Bhutan Observer received this beautiful letter from Ms Meiko Nishimizu, former World Bank Vice President for South Asia, in February 2009 in response to reporter Rabi C Dahal's story Ungar Diary. The story received the award for the Most Valuable Story (GNH story) in the second National Journalism Awards in 2010. I am reproducing this letter because it is so beautifully written with a lot of food for thought for us the Bhutanese.
Dear Mr. Rabi C Dahal,
Your Ungar Diary was a pure joy to read.
Yes, Ungar is Drukyul, not Thimphu or Paro. That is how the bulk of her people
live.
It was a joy because too many who roam the
corridor of power and money tend not to see what you saw. Yes, they are “from
villages” themselves. Of course, they “visit the rural areas.” But, one cannot
see what you saw, unless one lives that life of basic human hardship even for a
few nights.
Villagers of Ungar are fortunate. For too
many, solid roof overhead is a mere dream, CGI or otherwise. They are
invisible, and suffer in silence. Real life-experience like yours is the only
way to see the world through the eyes of the invisible people.
No wonder, a Thimphu highway, urban
“beautification” projects, domestic airports … Undoubtedly all necessary one
day. But, I question, “What’s the priority? Why now?” What’s the priority, when
all that money can make the simple dream of rural roads, electricity, or safe
drinking water of the silent majority now? Why now, when today’s urban bias in
public investments only end up accelerating the unnecessary rural-urban
migration?
It was a joy because I am convinced that
good journalism, like yours, is critical in changing that bias. In many
countries where politics has become a money-making business, I know good
journalists are the only remaining friends of the silent majority.
And, it was a pure joy, because that silent
majority will harbor instability, extremism, and even revolution, if gone
unattended for too long. These are the people who have nothing to lose.
Frustration of social, political, and
economic exclusion, handed down generation after generation, will ignite a
wrong fire in their belly.
All it takes is one, just one, trigger for
them to scream “we’ve got nothing to lose!”. Today’s terrorism, in South Asia
and beyond, all started like that.
So, as I see it, poverty alleviation is not
a socio-economic cause. It is a national security issue, of the highest order.
