Video Update: Imran Khan Arrested Thanks to Jamaat (yes, Jamaat)!

Video update showing Imran's arrest:



Imran Khan arrested. Way to go Jamaat-e-Islami! I'm deciding if they're officially with Musharraf or if they decided that punishing Imran for marrying (and divorcing) a white woman took precedence over the fight against dictatorship?

Best online reaction to this news (in bangla).

Though as a Bangladeshi I cannot approve of Khan's appropriation of our national symbol, I'll make an exception in these dire circumstances: fight like a cornered tiger boy!

BSF Chief Says Odhikar "Run by Former Bangladeshi Military Men"

This is basically a continuation of the last post, but I decided that this needed a headline of its own. Googling up "BSF"+"kills"+"Bangladeshis" gives one some interesting results, including this particular news item filed by IANS, which anyone can confirm by going to the IANS website which needs a subscription to see the entire news item.

So having got all that out of the way, let me get to the meat of the story. Anyone remember the BDR-BSF meeting in Dhaka last week? Well, the BSF chief, Director General A.K. Mitra, went back home and promptly shot this off at the Bangladeshi human rights organization "Adhikar" (sic: Odhikar) which claimed that 97 innocent Bangladeshis had been killed just this year alone:

Adhikar has emerged as an anti-Indian set-up which is run by former Bangladeshi military men. I admit there are incidents of firing at the border but all these allegations of Adhikar are not true

Really? Really?

Then one has to ask why Odhikar is busy investigating human rights abuses by "Bangladeshi military men". Now I don't know the background of the people in charge of Odhikar, but one simply has to ask this: has Odhikar shown the Bangladeshi military any favours? Given that they have investigated the Cholesh Ritchil case when almost no one else did, the answer is resoundingly "No!". I don't think A.K. Mitra is listening.

One suspects yet another government official affected by the "all NGOs are foreign government agents until proven otherwise" syndrome. By no means is this disease unique to Bangladesh as previously thought.

A.K. Mitra also claimed that the death toll was 47 and not 97. If it weren't so tragic, that could have been a punch line to some sort of joke. "No, no. I did not steal kombols from the flood relief committee. I was busy stealing the dheu tins. My accusers are liars!"

My 4-year old niece makes better excuses.

This is not the first time Odhikar has issued a report critical of the BSF's idiocy. Predictably it led to puerile reactions from the right-wing of the Indian blogosphere citing "illegal immigration" worries. Puerile because it actually calls out Odhikar's editing instead of its claims (grade 1 or kindergarden technique?). Puerile because the attitude seems to be: let's kill these "Bangla" immigrants instead of dealing with them legally and deporting them. So much for the world's biggest "democracy"!

I am not holding my breath for a reaction and rebuttal from the Bangladeshi government. Governments that silence their own citizen-dissidents have very little to say when those citizens criticise foreign governments. Don't hold your breath, Odhikar has to deal with this itself.

Lastly, I have one small question to ask. I have a few regular readers who keeps citing "respect" and "reputation" as determining factors for whom to believe in situations like these: in their eyes, "respect" and "reputation" are greater in the realm of military people than those who work for "NGOs". Are you doing the same in this instance as well? If "no", please tell me why. If "yes", please explain to me how this is not yet another way for an Indian to discredit a Bangladeshi organization critical of Indian actions. Thanks.

Indian Border Security Force Pissing Me Off

To any Indians reading this (yeah right!)..... what the hell?

Why do we have to read something like this every week? And why don't West Bengali newspapers report on this?

I tried running a search for "BSF" and "Border Security Force" in the Statesmen which yielded almost no coverage whatsoever! I did get a lot of hits for fake currency worries though.

Stop killing our people!

Jackasses.

Portraits of Pakistani Terrorists

Salima Hashmi and Asma Jahangir

Mister Pervez Musharraf, you always had an Orwellian streak about you, but this time you have completely crossed the line to absolutely hypocritical. Free Asma Jahangir and Salima Hashimi immediately!

"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!

Squatter Communities aka Bostee

Robert Neuwirth a journalist who has lived in squatter communities in parts of Africa, Brazil, India and Turkey, talks below about how squatter communities develop (or could develop in some cases) into livable towns and then hopefully into cities of the future. First policy rule he outlines: do not evict! Anybody listening in Dhaka shohor?

I dealt with legal rights as a way of dealing with rapid urbanization and the informal economy it brings with it in the "Lungi Post" on UV a few months back. Neuwirth disagrees with De Soto, whom I quoted on that post, on the value of property rights. He states that a guarantee to not evict is the better option, combined with "access to politics" or political rights.

Birongonas - A Fitting Reply to an Undeserving "Scholar"

Here's a small hate list:

I hate self-hating Indians who decide to take it out on us.

I hate self-hating women who feel the need to undermine the pain of their sisters.

I hate people who decide to undermine the pain of others.

I REALLY hate people who decide to overlook the pain their fellow-Bangladeshis suffered.

I hate, simply hate having to go through this drivel over and over again.

So thankfully, someone else has done it for me. Please read Mash's knockout punch reply to Sarmila Bose. Thank you Mash!

Free Burma!

I've dealt with the current crisis last week and I'll leave further thoughts on this for another day. For today, two simple words: FREE BURMA!

India Seems to Hurt Only Our Elites

Consider. Yesterday, when the EC decided to ban the export of old ships to Bangladesh for ship-breaking, the SBA spokesman said that this move will benefit India.

Last year, when garment workers rioted, we heard that all this rioting would benefit Indian garments industry. (Whether this has happened or not, that I don't know.)

Now, it seems according to Dr. Jafar Iqbal (Bangla article in PDF), the closing of the jute mills will REALLY benefit India, especially after India's 2005 Jute Policy (apparently backed by the WB and IMF).

Strangely, no one seems to be talking about that! We don't have any Jamaati types, any BNP-ites or any army-types campaigning for a jute policy to make sure that we don't lose out to India. What's wrong guys/gals? Patriotism got your tongue?

Jackasses!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want an EFFECTIVE India-policy from the Bangladeshi state, don't look to these factions to come up with it. They wouldn't know state interest if it hit them on the head.

Final equation: when workers demand fair wages and human rights activists demand safe working conditions, these benefit India. But when governments and industrialists make STUPID decisions..... well, these are hard decisions taken for the interest of the state. Got it?

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.

Confessions of "a RAW Agent"

Recently on Rumi bhai's blog, I was accused of being an Indian agent who refused to recognise Indian hegemonic ambitions and Indian infiltrations. For those interested in how the politics of secular takfir (declaring people to be "non-believers") is played, read the exchange here.

Yes, a debate about political reform in Bangladesh soon became a debate about India's role in Bangladesh. Now I don't doubt Indian ambitions. However, I do seriously doubt their current "relative capabilities" to get at those ambitions, and the super-powers attributed to their spy agency Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW for short. Moreover, I really dislike people brushing off internal dissent - such as the garments' workers agitation last summer - as being the mere by-product of Indian influence. It smacks of the institutional inability to see other people's pains that I've complained about before, in a slightly different context. Lastly, and most importantly, I don't see the government of India as being a special breed of evil, just another devil out to get us in a devilish world. Call me a realist. Just don't mistake idiocy and paranoia for realism. It did no good for Bush and co.

My reward for voicing MY dissent was the same as these garments' workers (who were also dubbed RAW agents, or in their pay). Yes, my vocal opponent on the thread imputed the very same motives to me, namely that I was intentionally trying to "defect" attention away from Indian role (which he has proved conclusively in his own mind) while he was the underdog hero trying to highlight it. Despite complaining about their ambassador's recent comments, about their media coverage of Bangladesh, and even about Mandira Bedi's pandering to the "emasculated Indian postcolonial man" threatened by every loss to Bangladesh, I remain, my dear readers, "a RAW agent" trying to deceive the Bangladeshi public. Which is some of the worst abuse I can imagine being hurled at Bangladeshis.

And why? Because I called for a nuanced analysis of Indian actions and motives instead of subscribing to drivel that issues forth from some quarters. And by some quarters, I do mean the conservative side of the divide, whose fallacies I promised to highlight even as I highlighted the liberal fallacies that dog our every step at being the state we want to be. Consider this post partly to be the fruit of that promise, and consider my two antagonists as well as our recently departed PM, Mrs. Khaleda "captive market" Zia to be our guiding lights into the Bangladeshi conservative mindset.

Once my patriotism was called into question, I decided that that was an insult too far. I would not try to present my rationales and opinions anymore. What did it matter? No matter what I said, I can be dubbed an "Indian agent". Such is the slippery slope of paranoia that even my two antagonists just might be "Indian agents" too. I mean, if you wanted to discredit all the serious people who want a better, tougher India policy from the GoB, look no further than my dear brothers M. Amin and Ahmedur R.! The drivel these two have spewed out can be used by every Indian media outlet to talk about "Bangladeshi paranoia" and "the insecurities of a small, failing state". In this way, by ruining the credibility of the SERIOUS FOREIGN POLICY people who want a MORE ROBUST India policy, they too are serving Indian aims. Perhaps they are doing so precisely with this aim in mind. But of course I would not call them RAW agents withour proof. My reasons are simple: I am not paranoid, I do not believe in the politics of takfir, and I do not bite back biting dogs as the old rhyme says.

And do note that I am simply a citizen. All the issues (and abuse) directed at me are better taken up with the GoB. It's the GoB that must negotiate about BSF-BDR disputes, not me. It's the GoB that must ensure that our polity is not filled with RAW agents and Indian bombs. It's the GoB that must respond to Indian media criticism (over which the Indian government has limited control).

But that really is out of the question isn't it? For these people, India is just a bogey and has to be kept perpetually alive if they're going to scare the rest into submission or takfir them out of the debate. That is why Khaleda Zia could state that India was trying to make Bangladesh into a "captive market", overlooking the fact that she was the PM of a sovereign country whose borders were under HER control in the final analysis. For people like me, India is a serious challenge not to be feared but met head on. We don't worry about "captive markets" but how to expand ours in the face of Indian competition and growth, and how to access their market too. We don't worry endlessly about India de-stabilising us, but instead work to ensure that that does not happen.

What are the really serious issues? Listing them as complaints to the government of India:

Complaint number 1, get your BSF under control! They're killing our people at random almost every month. To all those human rights activists sitting cozy in Dehli and Bombay (sorry, Mumbai), ever thought of protesting this instead of whatever the latest leftist fad issue is at the moment?

Complaint number 2, trade barriers. India has way too many non-tariff barriers against Bangladeshi goods and they have done nothing about it over the last 36 years. I'm not even going to mention the battery and the saree export. Domestic industry protection indeed, good neighbours defuse tensions by doing something about trade imbalances.

Complaint number 3, stop building dams without consulting us. It's called international blackmail and I was told that "secular democratic" nations do not indulge in that, only "rogue states" like Pakistan do.

Complaint number 4, stop building that fence without consulting us. No seriously, stop and talk.

I'll stop there for the time being. And yeah, this has nothing to do with Bangladesh, drop those silly charges against M.F. Husain.

Please note, that except the first one, none of these issues are touched upon by my antagonists. No, they simply cry, "they are out to create instability in Bangladesh", although how this would help India control its already turbulent North-East is best left to the paranoid imagination of our friends. And how the first one is relevant to Bangladeshi internal politics is still unknown to me. The GoB and the Dhaka chatterati really do not care about people on the periphery of Bangladesh (I don't approve of this), so really this does not constitute "bullying". Gunboat diplomacy is bullying.

So one last message to you BNP-propaganda fed dullards: DON'T FUCK AROUND WITH FOREIGN POLICY. We've achieved independence at too high a price to leave Bangladesh's sovereignty in the hands of paranoid, dumb, half-baked, indoctrinated, dogmatic, James Bond-reading, Bollywood-watching, Jamaat-believing freakshows like you, who think international relations is all cloaks and daggers, shadow and mirrors. Spies do not make history in utter secrecy without the world knowing. That is the fevered imagination of the paranoic mind. Leave the hawks and doves to argue it out without you flightless dodos getting in the way, huh?

(Special note to my two dear friends from Rumi bhai's blog: your commenting privileges on my blog have been removed. If you do comment, I warn you I will delete them as soon as I find them. Unless you fulfill one condition. No, not an apology, I'm not mortally wounded. I need your firm assurances that in the future, online or in real life, you will NOT stifle debate by "takfir"-ing people, by crying out "Indian agent", "un-Islamic" or "anti-Muslim" or any such abuse anytime you hear disagreement with your hard-earned views. Learn to listen to opposing, equally hard-earned views, and maybe you will learn even more and who knows, one day you too might make some positive contribution that makes Bangladesh stronger vis a vis India. Make comments prefaced without such an assurance, and you will still remain dodos in my books and have no place in this debate. The hawk has spoken!)

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.

A Farewell to Palestine

Golda Meir once claimed, "There was no such thing as Palestinians" before 1947. One can argue that after 1947, there definitely was an identity that could be called Palestinian. Historians will one day look upon June 14th 2007 as the day that identity died.

I try to keep up with the news as best as I can. So it came as a bit of a surprise when I read news reports that Gaza and the West Bank might be splitting, with Hamas and Fatah respectively in control.

There are reasons why I don't write about the Israel-Palestine situation. First and foremost, I feel that as Muslims we are taught to be needlessly Arab-centric and the obsession with Palestine is a sign of that. Muslims suffer in a lot of other places, such as Kashmir, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Iraq (before and after 2003), Afghanistan (before and after 2001), Sudan, Syria, Myanmar, Thailand, and even Bangladesh. Why single out Palestine as the greatest example? Secondly, as a very proud Bangali Muslim, I feel slighted that Arabs expect us to care about their conflicts when they were "less than helpful" (quotation marks denote understatement) with "our little problem" in 1971. Thirdly, it's too easy and cliche to write about the Territories without having been there. Fourth, it's not terribly relevant to Bangladesh.

None of which is to deny the severe human rights abuses that take place there, that the people of West Bank still live under a military occupation. Or to forget that along with sub-Saharan Africa, Gaza is the only place that has seen negative GDP growth since 1999, the year the second Intifada broke out.

I'm writing about Palestine today not only because I'm surprised at the news, but because I feel that the lessons of what went wrong have some relevance for Bangladesh. Besides, it's not everyday that I get to write about what might be the birth of a new country or two.

How did it come to this? Part of the blame lies with Arafat. Whatever the virtues and flaws of the Chairman were, institution-building and personal coruption were not part of them. He ran the entire Palestinian Authority like a personal fiefdom. That did not mean he stole public money: he lived in a small two-room flat probably much simpler than yours or mine, and in his spare time drank tea with honey and watched cartoons. Nor did that mean the people were unhappy: they got their water pumps, their schools, government jobs, pretty much everything they wanted. Provided they were loyal to Arafat. Note, not Fatah, Arafat's party, but Arafat himself.

After his death, the party simply expanded its service coverage to include more Fatah loyalists instead of Arafat loyalists. Not that there was much discrepancy between the two groups. At no time did it try to be representative of the entire Palestinian people. As a result, the security forces came to include Fatah loyalists only, since government jobs were the reward for continuing loyalty. And what do you expect Fatah loyalists to do except to fight for Fatah and kill off all dissent?

Now none of this means that Hamas does not operate in similar fashion. Yes, it has charities and social welfare programs, but it also has its own security forces loyal to itself and not the Palestinian people as a whole. After Hamas' victory in the January 2006 elections, it seemed only a matter of time before fighting would erupt given the fragmented nature of the Palestinian polity, especially its armed elements. It did. And finally we end up with this: the fragmented state mirroring the internal fragmentation.

Yes, this is a very simple picture. Yes, Western countries cutting off aid, the political system, the proliferation of arms all have something to do with the current situation. But this you have to admit: if Fatah had not built up a politicised Palestinian security force that would serve regime interest over state interest (when they eventually had a state... if ever!), the chances of all this violence would have been significantly reduced. If Hamas had not followed suit, the prospects of such outright violence would have diminished even further.

Instead, we hear reports of our Islamist friends Hamas, "liberating" Gaza from Fatah security personnel and then executing them. Whatever you call that - "barbarism", "animalism", "brutality" are a few words that come to mind - that is not Islam.

So farewell Palestine, and rest in peace Edward Said. One hopes for your sake that other post-colonial states avoid the tragic mistakes of your countrymen. And yes, I do have a particular state in mind.

Bangladesh to open an embassy in Khartoum. Asif to open an international studies program in Dhaka.

While I'm all for South-South cooperation, I can only be appalled by the decision of the Bangladeshi government to open an embassy in Khartoum, as reported here and here. I especially love how the Bangla report says that the decision has been taken, while the English says that it has only been hinted at! Great going mouthpieces!

After calling for a reform of the OIC that everyone has known for years was a useless international organization, Iftekhar Chowdhury managed to slip this in without the local press even sniffing to try smell the stench. Which only points to how much more our "local" press needs to know about the world outside of Dhaka and South Asia.

Three/four days ago, Zafar Sobhan had written of Pakistan:

"With Pakistan lurching towards ever greater strife with each passing day, closer association with it at this precise moment in time sees like an anachronistic idea."

One now hopes that someone comes out with a similar rebuttal against greater ties with Khartoum, especially under this government. The problem is not JUST its appalling human rights record in its ethnically-African southern regions and now in Darfur (and how many Imams in Bangladesh know and are ready to denounce this blatant violence against Muslims by Muslims?). The problem is that even more than Pakistan, Sudan has an extremist government ready to export out its own brand of religious violence and intolerance under the guise of "Islam". And it doesn't take much internet research to find that out.

What's really pissing me off is OUR moral equivalence. I'm all for a realist paradigm in foreign relations. But Bangladesh does not follow a realist model at all. We have cited, and still do cite, other governments' human rights records as pretexts for not maintaining diplomatic relations with them (or perhaps our diplomacy has the sole goal of keeping the OIC happy instead of us!) We did not keep ties with apartheid South Africa, even though we could have used their resources. What about the Khartoum governments' awful treatment of Darfur's people? Should we overlook it thanks to the elusive promise of their black gold?

What's worse is calling for reform of the OIC - which opposed our independence drive and ROUTINELY disregards Muslim oppression of other Muslims - and then disregarding Darfur's suffering in the same breath. Our foreign affairs staff might regard that as Machiavellian and pat themselves on the back. But they've just crossed the fine line into outright hypocrisy.

Rant - "Secular India" version

This promises to be one of many such rants. So I go into the Daily Star website and start browsing the news. After chuckling at the fact that Afsar Chowdhury's four volume history of '71 is reviewed under "Literature" with other fiction titles, I see this news item: "Bangladesh lacks real practice of secularism". Intrigued I click on it and find that the Indian Envoy has made such a statement.

The blood begins to boil, but I read on. The article does on to say:

"Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty yesterday said democracy would be stronger in Bangladesh if it could establish a 'real secular country like India'.

"Bangladesh is a secular country but there is no real practice of secularism... as there is a religious ministry here," he said while addressing a function on the occasion of foundation laying of Chandranath Temple in Sitakunda.

The high commissioner said democracy is very strong in India as there is no division or discrepancy among the people of different faiths and values and real secularism is practised there.

He suggested that Bangladesh follow his country for practising real secularism, which would help it establish a strong democratic country removing all discrepancies among the people of different beliefs and values."

Wow! Paternalism or onanism at its best?

Where to begin on how many ways His Excellency is wrong?

"There is no discrepancy between different faiths and values" in India? Clearly you and I see different statistics from different sources.

The very presence of "a religious ministry (sic)" defeats all purposes of equality between religious groups? Then how come our "religious ministry" also deals with non-Muslim religious groups, albeit HIGHLY UNEQUALLY (you listening CTG?) India may not have a religious ministry, but it DOES have a Ministry of Minority Affairs, whose mandate makes it clear that it deals with mostly Muslims and Sikhs within India. Oh, and "secular" Turkey has this and I'm not even going to bring up Iran with whom you're getting some pretty cozy gas deals going on. Say, would giving you our gas shut you up?

Lastly, follow the INDIAN example? You mean substitute persecution of Hindus, Buddhists and Aadibashis for persecution of Sikhs, Muslims and the whole of North-East India? Tweedledum or Tweedledee Your Excellency? I'd be laughing if this wasn't so serious!

Oh, and you might want to see the latest from India (GRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPH OF INJURIES!)

Two questions:

1) How are temples funded? I imagine they are under-funded by the GoB, which is mostly Muslim, and having been raised Muslim I know how petty and small-minded Muslims can be! I know I have a few Bangladeshi Hindu friends and readers online, so if you fill me in I'd really appreciate it. And does anyone, Hindu/Muslim/Buddhist/Christian/Jewish/whatever, have any thoughts on how to increase this funding locally instead of getting these condescending bastards to do it?

2) This is directed primarily to the Envoy. If India is so secular, why not fund a church or a buddhist temple or two? Give us a fucking break from the big talk alright? It might go down well with my countrymen less interested in your affairs, but a lot of us know what goes on inside India. Also, "the Indian envoy said Bangladesh government could expand it as a potential tourism centre"? Turning other people's sacred sites into tourist spots from the top is something that I'm firmly opposed to. May I suggest you join me in my opposition your Excellency, instead of turning my Hindu brothers ever more into a "minority" and a spectacle unto others?

Jackass!

3 movements

Attended a lecture on feminist literary theory yesterday. With a sad sort of inevitability, the lecture turned out to be nothing more than a history of trends in feminist thought and the Q/A session completely avoided any literary topics, concentrating exclusively on economic, political and social issues. Which suited me just fine.
The professor presenting the guest speaker became an icon for what was to follow, although his arguments were usually much more nuanced than some his colleagues made during Q/A. He lumped together feminism, anti-globalization and “anti-imperial” movements without much thought, dubbing them as anti-hegemonic movements. That these just might be three separate movements, each with its own priorities, own interests that are often at cross-purposes with each other was something that seemed utterly beyond his comprehension.
In fact, I saw no reason for him to lump them together other than in their common opposition to the mythical American, Capitalist Male. A rather poetic assessment of the similarity of all resistance no doubt, but hardly a realistic one. But then again, perhaps that was where the literary part of the lecture came in.
My doubts about their world-view was clinched when a different (male) professor recalled the glory days of the 60s (of course!) as the height of anti-hegemonic activism in Bangladesh. He was put in place when his (female) colleague reminded the audience that women’s rights movements here have had small successes and become a mainstream concern only in the 90s and that the patriarchal system was as unchallenged as ever during the 60s. Along the same vein, I still have no idea why someone else called the U.S the “belly of the beast” with regards to women’s rights. With regards to upholding a slanted global power system, yes. A slanted global economic system, maybe. A slanted gender system? Really?
“The glory days of the 60s” aside, I realised whenever I wasn’t dozing off that the de-linking of these three movements gives rise to a considerable number of different permutations and combinations, some of which we have actually seen in real life. De-colonization did not lead to great improvements in the lives of women in most places, certainly not in the sub-continent. Anti-imperialism without anti-patriarchy. And how can one even begin to associate anti-imperial sentiments with anti-globalization of capital and the spread of centrally planned production systems after the Cold War has laid bare the sometimes sordid nature of Soviet Imperialism? Anti-globalization without anti-imperialism. Unless of course, “empire” is defined as an exclusively “first-world” term, which is nothing more than an old Communist ploy. Falling for that in 2006 is first-rate stupidity.
So what can we expect in the future? More anti-imperial movements that believe neither in opposing the market system nor the patriarchal system (sounds familiar?) in the third world? More pro-imperial, pro-market and anti-patriarchal systems in the first? You work out the rest. As for me, as these three movements grow and become more well-defined, the potential conflicts between their aims and the trade-offs they are willing to make with each other and more powerful actors is what is interesting.