Today is the birthday of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the current Prime Minister and an instrumental figure in the War of Liberation. If he were alive today, he would be 101.
Donors, the media, and many Bangladeshis tend to focus on their country's shortcomings. Its high poverty rates, political gridlock, sprawling capital, and the like. Not to play the saint, I, too, have joined in on these pick-on-Bangladesh sessions. However, I sometimes forget that Bangladesh as a sovereign nation is only 40 years old.
Sometimes we forget that the U.S. didn't have such a smooth start itself. First off, our first national government failed under the Articles of Confederation. There were spats and fights and political gridlock against the Jay Treaty, leading the formation of opposing political parties. The US wasn't dirt poor, but wasn't exactly powerful in those early years. Slavery was legal, and American Indians were horribly oppressed.
We had a bloody and costly war with our colonizers that turned our capital to rubble and nearly bankrupted the country. All the while, tensions were already rising towards a dispute that would lead to one of the deadliest civil wars of all time.
So, it's not all Yankee Doodle and apple pie for us, either. I don't mean to say that the US and Bangladesh are directly comparable- they're not. Bangladesh is much more crowded, has few natural resources, and is evolving in a more digital age where their shortcomings and mistakes are immediately and glaringly obvious to the rest of the world. But to be fair, the young US of A never knew the kindness of foreign aid or NGOs, and the field of International Development didn't exist at all.
While Bangladesh has (more than) its share of problems, it's been able to reduce population growth to just about replacement level, cut maternal mortality below even the best estimates, improve literacy, and grow a ten billion dollar export industry. They've also beaten all the odds and increased food production in line with population growth, cutting malnutrition considerably. All this happened in in 40 short years, after a bloody and terrible war for independence.
Their accomplishments are due in part because they have the guidance of those nations who were fortunate enough to make their mistakes generations ago, mistakes that most people would only know from their history books. It's been 40 years since East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Let's cut them some slack.
Donors, the media, and many Bangladeshis tend to focus on their country's shortcomings. Its high poverty rates, political gridlock, sprawling capital, and the like. Not to play the saint, I, too, have joined in on these pick-on-Bangladesh sessions. However, I sometimes forget that Bangladesh as a sovereign nation is only 40 years old.
Sometimes we forget that the U.S. didn't have such a smooth start itself. First off, our first national government failed under the Articles of Confederation. There were spats and fights and political gridlock against the Jay Treaty, leading the formation of opposing political parties. The US wasn't dirt poor, but wasn't exactly powerful in those early years. Slavery was legal, and American Indians were horribly oppressed.
We had a bloody and costly war with our colonizers that turned our capital to rubble and nearly bankrupted the country. All the while, tensions were already rising towards a dispute that would lead to one of the deadliest civil wars of all time.
So, it's not all Yankee Doodle and apple pie for us, either. I don't mean to say that the US and Bangladesh are directly comparable- they're not. Bangladesh is much more crowded, has few natural resources, and is evolving in a more digital age where their shortcomings and mistakes are immediately and glaringly obvious to the rest of the world. But to be fair, the young US of A never knew the kindness of foreign aid or NGOs, and the field of International Development didn't exist at all.
While Bangladesh has (more than) its share of problems, it's been able to reduce population growth to just about replacement level, cut maternal mortality below even the best estimates, improve literacy, and grow a ten billion dollar export industry. They've also beaten all the odds and increased food production in line with population growth, cutting malnutrition considerably. All this happened in in 40 short years, after a bloody and terrible war for independence.
Their accomplishments are due in part because they have the guidance of those nations who were fortunate enough to make their mistakes generations ago, mistakes that most people would only know from their history books. It's been 40 years since East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Let's cut them some slack.
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