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IN THE quiet town of my youth, life moved to a rhythm that felt almost sacred. We, the children, rode our bicycles with a joyful abandon, yet a silent understanding governed our movements: we dismounted when elders passed. It was a gesture so small, so ingrained, that it barely registered as a conscious act, yet it carried the unspoken weight of generations. These were the invisible threads that bound us — a fleeting glance, a respectful silence, a shared understanding. Over time, those threads began to fray, imperceptibly at first, then with a growing certainty. Now, as a privileged member of an elite, I witness a pervasive obscenity, rude outbursts and a flagrant disregard for norms. Vile attacks on seniors and relentless badmouthing of opponents flood our talk shows, YouTube channels and social media groups. A brazen display of obscenity and arrogance has become the unsettling symbol of our so-called modernisation.

Bangladesh, my homeland, has never lacked ambition. We have meticulously laid roads, pushed towers skyward and educated millions. Yet, in this relentless pursuit, something essential has slipped through our fingers. Not wealth, not knowledge, but a profound grace. The grace of coexistence, of honouring shared spaces, of extending mutual regard. We have learned to amplify our voices, to shout louder, but we have forgotten the delicate art of listening better.

On the global stage, we remain curiously absent, a faint murmur in the grand symphony. Our athletes are overlooked, our scholars quietly sidelined, our voices frequently drowned out. The reasons for this curious invisibility are not always found in the stark figures of data or the grand pronouncements of policy. They lie, instead, in the mundane rhythms of our everyday lives — the way we queue, or pointedly do not; the casual disregard with which we treat a waiter; the dangerous ballet of crossing a street. These are not trivialities; they are the very architecture of civilisation.

We adorn our homes with sacred verses, their delicate calligraphy a testament to our faith, yet we neglect to weave their teachings into the fabric of our daily lives. We quote scripture with a practised ease, treating it as an ornament, a beautiful but ultimately inert object, rather than a living instruction. And so, we drift, not because we are poor, or uneducated, but because we have lost the profound ability to truly see one another. We have, in our haste, mistaken mere disobedience for dignity, and a chaotic disarray for strength of character.

This is not a lament for a romanticised past that perhaps never truly existed. It is, instead, a quiet, almost painful, reckoning with the present. A nation, like a fragile vase, does not shatter in a single, cataclysmic moment. It erodes slowly, imperceptibly, in the unspoken spaces between people, in the chilling silence where empathy once resided. And so, with a heavy heart, I ask: not what grand structures have we built, but what, in this relentless pursuit, have we become?

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The anthropology of incivility

CIVILISATION, they say, is not etched in concrete towers or measured in megawatts consumed. It is, rather, a whispered code of conduct, a shared grammar of public life. Anthropologists, those patient excavators of human spirit, often point to the minutiae: the fleeting acknowledgment between strangers in a bustling market, the quiet exchange of greetings, the effortless observance of unspoken rules. But here, in Bangladesh, these micro-rituals, these delicate threads of connection, have unravelled, leaving behind a gaping void.

On the surface, we appear like any burgeoning nation, striving upwards through the familiar muck of poverty and the ever-present scaffolding of infrastructure. Yet, beneath this veneer, a far more insidious decay festers: a slow, agonizing unravelling of civic sensibility. The footbridges, those skeletal remains of abandoned intentions, stand as silent monuments to our collective disdain. Pedestrians, with a perverse choreography, glide beneath them, not out of necessity, but in a defiant ballet of self-sabotage. Sidewalks, once pathways, have transmuted into brutal battlegrounds of informal commerce, where the law of the jungle reigns supreme. Rules, when they deign to exist, are but decorative flourishes, utterly devoid of power. Courtesy, a fragile bloom, is either a performative charade or a forgotten language.

What blossoms from this barren soil is a society where incivility is no longer an anomaly; it is the very breath we take.

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Public space and private pride

OUR choreography in public spaces, the way we inhabit and defile them, speak volumes, not of inadequate infrastructure, but of a deeper, more corrosive truth: our very value system. When the maw of a bus overflows with humanity at its front, while its rear yawns in empty indifference, we are not merely inefficient; we are articulating a profound statement about our collective will, or perhaps, our collective lack thereof. When a whispered ‘sorry’ is met with scornful laughter, when a rickshaw-puller unleashes an unprovoked torrent of venom, when teachers, those supposed architects of civility, dismiss a student’s greeting with a cold gaze — these are not isolated blips on the radar. They are cultural data, screaming the truth of our unravelling.

There is a perverse, misplaced pride in transgression, a flamboyant disdain for order that binds the educated and the unlettered in a shared arrogance. We have inverted the moral compass: lawfulness is weakness, and dominance, a brutish force, is perceived as strength. The outcome is not merely disorder; it is a suffocating toxicity.

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The forgotten social contract

WHAT, truly, stitches a nation together? Not the fluttering of flags, nor the booming strains of anthems, but an invisible covenant — what philosophers, in their elegant wisdom, have termed the social contract. It is a solemn whisper between citizen and society: a promise that we will rein in our baser impulses, so that others, our fellow travellers on this fragile earth, may inhabit their lives with dignity.

This sacred contract lies in tatters, shredded by our own hands. We cheat, not out of the gnawing belly of desperation, but out of the insidious habit of convenience. We adulterate the very food that sustains us, inflate prices with brazen impunity, lie to those who trust us, and then, with a flourish of hypocrisy, quote scripture about divine mercy. We treat our fellow citizens not as brethren, but as obstacles to be overcome, or worse, as unwitting prey to be deceived. Even our ostentatious displays of piety are but cosmetic flourishes, while our daily conduct is stripped bare of any grace.

This decay, this moral gangrene, has even seeped into the hallowed halls of our intellectual spaces. University students, those entrusted with the very blueprint of our future, often exhibit the most egregious patterns of behaviour. They moral police, they bully, they disrespect with an almost performative zeal. The disease has gone systemic, infecting the very bloodstream of our society.

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A distorted reflection

AFGHANISTAN, a nation scarred by war and institutional collapse, offers a curious, almost heartbreaking, contrast. Their athletes, particularly in the glorious theatre of cricket, are embraced worldwide. Rashid Khan, a name whispered with reverence across continents, is a bona fide star. Even lesser-known Afghans find their rightful place in international teams, welcomed with open arms. And then there is Bangladesh, a land blessed with superior facilities, a richer cricketing tradition, yet finding itself consistently overlooked, relegated to the periphery.

This is not a question of raw talent, no. It is a chilling indictment of temperament. We have become, in the unforgiving gaze of the world, that one problematic member no one desires on their team — the one who brings friction, not the soothing balm of cohesion.

Observe, if you dare, the treatment meted out to foreign YouTubers. In Pakistan, hospitality flows like a natural spring. In Bangladesh, the same wide-eyed tourist is, more often than not, fleeced, exploited and left with a bitter taste. These impressions, though anecdotal, accumulate like grains of sand, forming mountains of perception. And it is these perceptions, these quiet judgments, that ultimately dictate how nations are perceived, how their people are hired, and how they are welcomed into the global embrace.

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The habits we carry: a migrating dysfunction

Culture, that invisible baggage, travels with us, migrates across oceans, refusing to be shed at customs. In England’s famed Bangla Town, that little slice of home abroad, reports whisper that food adulteration, that insidious habit, is reportedly at its zenith. Even in a land meticulously ordered, we, with a perverse fidelity, recreate our dysfunctions. As the old proverb, sharp as a shard of glass, reminds us: dhenki swarg-e giyeo dhan bhane — even in heaven, the rustic woman pounds rice.

We export not merely our vibrant cuisine, but our ingrained attitudes. And this, precisely, is why our brightest students are overlooked for scholarships, our diligent workers for contracts, our promising professionals for leadership roles. It is not the machinations of a global conspiracy; it is the brutal truth that we are not trustworthy teammates in the grand, arduous project of civilisation.

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Civility: a communal discipline, not a personal trait

ARNETT, in his profound wisdom, would argue that civility is not merely the thin veneer of politeness; it is the ethical recognition of the ‘Other’ within the ceaseless, vibrant conversation of community life. In Bangladesh, our ‘conversation’ has devolved into a cacophony of shrill complaints, the hollow echo of religious sloganeering, and a chilling hatred of difference. We dissect the nuances of the hijab, we bicker endlessly over the symbolism of anklets, but our hunger for books, for knowledge, for deep, soul-stirring reflection, has withered and died.

Is it, then, any true surprise that our politics, that grand theatre of our collective will, is but a distorted reflection of our ingrained incivility?

Let us cast our gaze upon the grotesque spectacle unfolding in the name of justice: the clamour for reserved quotas for women in the highest institutions of our republic. Once, not so long ago, students, with fiery hearts, rose up against injustice. But now, the very same youth demand entitlement, not empowerment. They clamour not for equal opportunity, but for preferential placement, a shortcut to power.

The bitter fruit of this endeavour is a parliament brimming with well-meaning but utterly disconnected women — many of whom did not claw their way through the political mire, but were merely planted by the manipulative hands of party dynasties. These representatives, polished and articulate, will speak in English idioms, dutifully cite global feminist frameworks, and attempt to implement policies utterly foreign to the very soil of Bangladesh.

They will not fight for the slum mother, her dreams crushed beneath the weight of poverty, nor for the village widow, her life a tapestry of quiet suffering. No, they will pontificate about ‘gender equity’ in the sterile abstract, while turning a blind eye to the stark realities of maternal health in Netrokona. This is not empowerment; it is detachment institutionalised.

Arnett warns, with the precision of a surgeon, of a profound communication breakdown when institutions shed their credibility. The act of bestowing representation without demanding responsibility is not justice. It is a cruel, symbolic segregation. The daughters and wives of ruling elites will comfortably occupy their ‘safe’ seats, while the real women politicians, those who have battled in the trenches, will remain stuck in the relentless, unforgiving mud.

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Where character dies, institutions decay

EVEN this would not be such a gaping wound — if only we possessed the bedrock of character., if our institutions were guided by individuals forged in the fires of discipline, not merely entitled by birthright or patronage. But we have, with a perverse ingenuity, cultivated an environment where breaking the law is a form of social currency, a twisted badge of honour. The sharper your mind, the more elegantly you bend the rules, the higher your status. Our leaders, with a quiet, sinister calculation, often prefer the uncivil; they are, after all, so much easier to manipulate.

And thus, we arrive at the chilling heart of the paradox: We shout ourselves hoarse about national pride, yet we behave like squatters in our own state. We rail against the West with venomous tongues, yet we queue up, eager and obsequious, for their visas. We painstakingly construct roads, only to stroll defiantly in their very middle. We elect our leaders, then, with a collective shrug, refuse to embody the very essence of responsible citizenship.

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Myth of deserving change

CHANGE, that elusive butterfly, does not descend upon us simply because we demand it; it unfurls its wings only when it is deserved. Allah, in his infinite wisdom, does not grant transformation to a nation that, with a perverse stubbornness, cannot even cross a road using a footbridge. The problem, then, is not divine negligence; it is our own profound civic negligence.

So long as we mistake incivility for empowerment, and quotas for justice, we will remain precisely what we are: a loud, chaotic society, clutching golden dreams in hands stained with the mud of our own making.

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Unbearable weight of our own conduct

HERE we are, in the heart of July — a month now etched into the very flesh of Bangladesh, marking the anniversary of a watershed moment. A regime, once thought an unmovable monolith, was brought to its knees, not by the roar of cannons or the calculated march of generals, but by the raw, pulsating passion and protest of ordinary people, particularly the young. Many, myself included, saw it as the nascent blush of a new dawn for democratic aspiration.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that removing a regime is far easier than building a just society in its wake. What comes after — the responsibility to govern with integrity, to avoid replicating the very abuses once condemned — is the real test. And it is one that, across centuries and continents, movements have often failed.

Bangladesh is not unique in its current turmoil. We’ve seen the same trajectory from revolutionary France to post-colonial Africa to today’s populist waves: the rhetoric of liberation mutates into the language of repression, and ideals give way to power games. What is lost in the process is not simply governance — it is the basic conduct of a decent society.

Democracy, for all its institutional designs, is above all a culture. It depends on shared norms, mutual respect and civic behaviour — things not taught in textbooks, but lived daily. Without them, even the best constitutions collapse. Bangladesh’s crisis is not of intellect or economy. It is a civic collapse, a breakdown in how people treat one another, in how power is wielded, in the decay of basic trust.

The country doesn’t need more slogans or development targets. It needs a shift in mentality: a recognition that citizens are not enemies, but fellow travellers in a shared national project. The question is not how modern Bangladesh can become, but how humane.

We live in an age of speed, but the core human questions remain unchanged: Who are we becoming? What do we value? Can we live with decency in a system designed to divide?

Democracy, as Tocqueville understood, is not a structure. It is a habit, a way of life. Bangladesh’s future will depend on whether its people are ready — not just to vote, not just to protest — but to build a civic culture where decency, not dominance, defines our public life.

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Abdul Monaiem Kudrot Ullah, a retired captain of the Bangladesh navy, is an informed voice on institutional reform, geo-strategy, strategic governance and supply chain management.