A Time to Reflect
Ramadan — the month where Muslims around the world fast for 30 days — just finished. At the end of Ramadan, there is a celebration, called Eid. We greet each other on Eid by saying “Eid Mubarak” which means “blessed celebrations.” Ramadan is meant to be an opportunity to reflect on everything in your life. This year, key global events influenced my reflections. Let me share three events that stood out.
On July 1st, only a few days before the end of Ramadan, a terrorist attack killed 20 people at a cafe in Dhaka. I was at my home in the United States at the time of the attack, but my wife and my two daughters were visiting my parents, whose house is located only minutes from the cafe. A few days later, outside of Dhaka, a bomb was detonated at the largest Eid prayer congregation, killing 4 and injuring more than 20 people. When I arrived in Bangladesh last week to pick up my family, I found a country in a state of anxiety. People have laid the blame firmly at the feet of the country’s leadership, who have consistently mismanaged the country and escaped accountability by either keeping the public in the dark or feeding them wrong information.
The second event that had me thinking was the Brexit. Whilst the Brexit, was a possibility, it seemed that few believed it would actually happen (myself included). While the vote to leave the European Union was a shock, the aftermath has been even more unsettling. The resignation of the Prime Minister David Cameron, who was in the Remain camp, was not a big surprise. But when the two leaders of the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage will have nothing to do with the consequences of their “victory”, you know something went wrong. Throughout the campaign, one of the Leave campaign’s biggest selling points was to redirect the 350 million pounds that Great Britain was “sending” to the European Union every week to fund the National Health Service (NHS) instead. Not only did it turn out that the number was wrong, the day after the victory, Nigel Farage back-tracked on the promise, calling it a “mistake. Talk about misinformation and lack of accountability.
Lastly, there is Trump, or should I say “Trump-ism”. The fact that a candidate running for president in the United States of America, can spread lies and misinformation and still become the presidential nominee, is horrific. As a Muslim and person of color, this is a trend that has me extremely worried. The bad news is, that this happens on both sides of the aisles — politicians of both parties ignore facts and escape accountability. Trump is in a category of his own, but he is only one of many.
In all three cases, wide-ranging decisions that affect millions of lives are based on misrepresented facts.
When we are sick, we expect our doctors to base their diagnosis on insights about the patient’s conditions. We expect our teachers to structure lessons based on known facts, science, and information. Businesses are required to maintain and share accurate financial information with the public that illuminate their performance. Shouldn’t the policy-makers be held to the same standard? The quality of life of for millions of people should not be determined by guessing. Those decisions should be informed by data and facts.
This time of reflection was a great reminder of how important our mission is at LiveStories — to allow the public sector to easily turn data into action. Even though ignorance gets more attention than it deserves, I’m hopeful about the future. There is a strong movement to help governments and policymakers around the world to be more data-driven, be more transparent and accountable, and ultimately create healthier, safer, and better communities. We, at LiveStories, are honored to play our part in enabling that vision.
Eid Mubarak!
