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The self-congratulating nation

Mahfuzur Rahman
THE nation rang with congratulations for several days. The national cricket team, the Tigers, had beaten the West Indies. Never mind that the team fielded by the opposition was perhaps the weakest in the great cricketing side’s history. That can hardly be Bangladesh's fault. Bangladesh won fair and square.
Most of the adjectives in the English language were used by the Bangladeshi media to celebrate the win. "Rollicking, •sublime." and "thrilling," are only a small sample of the crop, and Bangladeshi players were congratulated for "standing tall." The Bangladesh Cricket Board offered the winning team a bonus of Taka 15 million, enough to feed several thousand hungry mouths for several months -- or to import quite a few luxury cars for political dignitaries. In a rare instance of oneness, both the prime minister of the country and the leader of the opposition in parliament extended effusive congratulations to the national team.
Wait. Please hurl no bricks. Not just yet. I am no spoilsport. I have no intention of belittling the achievement of the national team, which indeed is impressive. Not a cricket fan. I was nevertheless impressed by historical cricket statistics in the media. We are told that the national team
won its first test series on foreign turf in only nine years, compared with 5 years for Australia, 6 for England, 7 for Zimbabwe. 21 for Pakistan and 36 for India, for example.
Nevertheless. I would prefer modesty. The national team in particular has after all much to be modest about. The Tigers, as the team has been too fondly and rather improperly called, have been mauled on so many occasions that one victory should call for introspection and congratulation in almost equal measure. Victory must not go to their heads.
It is difficult for a nation that thrives on overstatement to be modest. Selfcongratulation is only a special form of overstatement. In our rampant use of adjectives, we overstate -- and lose sight of objectivity. It is perhaps instructive to compare the treatment of the victory of the "Tigers" in the national media with the coverage of another cricket series that was being played at about the same time: Australia vs. England. The English team's truly historic win against Australia was reportedly hailed in the British media as merely "borderingon brilliance."(See, for example, The Daily Star, July 22). Even our indigenous English newspapers forget that English is a language of understatement. It is indeed in our ethos to overstate, even when using a language of understatement. Self-congratulation, therefore, is not something peculiar when it comes to cricket. It is rampant in the nation, with expected consequences. Take, for example, the language movement, something the Bengalis are legitimately proud of. We congratulate ourselves with being just about the only nation on earth where people sacrificed their lives for their
mother tongue. Yet, we cannot speak proper, or standard, Bangla, or do not care to. Just listen to our national leaders. A vast majority of them do not speak standard Bangla. Some simply appear incapable of standard Bangla pronunciation. Yet, on February 21st of every year they congratulate themselves for having fought for the language, and forget all
about it the very next day.
It is easy to extend examples where self-adulation has far outshone actual achievements. We are legitimately proud of our independence as a nation. We congratulate ourselves every Independence Day, and sing in the praise ofour motherland. Yet, no amount ofself-congratulation can hide the mess we have made of the country, its economy, its society, and the environment
More examples? How about democracy in the political parties? The Awami League won a landslide victory in the last general elections and congratulated itself for having rescued democracy from its moribund state. Yet, the process of its selection of party officials in its recent national council meeting did not appear terribly democratic. Here, too, words upstaged deeds.
Self-adulation can indeed be dangerous. There is a fairly well known story of a fish variously called meni (in the dialect of my district), or ueda. It resembles the koi fish, except that its head is smaller and is thought to be more stupid. Anyone familiar with net-fishing in rural Bengal during the late monsoon season will know about fishing nets strung out at night in shallow water, preferably in rice paddies. It is the meni rather than the more sought after koi that gets caught in the net more often. My childhood experience supports the theory. How come more meni get caught in the net than, let us say, koi? Here is one explanation. The fish attempts to pass through the net, gets half-way through but, before he is out of danger, he gleefully opens his jaws in what could be considered a broad smile of self-congratulation. And in that act lies the fatal mistake. His jaws irretrievably get stuck in the net.
The moral of the story should be clear: self- congratulation can be a dangerous pursuit. If the story seems too raw to some, I am ready for the brick.