It is often said that, these jobs are given to Indians, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos – who earn the high-end jobs by showing worldclass skills.
Asaduzzaman
Those of us, who were born after 1975- the year during which the Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with his family members were assassinated-belong to a transitional generation. We are bearing the legacy of the generation that had had the taste of freedom after a long course of colonial ruling in 1971 but failed to become as open minded as their new found freedom should have made them. The widespread perception amongst this generation that they themselves were inferior while their hypothetical colonial masters were always superior was probably the root cause of this failure. It was imprinted in the DNA of their social existence. All they could do was blindly imitate the rulers’ culture while ignoring global trends. This deceptive mentality took a toll on the development of our national identity. The fact that they were looked down upon and wrongly blamed for many offences by their colonial masters nurtured a sense of self doubt in them regarding their own capabilities. If we look at the current generation more than 30% of them are exposed to technological innovations and an almost infinite pool of information. Those getting this exposure are between the age of 10 and 24. The notable change between these two generations is that the latter don’t hesitate to reach for the stars or to bring the world under their own feet. The people torn in between these two generational attributes, that is, the people of my age, who are in their late 40s or 50s are the embodiment of a lost generation. That is why a general negation mentality and a spree of confusion still looms large among the mentality of the average people, a large portion of whom have been trapped in this generational limbo. Due to this we have problems where good achievements are undermined and doing something good creates more foes than friends. In our post colonial country, this negative trend and mindset has led to the birth of many negative issues, most of which have contributed to stifling the growth of our country. We now have a country which suffers from bureaucratic mindsets, corruption in public offices, red-tapism and so on. How long we will have to bear the brunt of these issues no one knows.
This country has 1 million remittance earners, 5 million farmers, 5 million labors and 1 million resilient entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, the noise surrounding the alleged “political brinkmanship” often stops people from noticing the real progress Bangladesh made in last four decades. Society’s deceptive nature invokes them to speak ill of those who are successful. Thanks again to the colonial mentality.
The media is abuzz with the huge amount of remittance our people have been adding to the national exchequer but what about the hefty sum of $ 10 billion that are remitted out from this country being earned by expatriates in various high-end jobs. It is often said that, these jobs are given to Indians, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos – who earn the high-end jobs by showing worldclass skills. However, the claim doesn’t sound legit when we see Bangladeshis winning international accolades in various sectors like agriculture, science, economics and business. On the other hand, pinning hopes on the remittance earners in Middle Eastern countries, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. too is going to weigh heavy on us since many of these workers lack the required skill to get into jobs that earn more money and are respectable. It is high time we realize that we must open our minds and embrace the changes the world of today has to offer, be it education, skill or advancements in the cultural forefront. If not, the clichés of the past will keep haunting us and all our hopes of a brighter tomorrow will be nipped in the bud.
