Unheard Voices

Complete lack of infrastructural growth and capacity building are killing our industries softly but surely.  But who is talking about these issues?

“Due to shortages of electricity and natural gas, lack of adequate financial resources and political uncertainty, the entrepreneurs are shy to invest,” said Mohammad Fazlul Huq, president of Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

 

Bangladesh at present faces up to 250 million cubic feet of gas shortages and up to 2,000 megawatts of electricity shortages every day forcing hundreds of manufacturing firms to close down.

 Investment in Bangladesh textiles drops 26 pct

Having lived outside Bangladesh for decades, I discovered the author late, through an interview by Ahmed Mostofa Kamal published in Prothom Alo in November 2006. I was fascinated by both the man and author who surfaced in this conversation. I devoured his books. Each novel was unique, and I marvelled at the variety of voice. The lack of sentimentality in his 1971-based Jibon Amar Bon touched a chord. I was intrigued that many of his stories focused on a passive, alienated man, sometimes juxtaposed with another kind, men of bravado who can reveal delicacy of feeling.
     I felt that his stories deserve a wider readership, and English being my writing language, I began to translate his fiction.
     I also wanted to meet the man. I’d heard he was a terrific storyteller, but selective about whom he let near. When I phoned, he answered in a plain voice, “Come.”

More from Mahmud’s write up on this enigmatic personality.

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=51375

 If the Election Commission (EC) sticks to its plans to hold the general election in December and announce the schedule towards the end of October or early November, the ordinance will mean an end to political ambition of many former government and non-government officials.

In the event of removal or dismissal or compulsory retirement, a former government official aspiring to public office will have to wait for five years since the termination of job.

The restrictions come in the wake of allegations that some bureaucrats in the past had exploited their position to lay the groundwork for their bid to stand in parliamentary polls after retirement.

Those who retired from public or defence services from the start of 2006 onwards will not be able to be elected as president due to a combination of the new provisions and the constitution.

According to the constitution, the persons ineligible to be a lawmaker shall not be qualified to vie for presidency as well.

 So what’s the exit plan now?

The following clip seems to have caught the imagination among Bangladeshis outside Bangladesh.

As everyone knows, Gen Musharraf has stepped down from presidency. When our generals and their bhodrolok allies embarked upon cleansing our politics in January 2007, it was westward to Musharraf’s Pakistan they looked. That’s why the Financial Times reported on 16 Jan 2007:

To be seen to be even-handed in its treatment of Bangladesh’s two feuding parties, the army might consider what is called the ‘Musharraf option’. Just as General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, exiled Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, leaders of Pakistan’s two largest political parties after his 1999 bloodless coup, so might martial law lead to the expulsion of Mrs Zia and Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League.

Now that the Musharraf era is over in Pakistan, what lessons should be drawn?

The most influential editor in today’s Bangladesh writes thus:

Not withstanding many differences (our tradition of democratic movement is stronger, people are far more aware of their rights, we have better social indicators, and our military today is far different from that of Pakistan and they are far more respectful of democracy and need for elected government than Pakistan army ever was), just as Pakistan looks forward to democracy, so do we. Just as in Pakistan where the two old parties, the PPP and the Muslim League, are set to resume their roles in politics, in Bangladesh, our two major parties, the Awami League and the BNP, are set to regain their dominance in our politics following the elections later this year. The question here is, just as in Pakistan, will our politicians rise to the occasion and play their patriotic and nation-building role so that the likelihood of military dictatorship is forever banished from our realm of possibility?

While pondering these, let’s turn our head eastward to Thailand. Here there was a prime minister who received strong mandate in repeated elections from the rural and lower middle classes. But he didn’t have much support from the urban educated classes and political forces who had a rich tradition of anti-dictatorship and pro-democracy politics. The PM was widely rumoured to be involved in serious corruption and abuse of power. Army intervened after political deadlock in 2006. Any of these sound familiar?

Thai voters returned the deposed PM Thaksin’s party with a clear majority, ignoring the corruption charges. Thaksin returned to Thailand, and was expected to resume office after legal formalities were done. It seems, however, that Thaksin prefers to fade away into exile (see here). Is there any lesson for us from the east?

Dear reader, what lessons do you draw for Bangladesh from the developments in Pakistan and Thailand? Looking forward to a vigorous debate (please avoid personal attacks and irrelevant comments).

Triumphalism over a Musharraf impeachment won’t hide the failings of Pakistan’s ruling coalition

Fatima Bhutto

The Guardian, F

Friday August 15 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/pakistan

The murky abyss of Pakistani politics has been especially murky over recent months, and true to form it just keeps getting murkier. The one thing that is absolute when dealing with the dregs that run my country is this: nothing is ever as it seems. Nowhere is that more true than in the current scenario involving President Musharraf’s likely impeachment by the ruling coalition.

“It has become imperative to move for impeachment,” barked Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Zardari, at a press conference in Islamabad last week. Sitting beside the new head of the Pakistan People’s party was Nawaz Sharif, twice formerly prime minister of Pakistan. Zardari snarled every time Musharraf’s name came up, seething with political rage and righteousness, while Sharif did his best to keep up with the pace of things. He nodded sombrely and harrumphed every once in a while. The two men are acting for democracy, you see. And impeaching dictators is a good thing for democracies, you know.

But Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are unelected. They’re not just unrepresentative in that they don’t hold seats in the parliament - they have absolutely no mandate in Pakistan. They head the two largest, and most corrupt, parties in the state but hold no public office. Pots and kettles.

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The first general election in what is now Bangladesh took place in 1937. People, well about 10 per cent of adult population, voted for the legislative assembly of the British Indian province of Bengal. Elections were held under communal electorates. Indian National Congress became the largest party, but it fell well short of a majority. More importantly, it performed very poorly among the Muslim majority of the province. Muslim seats in the assembly were divided between AK Fazlul Huq’s Krishak Praja Party (KPP), HS Suhrawardy’s Muslim League, and independents, with KPP having the most seats.

KPP and Congress were both committed to secularism (by which they both meant pluralism), and Mr Huq expressed an interest in forming a coalition government with Congress. Provincial leaders of Congress were keen on the idea, but it was vetoed by their all-Indian leadership. Huq formed a coalition with the League. Within three years, he would be moving the Lahore Resolution. Within a decade, Bengal would be partitioned. What if Congress had taken up Huq’s offer?

(More at Mukti)

Every year during the 3rd week of August we see many pieces about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Most of these are of ‘Bangabandhuke jemon dekhechi’ type, though some do contain rare pieces of 1970s articles and declassified government documents. Last August, angry blogger Dhaka Shohor wrote a very different piece that describes how the post-1970s generation views the national leader.

In addition to a very violent coup, 15 August also marks partition and the end of the empire in the subcontinent - events that cannot be separated from the shaping of our national identity. Identities can of course get really confusing - Bangladeshi / Bengali Muslim / Muslim / Bengali / Indian / Ghoti / Bangal - it’s not always clear where one ends and the other begins. Dhaka Shohor’s post also shows how the post-1970s generation - born in the free country, with no hang ups about our neighbours or former compatriots, comfortable in our surrounds, focussed on our needs, and at ease with the world - tackles these identity issues.

We’ve lamented about there being no clear articulation of what it means to be a Bangladeshi. May be this articulation will come from some future leader. Not everyone from his generation is as articulate as Dhaka Shohor, not everyone has the same opportunities. But while words may vary, the message is probably the same. And that, much more than the lamenting of the past, is why we reproduce his post below.

Ekti Mujiburer thekey

I don’t like simple stories, but I’ll make an exception for the one that follows because even this is an improvement from the over-simplified bullshit we are asked to believe by political parties and their embedded intellectuals. If you disagree on the details, remember these are simplified stories.

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“It’s time — it’s time you were gone”
- Anton Chekhov [Agafya]

Sitting in traffic today and calculating how long it would take my 10 minute ride to mutate into 1 hour, I thought about traffic as a metaphor for the country. Then I cracked open the newspaper and found I was not the only one. H Khondker calls it Spaces of Despair, although his recommendations (headlights on rickshaws, teach rickshaw pullers the rules) smell like naive bhodrolok/army politics (danda mere thanda, and yes joto dosh the subaltern) that landed us in this CTG mess. Putting hard facts to the exploding traffic crisis, Kailash Sarkar informs us that a 10 km ride (Bangla Motor-Bangla College) is now a 3.5 hour ‘odyssey’. People are using apocalyptic language: “Commuters say the entire city traffic system has collapsed”. 1 lakh vehicles out of 6 lakh were withdrawn by CTG after 1/11, but all those vehicles have returned. 175 community policemen were deployed by CTG, all of whom have no reporting to police and are totally ineffective. DCC has licensed 87,000 rickshaw, but there are 5 lakh rickshaws now in Dhaka with another 1 lakh expected before Eid.

As I ditched my transport and walked (something I do almost every morning now so as to get to work on time) I kept thinking of traffic as a metaphor. I thought of those vehicles that the CTG boldly banished, which are all now back. Actually, everything is back! Everyone is back! And in all this I see again something I have been feeling for months now.

No one is running the country. (more…)

1. ONE of the most commendable acts of the current CTG is the reformation of the ACC with its new leadership.
2. It is not transparent to the people the index that was used by the ACC to prepare the list of the potential wrong-doers and their subsequent internment. The wealth of a few big shots as disclosed by the ACC is so meagre, in the context of present Bangladeshi elites, it would, in fact, tend to establish their honesty…
3. Disclosure of the actual wealth was a two-way sword for the discloser. If one discloses his actual wealth, he could be directly admitting his ill-gotten part of the wealth for which he might not have paid income taxes. If one did not disclose the actual income, he could be found guilty of concealing his wealth
4. Unlikely that the non-paying 99.6% of the people would seriously concur with the ACC’s view and drives to punish only a few of those 15 million, who should be in the tax net to start with, for evading a part of their due taxes.
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In a Forum article, Arif Syed, a Drishtipat veteran and a member of the Writers’ Collective, reflects on the lessons to be learnt from Dr Yunus’s foray into politics. He begins:

SINCE 1/11, and shortly prior to that, there had been attempts to launch a third political platform beyond the Awami League and BNP/Jamaat coalition in Bangladesh politics. Long before the end of the BNP government’s five-year tenure, there were murmurs about a “third force” taking over as people could predict the upcoming impasse.

So a hybrid government came (I’m calling this government ”hybrid” for lack of a better term) and started a kind of cleanup and reform. It seemed they were going for the cleaning up of corruption first. At some point it seemed that the exit strategy of the hybrid government would involve creating a political platform. There were several new political groupings that started during this time. One of the attempts to create a political platform was taken by Dr. Muhammad Yunus under the banner of Nagorik Shokti (NS) but, after a couple of months of hectic and seemingly unorganised activity, he decided not to pursue it after all, and the whole initiative fell apart.

Arif analyses the reasons behind Yunus’s failure:

However, what was missing from this campaign was an effort to reach the middle class. He probably ignored the fact that the identity-politics-obsessed middle class has been the real opinion leader of the country. For some reason, he or his campaign had no appeal for the middle class psyche or values like ethnic or religious or cultural identity. His strategists had completely missed accounting for that. Perhaps his team didn’t know how to reach this middle class and bring it into the fold. Capturing the middle class will be the key to any future attempts like this.

He finishes thus:

If an ideology provides overall guidance, an unambiguous stand on history and the country’s founding ideals is taken, a clear strategy is drawn and executed, and the right audience is courted, a new political force is not so unrealistic.

The whole article is available here. Looking forward to a good discussion.

This is going to be an overtly political post. It’s going to ask a set of questions that have come up from Monday’s local government elections. How one answers most, if not all, of these questions will depend on one’s personal political views. And in many cases, there will be strong disagreements. We should acknowledge, indeed celebrate, such disagreements for they are the stuff democracy is built with. We look forward to healthy debate on these questions.

(And we will not tolerate personal attacks, juvenile namecalling, or irrelevant comments).

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Welcome to the newest Bangla blogging platform Muktangon.  The Bangla blogging space is a fast growning area and Muktangon brings in fresh ideas and we wish it all the best.  Here are a few words from the organizers on the motive behind creating this blog.

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“Muktangon” (www.nirmaaan.com/blog) is the Bangla blogging platform of “Nirman” (www.nirmaaan.com), an online magazine on art, literature, culture and society. The blog is launched ahead of Nirman (under construction).

After the so-called “1/11″, the whole country felt trapped and confused as the walls of militarisation were quickly closing in. Emergency Rules crept into the public sphere stifling the very spirit of democracy. It was an environment like this that inspired launching Muktangon as a blogging platform. Most of our bloggers are relatively new in the blogsphere but many of them have considerable track record in political and human rights activism. Although none of us is party-political in the conventional sense, many of our members are direct products of Anti-Ershad movement (of the 80s) and anti-Jamat-Shibir movement (of the 90s). Together we aspire to create a serious and clean discussion space, and to share the values many of us once thought so important. We want to seek each other out through this blog who we believe also share the same values, and reach out to others who do not. We want to engage with our relatively younger Generation Y members in this depoliticising climate who are increasingly becoming so fashionably apolitical (for good reasons, perhaps).
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[Cover Image: Zahidul I Khan]

Sir asked me, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Before I had time to react he said, “No? Well I don’t mind even if you do, you can still have an affair with me.”

I went to talk to sir, he asked me to seek his blessings for the impending exams in the traditional manner by touching his feet. When I went to do it, he put his arms around me and kissed me. I was so stunned, I did not know how to react. (more…)

The reader is almost certainly aware that The Dark Knight is the movie of 2008. It is breaking all box office records. The IMDB is calling it the best movie of all time. Pundits are calling it the first film of its type to be considered a genuine piece of art.

We watched it on Friday night. You know it’s a great movie when despite its length of 152 minutes, you never wonder about the time. I didn’t think it was as great as, say, Casablanca. But it is not that far behind. Action sequences rival anything I have ever seen. Heath Ledger’s Joker is right up there with Gabbar Singh. If you haven’t yet, please watch it in the big screen (but don’t take your kid - it shouldn’t be a PG movie).

In addition to being great entertainment, The Dark Knight (and to a lesser extent, Batman Begins, its prequel) is a study in politics. Its politics has been discussed enough in the blogosphere for the New York Times to notice. American bloggers discuss Batman’s relevance for the so-called war on terror, but the underlying political philosophy holds great relevance for contemporary Bangladesh.

(More in Mukti)