Election and quality of candidates…
In the recent local election the caretaker govt. tried their best to attract as many educated candidates as they could but admitted their inability to do more than what they did since at the end of the day it is the educated person's decision whether he would run the election or not. We saw so many candidates who didn't even finish high school but ran for Mayoral Election. Now the question arises whether the govt. has failed to attract the educated class into politics or the educated class failed the country to lead? My answer to this query is somewhat in the middle.
The present situation in Bangladesh can't be considered very conducive for people to associate themselves with politics. The main reason is the state of emergency itself and continuous changing events in the political field. The second reason is lack of co-operation from the family members and also the social perception of an educated person who is thinking of joining politics. Given no co-operation and the great chance of ending up in a prison don't seem to be a pretty exciting offer to join in a battle that so many have termed as a lost one already, and gave up their hope and inspired those who can manage to leave the country.
Around half the people in Bangladesh could be categorized as uneducated and I am not sure they should be considered ignorant, given that when it comes to politics they do possess a decent amount of knowledge about the players (somewhat reluctant to address them as leaders) who have dominated the Bangladesh politics. Now the question is who is knowledgeable and who is ignorant?
A person who has closed the door to grow mentally, intellectually, socially and above all morally could be considered ignorant. On the other hand, the way we perceive education is on the basis of that person's intellectuality and some certificates are considered as the proof of it. Now that shallow perception led us to a point where moral values and ethics are less important, we endorse the idea of not discovering the inner imperatives of that person's real character. It is very easy to distinguish an uneducated person since he or she has no proof of education like no pieces of certificates but it is not that easy to recognize an ignorant from a pool of population. We all are ignorant to certain extent and that's why we always admire the thing we don't understand. For example, I am quite ignorant about computer and so if someone eliminates a virus problem from my laptop I always give them the credit for being so knowledgeable, thus hiding my own ignorance.
Now the question arises about the educated class of Bangladesh. It is not true Bangladesh was not run by educated people, rather those so called educated could be blamed for the state of the country at this point of time. The common people reposed their faith in those educated people for a long time and still they do command a great amount of respect in our society but the problem is some of them are educated on a piece of paper or on the base of intellectuality but lack moral and ethical values. They did everything to safeguard their own interest and for the vested quarters they had worked for. Before 1/11, the common people looked at them with utmost confidence that they would come up with some sort of peaceful solution and won't put the country into the path of self-destruction but what was happening in the last week of October 2006? That was a situation where no player offered anything that will pose a threat to their tiny self interest or to their affiliated political party's interest.
The educated citizens who not only have certificates but also possess some moral values should come forward not to repeat the history since education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance and the sooner we rise to the task of establishing an educated knowledge based society, the sooner we can forget our inglorious past.
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