& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

CROSS TALK

The meandering madness of a mindless minister

The luckless minister inadvertently or consciously broke with that tradition. The same caustic tone, the same sarcasm and the same mad ravings would have earned him brownie points only if he had targeted the opposition party or its leaders instead of areas where he had no business.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan
Anybody who watched the scandalous video must have found it hard to believe his eyes. A cabinet minister was incessantly shuffling his hands in the air as if those were the propellers running the engine of his mouth. He was bantering and barking in tandem in the manner a standup comedian works his audience. By the time he finished badly mauling the religious sentiments of believers, ridiculing
the Prophet and dressing down talk show guests, it was evident that the man had lost his mind.
The soon-to-be-former minister was sharing his world view with an audience in faraway New York. He looked cheerful and confident as though he had the best seat in the house on everything in life. Now that he is supposedly going to have plenty of free time, he should make it a point to watch that video. He should observe his expressions and listen to his words to know how he appeared terribly ridiculous in his ridicule of others.
The future ex-minister has always showed his shocking talent for cruelty and rudeness. He has done it many times in the past, once even threatening to kill anyone who calls for hartal. Once he beat up a PDB engineer with a stick in his house inTangail. He has been saucy and arrogant, forever ready to slice up people with his razor tongue. The viral video has also got synchronised to the images on the soundtrack of his gift for using swear words.
His exit, however, won't be the end of our problem. He has been merely a symptom of a more alarming disease, which is why we should be worried if there're others like him. The social welfare minister has showed signs of psychosis in him. The finance minister is erratic. The communication minister is caught in his pathological struggle for truth, found and lost in the potholes of our roads. God knows, the state minister for home believes that his job is a ride on cruise control.
In that sense, the video has been a revelation for us. It has exposed many men in one, a regression analysis for making quantitative predictions of one variable from the values of another. It's not unusual for someone to have radical views of the world. This world has no dearth of bigots who don't hide their disliking for others. Many straight faces hide dangerously troubled minds behind their deceptive and fortified facades.
Spanish philosopher George Santayana said that sanity is madness put to good use. What the minister has done on the video is sheer madness entirely misused. We don't know if there was a background to why he had chosen that particular forum to unleash his genius. He was amongst the expatriate crowd from his home district. It could be that he felt obliged to entertain them with his buffoonery since he wouldn't have an opportunity toserve them back home.
In many countries, the government does background check on candidates before they're appointed to key positions. In the United States, the president and the Senate share the responsibility of populating top positions in the executive and judicial branches of the government. Candidates nominated by the US president are grilled by the Senate before confirmations are given on their appointments. Many organisations use psychometric tests for leadership roles.
How are such appointments made in Bangladesh? All key positions are filled on the basis of party loyalty, size of donations and personal connections. Merit being a secondary qualification, priority is given to loudness of mouth, audacity and arrogance. The first thing expected out of an appointee is that he or she should defend the party position even under the most ludicrous situation.
The luckless minister inadvertently or consciously broke with that tradition. The same caustic tone, the same sarcasm and the same mad ravings would have
earned him brownie points only if he had targeted the opposition party or its leaders instead of areas where he had no business. This is where he made an error of judgment. This is where he shot himself in the foot.
Like one swallow doesn't make a summer, firing one minister isn't going to give us the solution. We don't hire drivers, domestic helps and guards without checking their backgrounds. We aren't going to board a plane, launch or train if told that the person in the driver's seat is mentally unstable. Needless to say we shall never get out of the woods unless we first assess the mental condition of individuals with whom we're going to entrust our ministries and other key functions.
Throughout history rulers have suffered from mental and personality disorders, but my most favourite is Nabonidus of Babylon, who ate grass and believed he was a goat. While watching the obnoxious video, this streak of madness flashed before my eyes.
The writer Is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
Email: badrull51@yahoo.com