WITH the fall of the Berlin Wall, the force of ideology is gradually losing steam from the politics of the Western world. Also, in the aftermath of China's taking the capitalistic path of economic development, the promise of a Red East, too, has dimmed to a great extent. Furthermore, after Vietnam's climb onto the same bandwagon, the anti-imperialistic-nationalistic slogans, too, have lost much of their significance. Politics,

as a consequence, has been undergoing a deconstructive transformation. It is a complete reversal of the scenario that existed a few decades back in post-colonial Asia.

Has, then, the dream and hope of a radical social change, which the grand politico-ideological discourse of revolution had generated after World War II, giving way to its antithesis a return to the plain past lacking all the glamour of a con-

structed future? Quite to the contrary. As if, like the proverbial nature abhors a vacuum, the dream of a revolutionary transformation of society has now been replaced with the dream of rapid economic development through increased trade, especially by export to advanced economies in Europe and North America. The mantra of faster growth is how a nation can better woo foreign investors, who earlier were seriously suspect, because of their "capitalistic-imperialistic intentions. ”

In the political universe, ideology may

have lost its vigour though dream or hope has not. Now in Asia, in particular, the economic successes of China, South Korea and other Far Eastern and Southeast Asian countries have ignited another kind of dream in other nations' hearts. This dream is about how a nation can join faster the march of this market-oriented economic development.

Where do we, in Bangladesh, stand amid

all these great shifts in the conventional paradigms of political and ideological thinking?

Strangely, despite all assurances of having opened our economy to the world, nothing significant has been achieved so far. We have been running in the same spot since we started our reforms and the drive to denationalise and adopt private sector-led economic development.

Though the sudden shift in ideology in the post-1990s dispensation jolted many economies in the East and West, we had our taste of a private sector-driven pro-market push in the economy at least a decade earlier.

Then, has the great change somehow failed to shake off our inertia and slumber? If not, how can we remain so unruffled when our close neighbours in the east and west are making enormous strides in the fields of their economic achievements?

Counting from the 1980s, we should have gathered enough experience to lead other nations who joined the new march after us.

Interestingly, our next-door neighbour, India, too, adopted the practice of private sector-led economic growth after we did. The same is true of the war-devastated, highly ideological Vietnam that recently embraced this new philosophy of economic growth.

If politics has lost much of its ideological fervour, and been replaced with economic pragmatism in the East and the West, that should have, at least, soberly impacted our highly polarised partisan politics. For here, the wedge that runs between the major partisan divide is rooted more in postLiberation history than in any abstract ideological debates. Though ideological orthodoxy has traditionally been the main stumbling block in the way of political truce among warring camps elsewhere, bitterness and animosities have only grown in intensity here with time.

Since independence, we have generally blamed the bureaucracy for red-tapism, corruption and other administrative ills for our lack of economic progress and governance. Politicians have not been spared either. Neither the bureaucracy nor the politicians have protested against such blames. Recently, the awareness of and criticism against corruption have become sharper, but these have hardly helped matters.

The portrayal of our political landscape in such terms is familiar. Truth be told, we have been too critical of ourselves so far. More positive elements of motivation than exposure to biting self-criticism will be needed to drag us out of this morass of despair.

Our post-Independence political evolution has played a big part in rendering all our past efforts ineffective.

For every Asian nation that succeeded in quickly adapting itself to this new economic order, the change did not come automatically. The leadership played a great role in this shift. Lee Kwan Yew in Singapore, Mahathir Mohammad in Malaysia and Manmohan Singh in India, for example, played pioneering roles in bringing about a radical change in their economies. Yet our leadership somehow failed to meet the challenge of the time. Was it entirely due to the bickering that has smeared our politics since the late 1970s?

Here, the issue of leadership can unite and inspire the masses to open a new chapter in history. True, we failed to save our political giants, who could have inspired and swayed the masses and changed the nation's political history. Yet, that should not be enough reason to deny ourselves and our next generation a brighter future.

Now that we have started to come to terms with our bitter political past, it is time we also honestly soul-searched to identify where we failed and why. We are already late in catching up with our neighbours. The new leadership needs to take up this challenge in earnest.

Syed Fattahul Alim is a senior journalist