Hartal Today - Must be Tuesday!

Well readers there is a nationwide hartal today – therefore it must be a Tuesday.  They always seem to happen on a Tuesday - hey ho.  Now just to recap for you, a Tuesday is a Wednesday and hence it is the middle of the week out here.  A Saturday is the equivalent of our Sunday, making our Sunday a Monday – follow?.  So a Tuesday is half way through the week, your Wednesday our Thursday – easy.  So when you are all at work on a Friday we are enjoying the equivalent of a Saturday.  It is pretty straightforward me thinks.  Now, another ‘great’ day for a hartal is a Thursday which is our Friday.

A hartal on a Friday or Thursday, depending on which parlance you want to communicate in, is a bit naughty as more often or not it is a half day hartal which conveniently ends just after lunch and thus no point going into work – long weekend – hurrah!  From my limited time here ensconced as your roving Dhaka TS, the hartal wheeze is a nice way to have a day off in the middle of the week at the golf course – ask the garment sector expats who will be teeing off around lunchtime at Kurmitola.  Yep, it is that predictable.  Shame their golf isn’t.

So what is a hartal and why was this one called you ask?  Its that kind of burning question which itches away at you until your Dhaka TS reveals all.  Well a hartal is a strike basically and can either be local, regional or national.  It's normally called by a political party to emphasise some issue or make a stance on something which they don’t like of course.  More often or not it is only one party calling it with the others jumping on the back of it so they can mump their gums as well.  The reason this is quite clever, associated around hartals are demonstrations which lead to violence and general chaos and anarchy.  The parties that didn’t call the hartal, but are using it for their own purpose, have the smug satisfaction they are not responsible for the unrest and can denounce it accordingly.  So this particular one was called by the Jamaat-e-Islami party in response to the verdict expected on Tuesday from the war crimes tribunal on one of their members - their leader no less - of atrocities he allegedly carried out during the war of independence in 1971.  Really!

Let me tell you readers there is chaos, pre, during and post hartals.  If you pick up the newspaper today, there will be headlines which give the impression the country has fallen into anarchy, the government has fallen, students have taken control and the place is generally crumbling around us.  Well actually in fact it is crumbling, due to the shoddy construction, but that’s a different issue.  On the contrary, the country is growing around 6% per annum and is doing quite nicely in some areas, but you know what they say about first impressions an a’ that. 

At the weekend, Madam and I where at a small soiree with various economists there.  Madam was in heaven, being an economist herself – mind you don’t ask her to do any arithmetic when shopping, as you will have an analysis of the figures applied to various theoretical models, only to be given the wrong answer anyway.  Anyhow, when approached on the issue of hartals as part of the country’s business plan so to speak, they commented that a percentage or so had already been factored in for the coming year and thus the projection figures were more realistic for growth, debt etc – smart cookies.  But it does show that the business of politics is actually harming business doing business and ultimately the country’s business, which in the end affects people doing the business.

So what about the TS?  Now I know you are all worried about the TS and his safety with all these hartals.  Well don’t fear readers as currently I am sitting in a coffee shop, enjoying the delights of a civilised coffee (café culture in Dhaka, no less) and pondering whether the chocolate brownie or pumpkin muffin is required.  Ahh….it must be Tuesday!