Accidents often enlighten us in that they usually teach us a lesson or open our eyes to a blatant truth we have been failing to see. It is probably the only good they ever bring us. As can be perceived quite easily even by those who care little about perusing newspapers or bother to watch the news, the calamity which befell us in Savar recently, has suddenly ignited a rather ignominious and embarrassing kind of awareness in us. One might wonder why I prefer to qualify this renewed alertness with deprecating adjectives instead of being ebullient and even elated about it.
What should mortify a discerning observer is the fact that this spurious empathy for the impecunious readymade garment factory workers resulted only after the naked truth of oppression and coercion was accidentally divulged on the world stage and earned us severe disapprobation from every community, and what could be considered a national reason for us to be ashamed of ourselves. Suddenly, like negligent students who study hard after they fail in examinations, we are highly sensitive about the rights of our workers, their wages and their abject living standards. Newspapers are suddenly overwhelmed by the influx of vehement, emotional reactiosn from the people who previously had been reprehensibly blind to the phenomenon of aberrantly immoral exploitation of the helplessly poor workers in the continuously expanding industrial realm of Bangladesh.
Rather annoyingly, our capacity to foresee a calamity before it devastates is puerile and terribly weak. Indulging in repining and playing blame games after the tragedy strikes, are like idyllic disports to us. And if that is not enough to incense you, consider too, the fact that sometimes you would fail to find the shoulders, which you would expect to bear the burden of blame, because you would detect a conspicuous tendency of nonchalantly refusing to admit any mistake.
One finds it difficult to not experience utter astonishment at the sheepish ignorance of the fact that treatment of labourers and workers like slaves is not confined to the garment industry alone; its presence can be seen in every single sector of Bangladesh. So should we wait for a similar calamity, which will open our eyes to the injustice rickshaw-pullers and the CNG auto-rickshaw drivers face from the owners of the vehicles? What about the workers serving in the pharmaceutical industry for a pathetic, paltry salary of Tk3,000 a month? What about the countless number of household maids who are abused and tortured emotionally and mentally by their employers, with frightening regularity? If nothing but accidents awakens us to these realities, then those among us who still believe in a supreme deity should pray for an increase in the frequency of calamities! Unless the alarm rings loud enough to damage our eardrums we seem to show little inclination to wake up. Our attention cannot be secured unless we are shaken by a violent earthquake! Such is the inertia; such is the lethargy that characterises us!
By experiencing the worst industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh, the garment industry workers in our country have finally managed to be heard. So how hard do the oppressed in other corners have to scream for the deaf among us to hear?
The rights of the poor and unprivileged will not be looked after with probity and rectitude unless massive sacrifices are made. Only the people, the general people, can decide to do this. Only a monumental change in attitude will transform us in to a truly civilised nation. The question is, what or who will bring this essential change? Only a leader with unquestionable moral principles can make it happen. It is time we started looking for one. It is very late already, but it is never, if you allow even the smallest quantity of optimism, too late.