He confided in me as to how Indians move in the international arena with their heads held high. "Is there much difference in fact with regard to transparency in these two countries?" he asked. He thought that Bangladeshis forgot to be boastful of our achievements, that is so much necessary for emboldening our self-esteem, which is the basic ingredient for refraining from corruption.

Whistle-blowing is necessary, but should be based only on hard found realities, otherwise the fight against corruption becomes trivialized and nobody in fact takes it seriously, rather resigning oneself to despair after some time.

In the same week, while taking lunch with another friend, a Canadian, the issue of corruption in Bangladesh came up. He asked me why corruption is unbridled. Is it easy to answer how and why corruption extends its slimy tentacles? He asked me what happens for example when a union porishod chairman indulges in corruption. People should be knowing it instantly because it is such a small administrative unit and because the rural life is so inter-connected here.

Also at the national level, since the societal norms, culture, language, and to a large extent religion, are common, how come then corruption grows unabashedly he wanted to know. "Don't people start shouting and criticizing these events?" he wondered.

The same night, the television news soothed us by saying that a subsidiary of an organization, taken to task by Bangladesh Bank for some illegal activities, is sponsoring a football tournament at state level. How vividly this shows how blind we have become to the perpetrators of corruption! How decadently we have eschewed the sense of dignity that we do not hesitate to sit side by side with a censored organization in national functions with broad smiles on our shameless faces.

Frankly, we have found and dished out so many allowances for committing corruption it is a matter of marvel now that not everyone has jumped onto the band-wagon yet.

A few months back there was a startling revelation on the podium of the sacred national assembly (if some sanctity is still left) by one of the parliamentarians, about squandering of several thousand crore taka by a certain powerful national decision maker. The buck then stopped there. There was no more news, no more offensive or defensive stances.

My Canadian friend, who has been living in this country for some time now, asked me what happened to that revelation. He asked me why everything is quiet thereafter on the ground where a partisan battle line has already been drawn. I had to share my view that either the declaration was a political gimmick or the revealer might also have had a few hidden bones in his cupboard.

Basically therefore there seems to be an understanding among the decision makers that "nobody will harm anybody" at the end, for their collective survival. They have agreed among themselves that there is room for everyone to mint money. They have also learnt about the benefit of not opposing their kind.

It is safer and also more profitable either to join the existing cartels or keep quiet than to oppose them. We are living in a society where you are not supposed to shake the apparent peace and balance of power. You will be allowed, through mutual understanding, to scream to a certain extent, to create your own niche and image so that you also can perpetuate the sin under undoubting eyes.

You get the kind of king that you deserve. So if there is anything wrong nationally then it is we, the people, who are to be blamed, because we choose wrong type of kings and never learn from history. It is the people who either are not aware of the power that democracy gives them or they are fundamentally not believers in people's power and therefore do not practice the given power effectively and collectively.

True, it is not easy to identify the right kind of people. Most of the good people are good unfortunately because they have not been tested and many of the so-called good people have shady pasts, that most of us are probably not aware of. We have seen many so-called good people going bad when they got power.

We therefore will have to go through trial and error and learn from every mistake unfailingly, so that once we found someone to be dirty we do not opt for him twice. Can this nation really afford to indulge in pampering the ones that have been found to be untrustworthy already?

So, let one hundred percent of us throng voting centers from now on, so that people's power is applied as a sacrosanct strength, so that nobody can take us for fools and snatch from us the opportunity of building our own destiny through our own hands. We need to use our voting rights as effective weapons every five years to send the tested ones or ones identified through gradual testing, to decisive positions.

Because this is our own survival and happiness that is at stake. We do not get this chance every now and then and one mistake means allowing criminals to vitiate our environment to a degree that would then need much more than five years to correct. The other right type of signal that needs to be registered is not to vote if there is none suitable. Time will come that will take cognizance of this public attitude with desired effects. Frankly, there is no other alternative to rid the nation of the filth and sleaze that we are surrounded with now.

Democracy takes time to root itself. Culture takes time to develop. Isn't democracy a culture? Isn't it a way of life? Great things do not come on ready-made silver platters. They need sacrifice and they take time to entrench. So let us give time to democracy for taking root, say another twenty years. But let us start the practice now -- from the upcoming election. In these twenty years we have to sow the seed and pray solemnly so that cleanliness, if not in our life, at least in our children's life, is ensured.

Let us resolve that we will be strong enough not to sell our votes but use them as a counter force to eradicate the force that has darkened our horizon, that has vitiated the air that we breath in, that has created a culture of grabbing. Twenty years is not too long a time in a national life. If we cannot have this much patience then how can we claim that we are fit for undiluted democracy, with all its virtues.