Windshield or rear view mirror: an American motorist’s view on Bangladesh elections

In about a week, my daughter, at age 17, who has already clocked hours at the controls of both gliders and small motorised aircraft, will face her greatest challenge: she will take the road test that will qualify her to hold a driver's license. When my daughter is in the air, I feel reassured. You can move in three dimensions, forward, always forward. No traffic can impede your progress, no drunken maniac can swerve across the line to plow you down. For her, however, the test's most daunting requirement is the one thing that flight instruction never prepares you for: driving in reverse. Like so many young forward-looking teenagers, she finds driving in reverse the greatest challenge of all.

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My dear readers,
I live halfway around the world. I have only been acquainted with the history of your wonder-filled nation for a few months via English writing on the Internet. Time and again, the courage, the grace and the sense of optimism that comes from surmounting the numerous tragedies that have befallen your nation since 1971 has compelled me to become more than just a fan or a well wisher. It has made me want to dedicate some portion of my life contributing even in the tiniest way to your overall story. I am inspired to take an example from a hero like Noor Hossain and rise out of the anonymous masses to assert one individual's right and duty to help make of this amazing people a nation of fulfilled promises.

This is the intention of my writing.

Before I sit to write, I repeat the prayer that ministers say before they preach: "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to You, oh God, my rock and my Redeemer."

Then I also pray that my words be pleasing to you all.

Finally, I write, remembering that I'm one guy among millions, just another dude in the ranks of anonymous well wishers. I don't risk life or limb. I am tucked far behind the frontlines of poverty and strife, comfortable, stable and privileged. Therefore, my words are emboldened. They travel to your home, but they don't drink your water. They don't wander your streets. They suffer no plagues, no threats of violence, and by virtue of the virtual world, which may be the least virtuous of all, they live in security on a technological "cloud" that cannot cause life-giving water to fall on your crops or add a single drop to a rainy season. They don't wear your clothing, or even speak your language.

How can I hope to express an informed opinion on your history and politics when my biggest worry in 1971 was the mediocre performance of my favourite baseball team, the New York Mets, or the outcomes of my constant fistfights in school, which my Napoleon complex as an eight-year-old caused me to instigate, and for which I was in constant trouble with the principal. I could only fathom human sufferings in the stories of my mother, who grew up as a nationless refugee in war-ravaged Europe, and shrugged off her personal history as the only childhood she knew, and therefore perfectly normal to her, and not without its joys.

So I am not particularly qualified to stick my nose into your internal politics, but I will venture a political opinion, meddlesome and uninformed as my viewpoint may be.

In the question of BNP or AL in the last election, I think I know what I would have done had I stood in one of those colourful, cold queues somewhere on your soil.

I'd have voted "None of the above".

To my American-slanted point of view, both major parties in Bangladesh are attempting to drive their nation, full-throttle, down the road to progress while in reverse gear. I know how transformational personal tragedy can be. To face imprisonment, to lose one's home, to see those who you love die before your eyes, I can only imagine the horror and the grief that would program my actions from that moment on. But if you are driving in reverse, you can never go fast enough to enter a high gear, or merge onto a highway. Your neck is craned, and you're using mirrors in which distant objects appear closer than they actually are. When you're travelling in reverse gear, even though you are moving forward, you're less likely to see the small obstacles in the roadway. When the political parties rely upon rear-view mirrors, progress is dangerous for those who live close to the ground.

Forgive the harsh assessment, but it just seems to me as an outsider that a vote for BNP or AL is a vote for government by vendetta. I rely on you, Dear Readers, to take me to task if I am mistaken.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh has real, serious issues to address, from potential plagues to water quality issues, to violence on the border, to numerous infrastructure concerns. A responsive government can cooperate with opposition parties and rally to resolve these issues. A responsive opposition party can cooperate with the government and clear the way for a breakthrough. Bangladesh is poised to experience an economic and cultural renaissance if it can only get leaders in the driver's seat whose main objective is to get on the highway to progress, or, better yet, to taxi for takeoff (on a runway that is built in an acceptable location, of course).

You need new leaders and new political parties that are not defined by personal tragedies, even if those personal tragedies helped shape the nation. Perhaps it may be time for a new generation to assume leadership and define its own national agenda, more informed by a vision of the future, and less haunted by the past.

In our own country, few people remember the bitter divisiveness that marked the birth of the United States. However, insurrection and infighting did hold us back as a nation in the early days. President George Washington had to lead his troops against a rebellion. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were bitter political enemies. Former Presidential candidate Aaron Burr took time out of his busy schedule as Governor of New York to fatally shoot Alexander Hamilton (the man on the ten dollar bill) in a duel.

On the 40th anniversary of the American Revolution, President James Monroe proclaimed what he called "The Era of Good Feelings". He resolved to set aside political strife, to set aside history itself, and embrace progress. He was subsequently re-elected by 80 percent of the popular vote. Although he'd opposed the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, he did nothing to lever his popularity to abolish it. As a result, the people of the United States shared in the spirit of cooperation, and the country rose to international prominence. America prospered, grew and produced a wealth of technological innovation, literature, art and commerce.

By the 40th anniversary of the United States, the old parties which had sprung from independence had outlived their usefulness. New parties came to power, certainly holding opposing viewpoints but unified in their forward-looking approaches.

Can Bangladesh enter an Era of Good Feelings? The people need to feel free to express their political will and move the nation forward. They need to embrace the belief that one person, no matter his station in life, can stand for what is best for his nation, place his foot on the gas and proceed full speed ahead. Those whose squabbles impede such progress will simply disappear from history's view, overtaken by new leaders who drive in the fast lane and are willing to pick up passengers of goodwill regardless of their political ideology. Such drivers might cast an occasional glance in the rear view mirror, partly to acknowledge the past, but mostly to make sure that no one is gaining on them.

Maybe there is one such forward-looking individual among you, some men, some women who recently have passed their road test, and is willing to sit behind the wheel of a brand-new car? If that is the case, I promise to support you and to never judge your competency based on your inability to travel in reverse.

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A follow-up on my attempt to contact The New York Times about not reporting on the border shootings:

Bangladeshis, my friends, perhaps the privileges that we enjoy here in America explain why our national media have ignored your plight. The letter I wrote about the border killings to the New York Times did not even elicit acknowledgement, and I do not have high hopes that CNN or The Washington Post will respond to my letters. The best I can do is write locally, to my own people here in New Jersey. Politically unconnected as they are, at least we can hope that they have more pull with the Almighty than I have with the newspapers. I know they will empathise with your struggles, and pray that prosperity and justice cross your borders and abide among you.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.