The arch
THE Romans built the Arch of Titus in 82 AD to commemorate their capture and sacking of Jerusalem. The French got inspired by that monument, and built their Arc de Triomphe. It honoured the Frenchmen who fought for their country. We have got our own shoddy substitute, a marble-and-steel arch built at Bangla Academy. Don't ask what inspired it, but I can tell why it was built. The Arch of Audacity, as we should call it, commemorates and honours monumental greed.
For the life of me I can't believe this arch was built. I find it even harder to believe it was built on the hallowed ground of an institution, which is this nation's centre of intellectual gravity. That this arch didn't draw any national indignation is outright scary. Nobody bothered to ask why it was built where it was built.
Booklovers, intellectuals, journalists, poets, writers and politicians, the enlightened minds and the conscience-keepers of this country, have said nothing. Two Februaries in a row they have been streaming in and out of the book fair. None was embarrassed passing through that arch. Some of them even didn't notice.
In case the readers are curious, I am talking about the white-marble arch with shining steel trussing erected at the entrance of Bangla Academy. An inaugural plaque affixed on one side of the arch, proudly announces who has sponsored that monument. It thumbs its nose at all of us. It does indeed!
Come and visit. See with your own eyes what disgrace has been sculpted in that atrocious thing. Anyone who can guess who that owner is already knows enough of him. But this time it's not his fault that the arch was built. He was ready to do anything, spend any amount to regain his reputation. For him, the arch has been a public relations trophy.
But how could the concerned authorities allow this to happen? What was the Academy management thinking when they approved it? What about those who manage that management? What were they thinking before they cleared it?
I am asking because everything requires qualifications for people to qualify for it. One doesn't qualify as a voter if one isn't a citizen of this country. Parliamentary elections have age and educational requirements for candidates. Even a club offers its facilities to members only.
Likewise, sponsor selection must have certain standards, and not anybody can be allowed to do anything just because he has money.
Then what qualified the company or its owner or both to sponsor the arch? Have they made a donation to buy the right to build that arch? How was it decided who should get the deal? Was money the only consideration?
Couldn't the Academy find a more respectable sponsor? Couldn't the Academy have built that arch with its own money? Did it forget what parents tell their children as common sense that a man is known by the company he keeps? Do we need to tell its enlightened trustees that their moral dilemma has been reflected in this arch no less than the sky reflected in a pothole puddle?
I don't know how many of them are familiar with the concept of multiplier effect in economics. It's an effect in which an increase in spending produces an increase in national income and consumption greater than the initial amount spent. The sheer fact that this arch is located in Bangla Academy has got strategic significance. Millions during the book fair will see it, not to speak of Dhaka University students who have to see it on a daily basis.
And, this arch, like a transmission tower, is going to send the wrong signal to all those who see it. That signal is going to multiply. It will convince more people confronted with the staggering moral dilemma whether or not to make that switch from honest living to unfair means.
More people will get even more people convinced, and one arch will multiply into many. Earning legitimises spending. Anybody who makes money can buy anything.
Most of us make money. Some of us are made by money. But the arch signifies something alarming. Man is disappearing behind the money.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a columnist for The Daily Star.
Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a columnist for The Daily Star.
Email: badrul151@yahoo.com.
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