October 21, 2007

Daily Star Editors Should be Replaced by Monkeys

From point-counterpoint section, we have our former President of the Republic sharing with us his knowledge of truth commissions, of the Republic of South Africa, of the constitution no less and sharing with us his grievances over the gold smuggling case. God bless his soul for making us laugh!

Excerpt:

"South Africa is a country of Christian majority. In their daily life and even in state administration, the Christian religion plays an important role. In addition, they have the colour problem . Black leader Nelson Mandela was in jail for much of his life. Following continued protests, he was released and became the president of the country through a national election.

"Having coming to power, Nelson Mandela formed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the principle and ethics of Christianity. Catholic Christians who so desire go to church on Sunday and confess their sins to the priest, wanting to be forgiven . The priest advises them to follow the path of truth, shun acts of sin, and lead a good life. Nelson Mandela was imbibed by the principles of religion when he formed the TRC."

As I found out from Wikipedia, Catholics as percentage of total Christians in South Africa according to the 2001 census: ~8%. Neither had I any idea of Mandela's Catholic affiliations. HME might of course be mixing him up with the Archbishop Tutu ("the colour problem" you see) in which case, there has been some sort of union between Anglicans and Catholics in South Africa that I was completely unaware of.

On second thoughts, I take it back: both Daily Star editors AND columnists should be replaced by monkeys. They'll get it right more often than this current lot.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you mean flying monkeys...who write poetry?

tacit said...

Wholly second that notion. What's next? A Golam Azam piece on potential conflicts between freedom of press and religious sensitivities, drawing on examples from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan?

Unknown said...

Yeah. Seriously.

The thing about His Majesty Ershad that you have to admire is his chutzpah - writing about corruption with a straight face.

Anonymous said...

The moron has little knowledge of the complex process of integration South Africa is currently under going.
It’s not that Mandela or his supporters decided to pardon the criminals for his faith in Christianity.
It was a well thought out and detail negotiation with the Apartheid government that resulted in to Black (Economic) Empowerment Act following the constitutional nonracial democracy established in 1994.
The detail of this policy is available in the web I’m sure. In short, because of this policy, every single company has to have at least 40% of the executive positions filled by the black, at least 40-50% of govt loans will go to businesses owned by black, the universities have quota for the blacks…etc etc.

And the South African did not have a “color problem”, the majority of the population (31 million out of 45 million total) are black, 3 million of mixed color and 1 million Indian. Only 5 million are white (British and Dutch decedents). SA is the only country that was oppressed by the minority.

And how dare Ershad compare the Apartheid regime with the corroborators/razakaars of lib war! The Apartheid government was racist, and deprived millions of people of their rights, threw the leader of the uprise in jail. As horrible as their actions were they did not mass murder civilians and academics and rape women.

The Apartheid Regime has been abolished for good, not reinstated back in political positions, the way Zia and Ershad rehabilitated the razakaars.
The Razakkars never even begged forgiveness for partaking in the genocide of 1971.

The people of SA obviously deserve huge credit for the initiatives they had taken to make the Black Empowerment a success, but believe me, there are underlying tensions and frustrations among the white who are feeling the bites. Because of BEE Act, many white professionals with adequate qualifications are not getting to the positions they deserve. Many of them have switched jobs or migrated to foreign countries (such as U.S.).
But they know that is a temporary setback and there will be more equilibrium after 20-30 years when the next generation will emerge (who had the equal opportunity to thrive in lives).

Sorry about the lecture.
And yes, can’t figure out what was going on in Zafar Sobhan’s head (in charge of this segment I believe). He was probably pressured to publish this piece by Ershad.
Who knows what kind of leverage Ershad will be enjoying. After all his Army brethren are in power.

a said...

The lecture was much appreciated.

Yes, I'm much more interested to know exactly why it is that DS is publishing this sort of drivel and not even fact-checking them.

I understand that sending suggested edits to politicians could have got ten you killed during "the last 36 years", but what about this new, glorious age we are witnessing?

Secondly, why Ershad of all people? He was 9 out of those same 36 years that this current CTG condemns! (Yes, Mrs. Zia was 10, but she's also in jail, not writing pitifully inadequate op-eds).

I don't know if ZS is editor of point-counterpoint. But whoever is needs to give us an explanation and soon.

Anonymous said...

With both Gen Moinuddin and Ershad speaking up these days, its almost as if manhood (yeah ok, flawed) is making a comeback.

His Mendacity has certainly ruffled some feathers both by what he has said (bringing the non corporate dimension in), the paper who platformed him and the posh oxford twit who some regard as responsible for publishing this.

My favourite bit was on explicitly bringing christian ethics into the fray. Bound to nark off the 'bohemians'.

Best not conflate the truth and reonciliation commission with policies for Black Economic Empowerment.

a said...

For your edification fugstar:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/06/cult/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/14/matthews/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/31/thompson/index.html

I love my masculinity, don't get me wrong. But I also tend to love the femininty of the human species, and think that it has a huge part to play in leading states.

On that note, I ask again: why DO self-proclaimed Islamists and American Rightwingnuts end up sounding the same? Why this obsession of yours with "manhood" and worshipping it? I'm genuinely asking, not trying to throw about innuendo here.

Anonymous said...

im glad that you are aware of your femenine side.

Being amused at the content of the piece, and your reactions is not in itself supporting evidence for your 'Theory of the Ideological Rhyming Radar'.

I humbly and bumblingly suggest a beyond surface scan, or a change of wavelength.

I can ask one of my furry friends to arrange a Bidah Antenna if you like? :-P

News from BD is so depressing and without character. The walrus man has left the stage and the ladies weren't all that interesting (except for SHW's invention of the term 'abusement').

The man with the keys to the Greater Rangpur in his hands adds colour and character.

a said...

I knew it was going to come down to MY feminine side, which is why I said the feminine side of the "human species", ie. women. My own feminine side is - alas! - restricted to a fondness for cooking, which is really dependent on a fondness for eating my own cooking. I have no idea whether the last is masculine or feminine, since from what I've gathered from my observations, both men and women tend to eat. So, why not lead?

I couldn't decipher the rest of your comment. Bidah-antenna? Pray explain, in simple terms for this non-Arab person.

Colourful HME certainly is. But if you think he has character, then I'm beginning to seriously doubt your notions of "character"!

tacit said...

Before the events of January 11th, I would have used some choice epithets on Ershad and thought no more of it.

However, the last nine months have taught me, painfully, the perils of absolutism. And those of jumping to conclusions.

If General Moeen is the best that Bangladeshi manhood can produce, then I'm rather depressed. It really does seem like we spent the first ten years of our freedom killing all our best soldiers, like Col. Taher, Brig. Mosharraf, General Monju, General Zia etc. We are left with political toadies, generals who spend a lifetime as personnel officers and military secretaries before taking a shortcut to the army chief's post.

I wouldn't call hiding behind the army, with the emergency powers in place, with the major political leaders in jail, and trynig to take over the Presidency, one little step at a time, exactly the hallmarks of a man. Not in my humble opinion, anyways.

Anonymous said...

Bidah is a term for innovation

tacit,

'ALIVE and SPEAKING'

thats all, i admit these males are flawed. hiding behind other peoples power is lame, also the case for hiding behind women(AL and BNP), the poor and the donors (sushil samaj).

I'd have liked to be around for General Zia, or Ali Shariati or akhtar hameed khan or whoever.


character can be used agnostically.
Understanding Ershad, sounds like a neat book for someone to write.

Anonymous said...

How did it come to this that Ershad gets to write op-ed columns in DS?

a said...

Even agnostically speaking, a man, whose marital life depends on his political fortunes and who carries out his marital disputes at a police station, has little to no character as far as I'm concerned. But that's just old-fashioned me.

Jyoti bhai, that is the million dollar question. How does it ever come to this? Editors too scared to go to jail? Paper barons with too much invested in the country? How does it come to THIS?!?

An alternate title to your post should be "Wherefore art thou Mahfuz Anam?"