When blackmailing works

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The government backed down and gave in to the demands of the protesting pharmacy owners in an effort to show that the authorities are not really in charge of managing public affairs including their safety. It had raided medicine shops in Mitford and Babubazar and confiscated spurious, expired and unsafe medicines. This was welcomed by the people who have always complained that the wholesale market was the role model of poisoning for profit. But the pharmacists association struck back, called a nationwide strike and forced the acceptance of almost all their demands. Did it make the government look weak? No. It made it obvious that the government barely exists and even if it did, it certainly can’t look after the interest of the people.

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It’s often stated by the Government that without the party in power there will be no one to protect Bangladesh from terrorists. This is a good political quote. But who is going to protect us from such home grown groups against who the government is unable to act isn’t clear. Whether this is capitulation in plain fear or that they don’t have the power to do anything doesn’t matter but even in its final days before the next round, it really doesn’t seem to be in charge. If a government is unable to offer protection from mass poisoning of its own people, what is its main business?

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Photo: bdnews24.com

Photo: bdnews24.com

Spurious medicines are big international business and Bangladesh is part of the network. At least 300 companies make allopathic medicines and over a 1000 which are producing unani, ayurvedic, herbal and homeopathic medicines. Bangladesh exports nearly 100 items of medicines to more than 70 countries. However, experts agree that a maximum of 50 to 60 pharmaceutical companies produce medicines of reasonable standard and the rest are producing medicines of low quality. The line between bad and dangerous medicines is very thinly drawn. The situation becomes much worse at the retail level where there is no quality control. What the fake and spurious medicine industry did was to defend its right to kill the consumer and also deny its right to better health and healing even after payment.

What the government did was go along with that.

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Most people are pissed off that the pharmacy owners association could get away with this blackmailing but what could the government do? It’s in no position to exert any kind of law and order or even run its own legal and judicial machine. Once it became clear that the authorities were a bit of a tiger without any tooth, it decided to exert pressure and won. The messages that the state sends are always read by everyone though the state itself may be unaware of that. The government’s focus is only on winning the elections and in pursuing that as the primary goal, it lost track of other essential commodities that make up the state. It never occurred to the authorities that winning the past that is holding war crimes trials is good but  victory in the present by managing existing criminal elements is also necessary.

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health-medicine 1One of the most significant events of recent times, the Shabagh movement again confirmed that the power of the street in the national arena is greater than that of the law and order system. But while it showcased idealistic youth power, it also displayed the disconnect between the search for law and order and justice delivery. By forcing the government to toe its line and accede to its demands, it fell into the same tradition of acts which put focus on the inadequacy of the state system. The result was a great street power movement which is unfortunately outside the realm of due legal process. Much of this happen because the will of the state to express its intent is so weak that just about anyone can shout down the state. The formal state can’t cope with the informal structures that are springing up all around.  Whether it’s Shahbagh or Mitford, the problem is the same.

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In the case of Shahbagh, the government moved quickly to assert control because it was a direct political issue and at some point of time declared affirmation with it and ultimately claimed or reclaimed it as its own. The identity of  Shahbagh and the government was not in political contradiction though its impact on the judicial system has been heavy showing that legal decisions can be challenged on the streets and not the court of law. Precedence has been set which may have serious echoes in the future. But the point is that this was possible because the forces outside the government had become stronger than it. What happened with Shahbagh is not much different from what Mitford did. But showed a feeble state unable to deal with its own.

If further evidence is necessary, one just has to look at the way the Supervisors became diploma engineers by taking to the streets, torching vehicles and randomly terrorising the people. In the end, the government again gave in and now they are free to call themselves whatever they want. The point is not the nomenclature but that the state can be bullied into submission.

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So blackmailing works in Bangladesh because the state management structure is not strong or was never built up. The result is that if one has enough clout, no law or rule or order can work and that is the case which these examples show. It’s within this framework that the apparent state seems to function.

So what do we call a state which can’t defend its people, buckles to political pressure or gives in to blackmail?

Source: bdnews24

1 COMMENT

  1. We are very much afraid if one day the murderers and kidnappers will come out on the streets to press their demand for doing their ‘job’ openly in broad daylight. If one day the pirates scourging in the Meghna or the Bay of Bengal will occupy the streets of the capital to press their demand for open piracy in the rivers and the bay. What a country we are living in where the govt surrenders to the killers of even infants and obey their command while caring a fig for the masses who voted them to power! And this castrated govt wants to go to power again. This possible perhaps only in Bangladesh.

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