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এই লিংক থেকে SolaimanLipi ডাউনলোড করে নিন



Shonar Hareen
Mostafa Abdullah


I am hoping that this article will be thought provoking and act as a catalyst for some soul searching on the part of the reader. It is definitely not intended to undermine or belittle any individual or a group. Most may not even accept the hypothesis presented, but at the least, some may be tinkered to think of an alternative of his or her own.

“How is the situation now in Bangladesh” is a common question that anyone returning or coming from Bangladesh is likely to face one time or other. I have had difficulty in dealing with this question. I had noticed that whatever my answer had been, often few seemed happy with it, and few others not so amused. The reaction depended on which side of the political fence one was in. Later I adopted, I thought a safe ploy. I would say; “if you are a faithful of the party in power than the situation is very good, otherwise - it is grave”. I turned out to be nobody’s friend.

In any case those of us that live abroad are often, for valid reasons, very concerned about our home country. I have participated in more discussions about the wellbeing and future of Bangladesh in the last five years in Sydney than in the previous thirty five years that I spent in Bangladesh. I suppose those that live in Bangladesh, accept whatever is there in its face value and live with it.

However, I feel there is one subconscious desire among many to return home some day if and when the situation improves. I know I myself feel that very strongly. I often dream of returning to live again in my lifelong surroundings in the Dhaka city. Like many others I hope and pray that Bangladesh will become a better place soon. But will it? And when?

I have never attempted to guess the answer. I think that I have neither the intellect nor the knowledge to delve into such a complicated matter. I am sure there are many analyses and inferences involving complex economic, socio-political and a host of other issues on this matter. However, one that seemed very simple and plausible to me came from the observation of a foreigner who worked and lived in Bangladesh for little over two years.

If I remember his name correctly, it is Phil Voucee. During the late 80s or early 90s, he was the Head of the Save the Children Fund Australia (SCFA) in Bangladesh. I befriended him at the Australian High Commission Recreation Centre in Dhaka. We played tennis twice a week for almost two years. Our usual routine was to sit and chat for some time after our game. Phil would sometimes talk about his work in Bangladesh and solicited my opinion on matters he thought I could shed light on.

On one of those evenings, Phil announced that he was about to finish his two-year term in Bangladesh and would leave soon. He mentioned that over the last two years he had made some specific observations about Bangladesh and its people. He went on to say that he had worked in few other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America before coming to Bangladesh. He thought that the work standards of the people that he worked with here in Bangladesh were far better than that of most other places that he had been in. He had high regards for the bureaucrats, managers, doctors, engineers, teachers and others that he came across. He found most of them extremely capable and efficient in their field of work.

I was delighted to hear such rare praise of us. I thanked him for the glowing comments. He kept quiet for some time with a mischievous smile on his face. A little later he spoke up to say that all these had given rise to a question within him. He needed to find an appropriate person to make that query to. He thought I could be such a person for I had lived and worked most of my life in Bangladesh and at the same time had a fair bit of exposure to Western values and culture. He wished to put me on the spot. I put up a brave face waiting for the million dollar question. Phil asked: “In spite of all these things, why is this country in such shambles?”

I am no social scientist or economist who would have an appropriate answer to this question. I gave up and requested him to tell me of his findings. I believed he had one. One, who had made such minute observation over a period of time, must have had a finding of his own. He began by describing his work place in Bangladesh.

Phil headed an office of approximately 30 employees of different levels. He found most of them good, some very good and few not so good. One young man seemed much brighter than most. Over time, this young man had climbed up to a level in the organization where he was second to Phil. He performed remarkably well under Phil’s supervision. Phil made him the Head of a section where he had to supervise and direct a number of staff members. He was also responsible for taking decisions concerning his own area.

It turned out to be a nightmare. He failed to mange his staff properly and continually came to Phil with complaints about them. He was always very hesitant about taking decisions on his own. Phil said he had observed similar patterns of behavior in few other Bangladeshis when they were put in a leadership or decision-making position. This baffled him and he set out to find if there was any specific reason for such patterns of behavior.

This reminded me of a similar situation while I worked at the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B). There used to be six Program Directors with the authority and responsibility very close and similar to that of the Head of the organization, the Director. Of the six Program Directors three were Bangladeshis and three expatriates. While the expatriates seemed at ease at working independently and taking decisions on their own, their Bangladeshi counterparts mostly seemed hesitant and took almost everything to the Director for the final decisions.


Phil’s work involved visiting Save the Children Fund funded schools across the country. He observed that our early education system involved very little group work or group education. Children were taught and encouraged to strive for individual excellence. Concept of taking pride in group performance was non-existent. Most parents tried to ensure that their children had minimum intermingling with other children in the neighborhood. They feared that such activities may distract their children from the bookish education. There was very little scope or training for our children to grow up with much needed life skills - skills that are essential to be able to work together in teams towards common goals and to be a leader or manager of such goals.

Phil also observed that while there are rewards for success in our society, the punishments are severe for failures. A child may get a pat on the back for good results but failures would most likely bring about severe beating for the poor soul. As a result, the fears of failure always outweighed the chance of success in our minds. We appear to avoid confronting important issues and most of the time - play it safe. We are reluctant to take decisions in our work place in case it backfires.

As I was listening to Phil my mind traveled back to early seventies when I was about to enter government service after finishing university. An elderly retired gentleman offered me the following words of wisdom: “If you wish to prosper in the government service, make sure that you do not do anything. Even if you are the best of the best, there will always be a chance that out of ten decisions you make, at the least one could be wrong. This one incorrect action will haunt you throughout your career in the form of an entry in your “Confidential Report”. On the other hand if you do not do anything your report will remain clean as a slate”!

Phil visited many Bangladeshi households as their guest. He admired the neatness and cleanliness of most houses. At the same time, he noticed that in many cases the same household dumped its garbage on the road beside the house. He noticed that some households even stole newly laid bricks from the road in front of their own homes to repair or beautify their boundary walls. He inferred that these behavior patterns pointed to the lack of training and upbringing to appreciate collective belongingness. People are rarely seen queuing at bus stops so that everyone had a fair chance of getting on board. The concept of common wealth appeared to be very uncommon among most.

Our early education system and home environment produced some individual performers but lacked in scope to produce the much needed group performers and its leaders. To this day, the system discourages risk taking and exploring new heights. Consequently it is falling behind in world competition. My friend Phil inferred that unless we review and correct our early education system both at schools and within the family and then on to the society, it may not be possible to see a Bangladesh that most Bangladeshis aspire to see.

Bangladesh may have produced few outstanding individuals but failed to produce the right kind of leaders and mangers to take the country into the future. Some of it is due to our social behavior and attitude and some due to our historical background. We have always been ruled and never been a ruler. A nation needs to either rule itself and/or rule others to learn to be a ruler or leader / manager.

I thing we missed an opportunity to grow new leaderships by being helped into our independence within a very short time of nine months only. Had it been a lengthy protracted war of independence, new leaders could have immerged through failures and triumphs and the bad apples on both sides of the fence would have been eliminated in the process. Vietnam suffered enormous destruction fighting almost 30 years (11 years against France and 18 years against US) till it became victorious in 1975. The long struggle produced tried leadership and eliminated the bad elements. Vietnam is now a role model for other developing countries for its development and progress.

Phil Voucee hoped that if the reeducation and retraining process started now immediately, thirty years on Bangladesh could hope to get hold of that evasive golden deer (Shonar Hareen) that this nation has been cherishing through its poems and songs. More than ever, today this country needs to start the process and work through the next thirty years to produce a new generation, armed with the new mindset and life skills to takeover and run the country. Are we, as a nation to give it a try so that our future generations may have a better place to live and work?

Back in the 90s, I worked in a team of Asian development Bank (ADB) consultants contracted to develop a power sector plan for Bangladesh. On completion of the task the ADB team made a formal presentation of the draft plan in front of the then Minister for Power. The team leader introduced the plan by saying that it contained three achievable goals: a 5 year short-term goal, a 10 year mid-term goal and a 20 year long-term goal. The honorable Minister turned towards me, the only Bangla-speaking member of the consulting team, and harshly said ‘আরে ভাই আমরা আছি আর দুই বছর ইলেকশন পর্যন্ত, আমি পাচ বছরের প্লান দিয়া কি করমু?’ (We will be in the government for only two years until the next election. What good is a five year plan for me?).

It may be the appropriate occasion to draw conclusion to this write-up with a quotation from John F. Kennedy the 35th president of the United States of America; “The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!”



Mostafa Abdullah, Sydney




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