook. Reading about fast changes in history in a daily newspaper is a different thing, especially in today's global village.
When the political winds of change occur in the neighbouring countries, it is time to be alert. The ultimate straw is to face changes in the capital of one's own country; not stray changes once in a while, but with negative overlays decade after decade, since the birth of the nation. Bangladeshis can feel what it means.
Watch the global scenes today. The Americans are trying a new experiment in electing a new president (tired of military one-upmanship) - it is in Technicolor; without gender discrimination. EU, in the slow lane, has bestowed independence on Kosovo (a victim of genocide in the 1980s). In Pakistan, the general election took a new turn in snubbing military dictatorships (for half a century). Bangladesh has yet to learn the elementary codes for self-governance; while in South Asia, the Kashmir issue is a thorn in Indo-Pak relations. Vietnam and Iraq are sad examples of superpower lust. Add the lust for energy resources in every nook and cranny of the globe. Keeping whose standard of living? Blowing hot and cold on democracy and the slave train!
The phases in world history are intuitive, accumulative, or the karma/kismet effect [that is the third law of Newton, applied morally]. We learn, or unlearn more? In Nature, actions/reactions are not retaliatory, revengeful, or ambitious. There is a constant ongoing war between the laws of nature, and man-made concepts Scientific R&D teach us a lot, and make daily life easier; but it is unravelling the scientific secrets of the Supreme Creator. What has happened to plain living and high thinking--the way our chasibhais feed us [now they demonstrate for fertilizers and hybrid seeds!]. To decipher history is a difficult task, depending on the audience, and the future roadmaps.
In Dhaka, we need applied history, to push us more deeply into the paradoxes of the 21st century.