No, Bangladesh is not a Democracy!
Few days ago a video, from World
Economic Forum, was doing rounds on the social media where it showed the
economic progress of Bangladesh and the factors behind it. Amongst those who
share this video Khawaja Asif, of PMLN also share it with these lines,
What a profound statement, no? Well
it would’ve been if it wasn’t for the invention of the internet and the ability
to "factcheck" any kind of information, online, but more on that a little later
on.
Upon seeing Khawaja sb’s tweet his
colleague Ahsan Iqbal sprung into action and wrote a very heartfelt answer of
his own
I was about to shed a tear on this
very well written tweet until I remembered that the video in question has a
list of all the major factors behind Bangladesh’s economic growth and
interestingly democracy is not one of them, clearly WEC (World Economic Forum) knows something that
Khawaj Asif and Ahsan Iqbal are no aware of!
Let’s play the video and see it for
ourselves;
As per the video itself:
Bangladesh’s economy took off in the last decade meaning it all started in 2009
when Sheikh Hasina Wajed became the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Hasina Wajed
is still the PM of Bangladesh thanks to her emphatic win in the 2018 General
Elections, in fact Her win was so emphatic that Aljazeera’s Mehdi Hassan, an internationally
renowned journalist, summarized it like so,
“Sheikh Hasina is now winning the
kind of percetange victories that Bashar al-Assad and Kim Jong-un win!” and I
can’t write anything more on these 2 gentlemen that is not already available
and being a democratically elected leader is not one of them! But Mehdi Hassan
is not alone in pointing it out.
In an opinion piece for “Foreign
Policy” Summit Ganguly wrote,
“...before the closing weeks of the
campaign, when the harassment of the opposition was at its peak, other developments
demonstrated the government’s lurch toward authoritarianism. As early as
February 2018, the regime had jailed Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition
BNP, on charges of embezzlement…even the Election Commission was
compromised...The Awami League’s questionable electoral victory is bad news for
Bangladesh, where it will aid the consolidation of an authoritarian political
order with a democratic facade.”
One could argue that I am no better
than the PMLN boys in that I am only sharing opinions as-well here so where is the
weight in that? To which I say fair point and have a look at the followings,
“Bertelsmann Stiftung's
Transformation Index” or “BTI” for short is a Germany based institute that
“analyzes and evaluates whether and how developing countries and countries in
transition are steering social change toward democracy and a market economy.”
Have a look at what BTI wrote about Bangladesh in their 2018 report;
"What is more alarming,
however, is that in Bangladesh, Lebanon, Mozambique, Nicaragua and
Uganda there have been five regime changes to autocracy (and conversely
two unstable democratization processes in Burkina Faso and Sri Lanka). These
five authoritarian regressions, however, do not mark an abrupt change of
system towards dictatorship, but stand for a continuous and increasing erosion
of democratic standards. With a view to free and fair elections and the
separation of powers, this erosion process has now reached a level that no
longer permits classification as democracy."
“No longer permits classification as
democracy” OUCH! So under the rule of Sheikh Hasina Wajed; Bangladesh is working
as a fully functional dictatorship and the world is writing about it for quite
some time now. Though sadly here in the “land of the pure” nobody is bothered
about the facts anymore, be it a politician or an economist.
In June this year T2F Karachi
organized an event entitled “Ye Watan Humaara Hai 3: IMF & the Economic
Future of Pakistan” and Akbar Zaidi, one of “Pakistan's prolific political
economists”, was a part of a highly esteemed panel. During the QnA session
something caught my eye;
@43:15
@43:15
That is Akbar Zaidi pointing out 3
top reasons on Bangladesh’s growing GDP and his top reason is that their army
can-not meddle into the democratic process as they still do in Pakistan and by
the sound of those claps it is fair to assume that this bit of information was
very well received by the audience.
Since Akbar Zaidi is an economist so quoting from the “Wallstreet Journal” seemed appropriate here,
“Academics and advocates for good
governance say her opponents were subjected to violence and intimidation ahead
of the elections, with thousands of members of the opposition arrested,
according to Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental organization that monitors
accusations of human-rights abuses.”
I can name a few other prominent
names who are heaping praise on the “Bangla Economy” and how democracy is the
back bone of it but the real question is that if so much material is available
online, from respectable entities, on the poor state of democracy in Bangladesh
then why are these people propagating otherwise? As someone who loves to read
about all things science I do understand that lying is an embedded attribute of
being a human because it helps us escape the bitterness of reality or protect
those we hold dear. But lying for political gain or to gain praise from your
peers is where it becomes an ethical dilemma.
You are not only lying to your
countrymen, feeding them a fabricated myth to make them feel bad about their
own country, you are also blatantly referring to an authoritarian regime as a
democracy which is an insult to those who are being victimized by it!
In my opinion this is deception,
this is deceiving your viewers, your followers and those who think of you as a
great teacher. Please understand one thing that in this day and age fact
checking is a tool that is easily available to even a nomad like me and when
the truth comes out you don’t even get a fig leaf to cover your shame!
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