Culture matters. Culture determines the success and failures of a society. Almost everything we do in our daily lives is a direct response to what we have been taught in our early childhood -- at home, at school, at playgrounds; all our acts are shaped in some way by the different experiences we had as children or adolescents, and frequently, they're the outcome of our training (or lack thereof) at various stages of life.
The stories and events reported on newspapers, radios, and televisions, besides telling what's happening in the country, also tell us who we are as individuals, and when aggregated and analyzed, these events also tell us who we are as a nation. Pay close attention to these stories, and you'll get a good sense of what the culture of a nation is like and who these folks are as a people.
Looking at a culture from this perspective, anyone reading the newspapers in Bangladesh for a period of just two or three months would invariably gasp: “What kind of a nation is this? The head of an academic institution, conspiring with his colleagues, students and his pet goons, burns a young girl alive for not consenting to his sexual advances! Student leaders of a top-rated academic institution beat one of their fellow students for expressing his opinion in a Facebook post and crushed his bones until his painful death! An 18-year young man lures a 2-year old neighbour girl into his room and rapes her while their mothers chat in the next room!”
Crime exists in every society. But the extent of crime, corruption, degeneration, moral degradation, ineptitude, illegalities, illegitimacies, etc, in our country appears absurdly out of control and seems to have adopted a life of its own. On any given day, there are dozens of stories on killings, rapes, assaults, of land grabbing, looting from banks, running illegal businesses, etc. Then, there are stories about the misery that is education, about the fraudulent practices at the hospitals, about lying, and deception at every level!
These are not isolated events. They occur with such frequency and in such incredulous numbers that people have become sufficiently numb to not even ponder about the causes of such atrocity. What kind of a culture turns its citizens, en masse, into such monsters and what kind of values do these people have in order to even conceive of hateful crimes such as gang-raping a disabled seven-year old girl! What kind of moral values does this society teach its people? Or, does it teach some other things? If so, why?
Alongside these horror stories, there are also major headlines about the country's spectacular economic growth. The GDP was 7.5% in 2022 and, by government estimates, is expected to grow by 7.8% in 2023 and by 8.0% in 2024 -- by far the highest in South Asia. Both per capita GDP growth and per capita income is expected to rise in the coming years.
As a developing market economy, Bangladesh has become almost a poster child for fast economic growth, and most strikingly, it has become the 35th largest economy in the world with an approximately $460 billion (in nominal terms) market size, and is expected to become the 20th by 2037 with a market size over $1.6 trillion. This is no small feat for a nation whose economy was ranked 144th in the world at its independence just about 50 years ago!
What seems rather obvious is that our society, for the most part, has abandoned its fundamental responsibility of (1) instilling and upholding the values that are good for longer-term development of a nation, (2) teaching, practicing, correcting, adapting, and enforcing proper values that creates a humane and a livable society, and of (3) preventing, correcting, and punishing social and behavioural patterns that are harmful for it.
Typically, the process of economic growth reaches a point when a nation is ready to move up to a more advanced stage. Bangladesh is expected to graduate from its Least Developed Country (LDC) status to a developing economy in 2024 and the country is abuzz with optimism.
While this is heartening, it is not at all clear what good it will do if the society becomes unlivable. Graduating into a developing country requires better professional services, and better services require better quality people -- both professionally and in terms of human values. Clearly, as a nation and as a culture, we are not yet there.
The basic human values that we cherished and were proud of, among which the ten most important being: Honesty, integrity, truthfulness, accountability, dignity, kindness and respect for others, commitment, responsibility, dependability, and hard-work. These are values that we considered integral parts of our parents' character and our society's beauty -- mostly seems to have disappeared within just the last few decades.
The two sets of questions that need to be asked here are: (1) Is this who we are as a nation? Is this the kind of society that we want our children to grow up in? Is this a society we want to leave behind as our legacy? (2) Why is this happening? Where did we go wrong, and more importantly, what can be done to correct all this?
Troubled by these atrocious events, conscientious people raised serious questions and tried to identify the causes of these troubling events. Some suggested that the “culture of impunity” is what killed the student beaten to death! True. It's the system that killed the young man. However, it's not only the sense of “impunity” -- it's the culture itself that we nurture and live within, it's the values that we have abandoned and the others that we've adopted that truly killed the young man.
But, let's leave aside the crimes and criminalities that the government should protect the public from; let's, instead, look at the behavioral patterns of our people; let's look at how we behave ourselves on the streets, in transport systems, on school grounds, and in other public spaces.
One of the first things a visitor notices immediately upon arrival is the absolute lack of discipline and order anywhere (except some places like the military zones, cadet college campuses, and such). People do not line-up; they crowd at the very front of the counter where the service is being provided causing chaos all around; then, there is a stench followed by the repulsive view of dirt and filth piled up alongside the streets, on the ditches, drains, sidewalks; people drop everything disposable right where they're done with it; there is a lack of patience and understanding -- pushing someone standing in your way is so common that no one pays much attention to it; screaming and shouting in public, spitting and blowing one's nose oblivious to anyone and everyone around. Yet, those of us who are here, seem quite oblivious to the situation.
While these problems seem insurmountable given their pervasive nature, the remedy is, in fact, quite simple: Train children in discipline, cleanliness, patience, kindness to others -- and, all of this will disappear!
These habits, learned early in life, stay with people until the very end. Lack of early training in childhood is rarely made up for later: Those who've had the opportunity to meet our high-level government officials visiting foreign countries know horror stories of embarrassing themselves (and, along with it the country they represent) with their lack of manners, uncouth behaviour, ignorance of cultural norms of the countries they visit. Many of us will perhaps be able to think of dozens of other areas where change is needed.
We look at Japanese children, for example, and are amazed at how well disciplined, polite, and kind they are. We wonder what makes the Japanese citizens clean-up the piles of garbage left behind by the spectators at the stadium of the 2022 Qatar Football World Cup. However, even if we know that the Japanese are not born that way, but are instead trained, and even if we know that anyone can be disciplined, kind, and polite -- if taught how -- we don't seem to adopt those practices (of course, with the exception of a few).
We look happily at the creativity, energy, and spontaneity of the North-American and European young people and sigh deeply thinking that our kids can never be like that; we keep saying that our students aren't smart enough to be NASA scientists and engineers (and, yet there are some); we don't want to allow the young people to experiment, to make mistakes and learn through trials and errors; we send our kids to advanced countries to study, but we don't adopt those teaching and learning practices here. Why not?
Why can't we do the same that others do to improve their lives? Why would we always have to come up with the excuse: “Oh well, that's our culture!” Why can't we change those aspects of our culture so that we can keep our children close to us, here at home and get a good education, get ready for life, and live a productive and happy life right here in Bangladesh?
Cultures can be progressive and regressive. Some help nations move forward, others cause resistance. No nation or culture is just progressive or regressive; it's a combination, and the balance of the two is what decides the growth trajectory of a nation. To be sure, no one wants to remain backward; it's the habits people adopt over a period sometimes become resistant to progress. Changing old habits is hard work, and people become reluctant to do so. That's when a nation starts falling behind.
Clearly, there are many positive elements in our culture. Unfortunately, there are many that are clearly regressive, out of alignment for progress, and resistant to positive growth. They are making our society almost unlivable. It's time we, as a society, begin an honest conversation about these destructive elements of our culture and come up with policies and strategies to change them.
It'll be hard work, but the payoffs are more than just economic growth: It will allow us to build a society where our children will be able to live with pride and joy, where they'll be able to dream for an even better future.
Dr Halimur R Khan is a university professor. He can be reached at [email protected]
