>>
Against Our Will : Men, Women and Rape
>> By: Susan
Brownmiller
In her ground-breaking book, Against
Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, Susan Brownmiller
likened the 1971 events in Bangladesh to the Japanese
rapes in Nanjing and German rapes in Russia during
World War II."Rape in Bangladesh had hardly
been restricted to beauty," Brownmiller writes.
"Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five
had been sexually assaulted ... Pakistani soldiers
had not only violated Bengali women on the spot;
they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by
force in their military barracks for nightly use."
Some women may have been raped as many as eighty
times in a night How many died from this atrocious
treatment, and how many more women were murdered
as part of the generalized campaign of destruction
and slaughter, can only be guessed at.
|
The
Bewas Village
>> By Afsan Chowdhury
"They killed every male in
the village, every male. When the army was gone,
there was not a single man left to bury the dead.
We had to drag the bodies ourselves and bury them."
Noted historian Afsan Chowdhury revisits the
village of the widows and observes "Thirty
years of endless hunger and half-fed bellies have
taught them some plain truths. And hopelessness.
And resignation. And the flame of revenge was
blown away by the winds of despair. " |
|
>>
Ethical
Issues Concerning Representation of Narratives
of Sexual Violence of 1971
>>
By Nayanika Mookherjee
By examining press reports of a survivor of sexual
violence--Champa and her
'story' Dr. Nayanika Mookherjee shows how decontextualisations,
misrepresentations of the narrative and overarching,
predetermined
assumptions can worsen the situation of the affected
and make the representation itself unethical
|
>>
Tales of Endurance
>> By: Aasha Mehrin
Whether they find room in the pages
of history or not, it is an undeniable truth that
it was their sacrifice and strength that helped
us to win our freedom. For these poor, ordinary
village women who had to fight simultaneous enemies
on personal social and national level, the fight
goes on.
Aasha Mehrin's take on the stories and the movies
and shorts that portrayed them.
|
>>
War of Symbols: How
today's generation remembers 1971
>>
By: Dr. Meghna Guhathakurta
Many girls, who
were residing in Shamsunnahar Hall at the night
of
the raid, expressed their fears in the following
manner: "We were not born in 1971 and had
not witnessed the Liberation war ourselves. But
we had heard stories from our parents about the
terror they felt when they heard the boots of
the military marching outside or the dreaded thumping
on the door." |
>>
The Lessons We Never
Learn
>> By: Hameeda Hossain
It has now become a ritual, come December and March,
to bemoan why no justice was exacted from the Pakistan
military and its collaborators, for the crimes of
genocide and mass rape, committed in 1971. This
is not for lack of evidence. |
HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Rapes
of Bangladesh ,
>> By: Audrey Mennen
A New York Times article from 1972
Story of Victims 1 & 2
>> Kalyan Choudhury |
