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Don't follow leaders who can't change

MOHAMMAD BADRULAHSAN
IT can be both good news and bad news for us. Bad news first and it is obvious: Our leaders aren't showing any sign of change. Good news is that in the next five to ten years many of them will be changed. In a decent democracy people have the power to change their leaders, who are not willing to change. In our kind of dismal democracy, destiny will have to come to its rescue in the end by effecting that change. Most of our leaders, strutting and fretting on the political stage, will disappear from the scene. Death and old age are bound to remove from the scene..
Once I read in Harvard Business Review (HBR) that if you can't change the leader, then change the way you follow. Perhaps it's easier said than done, more so in reference to political pathology than corporate contention. But the issue is nonetheless relevant for us, because we have miserably failed on both counts. We have neither been able to change the way we're led nor the way we're asked to follow.
But in next five to ten years change will come. It will come for sure simply because many of the existing leaders will either cease to exist or lose physical or mental capacity to lead. Even if we can't minus them now, they will be "minussed" by what Kahlil Gibran calls the inevitability of "life's longing for itself."
If we have learned from the past, we should start planning. We should start planning for the next crop of leaders instead of crying over the bad harvests of yesteryears. Our present leadership is as much our creation as we are theirs. That explains why a third force never emerged, because they couldn't distinguish themselves for us. Neither could we distinguish ourselves for them.
The opportunity is now knocking on the door. The next election at the most before the changeover starts, before the leaders pass their mantles to sons, sisters, daughters or brothers. Blind followers create blind leaders for the same reason it's also true the other way around. Leaders may control this election, but we should absolutely control the election after that.
First we should agree what sort of leaders we want. If we look for character and honesty when hiring domestic
hands, should we settle for less in our leaders who will run the country? You see this country is in the clutch of an octopus, its eight hands being the politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats, professionals, intellectuals, media, donor agencies and foreign diplomats. They are sitting around a dinner table breaking bread, and the more they eat the more breadcrumbs fall on the floor.
The common people are like pets fattened by these crumbs. They eat more when the eight hands of the octopus waste more. Here is a spine-chilling example from a faraway land. It's estimated that the United Sates has 80 million dogs and the annual amount spent on these pets is $60 billion. In comparison, Bangladesh has 160 million people and the highest budget in its history, proposed for this fiscal year, comes to $27.8 billion when Tk.2.224 trillion is converted at the rate of Tk.80 to a dollar. Twice the population with half the budget, we should know where we stand.
First thing first, we must disabuse ourselves of the urban legend of what it means to be a prosperous nation. At the very centre of our national misery is selfish arrogance that justifies comfort and luxury of a few at the cost of many. Bank scams, corruption, bribery, market manipulation and sycophancy stem from that preposterous assumption which zealously promotes money as the only measure of success. Our future leaders will have to have proven credentials that they don't have monetised minds. Nothing will work until first that has happened.
In the same HBR article, its author Li Xin Bai, a senior IBM consultant in China, talks about three types of leadership. The sun-like leaders are entrepreneurs who take the lead, just like the sun illuminates everything. The moon-like leaders work like the moon reflects the light of the sun, open-minded and trusting to reflect the light of his people. Then there are the star-like leaders, who only indicate a direction like the North Star. They need followers who can step up and light the way for others. Only leaders with great wisdom have the confidence to be star-like.
To use similar astronomy analogy, our present leaders are like black holes. They absorb the lights coming towards them, reflecting nothing. It's absolutely the last call to change these leaders before they pass that blight to their next generation. Citizens of the country unite. You have nothing to lose but your pains: Don't follow leaders who can't change.
The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. Email: Badrull51@yahoo.com