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CROSS TALK

Happy New Year to an unhappy nation!

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
FORTY-three years ago we had a different kind of New Year. On December 16,1971, wehad wonvictory at the end of a bloody war and jubilantly marched into the New Year hand in hand, heads held high with the pride of freedom. This New Year brings an anticlimax. We're worried and anxious as we prepare for a fallacious election. Our heads hang low in shame and compunction as the country wobbles on the brink of a civil war.
This New Year comes in the midst of surging apprehension. The events of last one week in particular have eroded hope that lasting peace is anywhere near. As we exchanged New Year's greeting amongst us through emails, SMS messages and words of mouth, subsumed within our goodwill wishes was the fear of uncertainty ringing horror like incantations.
It has been an ominous start In a nation seething with discontent, everybody is concerned about the future. Apart from the wholesale tension for the country, the ordinary people are also overtaken by their retail trepidations. They don't know how long they can sustain this looming uncertainty against their depleting incomes. Not to speak of petrol bombs and gunshots lurking around us like impulsive killers.
The 2013World Happiness Report, commissioned by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and published by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, showed that the happiness index for Bangladesh is 4.8 in the range of 1 to 10. Compared to the 2012 report, that figure hasn't changed much for us. But Egypt has suffered the greatest foil in happiness level out of 156 countries surveyed.
That country's index dropped from 5.4 between 2005 and 2007 to an average of 4.3 between 2010 and 2012. One of the major causes of this decline has been attributed to loss of hope as the Egyptians became disillusioned with the outcome of the 2011 uprising, when the fantasies and images promised failed to materialise That failure has impacted the sense of well-being and happiness of the Egyptians. Another reason is the lack of predictability, which has led to stress and dissatisfaction. A volatile political environment has affected average Egyptians in their sense of security as well.
This example enunciates proof that an unhappy people inhabit an unhappy land. According to sociologists, the percentage of those describing themselves as "happy" or "very happy" has remained virtually unchanged in Europe and the United States since such surveys were first conducted in the 1950s. These countries in the last six to seven decades may have passed through economic fluctuations, but their politics have been reasonably stable.
Should the stagnancy of happiness itself be a cause of unhappiness? Economists Lord Richard Layard and Daniel Kahneman apparently agree that it is. They argue that when happiness of a society reaches a static stage it should prompt policymakers to shift their priorities. Their recommendationis to switch from the creation of wealth to the creation of good feelings, from boosting gross national product to increasing gross national happiness.
In 2009, a research by London School of Economics professors claimed that Bangladesh was the happiest nation in the world. When they linked personal spending power to perceived quality of life, it proved that money could buy everything but happiness. Is that argument still valid five years later? Do we still retain that top position by the LSE standard?
British philosopher John Stuart Mill was a determined proponent of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. It was the same Mill who concluded after he recovered from a serious bout of depression: "Ask yourself whether you're happy, and you cease to be so." Instead, Mill argued, one of the ways to be happy was to have one's mind fixed on the happiness of others.
Are we a happy nation in either context? Does it matter if we ask ourselves whether each one of us is happy or look for happiness in others? Can we look each other in the eye and vouch for mutual happiness? It works like that reversible aphorism which says that if you look into an abyss long enough, it looks back into you. Some in their quest for happiness have made the country unhappy.
People form a nation when they find confidence in their collective association. This association is formed by trust and assurance that they'll drive a collective bargain to shape their common destiny from each according to his means to each according to his needs. That sentiment was in full freshet forty-two New Years ago, now sucked dry by organised selfishness.
Wish you a happy New Year anyway. Let's hope this divided nation will be united again. The true test of the spirit of the Liberation War lies in the ability to master our destiny, not in the misery of making a mess of it.
The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer forThe Daily Star.