Speaking of Corruption...

Today we decided that we would get a copy of our house key after Atticus and Jon were locked out of the apartment for the third time yesterday since we can’t seem to coordinate who needs to hang on to the single key we have. The excursion, as usual, turned into more of an ordeal than we expected (I’m not sure why we wouldn’t expect ordeals by now).

We decided to go to Gulshan 2 but of course Taborok couldn’t just take us there because it is at the intersection of two major roads that rickshaws are banned from so he had to weave around the neighborhood until he could get us to the intersection where all of the rickshaws drop off and pick up costumers. Tabork got us as close as he could and then waited for us at the intersection among the rest of the rickshaw wallahs.

We headed towards the market area with a vague sense of where to go – it was unclear exactly what type of shop could make keys. When we thought we were nearby we asked some people in a hardware shop and they were, of course, eager to help. One man led us through the hardware-y shop section of the market to a door lock shop. The door lock shop guys says ‘oh no, you cant make copies of this key. It is a very secure key’ (of course he can’t make a copy, he sells locks!). The guy then leads us briskly across the street – never looking back to see if we were near and making some pretty risky traffic decisions! -- to a group of key makers that sit at outdoor stations in the market who jingle keys in front of you shouting ‘boss’ or ‘madam’ trying to get you to take advantage of their services. He takes us directly to one specific guy. We discuss how difficult it will be for him to make it, machine is needed, etc.. and that it why it is such a high price. We bargain a bit and he tells us it will be ready in an hour.

So we now have an hour to kill in which we can’t go home. We decide to go over and talk with Taborok to tell him what’s going on. We walk over and tell him we have an hour to kill. Immediately we notice a security guard starts yelling at us (well really just at Taborok, people don’t yell at us). The guard is telling us ‘you have to go. You can’t stand on the side of the road there.’ Sam immediately begins to explain that we have every right to be here and that there are cars parked all along the side of the road. The guard explains that the cars can be there, but not rickshaws. We are naturally offended. We argue with him that this is our “car,” but he still insists we must go across the street with the other rickshaws. By this point our argument had been noticed by the traffic cop across the street. He comes over and tries to tell us we have to move because we are standing in front of the governor’s house and rickshaws aren’t allowed on that side of the street. We are incensed! ‘What!? Are you kidding me? Cars can park here, but because it is the governor’s mansion ‘the rabble’ can’t stand here?!” Sam can’t resist mentioning that it seems like a corruption issue to her. Not surprisingly, at the first mention of Durniti (corruption) the guard and traffic cop cede and the traffic cop says “no, no, no I don’t mind. Its just the governor that minds, but you are fine, it’s ok for now.”

After this Taborok explains to us that the traffic cop is corrupt and takes money from the rickshaw wallahs so they can wait across the street from where we were. Shortly thereafter Taborok says quietly out of the side of his mouth to Sam look at the cop across the street. And, there he was taking money and shoving it in his wallet. ‘Wow!’ we exclaimed! What irony! What injustice! The day after the international report about government corruption and graft comes out stating that Bangladesh is moving up, becoming less corrupt and which is celebrated in the papers and by the government, here we are witnessing a cop across the street from the governor’s mansion taking money from men much poorer than him to line his pockets (and probably the guards in front of the governor’s house are in on it too since they are sending rickshaws across the street to the cop). We were appalled, outraged, but not really shocked… of course we knew this occurs. We read about graft everyday in the papers and witness abuse of the poor everyday in countless ways that are depressing, outrageous and sadly, no longer shocking.

This situation just brought all of the injustice together into this one little microcosm on this one little section of street. The policies of the government (originally introduced by the World Bank but since then acknowledged as unfairly difficult on the poor) ban rickshaws from the larger thoroughfares and “VIP” roads and have led to a situation in which rickshaw wallahs have to wait next to the main roads, desperate for a fare, where they are bullied by private security guards and extorted by cops. In this situation it is taking place right in front of the governor’s mansion who surely rides in a car everyday and expects the area in front of his house to be free of the hoi polloi and yet would declare that he would not stand for corruption and unequal treatment of the citizenry while speaking to the upright citizens of the district. Here we are witnessing it all in plain sight coming together.

The worst part is that we realize if we weren’t there a rickshaw wallah by himself would never be allowed to get away with this. They are expected to submit to the authorities or they will pay the price – and the price can be high – traffic cops and many guards carry long sticks and are all too eager to beat the poor rickshaw wallahs if they step to out of line. We realize that our white skin brings with it privileges (as is also the case in the U.S.) and we often want to take advantage of that privilege and stand up for those here who are not given any privileges, yet in doing so, don’t we accept the very privilege we know is unfair? On the other hand it is completely overwhelming to consider all of the injustices and realize that we have very little power to correct all of them.

We stayed for one hour, making a principled point, and a few times we had to have to argument over again as to way we had the right to stay there. The funny thing is that there was actually a better place to go wait, that was closer and much less of a hassle, but after being told that rickshaws had to go elsewhere, we had a moral obligation to resist the unfair rule! We are happy that Taborok was as happy as we were to make this point. (We’ve become very good friends with Taborok and by chance it turns out he is just as stubborn as we are- if not moreso.)

After an hour, our point was made. We go over to the better place to wait and leave Tabork to get our new key. We then had a completely awkward amount of time and had to stand around for another hour outside Atticus school before it was time to get him(again, too much time to kill, but too little to go home and go to the school). We chatted more and all in all, basically wasted an entire afternoon for the sake of principle. Anyone that knows us though, knows that this is par for the course for Jon and Sam.

Oh, and not surprisingly at all, our new key didn’t work, which means we will have to go tomorrow to the same guy and tell him we need a new key, the one he made for us doesn’t fit. This will undoubtedly lead to another ordeal.