BANGLADESH PERSPECTIVE       For publication on Sunday the 1^st October 2006)

By Kazi Anwarul Masud(former Secretary and ambassador)

Almost on the heels of the Brookings Institution and Center for Global Development initiated collaborative project titled “Weak States Threat Matrix” led by Dr. Susan Price billing Bangladesh as having fragile democracy where the government is unable to secure their population from violent conflict; completely meet basic human needs like food, health and education; and the govern legitimately with the acceptance of the majority of the people ( statistically controvertible in Bangladeshi case given the considerable majority enjoyed by ruling party in the Parliament); Anatol Lieven, an author and a  former journalist who had worked India, Pakistan, Afghanistan  and now working at the New America Foundation has categorized both Bangladesh and Pakistan as fragile states.

According to Levin if the majority of scientific opinion on global warming proves to be correct then the next decades will see drastic climate changes in many parts of the world including some of the poorest and most heavily populated countries resulting in both flooding and desertification triggering state collapse. Levin argues that in such a situation uncontrollable number of refugees will overwhelm regional states like India, and even possibly the West. Given the fact that both Bangladesh and Pakistan are Muslim majority countries whose population are globally unwelcome at the moment due to the war on terror waged by the West and the war of attrition waged by a section of the Muslims wanting to take the Islamic world back from modernity to the “ pristine” Arabian culture of the 6^th century as possessing the complete answers to the everyday problems of life, Levin suggests adoption of “developmental realism” as a strategy by a radical shift of spending from US military to US development and humanitarian aid. The problem, however, to be faced by the donors is to prevent weak states from failing by giving aid and assistance through institutions which themselves are failing and would, therefore, be unable to reach the people who need most. Besides, these fragile and failing institutions being corrupt, and often being kleptocratic, the prevention strategy through economic assistance, albeit less costly in human terms as fatal loss of US military personnel indicates in Iraq, would have to insist on good governance in the recipient countries. But then since ideal governance in the Western sense may not be available in the weak and fragile democracies, it has been argued that the donors to save themselves from Professor Liam Ferguson’s nightmarish scenario of seclusion of the affluent into few islands of prosperity from the onslaught of Hobbesian self-interested hungry South may wish to accord with the British Department of International Development’s acceptance of “good enough” governance instead of its radical improvement as a condition of aid.

 Such an attitude may be acceptable to the neo-cons in the West but is likely to be resisted by the liberals there as well as the people in the developing world as it could implicitly accept some validity in Hitler’s conviction of Aryan superiority and that the Western efforts to carry the White Man’s Burden was, perhaps, correct and not reflective of the exploitative nature of metropolis-peripheral relationship. But critics like South African governance expert Alex de Waal views consideration of governance in abstract as an “intellectual absurdity” because governance involves politics and “to govern is to choose”. But then  by suggesting “development realism”  Anatol Lieven would argue that a return to democracy without military control would probably mean the return to power of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party or Nwaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League –“both of which were responsible for dreadful levels of corruption and misgovernment in the 1990s”. Lieven fears that aid given to Pakistan with its grossly unequal landowning class who continue to have eternal collusion with the military, the industrialists and other elites that Stephen Cohen calls “moderate oligarchy”, may not reach the people and inescapably could result sooner or later in state failure or a part falling under the control of Islamic extremists hostile to the West.  Such a scenario would not be totally absurd given the death of Nwab of Bugti at the hands of the federal forces and the simmering discontent in Baluchistan due to the province’s expolitation by the Punjabi rulers who apparently learnt little from the experience of 1971. But then accepting the argument that the developing countries should not practice democracy lest they fail as a country gives credence to historian Bernard Lewis’ thesis that democracy is a peculiarly Western concept used to administer public affairs which may or may not be suitable for others would be insulting and would accepting Francis Fukuyama’s conditions for transition to democracy which include culture and the desire of the people to practice democracy that countries like Bangladesh lack both which is inherently untrue.

In the case of Pakistan  the donors  face a dilemma. To prevent state failures failing governments have to be aided but at the same time it has to be ensured that aid reaches the target group. Insurance of such a policy could  mean intrusive methods that would not be liked by the governments of the recipient countries. In intrusive cases the sanction of the UN Security Council would lend legitimacy to such ventures. Perhaps President Bush (and Tony Blair) would have done better to listen to UNSG Kofi Anan’s advice before they embarked on their Iraq misadventure that the UN always lent a unique legitimacy to international interventions if done through the UNSC than without its sanction. Iraq today is assaulted daily from within which even the US finds it difficult to explain away as the evil work of Saddamists or Zarkawi’s followers and is a prime candidate of state failure despite external ornaments of government, legislature, bureaucracy etc while the vitals of the state is being slowly but surely eaten away.  Going over the heads of Kurds and secular Sunnis the final version of the Iraqi Constitution has made Islam as the official religion of the State goaded, perhaps, by Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Shistani’s observation that “the religious constants and the Iraqi people’s moral principles and noble social values should be the main pillars of the coming Iraqi Constitution”. As the last British ambassador had reportedly advised his government that Iraq despite Tony Blair’s best efforts could finally be fractured into three parts making the Sunnis in central Iraq without oil resources dependant on the others might come to pass.

To the uninitiated it may appear that a clash of ideologies are going on in Bangladesh. In a way such an impression would not be totally wrong if one considers that the opposition combine is trying to remove from power a group of plutocrats who in the last five years have presented the country with violent Islamic militancy, unbridled corruption, unaffordable price hike of essential commodities, unrest among workers in the ready made garments sector, energy crisis with no light at the end of the tunnel, deteriorating law and order situation, gross human rights abuses and a failed foreign policy which has seen deteriorating relations with neighboring countries and a global image of Bangladesh as an incendiary Muslim country. Though the economy registered a decent growth rate in FY06 due good performance of agriculture, manufacturing, and exports sectors and remittance by Bangladeshis abroad the poor economic governance and low net inflow of foreign aid and foreign investment may cause non-realization of expected growth in the next fiscal year. Though per capita GDP and GNI have increased slightly not only the gap between these two widened with other South Asian countries, the average per capita GDP and GNI conceal a high degree of income distribution.

In the light of the above scenario of conflict and deprivation in the least developed parts of the world, it gets difficult for a Bangladeshi to understand the stubborn attitude of the government regarding the opposition parties’ reform proposals and its shifting tactics which could have been depicted as Machiavellian had they been crafted intelligently but now appears childish as the motives behind the tactics appear crystal clear. The international community, and most importantly the people of the country are waiting anxiously for the government to join the opposition combine in serious talks paving the way for holding a free and fair election under a truly neutral referee following transparent electoral rules. One hopes that the authorities that bear the ultimate responsibility would not disappointment the people of the country.