Highlighting religious differences and performing unholy acts in their name are de rigueur in the 21st century. One of the similarities amongst the beliefs of all faiths and the faithless, spoken of with shame when it should be trumpeted with pride, is charity.
The end of a year awakens this character even in the most cold-hearted of human beings, since beginning a new chapter in one’s life by giving alms to the poor is an attractive proposition for the selfless and selfish alike.
These acts require destitution of an obscene level, for there needs to be those so desperately lacking in means that crumbs can come as comfort for others to flaunt their benevolence.
There are few better ways to usher in a new year than by shedding the Scrooge in oneself. The government of Bangladesh has, unfortunately, deprived the highest echelons of Bangladeshi society from this pleasure. It has taken the cynical view, identifying the intentions of its upper class as presumptuous pity, and has implemented measures to put a stop to it.
Clearing the streets of poverty and promising to rid the country of it by 2018 goes further than the twin brief respites of charity – the disaster relief for the recipient and the elation of the dispenser flowing from altruism, or pretence thereof.
This bold decision of an oft-derided government is commendable. Its contemporaries around the world ignore and abuse the poorest of the poor, but it has shunned the treacherous path of debauchery in this instance, choosing instead to stay noble.
The UK, the country that never came out of the latest worldwide recession – a fact that has not deterred the electorate from trusting the economic credentials of the government since it has been good to the rich at the expense of the poor, who simultaneously remain the highest taxed and most affected by the targeted benefit cuts – has set its course unequivocally as one of punishing the poor in the severest of terms, repeatedly, to preserve the image of the country staying afloat.
The US allows a seventh of its population to live in poverty while it stamps its authority on the planet. Over 50 million people live in abject conditions that are associated with the hearts of darkness that make up the underdeveloped world, in the self-proclaimed, self-aggrandising leader of the free world. Their leaders do not have any answers for them, and think it best to exclude them from the equations of governance.
In Bangladesh, however, the immediate step taken in the war to end all wars on poverty has been to fight it with beggar-free areas and bans on begging, a shining example of the government’s genius triumphing where microcredit and civil societies have failed.
There are more poor people in Bangladesh – conservative estimates put it at a quarter of the population – than the total number of lives lost during the Liberation War. The estimates cannot, of course, be debated as there are no valid academic grounds for doing so, but even if the number of displaced is added to the death-toll, it still does not come close to the number of poor Bangladeshis at present.
They do not deserve any outrage or outcry, that is saved for the futile attempts to search for the true history of Bangladesh. They have brought their plight upon themselves, and the government is to be commended for its efforts to conceal the most wretched of these creatures who dare roam the streets of the proud capital.
It is hoped that these edicts, tantamount to waving the magic wand to cure the ills of society that sound policies planned and implemented diligently fail to tackle, are replicated countrywide to usher in the poverty-free era promised by the government. The representatives who have promised the end of poverty are to be applauded for their foresight, which is beyond the ability of mere mortals.
There are more beggars than billionaires in Bangladesh, but the pandemic is a problem only if it is seen. Poverty exists because capitalism peddles the same myth as communism – that everyone is equal. The difference is in the packaging. In simple terms, capitalism says everyone is special, while communism says no one is.
Devoid of humanism and humanitarianism, neither appreciates personal or societal difficulties. In reality, all that is special are circumstances, individual and collective. Systems need to be designed to tackle this rather than propagating falsehoods to mask their own inherent deficiencies. Lamentably, eradicating poverty and promises to that end stem from fallacious propaganda, not honest constructive efforts.
