Bangladesh – Themes of development
Posted on December 20, 1997
Since I have spent nearly all my holiday in Dhaka I should describe the city a bit. Its pretty cold at the momment, sixty people have died over the last few weeks due to it. This has taken a few people off the street and made it a little less congested but the traffic jams still are quite amazing. I think it is that there are so many different modes of transport all going on the same roads, people pulling carts, rickshaws, bicycles, cars, motorbikes, trucks, and lots of buses that leads to such congestion. Dhaka is a completely unplanned city, streets go in every direction. There are always sounds here, there is the Ajan five times a day, at 3am every morning these men come past singing to wake everyone up!!!!!!!!!! (Luckily I have not gone to sleep by this time so they are a nice little religious melody before I go to sleep).
During the day, this is when I get woken up, these people come up to the house trying to sell stuff, like live chickens, all sorts of vegetables and raw/base foods for cooking, sari?s, everything, they come holloring along the street, they are not so musical but they add to the general atmosphere. Everyone is so packed in here that you can here all the lives of different people in the surrounding flats. The smell I have now got used to although every now and then I get hit (the smell, nothing else) by some heavily overworked open sewer. Towhid's parents rent a few other of the rooms in their block of flats to relatives and bachelors. I was talking to Towhid about his family and his future and he was saying that he will always live with his parents, even when he gets married!!! Towhid father works at the Bank of Bangladesh and is also a medical doctor by night, he has never taken a holiday in all his working life, Towhid says he enjoys going to work, he must. I was talking to Towhid?s father the other day and he said to me "We are simple people", which I of course had to argue with, but I am seeing his point, it applies to him and many Bangladeshi?s. He just goes about his day in day out existence perfectly happy and content, he has his Islam, he has nothing to worry about. Tahmina has been doing this applied art course that is been paid for by this anarchist organisation!!!! I can?t figure this out, they have paid A$1000 for her to do this course and they, the anarchsits, get all their funding from some Germans!!!! They even pay for the ricksha fare to go and attend meetings and probably the funniest thing of all is that you get paid to attend demonstrations. There have been two main points on which my mind has been thinking over the past week or two. The first is from my conversations with Tanbir and Towhid about Bangladesh and development. They are both under this, I think incredibly naïve, assumption that the world bank and imf are going to do the ?right? thing by Bangladesh. I have tried to explain that these two organisations are the closest, with the possible exception of the Nazi?s, thing to pure evil on Earth. Tanbir said the IMF/World Bank approach was stupid because they are investing money in roads and electricity generation and not in areas where Bangladesh was unique, its handicrafts and jute products. It makes perfect sense, I think, what the world bank is doing. Here the electricity goes off for half an hour everynight, to get to the Indian border, a distance of just over 200km, takes 12 hours by bus and 24 hours by train. For the past week nothing has got to the border from Dhaka because of sever fog/smog has meant that the ferry cannot cross, to get around most of Bangladesh you have to use ferries to cross rivers as bridges are yet to be built. I think it would take a pretty adventurous company to invest in Bangladesh. With this development at first I was between two thoughts, the first was that this development is going on with no choice on the part of Bangladeshi's. Through the media and marketing the impression of the west that is created is nirvanic so people are sucked towards it. Shibli backs up this point of view when he said to me that I was already in heaven, with sex, travel, toys, ease of life. The other thought was that is incredibly condescending for me to say this. Tanbir said to me "In the mentality there is difference between culture but in physical feelings, like hungriness, there is no difference". Maybe it is just that it is simply that the Bangladeshi?s want the security of food and shelter that the far majority of people have in the west. Then after talking more and more I realised that either way the Bangladeshi?s have no choice in it. If they want development to avert starvation then they must follow the world bank line otherwise there will be no money. On the other hand the world bank and IMF are definetly going to want in here, there are 120 million people, to exploit through wage slavery and then to sell the products back to. The other point on which I have been thinking is on the effects of industrial capitalism on Bangladesh. From what I have read Bangladesh was certainly no paradise before the British came, they had famines and other disasters, unlike the nationalists like Shibli like to portray. Still from what I understand things like begging had a different role before the British came, it was the accepted profession of mystics and musicians. The beggars have been hassling me a fair bit lately, I still have not given anything, but I think they have noticed that I have weakened. I was sitting in Rnaju?s car and we were in some sort of a traffic jam and this little girl beggar came up to the window of the car, she was between six and ten I guess. I have not looked at any beggars yet, I have treated them in a very condescending way, not acknowledging them, which is best I think, but this little girl I looked into her eyes and it made me cry. Here I was sitting in some pretty nice car, not many people have cars here, it was freezing and at night, and this little girl was standing outside the car. I thought afterwards for ages, why did I cry? Was it that I wished I wasn?t in that situation? I think what made me so sad was that first of all this should be a kind of relationship between two human beings, one sitting in a virtual space mobile, in the warmth, with all the thousands of things that I have, the other a little girl standing outside in the freezing cold, where people have been dying, begging for food. Whether she was legitmate or not in her begging, whether it was possible for her to work or not, is not so important. I resent that this kind of relationship exists at all. Bangladeshi's have little choice in the kind of development that goes on in their country, or the way in which capitalism takes hold. This may all sound like me making lots of judgments on Bangladeshi society. The judgement that I make is that Bangladeshi?s are rapidly losing the soveriegnty and it is the result of institutions that come from our world. It is insofar as our society and tradition of thought is affecting Bangladesh that I make comment. Capitalism is a disease that is choking the planet. There are lots of organisations doing their little bit to make 'development' occur in a way that does not completely alienate the Bangladeshi?s from their own land. But like all reformists I think this approach is doomed to fail. I have been reading the book by Bertrand Russell and he says "Let us learn that the energy of faith which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good; and let us descend, in action, into the world of fact, with that vision always before us" I have been talking a bit more Islam with Shibli. He said that the first line of the Koran is "Read by the name of Allah who created you". Read as meaning to seek/search knowledge. Also I should say Towhid?s mother asked how I managed to get to Bangladesh when I can?t manage to wake up earlier enough to goto Mymenseingh about ten days running.
During the day, this is when I get woken up, these people come up to the house trying to sell stuff, like live chickens, all sorts of vegetables and raw/base foods for cooking, sari?s, everything, they come holloring along the street, they are not so musical but they add to the general atmosphere. Everyone is so packed in here that you can here all the lives of different people in the surrounding flats. The smell I have now got used to although every now and then I get hit (the smell, nothing else) by some heavily overworked open sewer. Towhid's parents rent a few other of the rooms in their block of flats to relatives and bachelors. I was talking to Towhid about his family and his future and he was saying that he will always live with his parents, even when he gets married!!! Towhid father works at the Bank of Bangladesh and is also a medical doctor by night, he has never taken a holiday in all his working life, Towhid says he enjoys going to work, he must. I was talking to Towhid?s father the other day and he said to me "We are simple people", which I of course had to argue with, but I am seeing his point, it applies to him and many Bangladeshi?s. He just goes about his day in day out existence perfectly happy and content, he has his Islam, he has nothing to worry about. Tahmina has been doing this applied art course that is been paid for by this anarchist organisation!!!! I can?t figure this out, they have paid A$1000 for her to do this course and they, the anarchsits, get all their funding from some Germans!!!! They even pay for the ricksha fare to go and attend meetings and probably the funniest thing of all is that you get paid to attend demonstrations. There have been two main points on which my mind has been thinking over the past week or two. The first is from my conversations with Tanbir and Towhid about Bangladesh and development. They are both under this, I think incredibly naïve, assumption that the world bank and imf are going to do the ?right? thing by Bangladesh. I have tried to explain that these two organisations are the closest, with the possible exception of the Nazi?s, thing to pure evil on Earth. Tanbir said the IMF/World Bank approach was stupid because they are investing money in roads and electricity generation and not in areas where Bangladesh was unique, its handicrafts and jute products. It makes perfect sense, I think, what the world bank is doing. Here the electricity goes off for half an hour everynight, to get to the Indian border, a distance of just over 200km, takes 12 hours by bus and 24 hours by train. For the past week nothing has got to the border from Dhaka because of sever fog/smog has meant that the ferry cannot cross, to get around most of Bangladesh you have to use ferries to cross rivers as bridges are yet to be built. I think it would take a pretty adventurous company to invest in Bangladesh. With this development at first I was between two thoughts, the first was that this development is going on with no choice on the part of Bangladeshi's. Through the media and marketing the impression of the west that is created is nirvanic so people are sucked towards it. Shibli backs up this point of view when he said to me that I was already in heaven, with sex, travel, toys, ease of life. The other thought was that is incredibly condescending for me to say this. Tanbir said to me "In the mentality there is difference between culture but in physical feelings, like hungriness, there is no difference". Maybe it is just that it is simply that the Bangladeshi?s want the security of food and shelter that the far majority of people have in the west. Then after talking more and more I realised that either way the Bangladeshi?s have no choice in it. If they want development to avert starvation then they must follow the world bank line otherwise there will be no money. On the other hand the world bank and IMF are definetly going to want in here, there are 120 million people, to exploit through wage slavery and then to sell the products back to. The other point on which I have been thinking is on the effects of industrial capitalism on Bangladesh. From what I have read Bangladesh was certainly no paradise before the British came, they had famines and other disasters, unlike the nationalists like Shibli like to portray. Still from what I understand things like begging had a different role before the British came, it was the accepted profession of mystics and musicians. The beggars have been hassling me a fair bit lately, I still have not given anything, but I think they have noticed that I have weakened. I was sitting in Rnaju?s car and we were in some sort of a traffic jam and this little girl beggar came up to the window of the car, she was between six and ten I guess. I have not looked at any beggars yet, I have treated them in a very condescending way, not acknowledging them, which is best I think, but this little girl I looked into her eyes and it made me cry. Here I was sitting in some pretty nice car, not many people have cars here, it was freezing and at night, and this little girl was standing outside the car. I thought afterwards for ages, why did I cry? Was it that I wished I wasn?t in that situation? I think what made me so sad was that first of all this should be a kind of relationship between two human beings, one sitting in a virtual space mobile, in the warmth, with all the thousands of things that I have, the other a little girl standing outside in the freezing cold, where people have been dying, begging for food. Whether she was legitmate or not in her begging, whether it was possible for her to work or not, is not so important. I resent that this kind of relationship exists at all. Bangladeshi's have little choice in the kind of development that goes on in their country, or the way in which capitalism takes hold. This may all sound like me making lots of judgments on Bangladeshi society. The judgement that I make is that Bangladeshi?s are rapidly losing the soveriegnty and it is the result of institutions that come from our world. It is insofar as our society and tradition of thought is affecting Bangladesh that I make comment. Capitalism is a disease that is choking the planet. There are lots of organisations doing their little bit to make 'development' occur in a way that does not completely alienate the Bangladeshi?s from their own land. But like all reformists I think this approach is doomed to fail. I have been reading the book by Bertrand Russell and he says "Let us learn that the energy of faith which enables us to live constantly in the vision of the good; and let us descend, in action, into the world of fact, with that vision always before us" I have been talking a bit more Islam with Shibli. He said that the first line of the Koran is "Read by the name of Allah who created you". Read as meaning to seek/search knowledge. Also I should say Towhid?s mother asked how I managed to get to Bangladesh when I can?t manage to wake up earlier enough to goto Mymenseingh about ten days running.
