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Politics for change

Abu Afsarul Haider
IT is unfortunate that the majority of citizens portray our current politics as a 'dirty business' and politicians are seen as people pursuing their self-interests. Generally speaking, it is true that politicians in any country comprise a class apart from all others but, unpleasant as it may sound, political parties and politicians in our country are a class apart even from the politicians of the world.
When someone who was at one time was on some lower strata in the hierarchy of the social set-up becomes a politician, we see that s/he magically rises to the highest rung of the same hierarchy. Although our politicians are on the highest rung of the social order, unlike the politicians elsewhere in the world, many of them are also on the lowest rung of discipline and morality. It is this feature of our politicians that makes them a class apart from the politicians of civilised countries. With the career of a politician becoming so lucrative and full of material prospects in our country, more and more people are getting interested in this profession, and more and more political parties are being born. The nexus among politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats makes a politician a very strong entity, combining the strength of money with that of power. What more can anyone aspire for?
The main priority of our political parties is to gain power or remain in power by any means. They are least
dised.
Our political leadership has of late started acting in a weird manner by engaging in self-destructive politics. Politicians are expected to talk on the key issues of economic development, health, education etc., but, instead, most of the time they are seen criticising and abusing each other using offensive language. Rather than uniting the nation they are dividing it, and making us each other's enemy.
It seems like these so-called politicians are taking advantage of the poverty and emotions of our people to serve their own interests. They exploit our youths as their mentors in politics, and engage them (youth) in fierce feuds on their (politicians') behalf. This unending struggle between the two factions is adding to the general public's discomfiture and proving costly to the business community, affecting trade and export of the country. Despite repeated attempts by the civil society, business, trade and other sectors to bring them together, they have not stopped hostilities. These so-called leaders have failed to develop skills in dispute management and dispute resolution and as such it appears that they are not sufficiently prepared for future political challenges and possible crisis scenarios ahead.
Violent and destructive politics is sending negative signals to the foreign buyers and investors, thus causing a greater dent to our economy than the recent Savar disaster. Investments and
bothered about the sufferings of people, the nation and the economy. Current political leaders appear to be less dedicated to peoples' welfare and more engaged in conduct of public affairs for private gains. Despite the restoration of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh in 1991, political governance of the country is still mired in innumerable ills. It broadly features a wide array of confrontation, competition, and monopolisation of state institutions and resources by the party in power.
This trend of politics has tremendously weakened the formal accountability mechanisms and put governance in a crisis. Governance without accountability and transparency, leads to the state machinery being used as a political tool. Patronisation of the state, over which all the political regimes have demonstrated uniformity in their approach, has contributed to the rise of different rent-seeking classes, and marginalising of people who are not actively involved in party politics.
The two major political parties of our country often talk about democracy, but in reality they hardly practice it. Despite rhetorical commitment and prolonged struggles to establish democracy, the political parties have failed miserably to establish consensus over the ground rules for democratic competition and dissent. The prerequisites for the success of democracy are morality, education and socio-economic-political consciousness. Leaders especially must be people of high moral character; otherwise the welfare of society will be jeopar-
PHOTO: STAR businesses are deserting us, and as a result the exports of garment products from Vietnam and Cambodia rose recently by 22% and 15%, respectively.
People are searching for alternative politics, the politics of human security, accommodation and tolerance. There is general fatigue among the people with the nature of politics. Our young generation, who are educated, qualified and not yet blended into this pernicious culture of politics have the power to change things. They need to raise their voices against what they feel is wrong; they need to be aware about what is happening around them and it is they who can clean the present political system. Absence of high ethical standard of some politicians has given little alternative to voters but to vote to power the same set of politicians. Unless we come out of this vicious and negative politics, mere transfer of power from one hand to another will not bring any real change to this nation.
We believe that now is the time for those who possess courage, vision, leadership quality, the ability to share power with others and, above all, love for the country, to join politics. We need leaders who have a highly committed approach to politics, and can weed out all the wrong practices, oppose wrong traditions and, most importantly, bring unity for betterment of the people of Bangladesh. Plato said: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
The writer is a businessman.
E-mail: afsarulhaider@gmail.com