August 6, 2013 by DhakaTribune

DHAKA TRIBUNE

Op-Ed

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Israelis bristle at idea a deal could be a panacea n Crispian Balmer

Aerial view of the SM Hall, Dhaka University. Once the Oxford of the East, this age old institution is often not up to global standard, in the view of many English medium students

Time to burst the bubble

SYED ZAKIR HOSSAIN

The gap between Bangla and English medium needs to be bridged

n Shafin Fattah ess than 1% of the student population attend English medium (EM) schools. These schools, located mostly in the affluent neighbourhoods of Dhaka and Chittagong, promise quality foreign curricula to students and parents. As such, they are increasingly becoming the destinations of children from well-to-do families. Many of these schools have become prestigious brands which the tiny upper class clamour for. Having grown up in an upper middle-class family myself, I had the privilege of attending two such EM schools and I am about to share with you some harsh truths from personal experience. Life in an EM school is like growing up in a bubble. The students mostly interact with others of a similar upbringing who are increasingly becoming aware of their elite status in society. The foreign curricula they follow barely talks about the country, its culture or heritage. Perhaps, one may think that he can get glimpses of the outside world by participating in extra-curricular activities. This hardly helps as the students mostly come across others from very similar backgrounds in debate competitions, football tournaments etc. By the time one graduates from the system, he looks around and sees many who take pride in speaking proper “English” whilst silently ignoring the fact that they struggle to read and write well in their mother tongue. Moreover, the students become increasingly aware of the fact that they have an immense communication gap with 99% of the student population. They struggle to relate to the other segments so much so that they falsely perceive an imaginary class difference. They assume a false air of superiority as the effects of growing up in the EM

bubble kick in. An average EM student coming out of the bubble starts underestimating his National Curriculum (NC) compatriots. He reasons that he has a world class education, unlike them. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a difference between “world recognised” and “world-class.” The NC is a very strong curriculum that equips students with in-depth science and mathematics knowledge. Moreover, it gives the students a better understanding of Bangladesh. Some from the EM learn this truth the hard way while preparing for entrance examinations in top public universities (PUs) like BUET, Dhaka University and public medical colleges.

them about the history, culture and socioeconomic conditions of Bangladesh, unless they make an individual attempt to do so. They learn about European and American history but not about the language movement of 1952, mass uprising of 1969 or the Liberation War of 1971. They learn about the European Union, Euro Zone and National Health Service of the UK, but not about the state of the Bangladeshi health and economic system. The relentless focus on the “worldclass” curricula of EM schools, and the lack of scope to learn about Bangladesh further exacerbate the problem. Thus, the EM bubble inevitably makes many incapable of appreciating the country and its culture and heritage.

This growing gap may extend into the public and the private sector However, very few coming out of the EM bubble try out for PUs. Their underestimation of the NC often extends to PU education in Bangladesh too. Many, typically from the upper class, reason that an education from any foreign university is better than one from a Bangladeshi university as the former is always higher ranked. Yet again, they make a mistake as they fail to appreciate the quality of education in PUs. There is also a segment of EM students who feel discouraged from enrolling in PUs as they sense that the entire system is unfriendly to EM students. Either way, the gap between an average EM and NC student extends to and beyond tertiary education. As stated before, an average EM student tends to feel disengaged from the affairs of the country. The curricula followed hardly ever teaches

This also partly explains the brain drain from the EM bubble, as many feel disenchanted from the country and its affairs as they hardly see an opportunity to contribute to the country. Many struggle to understand the mindset of an average Bangladeshi. There are obviously several other negative effects of the EM bubble, but I will now divert my attention to an interesting question - why am I talking about this EM bubble when it accounts for such a tiny portion of the student body? Here is the answer: The concentration of EM school graduates among the top 0.5% of the population is rapidly increasing. The segment holds a significant proportion of the national wealth and owns most major private sector businesses. Over time, students from the EM bubble will become owners of these businesses and have a strong hold on

the private sector. With very few from this bubble going to PUs and in turn to civil services, they will have little representation in the civil service and other segments of the public sector. Thus, this growing gap between EM students and their compatriots in the NC may extend to a growing gap between the public and the private sector, and may undermine the stability of the country in the long run. Moreover, the nation might feel uneasy with the idea of seeing the disengaged EM students controlling the big businesses, as the future of the country is inevitably tied to private sector growth. The time has come for us to take initiatives to burst the EM bubble and bridge the growing gap. The EM schools themselves hold the key as they can take the first steps to make their students more engaged with the country and their National Board compatriots. They could start by including classes on national history, culture, heritage and socioeconomic conditions in their curricula whilst actively organising competitions and programs that include students from both backgrounds. The government should also adopt policies to bridge this growing gap by increasing representation of EM students in PUs and civil administration. To conclude, I would like to reiterate that this is not an attack on EM students as I am a part of that system. I would also like to state that there is a growing number of students like me who are trying to come out of that bubble by taking personal initiatives to learn, think and care more about the country and actively engage with people from different backgrounds and walks of life. However, their number is growing at a slow pace. l Shafin Fattah, an economics student in Princeton University, is a DT columnist.

Political imbroglio and our lack of understanding n Muhammad Eusha

wise man once rightly said: “If you do not know why, you cannot know how.” In this small sentence, he summarised in a clever manner that in trying to accomplish anything, if we are unaware of the objective of the task, we cannot be expected to do it properly. This phenomenon is very common and there are innumerable examples around us. Students fail to learn lessons properly because they cannot grasp the goal of learning itself; gluttons satiate themselves beyond their need because they do not understand the purpose of eating and many of us lead meaningless lives because we do not know why we are even living! Our inability to be aware of the objective limits our capacity to formulate the correct approach, or even to detect the inefficiency and flaws of existing ones. Politics in Bangladesh seems to suffer from a very similar disease, as many a discerning mind has diagnosed. Believe it or not, politics itself is ideally supposed to be a struggle by the righteous and philanthropic among us, who seek the opportunity to serve their people. Differences in opinion

may occur but only in terms of how the intended service can best be provided. Party A may argue that Policy 1 is the best approach while Party B can show their confidence in Policy 2. However, both the policies should really have the same objective to serve the people and this basic requirement can in no way be neglected. In short, politics is expected to be a healthy competition of opinions and it should exist only to ensure that the best approach is found, chosen and established in practice.

So when a politician is caught red handed engaged in an act of corruption, surprise is an uncommon reaction. Such is the ease with which we have evolved to cohabit with the unscrupulous without much discomfort; a sad but relevant example of adaptation which tallies with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The people in general have little expectation from their leaders who are mostly devoid of the qualities which should be expected to be present in a sound politician.

In today’s Bangladesh, politics is often about egoism, narcissism, depravity and harassment of rivals Not only in Bangladesh but internationally, politics has deplorably lost its purpose. In point of fact, politics today looks so distorted and so unlike its ideal picture that one wonders if anybody even remembers the purpose of its existence in human society? In today’s Bangladesh, politics is often about egoism, narcissism, depravity and harassment of rivals. The original sacred and selfless concept behind politics, seems to have been erased from the memories and conscience of people entirely.

As has been indicated in the beginning of this humble piece, the true reason behind the present political instability is that we are failing miserably to conceive the importance of understanding the purpose of politics itself. If we can manage to assimilate the idea of the goal of politics, surely we would then be able to deduce the correct approaches which will lead us to our objective. However, immature people without knowledge are always going to pick leaders who can at best be as

good as they are themselves! Consider the magnitude of danger faced by a nation when it picks leaders who seem to little understand the true purpose of politics. A leader’s goal in taking part in political affairs should only be to obtain the chance to contribute to serving the people, helping the distressed and feeding the hungry. If contrasting motivations creep in, the result is the slow poisoning and consequent death of righteousness. Too often this end is manifested by the treating of politics by politicians and the people as only a way of gaining wealth and power, and of maltreating political foes. Only through a massive change in our attitudes, can a transformation be realised. We must learn to think critically and eliminate absurdities that are present in our conceptions, expectations and understanding. Instead of being servile sycophants to leaders with questionable deed and records, we should voice our opinions and demand a thorough cleansing of the domain of politics to expurgate the filth of corruption and related ailments. l Muhammad Eusha is a DT columnist.

he Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which once transfixed the Arab world, has lost much of its resonance in a Middle East driven by religious strife, political upheaval and economic woes. News that the two sides had resumed peace talks last week after a three-year halt was largely overshadowed by turmoil in Egypt and the Syrian civil war, which has set Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims against one another. US officials still hope that resolving the decades-old confrontation will help to unlock the region’s wider problems, but analysts say it no longer lies at the strategic heart of a troubled Middle East. “That was probably the case before the Arab uprisings, but a number of other struggles have now joined it, such as the Sunni-Shiite struggle and an intra-Sunni conflict,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center think tank. “The issue is a sideshow now, but it might take centre-stage again if there was genuine progress,” he said.

youths at about 25%, again the worst regional level in the world. The survey criticised rigid labour laws, overbearing central government and a lack of economic competitiveness, factors in the frustrations that drove the Arab uprisings. In a 2011 newspaper interview, President Bashar al-Assad said Syria was immune to unrest partly because he had united it in common cause against Israel. It was a hollow claim; just weeks later, violence erupted among Syrians that still rages. Assad’s Lebanese Shiite ally, the militant group Hezbollah, is now fighting by his side against the Sunni rebels, wrecking the respect it had won in Sunni circles for its uncompromising confrontation with Israel over more than two decades. Aware of its battered reputation and the fact that the Arab world is not focused on Israel, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah wrapped himself in the cloak of Palestinian resistance on Friday, issuing a rallying cry for fellow Muslims.

More than anything else, a peace deal would help protect Israel’s diplomatic ties with Egypt and Jordan Much has changed in the Middle East since the last talks broke down in 2010. Autocratic leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have been ousted, Islamist radicalism has spread and sectarian warfare between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims has surged. More than 100,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict and violence has flared again in Iraq, with over 1,000 killed there in July alone, many at the hands of al Qaeda. Tensions over Iran’s disputed nuclear programme have also risen, while a struggle for power between Islamists and the military is playing out on the streets of predominantly Sunni Egypt. Arguably, none of these crises will come any closer to being settled should, by some miracle, Israel and the Palestinians finally agree to divide the land where they live.

Linkage

Few people could deny that a resolution of the conflict is long overdue. However, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s devotion of so much energy to the issue, which has been drained of much violence in recent years, has raised some eyebrows given the fires raging elsewhere. To explain American thinking, you only need listen to retired general James Mattis, head of the US military’s Central Command until March. Addressing a security forum in Colorado on July 20, he said US interests were being damaged because of the failure to establish an independent Palestine. “I paid a military security price every day as the commander of Centcom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel,” he said, suggesting that this was holding back moderate Arabs from endorsing US policymaking. Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, bristles at such a link. Gold, who used to be a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy making circle, argues that Arab rhetoric on the issue belies the reality. “It is ironic that a Western officer would speak about Israel being a source of political difficulty when, under the table, Arab states are seeking closer ties with Israel because of the shared threat coming from Iran,” he said. Despite Iranian denials, Western experts think Shiite Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. This alarms many Sunni Arab leaders as much as the Israelis. A review of thousands of classified US documents posted on the WikiLeaks website suggests that in private, Sunni officials were indeed more interested in discussing Iran and other topics.

Frustrations

In public, Muslim leaders have traditionally railed against Israel, happy to fan ordinary Arabs’ sincere anger about the plight of the Palestinians and perhaps deflect criticism of their own failure to make badly needed reforms. Arab leaders can no longer get away with this. The uprisings of the last 2-1/2 years have shown that domestic problems cannot be swept under the carpet. According to an International Monetary Fund report from 2012, unemployment in the Middle East and north Africa was the highest in the world. It put the jobless rate amongst

“The elimination of Israel is not only a Palestinian interest. It is the interest of the entire Muslim world and the entire Arab world,” he said in a rare appearance in Beirut. Such thinking suggests that even if the Palestinian leadership does get its wish to create a state on land seized in the 1967 war, this will not satisfy diehard militants who reject Israel’s very right to exist.

Conspiracies

A deal would also not end all anti-Western sentiment in the region. True, it would empty one important reservoir of poison from the relationship, but suspicions of US and European dealings go much deeper than simply their close ties to Israel. This was laid bare by a 2011 survey conducted in Muslim nations by PewResearch, which showed that a median of 53% thought that US and Western policies were one of the top two reasons why Islamic nations were not wealthier. Likewise, the median saying Westerners were selfish, violent, immoral and arrogant exceeded 50%, while there was no Muslim nation in which even 30% could accept that Arabs conducted the 9/11 attacks on US cities in 2001. “The notion of conspiracy is deeply entrenched in the Middle East and we are a central piece of it,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US State Department adviser on the peace process, now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “Nothing in the Middle East that happens that is bad goes unattributed, and a lot of it is placed on us.”

The uprisings of the last 2-1/2 years have shown that domestic problems cannot be swept under the carpet.

While scoffing at the idea that a peace deal could be a panacea for the region’s ills, Miller said it would help to protect Israel’s diplomatic ties with Egypt and Jordan, where popular anger at the treatment of the Palestinians is deep. Underlining the importance Washington puts in Jordan’s stability, Kerry announced the resumption of the peace talks in its capital, Amman. Egypt, however, has much more to worry about now than the predicament of the Palestinians. Last year crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, celebrating the election of the Islamist Mohamed Mursi as president, chanted: “In millions we shall march to Jerusalem”. Today, the square is filled with supporters of the army which ousted Mursi last month. These Egyptians are preoccupied with their own problems. “Of course a peace agreement would be a blessing from Allah to us and all Arabs, but first we must rid ourselves of the dictators and tyrants who steal from us and bend to the West,” said Faris Ismael, the owner of a bakery in downtown Cairo. l This article was first published by Reuters.