In the last few months, the country has gone through a lot of spring cleaning and drama. Now, it's time to step back and focus on the next step -- rebuilding the country. Number one task on hand in rebuilding the nation is finding a common achievable goal (or two). This goal will be an idea/concept/reality that every citizen can aspire to and the leaders of the country can work towards.
Hokey as this may sound, it worked for a country like Singapore, and I ask: why can't it work for us? Singapore is a good example of how a solid goal and good tag line can unify the people and give purpose to everything a government does. It brings back national pride, and right now Bangladesh can do with some unified national pride. Let us not shed any more tears for the Begums or wait for the caretaker government or Prof. Muhammad Yunus to tell us what to do. Let us for a change tell them where we want the country to be in 10 years, what their task is in reaching this goal and what we as citizens can do to bring it there.
For the past three years I have been living in the island city state of Singapore. This city on the surface seems like the grown-up version of Disneyland. There is no garbage on the street, subways (MRT as it is known here) are clean and arrive on time, everyone looks healthy and happy and of course we cannot buy chewing gum (actually a little secret -- one can buy it in the pharmacy section of the drug store after giving all your personal information -- including passport number and stating in writing that you are trying to quit smoking!). Despite all the fun poked at this country, I often marvel at the fact that this country was basically a swamp land in the 1960s and it is today wealthier than its former colonizer -- the United Kingdom.
Forty years ago when Singapore separated from Malaysia, it was a country that Lee Kwan Yew (founder and first prime minister of Singapore) said would be built on meritocracy and a "clean" government. It managed to do both and more. The government built the nation on its strategic location as a trading post, it focused on making itself the "hub" for several vital industries (e.g. aviation, financial institutions, bio technology) -- list of which evolved over the years. This "hub" concept was the main economic "goal" for the country.
My fascination with Singapore's success goes back to my university days. In the 1980s as an economics student, I remember studying about the "Asian Tigers" -- Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea over and over again. These economies were the darlings of IMF, and all the economics experts and institutions used them as the examples of what every emerging economy should emulate. We studied the exponential growth of these economies from many different angles -- economic development, prudent fiscal policies, free trade, and the list goes. I of course have forgotten almost everything I learned back then.
However, I do remember one observation a professor of mine made when he visited Singapore in the early 1980s. He said he was astonished that every person he asked how the country was doing gave him the same answer: "By the turn of the century we will be where Switzerland is today." He said it was rather eerie (yes, to get the "unified" message across, the media here does a bit of brain-washing) that everyone gave him the same answer. Well, eerie as it may be, it worked. Two decades on, Singapore is where Switzerland is -- with a thriving private banking business and on its way to becoming one of the world's leading financial hubs.
I say we can and need to do this for Bangladesh. We need to give every citizen of this country the option of playing a part in nation building. Every citizen should "buy into" the goal and help promote it. And we don't need to wait for a figurehead to give us that. I embrace Prof. Yunus bestowing some "Grameen magic" on the rest of Bangladesh (and I hope we let him do it), but till that happens, let's all do our part and chip in.
So, for my part, here is what I believe Bangladesh will be in 10 years:
- Asia's new Economic Tiger.
- A country with 100% literacy rate.
- A country with double digit growth.
- The country with the highest number of new businesses every year.
- The IT hub for Asia.
- The most successful turn around story of this century.
- An exemplary democratic state.
The list will go on ... and feel free to add to it. I would expect our chosen leader to sift through it and pick one or two goals, and make them happen.
You will say: "Easier said than done" (our usual famous Bengali immediate negative reaction). I will say: we have to start somewhere and we need to have a goal to strive for. Now, it is the job of a charismatic leader to lead us through the treacherous path to get to the goal. As we have already seen, it will not be easy, but let us tell our future leader what we want and then give that person the support to make it happen. Let us be selfish and dream that we can make this country more than just the nation of strikes, political feuds and crises.
Thus, my request to our chosen, charismatic, action oriented, future leader: Stand up and lead us ... we are anxiously waiting ... because we want to begin the journey with you to take "Bangladesh where Singapore is today ..."
Durreen Shahnaz is a Managing Director for a regional media company based in Singapore.
This article was published in Daily Star on April 29, 2007
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