Southwest Asian Distractions

Yup. “Middle East” was always a colonial term, forever changing with the demands of the powerful. Nope, not about to use Arabic terms like al-Jazeera or Mashriq either.

1.O Palestine

I am not sure how many people saw this, but Vanity Fair recently had an interesting article where it said it had obtained documents showing American plans to supply Fatah with weapons so that they could “take out” Hamas. Having written about the Palestinian split last year, I thought I’d bring this to my readers’ attention. It would now appear that Hamas sensed the arms build-up and struck first. Just goes to show that arms do not solve domestic crises, simply breeds more insecurity.

I don’t know much American history, but rarely has there been an American President who got EVERYTHING wrong during his term in office.

Please note, Hamas won an election in the Territories, an election which the Bush administration pushed for, despite Fatah saying repeatedly that it wasn’t ready. In other words, the Bush administration does not even know how to press “selective” democracy properly. Yet another lost American art I suppose. After the election, having gotten a result they did not like, they tried to instigate a coup d’etat. Lesson for Bangladesh: true democracy is home-grown, not ambassador-delivered. On a related note: here’s Shirin Ebadi on her recent speaking tour through the US.

Moral of the story: Thou shalt not take American advice to take their arms to point at thine own countrymen. No, wait, I’m still thinking of Yahya’s Butchers in ‘71. My bad.

2. The Road to Damascus Leads Through Tehran

Turns out that last year’s mysterious Israeli airstrike inside Syria was indeed aimed at a nuclear facility, mimicking the attack on a similar Iraqi facility in the 80’s. The U.S. administration tried to establish links between Syria and the North Korean regime, saying they had actively helped each other with their nuclear programs. The Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. had a lovely reaction to that, which could be summarized as “Fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again!”

The week after this news broke, the Israelis signaled that they were ready to talk to Syria about the status of the Golan Heights, which they took in the ’67 war. The Heights are of immense strategic value to both sides. What Israel expects in return is for Syria to stop supporting groups such as Hizb’Allah and to expel people like Khaled Meshaal, the head honcho of Hamas who’s holed up in Damascus (couldn’t resist the alliteration).

Now this is a bit of a pickle for Assad Junior, or AJ as I like to call him. While experts and post-Nasser Arab Nationalists talk about how Syria will “never abandon the Palestinians”, it is worth remembering that his father was a Machavellian “realist” who made and broke alliances at will, especially during the Lebanese Civil War. Towards the end of his rule, Hafez al-Assad would now and then exclaim that he wanted to retire and soak his feet in Lake Tiberius, which is part of the Golan, a clear signal to the Israelis that he was ready to talk about the area. (Hafez al-Assad was alive the last time these two sides spoke on the issue). I am not sure whether AJ is in any position to do so. For one, there is the increasing isolation of Syria following the Hariri assassination which led to a further alignment with Iran. Iran will most likely veto any attempt at peace, even if peace is in Syria’s own interest. As a result, I think they will be able to get Meshaal, but not cut out Iranian aid to Hizb’Allah. In any case, I really have no great hopes for peace in the region without Americans/Israelis talking (once again) to Iran.

And guess which American president presided over and partially caused Iran’s star to rise in the region?

3. Iraq Me, Dave Petraeus … Or Not

Sadly, Jon Stewart will not be able to use that song again.

Dave Petraeus has been promoted to U.S Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military operations not just in Iraq, but throughout North Africa, Southwest Asia and Central Asia. He is replacing William Fallon, who was known to have disagreed with the George “I Lissen to Mah Gen’rels” Bush administration on a number of key matters (Good thing Fallon was an Admiral, not a General. Otherwise I’d think Bush was some sort of hypocrite). In any case, both Afghanistan and – more ominously – Iran fall into Petraeus’ purview right now. We know him to be a student of famous insurgencies and how the Western Empires “dealt” with them. I hope he is enough of a student still to note the causal connections between how the “natives” were “dealt” with and the mess parts of the post-colonial world are in at the moment.

Somehow, not optimistic on that score. Would appreciate anyone else’s view on what difference this appointment might make.

Between "Islam"ists and "Secular Human"ists - Caught in Between (and Needing Badly to Get Out): the World's Muslims! - Part 1

Part 1 - Mr. X and the Islamists

Let me guide you through my evening today.

I come home, coughing once every three seconds, pissed at my lungs, pissed at the world. I go online and see that Zafar Sobhan's newest piece posted on UV is causing quite a storm (admittedly in a tea-cup). At the very top is a commenter - lets call him/her/it Mr. X - who has a habit of giving us rare gems and does not disappoint in this case either.

Unfortunately Zafar Sobhan has started off this piece with a quote that he attributed to the Talmud, which Wikipedia informs us is "a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs, and history".

Mr. X says:

Zafar Sobhan citation from the Talmud in the very first line of the thread, “He who saves one life, saves the world entire. –Talmud” is the manifestation of his inferiority complex [Hinaumonnatar shamil]. Because the very same quotation is present in Al-Quran saying more eloquently as,” Je Keho Ekjon Niraporad Manushke Hautta Korlo She Je Shamogra Manab Jaalti ke Hautta Korlo. Aar Je Keho Ekjon Mansusher Jibon Bachalo, She jen Shamogra Manab Jaatike Bachalo.”

I wonder why Mr. Zafar cited from the Holy Book of the Jews overlooking his own Holy Book. Doesn’t it point to bankruptcy of wisdom of the author?

Many people respond to Mr. X including yours truly. I will, with full admission of my own vanity and pride, reproduce my response because it has a bearing on what we are discussing. I responded to him thus:

"______ is right as far as the quotation from the Quran is concerned. And Farhad bhai, thank you for saying what I was about to say.

Now with full apologies to the moderators, I would like to take this occasion to rant a little bit about those who quote the Quran to suit their own ideological ends. ESPECIALLY when the full quote is absent. If you feel this comment too detracts from the point of the post, feel free to moderate it out.

The quote comes from the 32nd ayat of the 5th Surah in the Quran “Al Mai’da” or “The Table/The Table Spread” (Yusuf Ali). The full ayat is this courtesy of Yusuf Ali:

On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our apostles with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.

Now the questions posed by me for _______ and the theologians are three-fold:

(1) when the man is trying to do a good thing through his writing, does it matter what book he quotes and does the Holy Quran itself prescribe bringing up UNNECESSARY arguments instead of pursuing the right course of action during catastrophes like this?

(2) When the Holy Quran itself says that such a message came to the “Children of Israel”, is Zafar Sobhan’s quoting of it from that source a sin/crime? (Think very carefully before you answer)

(3)Why wasn’t the ayat from the Holy Quran quoted in full in #1? Feel free not to answer this."

Now here's where it gets really interesting. Mr. X comes back with this gem of a response, which I cannot reproduce in its entirety thanks to its length. But I will quote the parts I found most relevant:

Thank you folks for your comments on my comment about the quote from Talmud. I believe in religion, ain’t an atheist. I have respect for Thalmud and other heavenly books. I believe, the three religions, their books and their followers are just like sibling to each other. I have profound respect to all of them. But I want to emphysize here the teaching ” Know thyselves.” Many a times we try to show up our over-smartness and expanse of knowledge by following, citing and using non-indeginous exotic stuff.

...... But contention is that we have some elites who being muslim doesn’t have good study on Islam and quite uncomfortable with own religion but feel comfortable to affiliate with others and start reading, Geeta, bible, talmud etc and start criticizing his own one.

Once again I emphasize that this has little to do with this particular commenter. I do not like to pick on denizens of the Bangladeshi blogs, even ones for whom I have very little sympathy.

No rather, I'd like to present this commenter as the model poster child of a particular Deshi mindset and dissect his comments to see what insights we can glean into this mindset.

Firstly, let me zero-in on the most problematic part of this little blog-drama I witnessed this evening. Zafar Sobhan quoting the Talmud is an example of "show up our over-smartness and expanse of knowledge by following, citing and using non-indeginous (sic) exotic stuff". The commenter in the immediately preceding sentence also says: "But I want to emphysize (sic) here the teaching ” Know thyselves (sic).”"

Does anyone know where the aphorism "Know thyself" comes from? Yes, the "classical" Greeks themselves. Now unless the Greeks were indigenous to Bangladesh and/or secretly Muslim since 610 -12 a.h., I am afraid that this is more "citing and using non indeginous (sic) exotic stuff". It really doesn't get more exotic than Greek philosophers....

Now here is the really interesting part: while the "secular celebrity intellectual" quoting the Talmud allegedly betrays a discomfort with his own religion, it is absolutely fine for this commenter to "emphysize here the teaching "Know Thyselves"". Even though, may I point out, that if you were to approach this from a strictly Islamic perspective: either both are guilty or both are innocent. From a deshi SECULAR legal perspective: either both are guilty or both are innocent. The same law applies to both.

Why is this important? Let me spell it out for those who don't know my little obsession nowadays: while a "secular" cartoonist like Arifur drawing that cartoon is an insult against religion and the Prophet (SAW), and betrays some sort of "conspiracy against Islam"; the Shibir-backed newspapers' publishing of the same cartoon is an example of .... nothing! It goes unremarked. It goes scot-free. No HuT members protesting there. No idiot commenters busy questioning their "motives" there (the worst I heard was that this was Arif's ticket out of Bangladesh - which revealed more of the commenter than the cartoonist).

Yet, it is the same whether we like it or not. But not condemned in the same way by those who always seem to speak for "Islamic" interests.

And here's the really interesting part. The "average" deshi middle-class dude(ette?) who's not really into religion or politics will - given the evidence of both - probably agree that Zafar Sobhan/Arifur's "digressions" are somehow greater than that of a Mr. X/Shibir-backed publication. Note, not Islamists who are exploiting the situation, but the average Mintoo who smokes his cigarette at the corner tea-shop while ogling the women and then goes to pray Jummah. He doesn't really like these mullahs (they'll get rid of the women from the streets), but he's not really a fan of these high-flying "intellectual" types either.

And here's why: because he has been convinced that there is this secret "cabal" composed solely of liberals who are out to "get Islam". AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, he has been convinced that "Islam" is only those set of practices and only those opinions that belong to a specific set of people, namely those who have beards and are quoting the Quran in parts to justify illiberal policies or whatever those in power want them to justify or - as was the case here - to villify someone they don't like. Helping the poor, the weak and the defenseless - those are not Islamic until and unless blessed by an appropriate man (always a man) with a beard wearing an alkhalla.

And if the bearded man tomorrow pronounces Zafar Sobhan to be a "heretic" while simultaneously preaching friendship with the "people of the Book"... well that isn't something for Mintoo to think about is it? If the bearded man says that Prothom Alo is a secular paper and so its printing of the cartoon is "haraam" and Kishore Kontho is a religious paper and its printing of the same cartoon is "halal", then that becomes "Islam" for Mintoo. After all, bearded men know "Islam". "Intellectuals" know only what the West has taught them.

Mr. X also very revealingly calls Mr. Sobhan "some elites who being muslim doesn’t have good study on Islam and quite uncomfortable with own religion but feel comfortable to affiliate with others and start reading, Geeta, bible, talmud etc and start criticizing his own one". The key-word here is "elite". I have also seen similar comments on tacit's blog (let's call this one Mr. Y). So perhaps it is an elite-resentment thing? Zafar Sobhan is seen to be part of some sort of elite and so his crimes mean so much more than others? Is that the logic at work? (Alas, if we only treated our power elites this way, we would have some accountability! But that is another matter.)

But then I had to ask, how does this apply to Arifur? Is he part of some secret elite that I am not aware of? As far as I knew, he was a simple Muslim boy from a simple pious family that named him after the Prophet (SAW). His only "sin" is to work for a newspaper that the Islamists deem to be "secular" and draw cartoons for them. Thus he is locked up. A Muslim man locked up. Without trial, without justice, without a fair hearing. For nothing but politics, but it is your vocal Muslims who are busy defending this in the name of Islam and it is your silent Muslims (the Mintoos) who are busy acquiescing to it.

At that point in the evening, I recalled a lot of people.

I recalled the Muslim Kurds - Sunni like 90%+ of this blog's Muslim readers - who were being oppressed by the Turks and the Iraqi and Syrian Arabs without many Islamists making noise about it (Amreeka and Nastik Communists were their preffered targets then). Indeed, one remembers how during the First Gulf War, Saddam was a hero to many, prayed for in the mosques.

I recalled Muslim Balochis killed by the Pakistani government without question while the Islamists made noise about other things (Yahya's drinking? Bhutto's womanising? The APWA? Who knows, who can tell? Why talk about human suffering when appealing to men threatened by women's emancipation from their homes is so much easier?).

I recalled black Muslim Sudanese being killed (and years before that, traded as slaves) by other Muslims and Islamists never holding a protest rally in Dhaka about that (cartoons, American invasion of Iraq and Aghanistan were more important then)

And of course I recalled how when this green land's Muslims were being killed along with their countrymen of other religions, what Islamists had done or not done.

And I came to one conclusion that was just beyond the tip of my nose: Islamists cannot take care of the world's Muslims, the majority of whom are coming to define the "third world" today (Asian Tigers and BRIC countries are ahead; oil-rich countries hold a tiny fraction of the world's Muslims). They cannot take care of those Muslims because THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE WORLD'S MUSLIMS. They simply care for what they call their "religious duty" but what the rest of us can easily see as nakedly self-serving politics that benefits only one group: them. And if you don't see this, that's probably because you are an Islamist yourself. The rest of us can pretty clearly see that the emperor has no clothes.

Lastly, to end on a less than serious note, let me pin down one word that occurs in both Mr. X and Mr. Y's comments: "smartness". Typically a word used in Bangla to denote those who know too much about other cultures or to chastise children/teenagers, typically those who do not set store by society's limits on their behaviour. In English, it is actually quite complimentary. It smacks of having once been what James C. Scott would have labelled "a weapon of the weak".

Apparently, quoting the Talmud is an indication of "smartness". So are Yiddish proverbs and Vedic scripture according to Mr. Y (good for Mr. Sobhan that the Talmud is originally in Hebrew). So be it. I suppose the average Deshi hates it the same way the average American hates those Hollywood liberals getting into kaballah or the average Victorian hated the Buddhism fad of the 1890s. Or the way I hate those big thick glasses on hipsters.

The difference is: I don't advocate jail for everything I dislike. If that were true, I'd be calling for banning Jamaat right now.

Part 2: Ms. Nasrin and the "Secular Human"ists

Say "No" To Torture

Do you approve of this?

No?

Then you shouldn't approve of this either.

Raise your voices.

Footnote: For muscular Western liberals (that's you Hitchens!), just contemplate it in reverse order.

If you think both instances justified torture, think seriously of committing yourself to an institution.

"Bankgate" Picked Up by Daily Statesman of Kolkata

In what might not be an altogether unpleasant twist for the regime, the "Bankgate" story has been picked up by the Daily Statesman of Kolkata. The picture below was sent to me by an Indian Bangali friend residing in the U.S. whose father has a subscription to the print edition, and confirms it.



"Open American support goes a long way toward discrediting any Arab" - thus spake the Middle East expert, Professor Marc Lynch. One can paraphrase it thus: "Any Indian support goes a long way toward discrediting any Bangladeshi". Yet, the same reasons Arab democrats tend to look outwards - and not necessarily towards America - are now at work in Bangladesh: censorship, viewing all criticism as dissent and all dissent as "anti-state conspiracies". There is no nuance when it comes to government views of its critics, and probably never has been since 1971.

Thus, I predict that this will be a not altogether unpleasant outcome for the regime, given that it can now call all its critics "Indian agents" and point to this article as "proof". Although in the long run, how ensuring transparency in OUR government's processes and functions will help Indians is something I leave the more conspiracy-minded of my readers to imagine.

The other aspect of this is that it will now force the local media to respond to it. I doubt whether PA/DS will touch this with a ten-foot pole. New Age and Naya Diganta will no doubt jump up and down with anti-Indian rhetoric for the next few days, despite the fact that it was their complicit silence that allowed this to happen in the first place. But most of all, I await the Amader Shomoy response with great anticipation and will highlight it on this blog if/when it comes by.

Let the media wars begin and the truth be known!

Video: A History of Violence

"Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history." - Susan Sontag.

The video argues (slightly) otherwise:

Burmese Days

First off, "Burma" or "Myanmar"? As we know, this goes beyond mere semantics, into ethical dilemmas.

Agree with a criminally stupid American President - I mean, part of me suspects that all this is simply because he can't pronounce "Myanmar" or doesn't know whether it's "Myamarian" or "Myanmarese"?

Laugh at the Orwellian situation of the current British Prime Minister declaring "the age of impunity" is over about a few months after his war criminal of a predecessor left the scene with the impunity that only the powerful enjoy?

What is the appropriate balance between helping the powerless out and ensuring that we ourselves do not align with the hegemonic project that weakens them further in the long run?

Secondly, as a firm secularist who believes in the separation of religion and politics, I would like to applaud the Burmese regime for going into the monasteries and mercilessly beating up these impertinent RELIGIOUS monks full of medieval ancient ideas who are telling these honourable, expert, MODERN men how to run their country.

Anyone who's a regular at this blog knows exactly how much sarcasm went into the above. I'd laugh if the situation were a bit less dire. But our own "secularists" better come up with an explanation if they want to support the Burmese democracy movement.

But I suppose this explains one perplexing question at least: why India has remained silent. Obviously, the world's biggest democracy does not want to sacrifice its "real practice of secularism". I'm kidding of course: Indian realpolitik would embarrass Machiavelli. Or Chanakya for that matter!

Thirdly, (and this relates thematically with my first point), BBC reports:

"In a sign that the military junta is afraid of foreign radio and satellite TV coverage of the protests and the crackdown, the state-run media has begun to blame foreign media for inciting the trouble.

The Light of Myanmar newspaper said: "Saboteurs from inside and outside the nation and some foreign radio stations, who are jealous of national peace and development, have been making instigative acts through lies to cause internal instability and civil commotion."

Any parallels with Bangladesh and the rhetoric emanating from a certain Barrister gifted with Extra-Conspiracy-Perception (ECP) is of course unintentional. Last thing I want is to have this blog blocked by people with heightened ECP.

Fourthly, and with all seriousness, let us acknowledge one simple truth: a "government" that fires on its own people loses its right to rule. Maybe not all at once, but certainly incrementally. Power might derive from the barrel of a gun, but legitimacy derives over ensuring that obedience to power is not completely against the interests of those supposed to be obeying. And legitimacy, not power, is what ensures longevity and leads to prosperity.

Just something to think about.....

In Remembrance

"down the hall
down the stairs
in a building so tall
that it will always be there
yes, it's part of a pair ....

"look, another window to see through
way up here
on the 104th floor
look
another key
another door
10% literal
90% metaphor
3000 some poems disguised as people
on an almost too perfect day
should be more than pawns
in some asshole's passion play"

- Self Evident by Ani DiFranco

Download.

The "Post-Colonial" Condition

In remembrance of KJA:

"The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don't belong to English
though I belong nowhere else"

- Gustavo Perez Firmat

Random Thoughts from a Hectic Week

1) Floods. Government helpless.

We keep hearing about how omnipotent our military forces and bureaucracy are. We fund them enough that's for sure.

So, where were they?

From the sounds of it, AL and BNP organizations are apparently the only ones with enough grassroots experience to make the relief effort effective. That's straight from the CAS's mouth. What does that say about our government structure? That it's less effective than the party structures?

2) Why was the response from the parties so sluggish this year? Granted a lot of their workers are in jail or in hiding, is this something that would need a clearance from the top leadership? If it did, how sad is that? What happened to simply helping people for the heck of it? Were they afraid of becoming "shushil shomaj" with all the horrors involved?

3) Conversation with an Indian friend this week focussed on bureaucrats in Bangladesh and India, and Japanese corporate workers. Essentially, all 3 groups are given the same deal: lifetime employment, job security, steady paycheck. Result: GoB and GoI bureaucrats are lazy, inefficient and corrupt. Japanese workers are among the most efficient in the world and Japanese firms are running General ("we might fire your ass tomorrow") Motors out of business.

My friend suggested culture as a possible explanation. I went with greater scrutiny at recruitment and greater pay in terms of PPP and position in society. Any thoughts?

4) Is it just me, or has the debate since 1/11 been between those who advocate for a corruption-laced, dynastic, electoral democracy and those who want an "efficient", meritocratic (and perhaps, military) oligarchy? Now which side do I deplore more?

5) India today has better child mortality rates than the U.S. in the fifties. That one just blew my mind.

6) One of the most personally appealing endeavours I have come across in recent times. Kudos to the authors, despite my disagreements with them on some points. Rickshawalas (not a spelling mistake) are the life-blood of Dhaka and this blog would not function without emulating - on an enormously smaller scale - their daily resilience.

7) If you liked the video below, you might want to visit Gapminder and play around with the statistics yourself. Among my favourites:

a) Iran's contraceptive use among adult women, which spikes right after Khomenei's death

b) Iran's child mortality which falls dramatically after the Revolution,

c) Bangladesh's fertility rate during the 80s (obvious)

d) Bangladesh's women labour force as a %age of total, which despite popular perception, has shrunk over the 90s.

e) Any oil-rich MENA country's urbanization over time. My personal favourite, Libya.

Video of the Day: Debunking myths of the "Third World"

Via: Open Learning

Millionaires, Amartya Sen and NRBs

The New York Times has a different twist on the American Dream: millionaires who do not feel rich. Read about it here.

Reminded me of Amartya Sen's thoughts on poverty and inequality. That these things were determined in part by the ability of the individual to "take part in the life of the community" and to "appear in public without shame".

Poverty and inequality thus become subjective, dependent on time and place and the individual. A million dollars might not be a lot in Silicon Valley. But it sure is a lot in Oregon. Or for that matter Dhaka. But it might mean a lot more to an independent woman in America than to a woman who has no control over her own income in Dhaka. And so on and so forth.

I wonder how such considerations factors into NRB decisions to move back or not.

Said vs. Neo-Cons/Global Jihadist

Treat this as a continuation of the last post. The "/" slash up there is meant to be literal as well as visual. Neo-cons and jihadists are after all two sides of the same coin, building up the great, giant monoliths of "Islam" and "the West". Here to provide some corrective surgery to these ugly distortions is the late Edward Said.

Three excerpts:

"Even the normally sober British weekly The Economist, in its issue of 22-28 September, can't resist reaching for the vast generalisation and praises Huntington extravagantly for his "cruel and sweeping, but nonetheless acute" observations about Islam. "Today," the journal says with unseemly solemnity, Huntington writes that "the world's billion or so Muslims are 'convinced of the superiority of their culture, and obsessed with the inferiority of their power'." Did he canvas 100 Indonesians, 200 Moroccans, 500 Egyptians, 50 Bosnians? Even if he did, what sort of sample is that?" ...

"This is the problem with unedifying labels like Islam and the West: they mislead and confuse the mind which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality that won't be pigeonholed or strapped down as easily as all that. I remember interrupting a man who had risen from the audience after a lecture I had given at a West Bank University in 1994 and had started to attack my ideas as "Western," as opposed to the strict Islamic ones he espoused. "Why are you wearing a suit and tie?" was the first simpleminded retort that came to mind; "they're Western too." He sat down with an embarrassed smile on his face, but I recalled the incident when information on the 11 September terrorists started to come in, how they had mastered all the technical details required to do their homicidal evil on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the aircraft they had commandeered. Where does one draw the line between "Western" technology and, as Berlusconi declared, "Islam's" inability to be a part of "modernity." ...

"But we are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plough or divide them with barriers is futile. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis. The "clash of civilizations" thesis is a gimmick, like "The War of the Worlds," better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time."

Read the entire piece here. Trust me you won't be disappointed.

Islamophobia

A few months back, one of my readers, Baangal, introduced me to Chaser's War on Everything, an Australian TV-show in the mould of political satire shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Unfortunately the link died out, so I wasn't sure which one s/he wanted me to watch. Searching for it on YouTube produced the following video as a first hit. I found it fascinating and funny at the same time (thanks Baangal!):



I am loathe to argue that racism is the prime motivation behind American/Western foreign policy, although it does play some small role no doubt in threat-perception. And though Australia might not be the best example to draw from (Australian readers, please correct me if I'm wrong), I'd venture to say that domestic security policies tend to be motivated by considerations of race to a large extent, as displayed in that video. I can't even begin to get into what African-Americans and other minorities in America go through at the hands of the police even after the Civil Rights Movement, with great variations from place to place of course. So, I'll just stick to American responses during two security threats to the "Homeland" (note the capital "H", omitting which gets you lynched in Mississippi.)

Islamists such as AQ try to portray American actions in light of a Crusaders' (and Zionists too, oh my! Let us not forget the utterly incongruous juxtaposition of two movements 900 years apart!) anti-Muslim spirit/Islamophobia. This is obviously to miss the point - something that Islamists are very good at - that Islamophobia ties in with more general American attitudes towards the "Other". Neither is this to say that America has NEVER done anything good for people it has perceived as the Other, as the American FAR-left tend to think.

Consider the domestic response to Pearl Harbour. After which the American government responded with the internment of all ethnic Japanese, an astonishing 62% of whom were American citizens (for Trekkies out there, a young George Takei aka Sulu was one of them)!

Following 9/11, one may say that the reaction was almost restrained compared to the above, although accusations of racial profiling in airports were made. (Though not a frequent traveller, as a Muslim living in the West I can say that I've personally never felt it.)

It didn't take Americans themselves long to make the connection between the two. The increasingly-odious, intellectually dishonest and Islamophobic Michelle Malkin wrote a book defending the Japanese internment, with an obvious eye on Arab/Muslim Americans. Please don't read the book, it's not worth your time and effort. As two people far better informed about the dynamics behind the Japanese internment can tell you, it is utterly worthless and they can also recommend some alternative readings if you're suitably interested. And as they can also tell you, that Italian-Americans and German-Americans were not similarly incarcerated despite the Nazi-Fascist threat on the East Coast.

To put all the blame on the U.S. government is over-simplistic if fashionable. The rise of Islamophobia has been facilitated by a lot of things, not least the Western media depiction of Islam/Muslims. And here I fully recognise that the media's role might be a consequence rather than a first cause, but the fact remains that it can do something to make a difference. Acknowledgement of the problem might be a first step; some people are still not quite sure as to what "Islamophobia" really is or if it exists at all. (Whether the label is applicable to Rushdie or not, like the author I'm not quite sure. That man has every reason to be afraid of (some) Muslims and their leaders' irrational fatwas.)

Acknowledgement might lead to the unemployment from respectable media outlets of people who write near hate-speech such as this:

"But our media regularly make the assumption that the book burners and fanatics really do represent the majority, and that assumption has by no means been tested. (If it is ever tested, and it turns out to be true, then can we hear a bit less about how one of the world's largest religions mustn't be confused with its lunatic fringe?)"

For someone as Islamophobic as Hitchens lets himself be known in the above paragraph, denial of the very existence of Islamophobia is what keeps him alive. Given the assumption he's talking about has not been tested empirically, why would the media assume the worst about Muslims, as he does, if it were not Islamophobic? Hitchens instead of condemning this prejudice, simply assumes that empirical evidence might prove them right some day and instead rails against the critics of such media attitudes!

When the Danish cartoons (note the "the") were (self) censored in some states (both Muslim-majority and non-Muslim-majority alike), we all remembered the reaction. The defenders of free speech were crying ever louder about how Muslims were against free speech. Even criticising the cartoons' racist angle became an attack on free speech to some people! Here is Mr. Hitchens' himself at that time.

I was with the free speech advocates. I don't believe in censorship of any kind (Hello Larry Flynt!). I believe in using the voice/art/music of reason in countering hateful propaganda that shows people with turbans and beards sneaking bombs.

Now that the (not "some" - don't buy into the Western media's bullshit) Spanish cartoons have been censored too, what now folks? Where are my free speech brethren of the European/American variety? Come on folks, we have a fight on our hands.

What's worse, these cartoonists were lampooning TWO individuals, not over a MILLION of them in a few simple drawings! The hypocrisy would be tolerable if the magnitude
of it was just a tad bit saner.

While it can be argued that the idiotic response of SOME Muslims definitely deserved greater coverage of the Danish event rather the Spanish one, that still does not excuse the lack of a high-profile free speech campaign or publishers overseas publishing these cartoons simply to make the point about free speech.

Then there was the unequal coverage of two conferences on the Holocaust. This is the Wiki article for the Bali conference, in which sane Muslims and non-Muslims acknowledged the pain and suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. Note the news sources. This is the Wiki article on the Iranian one, in which the STUPIDEST Muslims and non-Muslims I can imagine got together and questioned the veracity of a historical fact. Once again, note the news sources. (My frequent reader from Tel Aviv, I don't know your religion, ethnicity or nationality, but I hope this shows you that there are Muslims who don't think that "all Jews are evil" or some such bullshit, just in case you didn't know it already.)

All this ties in with who is considered a "true" Muslim and who is not, who gets to decide and who does not, and who gets to articulate themselves as the "median" Muslim and who does not, all of which I will hopefully deal with in detail on another post. I leave you with Ayaan Hirsi Ali's astounding article in which she tries to peddle off her own experience in Saudi Arabia (of all places!) and Kenya as the quintessential Muslim experience; and a stand-up routine by the Iranian Omid Djalili that says a bit about how the Western news media gets the most fanatical Muslims to become the "median" Muslim. After all, if you're not "fanatic", you're not Muslim! Just ask Hirsi.

(skip to 6'30" if that's all you want to see, the rest is good too)

European Commission Decides to Stop Exporting Ships for Breaking in Bangladesh

Saw this report earlier today in the Financial Express, but I'm reproducing the link here because I'm not sure how dependable the Express's links system is. (It's archiving system is NOT user-friendly!).

"Such a ban will not be an welcome news for the growing local ship-breaking industry in Chittagong as around 40 per cent of old ships are imported from the European Union (EU) member countries" it quotes an official as saying.

I don't know much about this issue and would love it if some of my readers took the time to educate me. What caught my eye were these two particular line:

"Ship-breaking industry leaders presume that international propaganda about the safety issue of labourers in the yards may have influenced the EC to impose such ban"

and

"SBA (Ship Breaking Association) chairman Jafar Alam said India will be benefited most from such a EC move as the local steel industry will have to rely on the neighbour for the import of billet and iron ores" (Italics mine)

I did find this pictorial in Foreign Policy, and have heard about bad working conditions there before. I also found this Drishtipat initiative from last year. I hope no one thinks that banning ship export is a viable policy in helping these workers. It's clear from the DP blog post that they don't advocate for that (correct me if I'm wrong). I also found Greenpeace pinpointing India as one of the offenders as well.

So question #1 is, how come the EC did not take a similar measure vis a vis India?

Question #2, given that Pakistan and China are also competitors, why is the SBA so eager to pin-point India? Another counterproductive attempt at shifting the focus away from workers' conditions?

Question #3, ship-building comes to us not because we are cost-effective, but because our laws are less stringent than those of the "first world". In that case, why not invest in worker's safety and health and thus take away the EC's or the Indian lobby's (take your pick) ammunition?

Once again, I'd highly appreciate my reader's educating me on this. All I know is that the EC decision is going to affect 25,000 workers who are already risking their health and safety everyday.

Race In America

The first comedian's Bangladeshi-American. And true to his hyphenated identity, he comes to terms with Kissinger's "bottomless basket" comment on his own terms. Power to you brother! (h/t A.G.)

Do the Right Thing!

Indigenous feminism. Not "white men trying to save brown women from brown men". (Thank you Gayatri Spivak!) Don't expect extensive BBC coverage on this.

"Made in Bangladesh" - from Clothes to Personalized Homepages

When I was young (and it is quite far off and not as recent as I like to pretend), there was this distinct feeling in the air that "Made in Bangladesh" was somehow not good enough. The 90s saw that memorable TV ad in which a father comes back from that oft-visited place called "abroad"/"bidesh" and hands out gifts. With typical bad acting, all the recipients of said gifts feign surprise when they find out that they were "Made in Bangladesh" (MIB).

The 90s saw a new born belief in Bangladesh and its abilities, culminating in the 2000s where almost every advertisement on television is draped in the red and green. So it surprised me when a good friend of mine expressed reservations about wearing MIB as recently as last summer after my annual Bongo Bajar/ Dhaka College shopping spree. How far this was a class issue (after all, she was wearing stuff from Westecs, also MIB), and how far this was the old colonial hangover I couldn't tell. A bit of both I suspected. It is definitely an elite issue. Since the elite have economic and social trend-setting power, making them consumers par excellence, this makes it an important factor for entrepreneurs to reckon with.

And it is a colonial hangover. It wasn't for nothing that Gandhi spun his own cloth. True, the immediate purpose was to break the monopoly of British textiles. But the long-term impact on the Indian psyche has been to rid them of the shame of consuming Indian, at least among the elite.

Bangladeshi entrepreneurs toil under this burden. Given two equally good choices between a Deshi and a bideshi product, most of my generation would choose the bideshi one. Most of the time of course, we were given a choice between a far superior foreign product and a very mediocre MIB product. BTV, with its unintentionally funny ads as described above and even funnier news, is a good example of this.

Clothes however do not fall into this category. Bangladesh pretty much clothes the entire world. What we don't do is make Armani shirts. Maybe we do, but "they" put in the logo and reap the profits when our elites buy them.

Here we come to the thorny issue of cultural products. Whose "culture" is better? Is English/bideshi music and movies really better than Bangla ones (no to the former, yes to the latter; it's simply a matter of taste and there's no right or wrong when it comes to that)? Whose brands are better? I used to know people who would wear nothing but Nike and would probably gouge their eyes out anything else MIB. Yes, it was that intense.

Needless to say, I wear my MIB clothes pretty proudly in foreign lands. True, I don't have a swish or a union jack showing, but I find I can live without such symbols. I, however, refuse to wear lungis. No cultural inferiority there (I hope), just never got used to them.

Recently, I've been hearing a lot about Pageflakes. 3rd world view did an entry on it last month which tickled my curiosity. It’s a personalized home page, with different modules known as "flakes" allowing you to build it up from scratch and individualize it to your heart’s content.

What really got me interested is the fact that their Chief Technology Officer is Bangladeshi. 3rd world view also reports that 18 Bangladeshis currently work for it, while Patricia from Underdogs Fight Back tells us that 3 Bangladeshi engineers were the original core developers. Bangladesh Corporate Blog mentions it when it wonders if a Bangladeshi MNC is ever going to be possible (incidentally, they forgot to mention by name the one city in which a truly Bangladeshi MNC would need to base itself in. No points for guessing which city.)

So here’s my small request to my readers. I’m not urging you to use personalized home pages (I don’t). I’m not urging you to switch from one in which you’re comfortable. I’m not urging you to sign up for an inferior product out of patriotism (economic nationalism is over-rated and passe). I’m simply saying that if you’re thinking of starting a personalized home page, you MIGHT consider consuming something MIB over Google or Yahoo. At least till some red and green seeps into the top tiers of those companies too!

In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about the lungi-phobia.

The Politics of Silence

When the poet Shamsur Rahman died last summer, Jamaat-e-Islaami remained silent. It spoke volumes.

We are taught that it is the duty of every Muslim to mourn the death of another. Perhaps Jamaat did not approve of the Poet’s writings. Yet, instances of Muslims mourning the death of Muslims they had differed with in life are sprinkled throughout history. Perhaps, they had thought he was not a “true” Muslim. We are taught that Muslims do not pass judgment on the religiosity of other Muslims. That was for God alone. Yet, when the Poet died, Jamaat - that self-proclaimed champion of Islam and protector of Muslims - remained silent. They did not issue any public messages of condolences, did not attend the funeral for the television cameras to see and certainly did not see it fit to say, at the very least, that a Muslim of some note within the community had died.

This is not a polemic against Jamaat and it’s inherently anti-Islamic stance on issues and personalities relating to our Independence War. This is a short exploration on silence and its rather loud reverberations. The “political economy”, if you will, of what/who we choose to focus on when we create the little stories through which we grasp reality.

Consider the two Big Guns. Their myths about their respective Great Leaders are smeared with desert spaces whose size would scare even the redoubtable Robert Frost - in other words, with silence. No one talks of famine, of Shiraj “Crossfire” Shikder, of misallocation of precious little resources, of “from today you’re all Bangalis” or of a “constitutional” autocracy nowadays. Similarly, no one talks of rehabilitation of anti-Bangladeshi forces in the name of nationalism, of Muslim-chauvinistic elements in a multi-religious state in the name of state-building, of farcical elections or of “making politics difficult”. No one of course, except the other side. But their silence has already compromised their credibility.

And of course, neither side really wants to talk about Suhrawardy, Fazlul Haque, Bhashani, Osmani… you get the drift. Nor have any attempts been made by their governments to gather the personal stories of freedom fighters, because heaven knows, all of them surely did not fight for “nationalism” or “Islam” or “socialism and secularism” or “for our Great Leader” or “under our Great Leader”. Some merely fought to survive, for honour and self-respect and for their communities. And don’t even get me started on the silencing of women’s voices, the very women who suffered through those nine months. Or of the children who were adopted by the same Westerners that both Islamists and Marxists alike like to condemn for their “Imperialist” ways. Men, women and children - all silenced. What’s left? Two dead leaders and a bunch of people robbing us in their names.

Or think a bit more globally. Old-style communists - the few that are left anyway - always condemn “imperialism”. Yet, they consistently overlook the history of Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe, as manifested in Hungary and Czekoslovakia. Once again, silence. Conversely, take the more fashionable case nowadays of one Mr. George “Dubya” Bush, who has publicly called for democracy in the Muslim world but has also publicly shaken hands with Musharraf, Mubarak and the Saudi monarchs. In other words, more silence. Islamists outside Bangladesh too practice this silence. Otherwise how can you explain the lack of sympathy when Muslim regimes oppress Muslim citizens, be they in Kurds, Kazakhs, Berbers, Rohingya refugees or Balochi warriors? Of course the one I take most personally is the silence of 1971 ...

And it’s not a recent or simply political phenomenon either. Post-modernist historians such as Said, Spivak and Bhaba have continuously pointed out how history is written from the perspective of the powerful even when written by supposedly neutral scholars. Not only does the victor write history, but s/he also gives voice to the vanquished. True, that is not the silence I’m referring to, but it leads to it. With the weakening of the vanquished voice, it becomes increasingly impossible to believe that once it was South Asia that was the more prosperous society, with a net positive balance of payments and its own functioning legal system. With disbelief comes silence, perpetuated by a thousand amnesiac PhDs as “fact” and “evidence”. That is the tragedy of silence.

My reaction to 300

As shamsir once said on Addafication , "Blame the lack of posts on the good weather". So this is where I recycle some old stuff I wrote before reviving this blog. Enjoy, and expect more stuff on the "Middle East" because I'm going through that phase again!

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It’s the year 480 B.C. and King Leonidas of Sparta has sent one of his hyper-masculine soldiers back from the battlefield of Thermopylae to tell others of the events that had transpired there. I believe this is highly accurate. As anyone who has spent time around old war veterans can attest, this is a highly accurate celluloid version of one of those “during the war” stories.

The soldier dutifully tells the Senators (and us) of how one day a Persian ambassador appears at the gates of Sparta, although the Senators must have known this as well as him, but it’s just more masculine that way you see! The ambassador appears brandishing the heads of fallen kings (what Robert Art defines as “swagger”) and warning the Spartan King that a coalition of the willing "the thousand nations of the Persian Empire” are gathering. All the God-King (a clever way of addressing the problem of Church and State thoroughly overlooked by Jefferson!) wants in return is a tribute of “earth and water”.

Now this is really a harmless symbol indicating that “you’re with us” and not, say… I dunno, “against us” for lack of better words! Harmless really. But Leonidas is no poet to be analysing symbols. He is a manly man, and like all manly men he has inherited the kingship from his father, so he has to push this ambassador down what is surely the dumbest city-centre ever built. Moral of the story: don’t go downtown after dark in Sparta or you might fall into the crater left behind by the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs. Yes that very same one.

But our good king cannot wage war before consulting the priests of the ancient order who have been active since “tthimes immohtal” as the priest reminds us doing his best Peter O’Toole. Yes, these poor people still have not figured out how to separate Church and State. But don’t worry, the film-makers will distract the mainly North American audience from that flaw in their social structure by showing us how lecherous, leprous (give them a break, this is bC! There are no miraculous cures for leprosy at this point!) and corruptible these priests really are. Wait a minute: a war sanctioned by priests who aren’t in touch with the people? There's a word for that, but I can't for the life of me (insert finger snaps) remember it. Oh well, it probably would have sounded dirty to the audience anyway! Oh no wait, it's called a Crusade. Whew, dodged a bullet.

Our manly king takes 300 manly men to fight with him at this place called Thermopylae. Although most of the ships drown, as we know Asia has never lacked people. So those immigating invading hordes from Asia just keep coming. This is easily the best part of the movie. The action is superb. The special effects are seamless. The colour scheme is suitably grim (more on that later).

What distracted me from all this (and by extension my friend beside me, who was coincidentally of Greek descent) was the unintentional homosexual subtext I’d been warned about in the reviews . Nope, not Xerxes’s shoulder rub (now what other prominent politician do we know who likes to give unsoliticted shoulder rubs?). Although that moment was sort of funny, the Xerxes depiction smacked of homophobia. What was really funny was the dialogue between the Spartans themselves. “Nice thrust”? “Who’ll watch your back”? All this after referring to Athenians disparagingly as “philosophers and ummm… boy lovers” (direct quote)? At one point, the tension between these two Spartan soldiers becomes so acutely embarrassing that you feel like screaming “get a room, you two”. But of course they can’t. Not only because they don’t have rooms (I also didn’t see a single tent. Like Chuck Norris, Spartan men don’t sleep, they wait.), leaving you to laugh as the rest of the audience starts giggling.

A lot has been and will be said about this movie’s cinematography, art direction and video-game look, which are either the best or worse things to happen to movies yet depending on whom you’re talking to. But if you ask me, critics would have gone crazy over this one if it was shot in Sin City-style silhouettes only to heighten the moral contrast between the Spartans and the Persians. Even B/W is way too many shades of grey for this movie.

Apologies are due to everyone who liked this movie. I did too in a sense. Honest. I like a shot of cinematic testosterone as much as the next person, but I like it more when it’s a la Tarantino or Scorsese, preferrably the latter. And I tried not to read any geo-political significance into all this. That wasn’t too hard given I was laughing at the cheesy dialogue half the time. I’m all for art being just art (and I hope the people who agree with me on this give V for Vendetta the same treatment!)But I suppose it’s the times we live in and the reviews we read. The reviewer for variety says in an intended understatement that this movie “might be greeted with muted enthusiasm in the Middle East”. Maybe. If Middle-Easterners see only skin colour and no allegory. (I think it’s pertinent to mention here that while the Spartan army are monochromatically drawn from one race, the Persians are multi-racial and if their elephants and rhinos are anything to go by, slightly multi-cultural too.) My guess however is that this movie might just rock the casbah and our old friend Shareef will like it but have doubts about owning it on DVD given the corny factor.

More doublespeak from Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens' latest in his weekly column on Slate.com is ludicrous even by his usual low standards.

First there is his amateurish attempt to compare U.N. missions in East Timor and Lebanon with the post-invasion mandate given to coalition troops in Iraq. In Lebanon and East Timor, the U.N. authorised intervention BEFORE the troops were on the ground. Is 2003 really that far back in time? How fast can you say "unilateralism"? How fast can you forget it? Oh, and there are no U.N. troops in Gaza, just U.N. staff. Frankly, I feel stupid even writing stuff this obvious...

Then there is his attempt to show that all violence against coalition troops in Iraq are religion-inspired, an attempt not without its couterpart in Bangladesh:

"You could read acres of news from that country as it undergoes everything that the death squads of the parties of God can inflict on a society"

Followed by this gem: "The assaults by the Baathists and the Bin Ladenists on the U.N. presence have been especially vicious"

Take a fucking introductory course to modern Arab politics for God's humanity's sakes! Everyone knows the Baathists were pretty fucking secular. After all, it was founded on principles of Arab unity regardless of religion. By a Muslim and a Christian Arab. Doesn't mean that Baathists did not turn out to be some of the most ruthless killers in the Arab world!

But no, it's these religious types that cause ALL the violence in the world. If only these natives would give up their primitive ways and embrace modern, post-industrial values like us civilised folk, who support wars launched by born-again leaders with direct hot-lines to God (whom I believe doesn't exist, but whatever...)

Jackass!