Success by definition..

I have never been so confused of the word “success” – I mean obviously I understand that The Brazilian football team had “success” at the recently concluded Federation Cup. And I see how easy it is for us to go ahead and tell the younger generation to follow their methods of bringing “success,” with complete disregard of the Spaniards whose methods in reality brought them bigger “success” as the World Champions. Effectively and quite efficiently we are getting into a lethargic culture of applying the word “success” to celebrate achievements based on predetermined targets, without which the word does not make any sense. A young aspiring football player in the subcontinent or a country with less notable results is more likely to wear either a Brazilian or a Spaniard jersey. He is even more likely to forget the run the Dutch or even the young Germans had in that World Cup, where either team could have easily taken the big title.

Without getting too carried away with football (usually a topic of more sentiments and less logic), my point is, why is it that we are always thinking about success in everything we do. Why are we allowed to so easily conclude that University A is more successful because their graduates receive higher average starting salary than graduates from University B? Our children going to school are placed into a measurement system even before they have any idea of who they are. And we are so actively making rules and standards to complement this system – rules and standards that prematurely diminish any possibility of inconceivable achievements. Essentially, we continue to pursue a system that prevents individuals like Einstein to exist. We easily rule out individuals as failures because they just quite simply “don’t fit in.” While we are in awe of those who succeed based on situation based ideologies that seemed right some ‘1 Earth orbit’ ago, or in other word 365 odd times of a complete Earth spin, during which a million variables would have changed. And being inert to these variables, we are prematurely determining who makes it and who doesn’t.    

Article 70 and Democracy in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh constitution, Article 70 states: “A person elected as a member of Parliament at an election at which he was nominated as a candidate by a political party shall vacate his seat if he resigns from that party or votes in Parliament against the party.”

We can complain all about our crippled political system and ineffective parliament, but the fact that a single component in our constitution stands as a key obstacle in preventing democracy in Bangladesh. So the fact that the opposition / minority parties are always “walking out” of the parliament should not be received with any shock, since this provision ensures that whatever bill needs to be passed will almost always be in accordance to the ruling party’s preference. And then obviously it should be any surprise when the oppositions take the streets to protest. Lets look at a scenario.

If a ruling party wishes to put forward a bill in the parliament, say to change the name of the country to premier’s name, then it should be automatically taken that this will pass through. Obviously since the ruling party holds the highest number of seats in the cabinet and each one of them according to the provision are forced to vote in favor of what the party leader decides. And irregardless how much the opposition parties whine, the bill will be passed.

What is most amusing however, is why even the opposition parties never raise this issue? Perhaps they would rather have no voice for a period in order to enjoy full control when they are back in power. In 2009, Dr. Mozaffar Ahmad (Economist & Civil rights activist) suggested that a constitution review committee is formed to review this article along with other provisions, if Bangladesh is to move forward towards a transparent and healthy democracy.

Billionaires’ fortunes hinder fight against poverty

Billionaires’ fortunes hinder fight against poverty

Riches getting richer because of demands of what they offer is there. The new trend is so called the CSR which they actively pursue. Through CSR they ensure branding loyalty of products people who can’t afford don’t actually need. People end up spending their income on things they usually don’t need. So the math is really simple, the riches get richer and the poor poorer. 

screaming parachute

Headlines in red bold typeface scream at you, instigating you to pick up the paper and read the story. ‘Nishpap shishur e kemon mrittu!’ (Innocent life comes to a tragic end!) – facing such a headline, anybody would want to know what happened, how did the unfortunate child die, at times getting scared worrying about the safety of self and own family, at times getting infuriated at the heinous murderers. One thing will be common, anyone would read the story.

The media, defined by television, print and radio in the mainstream, informs the public. The role of the media is to provide information and amusement, generate ideas and help shape the public policies and priorities. Among other things, the media challenges public officials through reports, interviews, debates, in a way acting as a watchdog. The print media is the oldest form of mass media, and the first printed newspaper dates…

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The Struggle for Identity

The Struggle for Identity Revisits the Bengali history and the events that provided Bangladesh and her people their own identity and how some of these events are still challenging in retaining that identity.

21 February, 1952

Politicians and students join their forces for a broader movement under the leadership of Maulana Bhashani of Awami League. As demonstrations and unrest seem to get out of control, the Government cracks down by imposing a curfew in Dacca; a number of demonstrators are killed in front of the Dacca Medical College over a period of one week (February 21-27, 1952). Hundreds and thousands of people took the streets to protests unanimously and the seeds of Bangladeshi nationalism were sown during that movement.

25 March, 1971

Around 11 PM the army pounced on sleeping citizens of Dacca to execute Operation Searchlight. The goal was to “crush” Bengali resistance in which Bengali members of military services were disarmed and killed, students and the intelligentsia systematically liquidated and able-bodied Bengali males just picked up and gunned down. By midnight, Dacca was literally burning.

21 August, 2004

Some 24 leaders and workers of Awami League including its Women’s Affairs Secretary Ivy Rahman, spouse of incumbent president of the republic M Zillur Rahman, were killed and 300 others suffered splinter injuries in horrendous grenade attack at the anti-terrorism rally of the then opposition leader and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina at Bangabandhu Avenue in the capital. – BSS News.

East Bengal to East Pakistan to Bangladesh

1905-1947

The region of Bengal has a long history of struggle mainly due to the religious diversity that it contains. Post the Partition of Bengal in 1905, due to religious conflicts resulted in two separate sections with Hindus claiming their dominance in the West and Muslims taking their own share of the East Bengal. The partition provided the Muslims a long waited voice and resulted in formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906 by Aga Khan III. The party received immediate popularity all over India. Between 1906 and 1947, several major religious riots and political conflicts took place throughout India, perhaps the epitome of which was the Direct Action Day or The Great Calcutta Killings. This in retaliation to the Indian Government’s plan to transfer power from British Raj to the Indian Leadership, opposing the plan of the Muslim League to divide India into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Eventually in 1947 to conclude the issues, a further separation was ordered to separate India and Pakistan, which today we refer to as the “Mountbatten Plan.” As part of the agreement The Muslim League was also given the portion of East Bengal which was then known as East Pakistan.

1949-1960

Perhaps it was a misjudgment, but the two portion of Pakistan immediately drowned into major political conflicts, mainly due to the ignorant attitude towards the Bengalis by the central Government. East Pakistan was faced with losing its 4300 years of cultural heritage, over the central Government’s decision to impose Urdu to be used as the main language throughout greater Pakistan. Although different in nature, a similar flow of events prior to the partition occurred which resulted the formation of All Pakistan Awami Muslim League in 1949 under the leadership of Maulana Abdul Hamid, Shamsul Huq and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. In 1956 the party was successful in taking over the Central Government through General Election, with Suhrawardy becoming the Prime Minister. In its effort to associate with the West and also provide identity and empower East Pakistan, the party soon faced major oppositions from the Muslim League. Due to rising tensions in 1958, President Iskander Mirza declared Martial Law and appointed Ayub Khan as the Chief Administrator. Subsequently, through a bloody coup, Khan overthrew all political existence and re-drafted the Pakistan constitution.

1963-1971

After several game changing events including attempt to overthrow the military backed ruling and restore democracy, assassination of Suhrawardy, and the imposing of the Agartala Conspiracy Case, the Awami League eventually managed to find some popularity through their main goal to restore rights to the Bengalis. The rise of the party, this time under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was a replica to the situation in 1949, managed to win majority seats at the National Assembly. However, the administration just fresh out of a military leadership was in no mood to agree to Mujib’s 6-points movement and handover East Pakistan to the Bengalis. And the course of events that followed including the genocide will continue to haunt us for a long time, even those of us that did not witness the bloody war of 1971.

Nationalism, Democracy, Secularism and Socialism

“Ebar er shongram amader muktir shongram, ebar er shongram swadhinotar shongram.” The words of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman during his rally at the Ramna Park.

Besides the 6-points movement, the liberation war was based on four major principles – Nationalism, Democracy, Secularism and Socialism. Today, our core identity and even our constitution is based on these principles. And if we take these 4 aspects of freedom, 41 years post liberation, how “swadhin” are we today?On 16th December 1971, we were liberated, and on the very day our own National identity was granted to us. As for Democracy, that is something we have ensured from the very beginning under Mujib’s leadership. Despite the fact that we have dragged ourselves through a number of military rulings, on paper today we are a democracy. But when one decides to scrutinize, we will be lost with doubts over how liberal our democratic model is. While there are signs of Secularism in the country, it is often threatened by politically influenced incidents every now and then. To date we have experienced two major incidents including the 1991 anti-Hindu riot and the recent Ramu atrocity a few months back. As for Socialism, by definition this framework ensures collective ownership and equal distribution of wealth in the community. Now Bangladesh boasts a free economy, and despite the existence of several large public owned service providers, we still reflect the ideal characteristics of a capitalist market. The difference between the rich and the poor in our country is one example to support that. Perhaps I am missing something, but I am not sure what significance Socialism contains in defining Bangladesh.

In Search of Democracy

In 1972, the Awami League was brought to power under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. However, soon amid heavy economic turmoil and corruption among leaders within the party forced Rahman to declare a state of emergency. In order to bring stability he also declared a one-party ruling by forming Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), banning all other political parties in the country. The main reason was to take the country out of the social and economic dip it was facing then. In 1975, post the mass murder of the Sheikh family, a military coup took place followed by a Martial Law Administration led by Major General Ziaur Rahman. His promise to the people was to bring major reforms including the restoration of democracy. Zia’s efforts at that time could have been plausible mainly due to his efforts to bring about economic prosperity. However Zia’s formation of a political party and taking over a 5 year term through the general election in 1977 makes me question his intention and whether it contradicts the very reason why Martial Law was declared – it is without any doubt that Zia was influential prior to the election and a young and naïve nation would obviously vote the very person they hear and see in the limited media channels during the time. And as was proved, a senior staff in the military moving to politics by taking advantage of his position was never going to go down well with people around him. In 1982, Zia was assassinated by some members of the army.

Now despite Zia’s work on improving the economy, he had done damage, a damage that the people of this country still suffer from – he had restored a tradition that always existed among the Bengalis, long before the East Pakistan era and long before the East Bengal era. It is a culture that was seen in the mutiny carried out on the British by the Bengali Army in 1857. And we have seen for the next nine years how General Hussain Mohammed Ershad combined military and what some would call a form of dictatorship taking the country to yet another military coup and extending another term of Martial Law. While he followed similar directions as those of his predecessors, he should perhaps be given some credit for his creative thinking; one of which was his idea of having democracy under military rules.

Since our independence, we have witnessed 7 military coups. Now as much as I would like to write off these events as being self motivated, I am sure we could identify some credible reasons that instigated the thought of such measures; something we witnessed in 2009 with the Caretaker Government taking over power. And once again their reasons were common; to stabilize political stability, improve the economy and social security, basic factors that the elected Governments have failed since Independence. So if the Governments we vote to power fail to take the country ahead, and we resort to military coups in average about every 6 years, what is it really telling us about the democratic model we have adopted? There must be reasons why even after 41 years, we are still taking the streets, burning vehicles, killing people for reasons that do not go beyond differences in views; or for that matter differences in politics.

***

Coincidently, if we look at the history of Pakistan, before and after 1971, I am sure we could find familiar grounds of comparisons. And is it just a mere coincidence? In 1971 during the visit of Ayub Khan, the Pakistani military took over the Pilkhana area. On 25th March, the Pakistani soldiers carried out a surprised attack on the then Jawans of the East Pakistan Rifles. On 25th February 2009, the entire country was shocked with the mass killings of 57 senior army officials after a group of Bangladesh Defense Rifles took over control of the Pikhana area. However, this really wasn’t the first. In 1977, 11 air force officers were killed during an occupation of the Tenjgaon Airport while in the same year similar incident occurred at the Bogra Cantonment. And we are left to wonder why is it that we continue to witness such atrocities in our country. Some could argue that in a society that encourages freedom of rights, this could be a common sight and we could perhaps seek similar incidents in other developing Nations. But witnessing even the smallest of riots and “michils”, I continue to compare them to the photos and scripts from the East Pakistan era, or even earlier when we were part of India. And if we follow the pattern, we could conclude that this has become a tradition to us. A tradition taught by our forefathers; and a culture learnt from our experience leading up to our liberation war. What we don’t realize that we are no longer fighting to protect our language or our identity. There is no reason to take the streets and fight against the very people that we stood beside in unity during our struggle, just so that we could be heard.

We can never deny the seeds of Nationalism that were sown in all of us, but it is time that we grow out of that and instead plant new seeds of patriotism. We need to re-evaluate who we are fighting for and against and re-evaluate our blind faith towards these people who are only motivated for power.  Our freedom was achieved at the expense of lives, whether it’s 3 million or 3 “lakh”, and today we are taking away that freedom by taking lives. We need to grow out of that anger, and the hate that are being created in us by politically motivated groups. We need to understand that we are taking our country to the very situation that we fought to liberate ourselves from. Let us remind ourselves once again those magical words of the Liberation War and fight for creating that identity that our leaders gave their lives for.

Pakistan may split again

Pakistan may split again

“Everybody was aware of the fact that West Pakistani baboos [gentlemen] considered East Pakistan a colony and treated its citizens in the same way as the British used to treat the West Pakistanis.” – Quader Khan.

Sadly, nothing has changed. Those with money & power are still treating the rest like animals. I suppose the colonial period left behind a strong legacy, 75 years and the subcontinent is yet to mature from the Raj. Making the parliament house a fish market, deadly riots and the never ending ‘dirt politics’ are just some of the fine lessons we practice in form of a self-destructive ritual. I know we were deprived of freedom & power then but what justification is there today for these power hungry politicians to behave as they do.