October 3, 2024
DHAKA – When I first heard of the 2024 United Nations General Assembly theme, the picture of Abu Sayeed’s final action in Rangpur flashed through my mind. The theme is simply “Leaving no one behind.” It requires “acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations.” Bangladesh Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus befittingly completed that picture.
Historians may characterise Yunus’s visit as the second most auspicious moment for the country in this august body. Entrusted with the duty to execute and institutionalise widespread reforms to essentially rebuild Bangladesh, Prof Yunus’s presence rekindled the first Bangladeshi presence: when the country was admitted in 1974. At that time, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared “Friendship to all, malice to none” as the country’s foreign policy orientation. At no other time has Bangladesh needed that approach more than right now.
Yunus made Upper Manhattan East Riverside glitter last week. US President Joe Biden dropped out of the US presidential election in July because vox populi thought him to be too old, but Yunus put the youth back in him. As the chirpier, younger octogenarian, Biden canoodled Yunus. Interestingly, the World Bank was doing the same to Bangladesh, first with economical support, then by opening legal windows to recuperate money looted by disgraced businessmen and former ministers and parliamentarians. Unsurprisingly, the IMF loan package window also widened.
That was not all. From the north of New York, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exuberantly sought deeper bilateral relations, and from the south of the US, Brazil’s avowed socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was enthusiastic to meet another “Global South” compadre and share a kindred spirit. He had preserved that for the previous prime minister’s maiden visit to Brazil, but no love was lost when she cancelled it in late July.
Two previous US presidents awaited Yunus: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The former first tasted microfinance magic as the governor of Arkansas in the 1980s, which prompted his Bangladesh visit in March 2000. Last week, he honoured Yunus as a family friend at a Clinton Global Initiative event. Obama is a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner. Even Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris scheduled a private breakfast. Across the Atlantic, Yunus’s advent energised British anti-money-laundering measures against ill-gotten Bangladeshi property holders, while Europe’s most ebullient and charismatic populist leader, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Yunus discussed their own “art of triumph” experiences.
Clearly, Yunus broke no boundaries. Bangabandhu would have been proud of him in a way his daughter was not. Is there mileage in that difference? The contexts differed, for one: baptised globally by the ideologically-driven Non-Aligned Movement in 1973, Bangabandhu kept a distance from geopolitics, but in true Caesarian style, Sheikh Hasina “came, saw, and conquered” everything, which, in a more materialistic age, meant making the sky the limit.
But is every glitter golden? After all, one key figure stayed aloof. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have his grudges, but India cannot function coherently without its only real friend in South Asia, just as Bangladesh cannot do without India. Hasina’s return is not presently visible, but Bangladesh-India relations cannot but warm once the hiccups and speed bumps subside. Honestly assessing Bangladesh’s status shows problems flooding its perimeter, within our own backyard, neighbourhood and region. Divorcing them from an even larger global setting merely truncates the very umbilical cord of possible solutions.
Bangladesh desperately needed global attention to reap gold out of this moment of change. Today’s Bangladesh is not one of only surviving, but also growing. The fact that Bangladesh can actually grow from this can be reduced to at least three 1970s forces: microfinance, because of Yunus and Fazle Hasan Abed’s talent; the millions of abjectly poor low-wage migrants remitting billions from menial, dangerous work abroad; and the money-minting RMG industry for employing penniless people and funnelling landless farmers into urban factories.
Economic growth outpaced social development, distorted politics, and ultimately plagued Rabindranath Tagore’s Sonar Bangla environment. Three consecutive 15-year dynamics divided a homogeneous population: military rule; two political parties emasculating democracy from 1991; and then a popularly elected prime minister imposing totalitarian rule. The consequences were apparent: too many Bangladeshis were left behind or rather left out. So, fulfilling the UN’s “Leaving no one behind” theme, Bangladesh must firstly inform the world what we have learnt from past mistakes; institutionalise, rather than verbalise, the desired changes; and flatten the playing field politically.
The most taxing but pivotal will be the third. It requires refitting the country’s most veteran and historically venerable political party, the Awami League, into mainstream politics. Preventing that will only cement the zero sum mindset that revolution and the UN 2024 theme seek to eliminate. Accommodating that demonstrates Bangladeshi maturity: sharply opposed politicians shaking hands instead of shooting each other, and negotiating at the table rather than through disruptive streetside showdowns.
Central to these is the youth. Positioned differently than previous young generations because of greater social media access and greater accumulation of lost hopes, today’s youthful clamour is from the only place left: the tipping point. Resistance is inherent, but common bonding has never looked more promising.
Democracy also softens geopolitical indulgences. Especially now as the world recovers from the first pandemic in a century, it faces the most vicious populist atmosphere in a century, and stands on the brink of an economic crisis reminiscent of the 1930s. Fascism, Nazism, religious fundamentalism, market crashes, and machismo stare us in the eye. Can we still win?
What must Bangladesh do? Our resources limit us to only tackle problems nationally (institutionalise both democracy and sustainable development in one of the world’s most vulnerable climate change victims), neighbourly (with both India and Myanmar), and regionally (both the Bay of Bengal and South Asia, this time with both India and Pakistan on an even keel).
Nationally, with sine qua non democracy, Awami League’s participation is key: not all its members loot or abuse the principles of the country. So, invite them. Regarding tense relationships with the neighbours, tame common rivers, resume bilateral economic projects, harmonise growing indigenous unhappiness, and reassure the hapless Rohingya that they, too, won’t be left behind. Regionally, revive SAFTA and SAARC to build South Asian identity, bridge Southeast Asian countries through BIMSTEC, and protect the common South/Southeast Asian life support, the Bay.
Global partnership helps on each of these fronts, just as containing corrosive global forces from penetrating local borders becomes our responsibility, too. Sudden surges like displaced Rakhine dwellers, money launderers, sex traffickers, smugglers and jihadists on the one hand, and surging ocean levels, salinity invading fertile farmlands, deforestation, and ignoring upstream river-dumps building a plastic paradise on the other, need urgent remedy. Drilling the Bay for fuel is insensible when solar/wind alternatives to fossil fuels promise more. Tossed plastics and dumped chemicals are worse. They boomerang on our own health through intoxicated fish consumption. Plenty on our plate need better dispensation. That’s a people’s job, not a politician’s.
Only by holding hands with those around us can these be irreversibly tackled. Bhutan is our intimate backseat sedan co-traveller, India an umbilical partner, Myanmar too similarly conjoined, Nepal another backseat cohort, Pakistan a split sibling, and Sri Lanka the third backseat pal. Universally, caretaking means to pave the road towards meaningful democracy, but institutionalising that democracy is a parliamentarian obligation. Both go together, but both only get together if the concept of leaving no one behind becomes the common denominator. That was the most enlightening lesson for Bangladesh at the UNGA. It exposed the widest range of countries volunteering their warmth to steady our ship, a rare opportunity window in an age of diminishing warmth. It’s now or never.