My belief that Bangladesh will never lose track comes from its growth record, despite frequent visits by natural calamities. It comes from our rising entrepreneurship and increasing harvests, despite a reduction in cultivable lands, our increased foreign currency earnings through exports and remittances from non-resident Bangladeshis, our demographic dividends, from a reduction in the population growth rate, from increasing numbers of women joining the workforce, from the massive rise in education focused on foreign language and IT literacy, from the steady reduction in poverty, and most importantly, from the increasing number of people struggling day and night for a better tomorrow.
This morning when I was leaving my house for a jog in the nearby park, my security guard saluted me with warmth. He had read my article in a daily. I asked him what class he studied up to, he replied class eight.
When I asked him about his child, he said his only daughter was doing her BA. When I asked our security supervisor at Gulshan Club the same question, he said his first daughter was a doctor at a government hospital in Comilla, and his second daughter was studying medicine at Pabna Medical College.
His only son had just graduated from BUET, and was waiting for a teaching assistantship at a US university. When I asked my maid, she said: “Sir, my daughter is brilliant, please pray for her.” Then she said: “I want to teach her music, sir.”
My chauffer has been pleasantly threatening me, saying he has saved up some money and set up a poultry farm back home. He is planning to borrow some money from a bank and leave this job. He does not like Dhaka city life, and is eagerly waiting to go back to a rural place.
Harry K Thomas, the former US ambassador, was a good friend. He introduced me to few trade policy analysts at the US State Department. The issue of duty free access to Bangladesh as an LDC came up in our discussion. One lady told me that since Bangladesh was merrily competing with India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, all these being non-LDC countries, she did not think of Bangladesh as an LDC.
I hear high praise about BUET graduates from resource managers at IBM or Intel in the US. An accompanying IT solutions manager with Sysco in a Los Angeles-bound flight was telling me about how he respects a Bangladeshi colleague for the constant care he provides his mother back home.
My Asean CEO at Citibank once told me he wanted to recruit more Bangladeshis for expanding the Citigroup network. He said: “They are honest, qualified, and less demanding. You can get anything out of them by giving them a pat on the back.”
Go to the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait. They are all issuing work permits to Bangladeshi drivers and replacing the Pakistanis with them. Ask any Arab, they would say Bangladeshis are very polite, humble and God-fearing. Many European force commanders in Africa had a lot of praise for the Bangladesh armed forces personnel for their IT knowledge and constant eagerness to learn more.
Recently, I was very saddened by speeches from two former Indian high commissioners in Bangladesh. They thought Bangladesh might become a terrorist country if the opposition came to power. 42 years have passed since independence, and I have not seen any terrorism in Bangladesh.
Even the major Islamist parties never spoke loudly against scientific education policy, the increasing numbers of women joining the workforce or taking senior positions in economic management, or the political hierarchy.
On the other hand, look at India, termed the worst place in the world for women. I still can’t forget the horrifying scenes of the Mumbai bomb blasts or the terrorist activities in India.
Bangladesh will move on no matter who is in power, or who is coming forward to help them. Yes, our 1971 martyrs dreamt of a better Bangladesh with more social progress, political inclusiveness, and justified access to national wealth. But Bangladesh is changing, climbing up the ladder into a dynamic world, though the pace could be much faster. We are waiting for our political masters to fasten their seatbelts.
