As a visitor to Bangladesh to represent the committee of a small charity in the UK, I have been frustrated by 5 days of hartal which prevented me from being as effective in visiting our project in Sylhet as I could have been. I lived in Dhaka in 1993/4, a period of similar unrest, and find that Bangladesh has made little economic progress since that time. Your bright young people move abroad thus further restricting the development of Bangladesh. The violent and aggressive nature of demonstrations, attacks on the least fortunate members of the community, e.g. rickshaw-pullers, the disruption of education and business all give a picture of a country in chaos. The politicians appear to have no understanding of democracy and think it is acceptable to try and bring down a government by crippling the country. All this has ensured a lack of development which is tragic when considering other economies in the region, Malaysia and India for example, which have made phenomenal progress in the last ten years.Meanwhile, Bangladesh is known as the most corrupt country in the world which means those at the top have no interest in changing a system which presumably enhances their lifestyle. Amongst ordinary people I find a sense of hopelessness and no optimism that things will change. Everywhere I have been I have talked to small businessmen, nursery owners, telephone shop managers, drivers, teachers and students, and all are vehemently against corruption and hartal.
So wake up Bangladesh, the world is moving on and you are being left far behind.
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