My Bangladesh

. PHOTO: AFP

So strong is the effect of these corrupt practices that they make people forget that they are human beings and have the same rights as citizens of Canada, Australia, America.

People died before liberation for food, people still die for food. But the people who always had enough to eat never glanced back to the starving population, never cared to extend a hand and touch humanity.

Now we have a country where the politicians do not hesitate to say "Such and such party did nothing wrong in demanding the unity of Pakistan. Salaries of the members of parliament rise by practically gobbling up all the taxes of the people and nothing is done: while those in the lower posts stay same over millions of years. Just a few days ago, one of my favorite radio artists died. He'd been in work for twenty-five years and his pay was Tk 675 per month when he died!

My letter would go on for hours if I explain exactly how hard it was for Khaleq Sarker- a typical poor, Bangladeshi farmer- to grow a hundred and sixty kilos of onion on his thin strip of land. He sold them all at a rate of twenty-two taka per forty kilos at 7.30 in the morning. When his wife needed the same onion for cooking, he came back to the market at five in the afternoon and discovered that each kilo of onion was selling for twenty-eight taka. All that you could see then if you had looked at his face would have been cold tears trickling down seventy-year-old cheeks.

My Bangladesh is a nation where terrorism rules no matter how anyone wants to put it. More than forty women and children are raped every month. About fifty thousand taka is robbed off pedestrians every week.

Policemen take money forcibly from green vendors' pocket as if this action contributed to the mass of duties to be performed to the nation. We are a nation, fully corrupt "from the pauper to the prince."

Our Golden Bengal is now our Bengal of corruption and deception. We now need a flood like that of (Prophet) Noah's. We urgently need a thorough washout. I demand trust and honor in people. I am missing it greatly.

I want to see my Bangladesh as I visualized it in my dreams where people respect each other not because they have money, but because they are human beings and because they have enough self respect: a place where the unnecessary issues are boycotted and kicked out and where democracy is an efficient way of fulfilling hungry peoples' demands.

Yet, I love my country.