[Zunaid]

Originally Posted by Blah
That's easier said than done in a country where the ruling party will make you their personal enemy number one if you even remotely try to make any noise by trying to be a serious political contender (read Muhammad Yunus).

The assumption here is that in BD there is an abundance of rational and independent thinking people who will overwhelmingly support a new political party, idea or movement that doesn't affiliate themselves with the current status Quo. There isn't and they won't.

(and no, the so called "Shahbagh movement" doesn't constitute itself as a movement, if anything, its a farce.)

This is not a problem unique to BD, this is a problem you will see in all our neighborhood countries, be it India, Pakistan, Srilanka, Burma; and there is no magic bullet solution. If there was, more 1.5 billion people in these countries would have come up with a solution many times over.

To me the solution to this problem will not come in the form of political movement but in the form of social and cultural change. We live in a country where it is politically and culturally normal to steal, beg, lie, kill, be corrupt, be morally bankrupt. This doesn't happen in bits and pieces its a countrywide phenomena. People will elect political candidate when they know and understand of widespread corruption in his last term; simply because he is AL or BNP and it has nothing to do with his political platform or his past record or whether he is a genuinely honest and good person.

You can't have quick fix in a toxic, morally-bankrupt political situation like this.

The cultural and moral change will come in the form of multi-generation re-education, from outside the political establishment (new or old) and in the form private organization and movement. And its already happening, albeit slowly, but surely.



Thats a very lame, poor-man's excuse. Sorry, but I had to say it the way it is. If you really feel as strongly the way you say you feel, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from giving up you citizenship and moving to BD and do the thing that you want to do. Words are cheap, do it yourself and lead from the front.

But obviously, reality can be a b*tch.

I do lead from the front. I am active in my community and in the politics in my new country. I have put my time, effort, and money in support of those with whom I have an ideological rapport in my own country.