A note on my “political fallout” post - which I see continues to be misinterpreted, even by AsifY and Fugstar bhais (see comments here) At no point in the post do I criticize how the government has been approaching the Sidr disaster, and I think that if readers reread my previous post without assuming that I am criticizing, they will be hardpressed to find anything that suggests some kind of judgment of the SOE’s response on my part.
As I note in my comments, I simply have no way of knowing whether they are doing a good job or not. From a distance (cause that’s where I am situated) their approach and attitude seem sincere. Surely, as Fugstar notes, there are logistical, communication and transportation issues that hampered both the pre-Sidr evacuation and post-Sidr relief work. But these are not short-term problems, and one would hardly be fair in criticizing the SOE for them - unless some clear evidence of mismanagement or negligence appears. I have yet to see such evidence, and I do not expect there to have been wilful mismanagement or negligence, given what seems to me to be a sincere approach to the crisis.
(In the mean time, kudos to the planners, both past and present - for it would only be fair to share the credit - for helping us avoid what could have been a larger number of deaths.)
The point of the post however was to put out my neck with an early prediction: There WILL be some political fallout from Cyclone Sidr. No matter how sincere the SOE has been in its response, the resource constraints that a country like ours continues to face have shown themselves in the difficulty that the administration has found in coping with the scale of the disaster. It is, I think, unfair to blame the SOE for these constraints. But what I think about deservedness blame is irrelevant here. The fact of the matter is that it is likely that the SOE government will be viewed as possibly to blame by the people who need relief on the ground for their failure (whatever the cause) for reaching that relief. They will ask why they had to wait, hungry and shelterless, and many will be (understadably) impatient of explanations. Some will think - whether accurately or not - that their MP’s would have been more responsive to their needs, and that they would have been better off under that system. Additionally, as food prices increase, the effects of the disaster will be felt beyond the strike zone of the cyclone, and beyond the temporary wait for electricity. Questions will be asked - and one might think that they will be unfair questions to ask - but it is foreseeable that they will be asked. Perhaps the hungry crowds will be able to understand the sincerity that the Chief Advisor was trying to convey in his statement, and will be inclined to forgive perceived faults. Or perhaps the crowds will be unable to look beyond the fact that they have been waiting for days for some relief that is yet to come. I can imagine it going either way. The Daily Star article seemed to say that it is the latter, as things stand right now. It would be interesting to see evidence of perceptions and reactions on the ground that suggest the contrary.
That’s all I was trying to say. It’s probably my fault for being less than clear - but acknowledging that still doesn’t stop being misinterpreted from smarting.
May be I should have a tag that tells readers when I am being descriptive rather than prescriptive.
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
November 22, 2007 at 10:31 pm
DhakaShohor
Apologies for the misinterpretation Saif. Frankly I should have been clearer when I said, “criticised more stridently than Saif” in my last comment.
I read your post first up when there had been no comments on it. I found it to be neutral with regards to the CTG. In fact, you adopted a friendly tone towards the CTG itself that I have abandoned on my blog sometime in August during the DU riots. (On that note: expect a blog post on CTG-disillusionment sometime soon)
What I found particularly galling was what I perceived as attempts at silencing government critics (through silencing somebody like you, who’s not even criticising it: slippery slope) implicit in citizen’s statements. Thus, the meat of my statements are directed towards citizen, and not towards you. Which is a fault of mine I acknowledge, responding to other commenters and not to the original post. But I do have an allergy to logical fallacies and misinterpretations of classic texts.
I agree with your points made. You’ve outlined one reason why anti-incumbency sentiment is so easy to achieve in Bangladesh, despite the best effort of many governments in many different fields. What I would argue is that the government has not always put its best efforts forward in dealing with our problems, but has misdirected it at tackling opposition (the national security=regime security fallacy), critics and dissidents. And citizens like “citizen” are products of that dysfunctional culture where they think “watching” their fellow citizens is somehow serving the country.
That being said, I join you in applauding the government’s handling of the present crisis. I have seen nothing so far to indicate that this relief effort is worse than any other. If it had been worse, I would be on my blog and posting about it incessantly. And I would defend anyone else’s right to.