In the Middle of Nowhere

Lauachhara used to be a pitch dark dense animal filled forest even fifty years ago. That’s why, when a real dense forest was needed for filming the Indian jungle portion of the famous Jules Verne master piece, ” Around the world in eighty days”, Lauachhara forest was selected. Michael Anderson, the director of this 5 Oscar/Golden Globe winning classic milestone movie, brough his several hundred stong team to Lauachhara forest in Sri Mangal of the then East pakistan.

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Some leaders belonging to last BNP government have betrayed their party, leader, collegue and activists and are conspirating to hijack a political party on behalf of the governing clique. A chapter of the conspiracy was stages yesterday when the election commission held a meeting with these few turncoat conspirators after inviting him as legitimate BNP. These turncoats as well as the conspirator Election commissioners, are, like any other criminal, very afraid. They cordoned themselves off by huge presence of police yesterday. They were afraid of BNP grassroot beating.

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There are not too many people in this world who could share the magnitude of the personal tragedy ex Prime minister Sheikh Hasina endured. Both her parents, all her three brothers, sister in laws, dozens of uncles-aunths; all have been hunted and killed execution style in one single night. Eldest daughter of a household traditionaly is the most caring for the rest of the family. So was Sehikh Hasina. Life for Sheikh Hasina and her sister Sheikh rahana jolted on 15 th August 1975. Since then, life has never been the same again.

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Which way our beloved Bangladesh is heading? Lets discuss the possible futures of Bangladesh.

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1. Senior Lawyer Barrister Shafiq Ahmed, on behalf of the lawyers representing former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina complained that they had been harassed by military intelligence agency people. He made this allegation when journalists asked for his comment on Sheikh Hasina trail that day. He also alleged that the agency men are trying to scare them off representing Sheikh Hasina.
This medieval tactic is being applied by a government which has grabbed and are clinging illegally to power apparently to ‘re-establish’ rule of law and a fair judiciary in Bangladesh. And those people, whose actions have been instrumental in establishing this illegal rule of law, who used to be vocal against every single slightest diversion of righteousness are dead silent these days. Neither Kamal Hossain, Amirul islam, Rokonuddin Mahmood, nor media-civil aka retired society stars of last ten years made a single noise about this issue.

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দেশ ছেড়েছি এক যুগ হোল, তাই গত বারটি পহেলা বৈশাখ কেটেছে দেশের বাইরেই। এই বার বছরে দেশের অনেক বড় বড় পরিবর্তন হয়েছে, এর মধ্যে আন্যতম হচ্ছে পহেলা বৈশাখ উদযাপন।

যখন দেশ ছেড়েছিলাম, পহেলা বৈশাখ তখন ছিল কলেজ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় ক্যাম্পাস কেন্দ্রিক বড় নগরগুলোর কিছু সাংস্কৃতিক বৈদগ্ধ নাগরিকের বার্ষিক বিনোদোন। ঢাকার রমনার বটমূল অথবা চট্টগ্রামের ডিসি হিলে ভোর থেকে রবীন্দ্র সংগীত পরিবেশন হোত আর সহস্র অনধিক মানুষ তা উপোভোগ করতেন। নাগরিক এই রিচুয়াল টার শুরু হয়েছিল পাকিস্তান আমলের শেষের দিকে, ৬৭ ইংরেজী সনে। আইয়ুব সরকার কর্তৃক রবীন্দ্র সংগীত নিষিদ্ধ করার প্রতিবাদে ছায়ানট বাংলা নববর্ষকে রবীন্দ্র সংগীত দিয়ে বরন করে নেয়ার সিদ্ধান্ত নেয়।

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…because the will to win this battle is not there. I am anticipating a total and unconditional government surrender on this issue.

Footnote:

1. It is only BNP-AL battle, corruption of politicians that is worth fighting and denouncing.

2. Violent bigots are good for the heath of the nation.

2. Responsing to our dear general Moeen’s advice to the nation, these protesters should have used Aloo instead of brickbats. That could have made a good use of our aloo. BTW, why our talkative 7 course aloo eating general is so silent about this issue?

 OK, there is an example and even that is also very short-lived. It is rather an extreme exception than a rule. The exception is that Justice B A Siddiqui, the then chief Justice, refused to take oath of Tikka Khan. At that time, the momentum in East Pakistan was totally pro Bengali nationalistic and Justice B A Siddiqui had no option but to go with an overwhelming public sentiment. He, however corrected himself pretty quickly. After March 25 crackdown, he speedily conducted the oath of Tikka Khan.

That was the last apparent act of defiance of a judge against the military. Since then throughout the history of Bangladesh, the judges took it as their inherent virtue to be subservient to the Generals.

Every time Generals create a legal-constitutional mess out of their power lust, they brought in a justice to sweep off their mess. The supply of such military boot-licking judges is never-ending in Bangladesh.
In fact the judges are the only professionals in Bangladesh who never stood up against a military dictator in Bangladesh. From the very beginning of military interventions, politicians, fellow military men, students, professionals like physicians, Engineers, bureaucrats— stood up defiant against dictators at some point or the other. But the only group that remained ever loyal to their General bosses, are the judges. All military men in Bangladesh had t a pet judge. Khaled Mosharaf appointed Sayem, Ershad had Justice Ahsanuddin and looks like now Moeen has Ruhul Amin.
In this backdrop, was it wise to expect any bold judgment about Khaleda Zia’s writ against EC? Especially when EC and Hafizuddins have been singing the same chorus for the last few months that they would accept whatever judgment the high court gives and they would not appeal. Didn’t that  CJ reconstituted the writ bench of high court just last month?

Supreme court judges are doing what their predecessors in Bangladesh have done all along. But this gives us the opportunity to unmask two collaborators. One is Kamal Hossain and the other is Shahdin Malik. This Shahdin Maliks try to walk both ways. They will write “nice” op-eds filled with “good” words, but in real life they will collaborate and help the agents of the military. Shahdin Malik is another shrewd collaborator like Shujon’s Bodiul Alam Majumdar who will also try to keep both ends.

And by the way, if you did not read it yet, read it now. It is indeed  a great piece by Farhad Mozhar.

 
Lt General H M Ershad was a shrewd and cunning person ready to anything to grab and then stay in power. Looks like we are having another Ershad in General Moeen U Ahmed.
He occupied the prime time Bangladesh news today with the following news items.

First
He extended his tenure as army Chief by one more year. Government statement states that it was done in national interest. The nation however does not know what national interest warranted this extension. General Moeen repeatedly stressed the point that the country is not under martial law and he only is helping the civilian administration as he would do any other government. And the country knows that they are in war with any country. And no natural disaster is going on now. So is there absolutely no pressing need to take the extraordinary step to divert from normal proceedings of the armed forces.

Second
He declared that there is no food crisis in the country. He however did not elaborate then why rice price is beyond people’s purchasing power. He probably miss-spoke the cantonment for the country. We know there is no food crisis in Cantonment. The army chief probably meant cantonment. Moreover on what capacity the army chief would speak about country’s food status? He could talk about security issues etc. (more…)

Photo: Shafiuddin Bitu 

Who is this man?

He was photographed yesterday in Dhaka. May be he is a drug addict, may be he is a mentally or physically retarded person, may be he is a poor father unable to feed himself after exhausting all the food for the children at home or may be he is all of the above. Basic food of poor Bangladeshis is rice and the rice price has skyrocketed beyond the reach of the poor over the last year.  In such situation the people in the extreme edge of the society are usually the first victims. The vulnerable groups are usually the homeless, the poorest of the poors of the society. And among them the first to fall through the safety net are the mentally-physically disabled persons, drug addicts, the elderly and the children.  It has been many years I last saw a skeleton image of a Bangladeshi citizen. I was getting used to the fact this sort images may only come out of Bosnia concentration camps or Somalia or else.  This skeleton image of the man comes to me as a rude awakening.

News reports of hunger death started appearing scattered in our print media. This report confirms several hunger deaths.

Since 1990, I always thought that two things will never return to Bangladesh, one is military rule and the other is famine. Well, since 11 January 2007, Bangladesh is under de facto military rule and a famine, as well, may have been knocking at the door now.

My readers would know that I have been an uninhibited critic of this government. I have decided not to give military government a free pass on any issue and that has been my protest against this illegitimate military-elite rule. This kind of photo and news will be fuel for my blog posts. But I do not want this kind of fuel. I do not want any more opportunity to write about death from hunger in Bangladesh. I do not want to see even a single skeletonized body of a poor Bangladeshi. I hope this is my first and last post on this issue. I hope at least hunger is taken care of by our government.
 

Dhaka Mayor Sadeq Hossain Khoka has just been sued by Bangladesh anti corruption Commission for alleged corruption.
With this law suit a pattern is completed. All the mayors of all the major metropolitan cities in Bangladesh is officially charghed with corruption. All, except Dhaka Mayor, are in jail now.
Surprisingly many of the mayors had a clean image prior to starting this Mayoral assignment. Most big city Mayors served governments in other capacities in the past and there have not been major corruption charges against them.

This suggests that there must be a serious problem in the system itself. Just prosecuting the Mayors will probably not do any long term benefit to the country. Once we jail these 6 mayors, tomorrow there will be six new clean faces__ be it Rizvi, be it Badsha, be it Saber, be it Hannan… . Unless we change the factors those facilitate corruption in the local government systems, six years down there will be six new corrupt faces who were otherwise clean.

Instead of Hasan Mashud-Hanif Iqbal destructive, trigger happy approach; a saner approach would have been to hold a public hearing, set up an all inclusive task forces, work with the current mayors, publish white papers and the try to fix the local government systems. Those generals and Colonels should know that the territory they are in now is a civilian territory. It is not a war zone where they will kill the enemy first, destroy the city then and leave the job of reconstruction to be done by the civilians later.

The approach must prefer engagement over shunning. The goal will be to do the fact finding research first, let the public know via white papers, have their input in how to fix the systems and then fix the system with everybody’s cooperation including the sitting mayors who know the system better than anyone else. Punishment? Publish the white paper with proof of crimes and let the public be the judge in the upcoming elections.

I am surprised that this disturbing bit of news was abandoned by Bangladeshi blogosphere as well as the print and electronic media.

In an attempt to make Bnagladesh look civilized, the civil society-military government has decided to start arresting beggers from the street.

And the free judiciary was gung ho to hand the poor begegr a jail sentence!

New Age editor Nurul KAbir had this to say about this bizarre move of the government:

…the military-propelled government of Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed has, indeed, established ‘rule of law’ in the country! His police on Saturday reportedly arrested two persons, one a hapless nonagenarian and the other a physically challenged man in his thirties, from a Dhaka street on charge of begging. …

…If the poor foodless, homeless beggars are to serve jail terms for creating nuisance on our city streets, then what punishment is due to the rich policymakers for begging in the big capital cities of the world, and that too by humiliating the entire nation?
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… The growing number of beggars, visible in the metropolitan cities and small townships, is the direct consequence of the governmental failure to manage the national economy properly. And if the government continues to fail to effectively manage the national economy towards a pro-people direction, and there is hardly any sign of success yet, the number of beggars in the cities, the towns and the villages would continue to grow. And, if the government continues to pursue the policy of jailing the beggars, it may have to declare the larger part of the country, if not the entire one, a national prison…

General Moeen U Ahmed took over Bangladesh on the ground that politician have failed to govern the nation. Now his 15 month rule made things much worse. The country has shown deterioration in every possible economic and quality of life indicators.

 This General and his coterie have even failed to ensured the most basic need of the Bangladeshis, some rice to eat.  Failing miserably, he now started lecturing the nation to eat potato instead of rice.

 Well, General, why don’t you start it at your home first? Members of Bangladesh armed forces get almost free rice through a hugely subsidized ration. Lets stop that first, give them potato ration instead. We will sure than line up to listen to your lectures about potato.  

Reform of Bangladesh is a long tedious process. But it is a good thing. Hence the line to reform is a rather long one.

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H.E. Mr. Anwar Chowdhury, the British high Commissioner to Banglades is widely believed to be one of the co-conspirators of the military coup that killed the democracy in Bangladesh in 1/11/07. In addition to his job as the British high commissioner to Bangladesh, he has also been playing the role of the chief international trumpeter of the military government in Bangladesh. Today’s news is that he has been transferred out of Bangladesh. Good riddance.