Can We Stay United?

By "we" I mean the so called "generation-now" ‑ the target demography of Phiriye Ano Bangladesh (PAB). By "united" I mean being a team when it comes to implementing the vision of PAB. The theme of PAB is that party allegiance should not divide us as a progressive young group that potentially can put the collective thoughts on the table and find ways to bring Bangladesh back from the disastrous path. Regardless of whatever hat you wear while rallying for you candidate of choice, when you are under the PAB banner you are working hand-in-hand with your teammates to energize the rest of the young populace into thinking about 'politics'. Thinking politics is not by any means being a thug on a party pay roll; or holding an elected office so that you and your friends might get rich. Being political is having a conscientious mind on the government policies, how they were formulated, whether or not it needed amendment, demanding transparency in administrative decision-making process etc. The bottom line is having a say and making a difference through your voice.

In Bangladesh it is difficult to engage in any constructive criticism on politics without being branded one way or the other. Last five years when the political institutions were marred with staggering corruption tales, speaking against the then governing body would earn you a tag "pro-Awami League". If you criticized something Hasina uttered (and oh god she had so much foul to say) then you are unequivocally pro-BNP. Once you are endowed with these tags there was no getting out of it. Everything you had to say would be weighed in by that scale. May be it is time to stop being on the extreme end of the spectrum and join together on some common grounds. But to think along that line first you have to have the mind set to "agree to disagree" on political ideology.

It's no secret that the very young ones, people in early 20's, who were supposed to jump at the prospect of voting for the first time are not even willing to find out whether they were registered voters in their constituency or not. Many of us would agree that the apathy stems from the obvious breakdown in administrative and bureaucratic structure and the blatant corruption in every sector of the country that thrived for last 30 some years. It has turned off a lot of clear thinking individuals in their 20's or 30's from taking active interest in politics. The political figures both sitting in the governing body as well as the opposition failed to set a good precedence and grow nationalistic attitudes among the young ones. What is worse is that the parties have historically used their student wings in bringing stronger and more passionate divide in the college campuses. The attitude has been "either you are with me, or you are against me". The major political alliance would never sit down together to discuss on what is in the best interest of the mass. Consequentially the majority of non-party students stopped caring for local politics, and settled on education, career or socializing in cafes. Meanwhile the religious bigots have continued to prey on the confused young ones and smooth talk them into being recruited, and effectively turn them more non-democratic.

These wouldn't have happened if the parties would hold off their party allegiance for once and just discuss the pros and cons of different platforms, and become more involved in the different elements that can actually rectify the faulty systems. Why wouldn't they get their heads together and find a solution that works for the entire nation, and not just a few opportunists. PAB hopes to groom the next generations of politicians who will be more genial and willing to listen to each other. This is in fact the line of thinking that gave birth to PAB. The idea of this blog has been to provide a platform for sharing thoughts and ideas on how to make people of different political ideologies interact with each other and energize other young folks into having active interest in politics.

PAB's goal to raies political consciousness among the youth can be achieved by educating the young generation across the board on different element of government and its branches – executive, legislative and judiciary. Also by involving young ones in lively debates and discussions on how a political body works, who do they represent, how policies get formulated, how do they get passed, how do they serve or not serve the people etc. The people need to be reminded that the MPs are elected to serve his/her constituency, and that the voters have every right to demand actions from them after election is over.

Lately Dr Yunus' entrance in politics has given new hopes to a lot of young citizens of Bangladesh. Even though how successful he'll be into actually materializing his ideas is yet to be seen, but the shake up he already brought to different parties is somewhat pivotal to our politics. Some of us immediately believed in him, while some of us felt that he needed to mature as a political figure, and then there are those who have rejected him altogether as a future policy shaper for \nBangladesh. Regardless of which group you fall into we at PAB want to hear your thoughts. Because we at PAB believe that all of us are extremely proud of our nation and we do not want to allow some handful of individual take advantage of our resources, and we want to see our country prosper and feel prouder. So I'll ask the readers of PAB again – do you have it in you to work together as a team and have a united front? That seems to be the challenge of the time.