Respect and responsibility

BANGLADESH suffers from many deficits, from material goods to abstract virtues. Bangladesh lacks infrastructures, steady and reliable supply of electricity, safe and modern transportation system. Bangladesh lacks efficient civil servants, decent hospital beds, doctors, nurses … the list can fill the space of this column easily, especially when such a litany of complaints comes from an expatriate. Even home-based citizens are rarely in short supply of such gripes. Dhaka traffic. Road accidents. Should I say more?
However, deep down, Bangladesh suffers from the absence of two Rs, which accounts for most other deficits. The Rs are respect and responsibility. I single out Bangladesh but much of what I say applies to the rest of the world as well.
Every time I read about a fatal road accident in Dhaka or Abu Dhabi I can imagine an irresponsible driver behind the wheel, with little respect or even capacity for respect for either his own life or those of the others. A responsible driver will show respect for the traffic laws, a responsible government will set the rules of road safety and enforce them responsibly. An irresponsible, dishonest, petty bureaucrat will issue a driver's license to a non-driver for a bribe.
The lack of respect has become infectious in Bangladesh. The resignation of Lt. Gen. (retd) Hasan Mashud Chowdhury is a case in point. Albeit small, it is an illustration of a larger national trend. In democratic regimes, resignation of top public officials is common following changeover of administrations. However, the manner of his departure was disturbing.
An honest soldier, who served the nation with sincerity and devotion, was sent off without a word of thanks. The fact that his departure delighted politicians on the both sides of the aisle speaks volumes about the general's integrity. I salute the general for his war on corruption.
My teacher, the late Professor Nazmul Karim, once complained about the medical fees in Dhaka. However, when he went to Madras for treatment, the attending doctor, upon discovering that he was a professor of Dhaka University, waived the medical charges out of sheer respect for a teacher. The late professor narrated this to make a point about declining social values in Bangladesh.
I was thinking of the uprising of the soldiers of the Bangladesh Rifles and the wanton violence inflicted on the officer corps and their families. The future will tell us who were behind the carnage, but who did it is not difficult to ascertain despite the conspiracy theorists -- the soldiers with guns. In that cruel act we see an extreme lack of respect for human life, or for the officers by the men they commanded and trained. The cruelty was also an act of boundless irresponsibility.
Following the tragedy, the exchange of allegations also displayed a conspicuous absence of responsibility on the part of politicians and journalists. Wild accusations were exchanged in the media and in the Parliament, as if it was a competition for proving who was more irresponsible.
In this riot of irresponsibility, the participants showed disrespect for the martyrs as well as the intelligent public.
As the financial crisis unfolded, the blatant acts of irresponsibility on the part of the fund managers, highly paid bankers, and regulators were exposed. This cabal of the corporate elites showed no respect for the millions of investors, not all of whom were the likes of Mr. Warren Buffett. The hardworking small investors were not bailed out, the big corporations were.
The lack of these two Rs also helps in understanding -- if not fully explaining -- the wars and violence in the world today. The death of 5 US soldiers in Mosul is just one tragedy in an endless chronicle of tragedies in Iraq and Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Had former President George Bush acted responsibly, this tragedy could have been avoided.
Neither the former US president nor the cheer-leaders of his campaign showed enough responsibility, nor did they show any respect for the lives of ordinary Iraqis or Afghans or Pakistanis or Americans or Canadians who are shedding their blood for reasons that will always remain vague at best. What is not vague is the tragedy, tears and agony of the parents and loved ones left behind.
The Hamas, who created more pin pricks than havoc, showed lack of responsibility. So did the Israelis, by killing 1290 Palestinians, including 222 children, in Gaza. The IDF and the Israeli leadership showed little or no respect for the lives of the helpless Palestinians. It was, in the brilliant coinage of Avi Shlaim, an Oxford scholar, "an eye for an eyelash."
The spread of lack of respect for human rights, the most basic of which is respect for human life, has become a defining feature of our times. The effort to reinstate values of respect and responsibility must begin in earnest locally, nationally, and globally.

Habibul Haque Khondker is a Professor of Sociology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.