Culture or politics?

By Alif, Dhaka
12 October 2004, 18:00 PM
We are having serious problems with our culture and politics. Politics is of course within the broad field of culture, but defiant political styles are trying to make and unmake national cultural patterns. Which is leading and which is lagging?

The politicians led with governance, but what is the output? Social culture is the integrated end-image of the behavior pattern of the society. Turbid politics has displayed many other players from the cultural panoramic game. Today the culture we are cultivating (which we could not develop as yet) is no credit to the political culture we allow the political leaders to cultivate. The situation is getting out of hand, and the solution is receding.

A pessimistic society has to undergo a longer period of suffering and adjustment. The tutorial teams are not visible, as the society has lost the moral courage to be neutral politically on apolitical issues. The ramifications of such culture have to be studied more deeply for public awareness. Philosophers point out that when the time comes, the leader appears. This time delay is turning into a severe punishment for the nation.

Very rarely the apex leaders discourse on the moral bandwidth of cultural patterns allowed to grow like weeds (no gardeners in gardens turning into wilderness). Not because they are not interested, but due to ad hoc unwanted pressures, political, religious, economic and otherwise, surrounding them day in and day out (unstable equilibrium).

Our politics today is too crowded, and has yet to reach normal routine level to be able to concentrate on urgent non-political issues riddling the society. Therefore the systems losses in our society is very high. When the curator is mentally sick, the physician has to go for treatment, leaving the society in an orphaned state for a while.

Time and again the fingers are pointed towards the leaders. What about the other leaders? Persona non grata? When leaders in a society are divided at the national consensus level, how to heal the scars, and get out of the vicious circle? There is no internal space for contemplation on objective pursuits.

Some followers are morally blind. This blindness is virtual (like cataract), and could be corrected. New vision lenses are required, in addition to political lenses and spectacles.