Institution personnel often use the word loyalty as routine terminology, where the assessment of subordinates is a procedure for their career or for the annual confidential report (ACR). It is derived from the word loyal, which means faithful or steadfastness in allegiance. Although the word has a generic meaning, its application and horizon of understanding greatly vary. Generally, people have their own knowledge or philosophy about loyalty, irrespective of the institution or individual's position on the ladder of their professional career. With the passage of time, the value or influence of a manufactured philosophy or the meaning of a word changes, and so is the case with this highly talked about word "loyalty". In the Western world, where the system of governance is institutionalized, there is no problem in comprehending loyalty. The problem is in 3rd world. An individual, irrespective of his institution, must sway his loyalty toward the direction of the blowing wind or towards the forthcoming one. Anyone failing or falling short of adjustment to a changing environment cannot expect to go further in his career. This rule is almost free from exceptions in all underdeveloped countries. The slightest error in making a decision or delay due to indecisions may fetch an inadvertent professional doomsday.
The abortive coup of 20 May 1996,
launched by the then Chief of Army Staff of Bangladesh, is one of the most
outstanding examples. Disciplinary action followed, but in the process, the
institution suffered tremendously. Notwithstanding their biases, the Army lost
some brilliant and experienced officers. That the action was wrong, no
misgiving, but why did those professionals make such a decision? Can we term it
as a failure in prioritizing the chronology of loyalty? A reasonable assumption
is that if the country had been number one and the boss or institution had been
second in the chronology of allegiance, the
Let us consider a protest named
‘Janater Moncho’ (06 December 2014) in
Immediately before or during the election, the behavior of political parties reaches an anarchical level. It becomes evident that love for the country or patriotism does not have a place compared to love for power. Here, we also detect a serious inaccuracy in prioritizing the loyalty between the country- the party- the people, and the self; which one should give importance over the other? At the advent of Islam, when the purity of the faith was crystal clear, their integrity level reached the highest esteem. The brotherhood between Muslims and their love for Islam was like solid rock. That made them invincible for the rest of the world. No non-Muslim power could face them with any amount of force, munitions, strategy, technology, and other resources. Then, Muslims' chronology of loyalty was unequivocally the same for everyone, and they had no delusion in their faith and actions.
These days' military people of
world Muslim countries, including
That was the macro aspect of loyalty analysis from present and historical perspectives, but how to analyze the word loyalty from a micro point of view? How do we achieve perfection in assessing loyalty by quantifying to differentiate between individuals? To do that, first of all, it is necessary to clarify a prevailing misapprehension about the word loyalty. It says that loyalty cannot be quantified, and there cannot be any fraction in loyalty; it is an absolute individual quality, and it is either zero or 10 out of 10. However, the modern management system disagrees with such an age-old concept. Previously, assessment systems used to depend on human potential only, but present-day elaborate support systems using massive data processing capabilities of computers can provide more logical, scientific, and accurate assessments. If we believe in the philosophy of change and have the heart to accept new ideas like that of the Western world, we may search for new arrangements to validate the subject proposal.
At the micro level, different types of loyalty may be based on individual philosophies of life, such as proportionate, disproportionate, absolute, pseudo-absolute, or so many others. Since loyalty is an intangible value of a human being; so, it is not only the depth of faithfulness but also the position where an issue has been placed in the list of priority of loyalty is important. An individual serving in an institution is expected to have service loyalty towards their institution. This is generally expressed as a sense of belongingness. Keen, observant superior officers need to assess their subordinates' overall loyalty state of mind to draw a comprehensive picture at the end of the year. But is our present system enough to determine the scope and fathom of individual loyalty? If professional loyalty is only considered as the complete loyalty of an individual, then who will assess other facets of loyalty? i.e., his loyalty towards senior, junior, country, religion, language, and family (wife, children), etc. The easiest way to solve such queries is we don't need them because they are too much detail, mind-boggling, and difficult to manage. If the executives are computer literate, it is not only easy but also a great aid for doing justice to subordinates and selecting the right kind of men for the right position. A professionally hyper-loyal subordinate, if found involved in adultery, is disloyal to his wife. He may get 10 out of 10 under the head "loyalty to senior but should get “0” under the head “loyalty towards family”!
Such kind of assessment is critical from 3rd world perspective, where people, by intention or by compulsion, need to modify their faces to excel in their careers or to survive political onslaughts at the time of change in governance. In the process, other than a few exceptions and lucky ones, it is only the sugarcoated hypocrites and notion greasers, in general, who survive to go up the ladder at ease. As drops of water make an ocean, the condition of individual loyalty designs the nature of collective national loyalty. If the individual chronology of allegiance can be distorted, a nation's loyalty will always be in disarray. This is where men in governance and the think tank of a nation need to concentrate and be on the same footing to produce a homogenous state of loyalty in our society. Unfortunately, we as a Muslim nation are not only failing to arrest this predicament, but we are perhaps not even aware of the presence of such a gap between the fabrics of notional morality. The following graph shows how a nation becomes increasingly vulnerable with the increase of disharmony in the priority of loyalty.
In the graph, Y coordinate
shows the scale of distorted individual priority of loyalty and X coordinate
shows the scale of national vulnerability in Psycho-homogeneity. We can see
that if Y increases X also increases, X is directly proportional to Y.
Chronological priority of loyalty may vary up to a certain limits between individuals
or institutions, but there has to be a broad homogeneity between individuals of
a particular group, institution, party or a country. We may quantify loyalty by
mean averaging the marks of an individual under various facets of loyalty.
National homogeneity depends on the similarity of the chronological loyalty
between individuals and institutions. At macro, level vulnerability of a
nation’s homogeneity is directly proportional to the variation of chronological
loyalty between individuals, groups, party or institutions. Suicide bombers of
FEW VARIATIONS IN THE CHRONOLOGY OF LOYALTY
There can be many more combinations, basically individual choices, and setting such a priority is always debatable. Minor variation in chronology of priority between individuals or institutions dose not matter much, the peril is, with the gross variations and when people are not ready to accept and respect others choice of chronology. This is a democratic right and a matter of conviction, not compulsion. A fanatic, irrespective of religion, communism, or democracy, is always harmful to society. Here, the most significant lesson is that there is no set chronology of loyalty for a corrupt man. His chronology is variable, every time it changes with the requirement of his kickback provider. That way, a corrupt man is always and undoubtedly a disloyal man. And this is the only reason why corruption-infested 3rd world countries do not have any security of their own. All national securities remain on sale, sometimes so cheap, to the astonishment of the buyer. There cannot be a neutral citizen in a nation, either he is a patriot or he is a traitor. That way, a corrupt man is a traitor, and an honest man is a patriot. The development of a nation is directly proportional to its level of honesty. This fact is proven beyond doubt, but very few of us ponder it.
If unity is considered a strength, then there has to be an acceptable homogeneity in the chronology of loyalty at the national level. To reach that end, the first action should be to eliminate corrupt people from the system; by design, this will remove persons with variable and distorted loyalty. This will not only increase national security, by default improve national cohesiveness, i.e. homogeneity in chronology of loyalty. If the proposal is accepted in principle, the detail-working paper may be produced to start with a pilot project. The proposed system will indisputably expose the hypocrites out of genuinely sincere, efficient, and dedicated subordinates. Half a century is gone; we are yet to prove to be an efficient nation but could successfully prove many times as the most corrupt nation in the world. Right or wrong is not the question; the question should be, since independence is so homogenous in creed and cast, could we Bangladeshi ever portray a strong nationalistic bond on any issue? If the probable reply is NO, then the next question is why?
