Iftekhar Sayeed

Permanent News (poetry)

2012-01-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Permanent News

(click above for poems)

A great poet described poetry as news that stays news. I hope these 8 poems on political violence in post-democratic Bangladesh - especially the murder of young politicians by themselves - remain permanent memorials.

Last year, around 38 student politicians killed each other. They have been hailed as the champions of democracy when, in fact, they are mere foot-soldiers of the political parties involved in criminal activity. This is the reality of Bangladeshi democracy that's never revealed.

Horace In the Hills

2011-12-31T05:40:00.000-08:00

Horace In The Hills

(click above)

dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: These words of Horace were drilled into European children so that they would die by the millions on the killing fields of France and Germany. One English poet, who had seen action, called it "the old lie". But the lie is alive and well (if that's the word). As reaction to Bengali nationalism, Chakma nationalism reared its head…. But the Franco-German export never travelled well here.

An Elegy For The News

2011-11-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

An Elegy For The News

(click above for article)

The murder of 1.7 million Iraqi children through sanctions between 1991 and 2001 has been quietly overlooked by the media. This shows in the glorifying of its author, Bill Clinton. Other examples of media silence are also given.

Excerpt:

As far as I know, only one man has pointed out the holocaust—for that is what it surely is—and he is Norman Finkelstein. “As in the Nazi holocaust, a million children have likely perished,” he observes in his book ‘The Holocaust Industry, (London : Verso, 2000, p 148): “ . . . the United States and Britain forced murderous UN sanction on that hapless country [Iraq] in an attempt to depose him [Saddam Hussein]. As in the Holocaust, a million children have likely perished. [more than a million, as The Economist tells us].” Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s lackey, went on television to say that the ‘price is worth it.’ And his partner in murder, Al Gore, has been rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize, a rapidly devaluing currency. Mass killers are anointed and beatified.

urban shalish

2011-10-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

While the press and others decry the actions of the rural shalish, nothing is being done to give voice to the victims of the urban shalish.

I refer here to the 'committees' formed in the new apartment buildings: give a person a gram of power, and they will exert a kilogram of force. They will usurp the legislative as well as the judicial function of the republic of Bangladesh, just like the rural shalish.

I refer to an ongoing battle of wills between a harmless provider of education to ten-to-eleven-year-old tykes in an apartment in Dhanmandi. It is a time-honoured practice to provide education to children. The poor man has neither used a signboard nor ever used the address of his residence for advertisement purposes. Needless to add, he and his wife do nothing illegal or immoral: they have been peacefully, and with the tacit consent of the community, been carrying on this activity for eight years.

It is to be observed that almost every other building in Dhanmandi has a transponder on its roof: a contract is signed between the all-powerful committee and the phone company and the commercial activity goes on unnoticed. Teaching (and health-care) are not commercial activities: neither a student nor a teacher is 'customer'. The entire ethics and economics of the sectors are different.

The omnipotent committee have, after eight years, suddenly decided that this harmless gentleman, who abides by all the rules, must leave the building, or refrain from the legitimate pursuit of earning his livelihood: this is a contravention of his fundamental rights as a citizen of Bangladesh - the rights to domicile and earning a legal livelihood.

Yet, alas, no NGO will come to his aid: they are focused on the villages. But I prophecy that the day will come when these committees will have to be dragged before the courts and forced to abide by the laws and the constitution of Bangladesh.

These committees will be poking their nose into whether you are married or not or merely 'cohabiting', whether you drink on the premisses, who your girlfriends are, whether you are mentally ill, and so on into your most intimate life.

John Stuart Mill observed that the tyranny of public opinion is as much tyrannical as the tyranny of a despot, and John Locke maintained that it matters little to the individual if he is tyrannized by a king or by the majority. I urge my compatriots to resist this new tyranny that threatens to stifle our liberty as surely as any action by any despotic power.

purpose in social science

2011-09-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

Richard S. Rudner, in his book 'Philosophy of Social Science' takes as an example of a false teleology the statement 'Smith's goal, e.g., graduating with honours, explains or causes his present behaviour, e.g., studying hard' (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1966, p 85).

Here, apparently, the cause (graduating with honours) comes after the effect (studying hard). This, he says, is clearly absurd; yet social explanations seem to rest on such statements.

He dissipates the problem by restating the statement: 'Smith's present hard work is explained or caused by his (present) desire to achieve the goal of graduating with honours (italics original)'.

He claims that this solves the problem: the cause no longer lies ahead of the effect.

But the cause and the effect are simultaneous: how can a cause be simultaneous with its effect? He has solved one problem by creating another.

Surely purpose or teleology plays an all-important role in the social science, and this role requires a separate methodology: suppose his mother comes to visit and tells him he shouldn't work so hard to graduate with honours.

Suppose he says: "But, Ma, I'm not working hard to graduate with honours; I'm working hard to learn the subject. I don't care whether I graduate with honours or not."

We won't know his motivation just by looking at his behaviour: we have to show empathy, put ourselves in his place (easily done by interviewing him) and then get the reason for his behaviour. We can't impose an hypothesis on his behaviour.

contempt for intellectuals is healthy

2011-08-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

When Hitler strove for power and legitimacy, no group - neither business nor the military - wanted the jumped-up pantry boy.

However, there was one class of Germans who greeted him with open arms: the intellectuals. One must remember the prestige of the German intelligentsia back in those days. German universities were the best in the world. Their research was world-class and Nobel prizes were showered on them. After the war, the American universities displaced the Germans.

And once this clique embraced Hitler, the rest of Germany fell into line, according to Niall Ferguson. German society is characterized by hierarchy and obedience. Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience and power, when replicated in Germany, showed a compliance rate of 80%, as opposed to a compliance rate of 65% in the United States.

Bangladesh probably has a higher level of compliance to authority. Obedience is part of our culture. It has been suggested that the Rwandan genocide was possible because of a culture of obedience. A genocide in Bangladesh is easy to imagine.

In fact, we came close in January 2007, when the two political parties unleashed murder on the streets. Fortunately, the army stepped in and, thanks to the UN and Kofi Annan, the army remained neutral.

However, on August 23, the intelectuals tried to discredit the army by alleging that a soldier had slapped a young whippersnapper on a campus. One fictitious slap spiralled into nationwide arson and unrest. The reason, of course, for the mythical justification was that both the evil leaders of Bangladesh were in jail. Obedience to them entailed a rebellion against the forces of good.

Obedience to evil, then, was the prospect of the period. Eyewitness account informed me how the thugs gathered on Satmasjid Road in Dhaka. Some yanked a driver out of his car and set it alight near road 8A. The next morning, the denizens of Dhanmandi and Rayerbazaar found that every restaurant on Satmasjid Road had been burnt to cinders.

A healthy contempt for intellectuals is essential for civilised existence. Civilisation, observed G.K.Chesterton, is based on truisms, or it is not based at all. And intellectuals, ever since Socrates, have been making out the worse to be the better cause. It is a truism that murdering people on or off the streets is evil, and those who do so should be shunned. It is a truism that murderers should go to jail. It is a truism that one must not burn vehicles and restaurants.

Our obedience to intellectuals has resulted in our obedience to evil. Where will this take us? To what bestial depths shall we descend? Around 80 people are lynched every year because of the lawlessness encouraged by our intellectuals; around 50 student politicians murder themselves in the service of the two women who claim to be our leaders.

Besides, our intellectuals probably receive cash or other benefits from the Israel lobby - which would explain their strange silence on the Palestinian issue - making them minions of Israel as well as America. They are not on the side of the good, but on the side of the evil.

Democracy Shall Not Win

2011-08-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Democracy is a self-supporting system that delegitimizes all criticisms of the system. In Bangladesh, we never had lynchings under military rule: now, around 80 occur every year.

We have hartals where people are burnt to death: we live in terror of the government, the opposition and the mob that might lynch me on a mere suspicion.

But none of this gets blamed on democracy, where two rival parties, headed by two queens their flunkies obey unconditionally, create anarchy and violence.

Anarchy and violence are themselves seen as legitimate aspects of democracy.

For a well-argued case against democracy, read these lines by a Greek 'terror' group.

Iran's anti-Bangladeshi sentiment

2011-07-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

My wife and I applied for tourist visas to Iran. Today we had our applications denied - in just 5 days. Apparently, this is normal for some countries. This shows a clear anti-Bangladeshi policy on behalf of Iran. They don't want tourists to go from Bangladesh to Iran. Perhaps they consider us 'meskin' (poor)?

We are a Muslim country - so Iran should welcome exchanges between brothers and sisters. Or is all that talk of Muslim brotherhood just talk? How can Muslim countries know each others' cultures if we are not allowed to travel freely to Muslim countries?

I hope the current ambassador will persuade the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they should promote understanding between Muslim countries - including Bangladesh.

The Bad Barrel Of Bangladeshi Democracy

2011-07-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

I have just been boning up on 'Political Psychology'. It has answered many of my questions regarding the evil in Bangladesh, but a cultural/historical explanation seems also necessary.

Hierarchies of obedience clearly play a part: our leaders are the wife and daughter of former dictators; they are like queens who must be obeyed; they are not only above the law, but above morality as well.

The Lucifer effect is the most fascinating: western donors, by insisting on democracy, have created a bad barrel. The barrel seems to attract the worst elements of society. Now, Bangladesh is going through a 48-hour hartal: if I drive, my car will be incinerated, probably with me inside. What kind of people incinerate cars and people? The arsonists are members of the opposition: they are 'bad' apples...or are they? It's the barrel that's bad (democracy as 'bad barrel' has had a long history since Thucydides; S.E.Finer notes that in the west democracy used to regarded with 'horror'.}

In 2007 - 2008, the donors had to reinstall military rule because we were headed for civil war: the best elements of society came forward to be our temporary rulers. These men and women were honest. They were respected, and the man in the street was pleased. It was a 'good barrel'.

After the cold war, the western donors enforced democracy on us: fifteen years of military rule were ended. These were the best years for Bangladesh. The military rulers even amended the constitution to give greater power to the judiciary. The barrel was good, and good men served under the administration.

John Mearsheimer was right: we would regret the cold war. I miss it terribly for the sake of Bangladesh.

But why is it that military rule was a 'good barrel'? The answer, I believe, lies in our culture and history. The culture is one of deference and hierarchy: military rule has been the only form of government in the Muslim world. Without a single chain of submission, society collapses. Today, we in effect have two dictators instead of one.

an invaluable poem

2011-07-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

You promised me democracy,

But look what you have done to me.

You robbed my past,

and future stole,

and a present

left to me,

crushed beyond

a mending hope.

Ten years before invading me,

you broke my dams

and bridges bombed,

and power plants,

and sewage lines,

and water mains,

You fed the plants

with pesticide,

The baby food and medicine

you destroyed;

and the silos

of my grain

you set aflame.

So I may not

make good my loss

nor repair

my water mains,

you shackled me

in sanctions,

and a million kids

you starved to death.

I lived Saddam’s

nightmare through.

I knew what I

must watch out for.

But now I don’t know

where to hide

for death has lost

its pattern now.

He used to kill

and bury us,

friendless in

our unmarked graves;

but our names

he kept on files.

And now that you

are killing us,

we do not even

have a grave,

nor a number

nor a name–

thus in your books

we never lived.

He was your friend

who hurried us,

so many to their

early deaths,

with weapons that you

sold to him,

while you looked

the other way.

He was not

a ‘tyrant’ then,

which of late

he has become.

You merely changed

the label,

so you could come

and liberate,

the wealth that we

are sitting on,

and this you call

our liberation!

You promised me

democracy,

but look what you

have done to me.

With bombs you won

my heart over,

with blows you changed

my mind.

You tore into

my home at night,

and pulverized

my only peace.

And shrieking as

my mother watched,

with frightened children

Gathered ‘round,

you floored my father

in a heap,

with kicks and blows

and rifle butts,

and tore my humble

home apart.

Then you led

our men away,

with tied hands

behind their backs,

and with their eyes folded blind,

into the endless prison night.

And there you tore

my father’s robe.

To cover then

his nakedness,

upon his head

you put the hood,

and leashed him like

a dog on show,

and your dogs

unleashed on him.

You promised me

democracy,

but look what you

have done to me.

You took my youth

in prime away–

you shredded wedding

gatherings.

The little joys

that I had left,

merriment in

a broken life,

now in collateral

damage rest,

rising up

in smoke and flame,

of a mindless

bombing run.

‘Tis peel and husk

I have for food,

and water mixed

with sewage now

is all I have

to slake my thirst.

You even took

my sand away,

polluted by

uranium dust,

so when I have

my children they

shall be deformed,

unlovely and

unkissable–

and so unlike

your lovely kids!

My millions homeless

roam the road,

and orphaned children

beg in streets.

My women raised

in sanctity,

are now the stuff

of ravishment.

My men are slaughtered

out of hand,

and widows search

the morgues for them.

My dawn is dull,

and dusk is blood,

and bombs and blasts,

my afternoons.

My night in hopelessness is sunk,

when peace with me

a refuge takes,

and heaps on me

another dawn–

another search

of bodies lost;

another count

of heaped insults;

another day

to death evade,

call it life,

and celebrate.

So now when I

am fighting back,

my fearlessness

is causing awe.

Unequal,

but unafraid,

when I equalize myself,

and blow my only

life away,

you are shocked,

and label me

a terrorist!

I who want

my honor lost

and country back–

–a terrorist?

And you who came here

for my oil,

on crutches of

a shameless lie,

are and always

shall remain,

the humanist!

I know your type.

I see your greed

and hunger know,

but it is those

I want to know,

whose vote does so

empower you.

Do they not see

what they have done?

They promised me

democracy,

but look what they

have done to me!

Zionism's Reach

2011-07-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

On Nakba day (15th May) this year, the Palestinian Embassy held a program at a local hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This was purely a Palestinian initiative. In the last thirty years, according to the embassy, there may have been one or two public discussions on Palestine in Bangladesh. Maybe.

The next day I looked up the major newspapers for any report, however skimpy, on the program. There was none. (Only an obscure local vernacular posted a 1 inch by 1 inch report.)

I have written before on the 'Biddable Intelligentsia'. But the intelligentsia is hyper-cautious: it doesn't wish to be seen to be contaminated even remotely by the Palestinian cause. That would jeopardize all that cash and career dished out by the United States and the western world in general.

The Biddable Intelligentsia

2011-06-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

The average IQ of the Bangladeshi intellectual is woefully low. There does not appear to be an atom of original thought in the Bangladeshi mind. Now, why's that?

You'd think that the hot shots like Mozaffar Ahmed, Rehman Sobhan, Mosharraf Hossain, Debapriya Bhattacharya, et al., would say something refreshing when they opened their mouths.

Why this antipathy towards the intellect?

One tempting answer is authoritarianism. Our culture, it may be argued, does not permit originality. This argument would be stupid. The Muslim civilisation has been around for fourteen hundred years. It has produced men of the highest calibre.

The answer lies elsewhere: in Bangladesh, the intellectual can be bought. He serves the interest of the neocolonial powers. He's the collaborator to the imperialist.

One striking aspect of the Bangladeshi intellectual is his total silence on Palestine. As a country of 150 million Muslims, one would expect us to show a flicker of solidarity for the Palestinians. There isn't a glimmer.

One wonders how much money is disbursed by the Israel lobby to the local intelligentsia. I suppose there will never be any research done on the subject, and for obvious reasons.

Mind you, young Bangladeshis don't start off as imbeciles. But they learn from their university teachers and their elders that they are required to be corrupt. I have taught very intelligent young boys and girls but somehow they later lose their steam. They become socialised.

salam, Dr. Zawahiri

2011-06-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

Salam, Dr. Zawahiri!

As emir of al-Qaida, I greet you! You are a great man - a true Muslim. In your struggle against western civilisation, may you be triumphant. May you utterly destroy the Great Satan!

I cannot conceal my envy in my admiration: you have given up the path of dunya, and taken to the path of din. I can only and feebly offer my support.

May you be a beacon to the corrupt collaborators of the Muslim world - the men and women who every day betray our noble civilisation. Without these collaborators, the west is as nothing. But there are noble and great Muslims who are beyond corruption - yea, even beyond fear.

In The Beginning Was The Word (fiction)

2011-06-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

In The Beginning Was The Word

(click above for fiction)

I have argued elsewhere that 'freedom' is an empty word without meaning in Asia because Asia lacks the experience of large-scale slavery. Zafar Shah tries to teach that words have meaning only in context but doesn't stand a chance against the tide of media indoctrination, historical defeat and the flood of dosh from the west.

Excerpt:

General Haroon-ur-Rashid came to my flat, all pips and gongs.

"Well, Zafar, do you think the students will overthrow me?"

"No, not the students." I put my cold mango juice down. "The donors. By means of the students."

"And why’s that?"

"They don’t need any anti-communist bulwark, anymore."

"But I’m popular."

"I know. They know that, too. But they want free and fair elections. Something they call freedom."

"What can I do?"

"If we had had enough time, we could have fought one idea with another idea. Rather, one word with an idea."

"What are you going on about, Zafar?"

"The idea of freedom has gripped the students: they don’t understand the word, but they like the sound. And who can blame them? The entire western media have indoctrinated them. A few years ago, we could have countered the word with a Perso-Arabic expression: zel Allah."

"Eh?"

The Raj is Still Here

2011-06-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

I know an old man who has nothing better to do than pick holes in other people's English.

"Can you imagine that he said that!" he guffaws in bed.

He's a product of the British Raj, when the quality of your English ingratiated you with the sahiblog. Today, he's a buffoon. All that he has left in life is the ability to criticise other people's bad English.

This is what the intelligentsia has come to in Bangladesh. There are no honest writers or commentators - all of us are still lackeys of the Raj.

A civilisation of monekys

2011-05-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

According to a special report on Turkey by The Economist: "Turkey has an especially significant place in the Muslim world. Thanks to the legacy of Ataturk, it is a rare example among Muslim countries of a functioning secular democracy. (23 October 2010)"

Really? A country that is virtually at civil war can hardly be said to be a functioning democracy. Kurds are 14% of the people, and yet Ataturk's continuing legacy of nationalism foments hatred between Turks and Kurds. This was Ataturk's real legacy: a brutish nationalism that denigrated Islam and denied Muslim brotherhood, thus turning Muslim Kurds into pariahs. He may have been a good soldier, but he was a disaster as a statesman.

And look at their funny alphabet: instead of the beautiful cursive Arabic script, they have adopted weird Latin letters with marks above and below that make them incomprehensible. I can read Farsi with relative ease, but Turkish is a different story. By adopting an alien script, Ataturk has completely cut off the Turkish child from his and her cultural roots in the Perso-Arabic world.

The first time I saw a mini-skirt was in Istanbul - on a Turkish woman with, admittedly, good legs. The lower classes wore long skirts concealing their legs. This was in 1970, before I moved on to the real land of mini-skirts and hot pants: England. To monkey England and Europe seems to have been Ataturk's idea of civilisation.

To the best of my knowledge, monkeys don't have a civilisation. But they say six monkeys typing for a million years can produce a play by Shakespeare. I'm sure about that: I am equally sure that no number of monkeys typing away forever will ever produce even a verse by Sheikh Sa'adi.

Collaborators

2011-05-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

An empire cannot rule by force alone. A handful of Englishmen could not have ruled India by force. Today, Americans cannot rule over more than a billion Muslims with force alone. They need - and have - collaborators.

Most Muslims are collaborators. That is why the so-called 'terrorists' - in fact, jihadis - are such fresh - and refreshing - newcomers. They are the ones against whom America - and its allies in Europe, Canada and Australia - must use force, with the active connivance of the collaborators.

Naturally, the jihadis then turn against the collaborators, as in the recent shooting episode in Pakistan. War within the umma is to be deplored, but collaborators should be taken out wherever possible.

This raises a difficult question. According to al-Ghazali, a Muslim ruler, so long as he allows prayers and the sharia, must be obeyed no matter what else. That leaves the democracies - since these fall outside the purview of Muslim political philosophy, the jihadis can do their worst in these polities.

But, it would seem, not in an autocracy.

Daphne Du Maurier on the Palestinians and Israel

2011-05-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

In her short story, The Way of the Cross, Daphne Du Maurier reveals quite a bit about the plight of the Palestinians and the sheer wickedness which had brought forth Israel.

"His wife had countered the business chat by holding forth about the distress and starvation amongst Arab refugees, which, she insisted, was the responsibility of the whole world. She might have contributed towards this, thought Babcock, by wearing a less expensive fur coat, and giving the money saved to the refugees."

"No one will ever settle down in this part of the world, and they'll still be fighting over Jerusalem when you and I have been in our graves for years."

The Colonel vividly recalls Jewish terrorism:

"We only acted under instructions, the Colonel told himself. They came direct from High Command. Terrorism was rife at the time, the Palestine Police Force couldn't deal with it, we had to take control. The Jews were laying mines at street corners, the situation was deteriorating daily. They had blown up the King David Hotel in July. We had to arm the troops, and protect them and the civilian population against terrorist attack. The trouble was, there was no political policy back at home, with a Labour government in power. They told us to go soft, but how can you go soft when people on the spot are being killed? The Jewish Agency insisted that they were against terrorism, but it was all talk and no action. Well, then we picked up this Jewish boy and flogged him. He was a terrorist, right enough. Caught him in the act. Nobody likes inflicting pain ... There were reprisals afterwards, of course. One of our officers and three N.C.O.'s kidnapped and flogged. Hell of a row about it at home."

Then there's the observation on illegal settlements:

"Kate Foster, having inspected the Al Aqsa Mosque, had resolutely turned her back on the entrance to the Wailing Wall--too many Orthodox Jews pressing forward over the enormous space where their government had had the ruthless audacity to bulldoze Jordanian dwellings and condemn more Jordanians to desert tents--and returned towards the Dome of the Rock."

Reading the story, you are convinced that terrorism pays - it has created the 'modern' state of Israel. Al-Qaeda's strategy, then, is a very sound one.

It'll probably work.

Pearl Harbour: what did Roosevelt know?

2011-05-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

On December 1, six days before Pearl Harbour, Roosevelt had given the British ambassador a clear commitment of support in the event of war. Why did he do so?

After Admiral Nagumo's force set sail for Pearl Harbour on November 26, the American government seemed - or appeared to seem - totally unaware of the movement of ships. They knew that Japanese forces were heading from Indo-China towards Malaya and Thailand: then why were they oblivious to this movement? After all, America had been doing its best to crush the life out of the Japanese economy with sanctions.

Churchill knew about Nagumo's fleet, and must surely have passed on the message to Roosevelt. What did he hope to gain by deceiving the Americans? The destruction of the American Pacific fleet could hardly have helped Britain.

Therefore, either Churchill or Roosevelt was withholding information - the former from the Americans, the latter from the American people. Since the first hypothesis must be ruled out, the second must be retained.

Roosevelt deliberately allowed around 3,000 Americans to be murdered so he could take America into the war.

Sound familiar?

Antares

2011-05-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's been years since I've seen Antares. In Dhaka, living in a concrete box called an apartment, one can't even see the blue of the sky!

So I hope to venture out where there's no light or noise or dust pollution and watch Antares rise.

It is scheduled to rise at 7:11 pm, exactly when the sun is scheduled to sink. That means that Antares will be well-nigh invisible then - especially as Antares threatens to rise exactly in the south-east, almost opposite the sun in the north-west (azimuth 110 SE).

I love the name Antares! It is the opposite of Mars (Ares), the god of war, and war is abhorrent. So I love Antares, red and glowering from the night sky when the moon is absent. And I feel secure that it is not Mars.

How I love Antares! Pray that the clouds will not obstruct the view of Antares.

the casus belli

2011-05-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

What's the casus belli?

1.7 million children murdered through sanctions (with Madeleine Albright gloating on prime time).

Another 1 million murdered after the second Iraq War.

God knows how many murdered in the Af-Pak wars!

Whether Bin Laden is alive or dead is immaterial: will the jihad go on? Will the westerners keep paying with their blood and lives? Let us pray and hope. This is jihad.

Jihad is a Muslim's duty: we may not all be able to pursue jihad, but we must - must - encourage those who can. How?

If we give money to jihadis, they will arrest us. Fine. Some people will risk arrest.

But we can also pray for them: no government can arrest us for that!

We can slaughter a cow or a goat for them.

We can ask mawlanas to say a prayer for them: it costs very little, and is perfectly legitimate. No state can arrest us for that.

Somehow or other, we must encourage the jihadis: if they killed 3 million in Iraq, then the loss of 3,000 American lives is nothing. It is a pathetic exchange.

Jihad is a duty: if we cannot perform it, we must encourage it.

Muslims of course are scumbags: so long as they are comfortable, they will not fight jihad. This must change. JIHAD!

Include a prayer in one of the five for the jihadis! Or is that too much to ask? Are yo so so in love with life and America that you can't offer up one prayer for your jihadi brother? Shame!

You have relatives in America? Then warn them to leave. If they don't, so much the worse for them. He who lives with ebles must suffer the fate of ebles.

The Great Satan is western civilisation: wish him luck who embarks on its destruction. Then pray.

World Trade Centre

2011-05-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

My friend, who is a civil engineer, had these further comments to make about the WTC:

"Prolonged heating can get steel to its melting point.

But what's important is the mode of failure of a particular structure.

The towers in question had an inner concrete core which carried the bulk of the vertical loads, and an outer steel frame which are good for resisting lateral loads - like wind or earthquake.

When the plane struck the building, one side of the outer steel frame of 3 or 4 stories was knocked out.

No problem, the building 'stood', as expected.

It is possible for the concrete core to lose strength with prolonged heat at the affected levels.

But it is highly unlikely for the whole core to crumble vertically straight downwards, as had happened over there.

The upper part of the structure should have 'tumbled over' laterally, with the lower part remaining relatively unscathed."

The Facts Behind 9/11

2011-05-09T17:27:00.001-07:00

I got this e-mail from my friend who is a civil engineer:

"the melting point of mild steel is approx 1300 degree Celsius (2400 F).

It boils at 3000 C (5400 F).

Jet fuel has ignition point of 200 deg C (400 F).

Thermite is a reaction by which the steel itself is used as a fuel and its melting point is lowered.

This reaction has explosive effects.

Jet fuel does not induce thermite reactions."

Yet architects and engineers have found evidence of thermite reaction in ground zero (see ae911truth.org).

The many deaths of OBL

2011-05-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years - and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | Mail Online: "In his book, Professor Griffin also endorses this theory. He says Bin Laden was treated for a urinary infection, often linked to kidney disease, at the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, two months before 9/11. At the same time, he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to Afghanistan.

How could Bin Laden, on the run in snowy mountain caves, have used the machine that many believe was essential to keep him alive? Doctors whom Griffin cites on the subject think it would have been impossible.

He would have needed to stay in one spot with a team of medics, hygienic conditions, and a regular maintenance programme for the dialysis unit itself.

And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.

'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

I hate to pur cold water on a hot subject but it would appear that news of the death of Osama bin Laden has been wildly exagerated - his second death, that is, the one at the hands of brave US soldiers in Abbotabad.

Here is further news from an old edition of the Guardian: "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.

The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.

Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA."

Naturally, the American hospital denied having him there; after 9/11, they would. But he was an already wanted man.

How could he have survived 11 years on dialysis? End-stage Renal failure (ESRD) doesn't give you many months to live - and it seems from the Mail Online report that he has been dead for some time.

Then again, there are the videos: look at the pictures. The one on the left shows a man with a Semitic, straight nose, while the other guy has a flat nose; and the ring proves the impostor for Wahabbi men strictly do not wear gold. There are other signs in the article.

What to make of all this? They say he was buried at sea to prevent his grave from becoming a rallying point. Rallying point for whom? His followers? Then a man dumped in the sea would have even angrier followers.

Therefore, he does have a following - and a very powerful following, too. Therefore, al-Qaeda is no longer headless; indeed, if his followers are so emotionally close to him, they will redouble their efforts after his 'death'.

No, that cannot be the real reason.

He was buried at sea because America's cover-ups have tied that lying country in knots.

"And what of the telling, small news item that broke on December 26, 2001 in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Wafd? It said a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban had announced that Osama Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13.

'He suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave,' said the report.

The Taliban official, who was not named, said triumphantly that he had seen Bin Laden's face in his shroud. 'He looked pale, but calm, relaxed and confident.'"

Now, why would the Taliban lie about his death? To save him from US wrath? To save themselves from US wrath? After all, they were being bombed day and night. That's a good reason to lie.

But then, the US would ask to see the body? And they would had to produce it, otherwise the pounding would go on. Then why lie? What good would it have done them?

And bin Laden denied again and again that he had nothing to do with 9/11. Maybe the 'Architects and Engineers for 911truth' are on to something. They claim to have found evidence of bomb-making material on the site of the WTC building 7 - which was not hit by a plane. Check it out, please.

Cowboy Nation

2011-05-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Bin Laden (dead or alive) has effectively - once and for all - exposed the nature of American democracy. It is a brutal system that does not believe in the rule of law, does not care about human life, tears up international treaties when they don't suit, tortures innocent people, kills a man without proving him guilty, is still the nation that killed the Native Americans (they call it Thanksgiving) and imported the black slaves.

This is American democracy, and no one can ever again look up to it because these events - unlike the other crimes - are recent and still unfolding.

Cowboy nation.

They never die

2011-05-04T14:34:00.000-07:00

A jihadi never dies. So says the Koran. Even if Osama has been killed in the flesh, he is not dead. No pious Muslim (that is, 1 billion people) will ever believe that he is dead. A jihadi does not die. He cannot be killed. He always lives. His flesh will not decay, and his spirit is everlasting.

No Muslim will ever say or believe that he is dead. The Koran says he lives, on and on....

Bin Laden knew this when he chose jihad....He knew he would never die. No matter what the enemy did to him, he was deathless, as the Koran has said.

How can the west fight against such belief?

Never.

It's as if the west is fighting with a ghost: as if they are fighting against an idea with bullets and helicopters. Don't they realise they can never kill a jihadi? No true Muslim will ever say of a jihadi, "He is no more!". It would be blasphemy.

He will live always.

Never try to kill a jihadi: it simply won't work. A billion jihadis will spring up....

How others die

2011-05-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

"The American people cannot visualize the spectacle of a hundred thousand...German children starving by slow degrees as a result of the British blockade, but they can visualize the pitiful face of a little child drowning amidst the wreckage caused by a German torpedo."

So said the former German Colonial Secretary Bernhard Dernburg after the torpedoing of the Lusitania, a British ship mysteriously sailing in contested waters and carrying 128 Americans.

Nothing has changed...Americans today cannot visualize 1.7 million Iraqi children slowly dying through lack of medication...or Afghan families being suddenly bombed to pieces.

They care only about American lives. Until that changes, there will be more revenge.

Osama's Supposed Burial at Sea

2011-05-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

He didn't die at sea, so why was he buried at sea? That's not a Muslim custom.

And who was the Muslim cleric who read the namaz-e-janaza? The Muslim practice is to wash the body, drape it in a shroud, take it to the mosque where a special prayer is said by the entire congregation present, and then bury the body with the family present, and a final prayer is said by all mourners over the grave.

The burial of bin Laden was a disgusting travesty of Muslim burial rites, which are very sensitive, delicate and respectful of the dead.

Even the washing of the body has to be performed by trained people who fear for their own salvation after death if they get it wrong.

This burial at sea by Christians/atheists/agnostics will go down very, very badly if it actually took place.

Expect reprisals.

Osama lives

2011-05-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Where is the corpus delicti? Where is the evidence of his death? Must we believe American sources? They say he was buried at sea: why?

America would have tried to get as much mileage out if his dead body as they could: instead they discreetly give him a watery burial in keeping with 'Muslim practice'. Really!

No Muslim will ever believe that he's dead; and even if they do, does it matter? The man is a cause, and the cause lives on.

Prior to 9/11 the US killed 1.7 million Iraqi children through sanctions. How much is 1.7 million minus 3,000 (the US casualty)? : that's how many at least remain to be avenged.

And how much is 3,000 divided by 1.7 million? : that's the proportion of grief that should be expended on the victims of 9/11.

Osama lives.

Coconut Island (short story)

2011-05-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Coconut Island

(click above for story)

A young girl dies while attending a school for the uber-wealthy of Bangladesh on St.Martin's Island. Did she kill herself? Zafar Shah travels down there at her mother's request and uncovers the unexpected, to say the least.

Excerpt:

"The silence lay like a blanket, and the heat emanated from the hills in waves. We forget that sound and light are substances and that they beat on our bodies like any other substance. The quiet of the place affected the body: only a few crickets could be heard, and sometimes the bark of a dog or the call of a child from the village nearby. A plume of smoke rose from between the areca and coconut palms, indicating cooking. Otherwise there was hardly any sign of human activity. The quiet of the place affected the body: there seemed a sudden oneness between mind and body. At night, the darkness affected me similarly. And the moonlight – for it was full moon – clothed the hills and forest in silver. All stress seemed to escape the body: only the heat remained to affect it strangely. The heat of the hills was different; it was an enveloping, ambient heat; it did not descend from above, or rise from below, but embraced one from all sides; it was an erotic heat, suffusing – with the darkness and the silence and the moonlight - the entire personality; it reminded me of an elephant in must."

Theory and Data

2011-04-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Even sociologists tend to put theory before data (and not just economists and imperialists).

In the sociology of religion, European and British sociologists have maintained that, just as Europe became secular over the centuries, modernity in the rest of the world would lead to a similar demise of religion.

Thus, according to Steve Bruce, secularization is an integral process in a liberal democracy: given religious choice, people will lose faith and turn away from religion.

Yet America has been a democracy for two hundred fifty years, and it is still a vigorously religious place. It seems that Bruce et al just don't want to acknowledge facts.

"Towards the end of the twentieth century, however, a step change occurred in the debate," observes Grace Davie in her book 'The Sociology of Religion'. Until the early 1990s, the links between modernization and secularization were still generally assumed." However, looking at America "Europe begins to emerge as the exceptional case".

Sociologists like Peter Berger began to renounce the secularization thesis. "My point that the assumption that we live in a secularised world is false," notes Berger. "Although the term 'secularisation theory' refers to work from the 1950s and 1960s, the key idea of the theory can indeed be traced to the Enlightenment. The idea is simple: Modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion, both in society and in the minds of individuals. And it is precisely this key idea that turned out to be wrong."

In fact, the wellsprings of the sociology of religion are themselves poisoned. The founding fathers of sociology, from Marx to Weber, were convinced of the inevitable redundancy of religion. Subsequent researchers have simply mimicked them.

Interestingly, in the 2001 British Census, when religious identity was first included in the survey, it was found that, against expectations, it was not the inhabitants of the industrialized North who revealed themselves to be non-traditional; those with 'no religion' were concentrated in the cities in the South, largely in the university towns, among the faculty and the employees.

At this point the subjects becomes terribly relevant to Bangladesh and the Muslim world. Bangladesh was founded on the principle of 'secularism', a principle that was shot down by successive military governments. Recently, there has been an attempt to sideline Islam and resurrect the corpse of secularism by the ruling political party (whose leader is the daughter of the pater patrie) and the intelligentsia.

These dinosaurs hark back to the earlier views on modernity and secularism: indeed many, if not most, were trained in universities here and in Europe, in the doctrines of the founding fathers.

Let us hope they go the way of those earlier beasts.

democracy, religion and violence

2011-04-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

Holy places: Unholy rows | The Economist: "For all the rhetoric of ancient hatred, religious rows have grown worse in modern times. Across the Ottoman empire, from the Balkans to Anatolia to Palestine, Christians and Muslims mingled peaceably at shared sacred places.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

In Bangladesh, Muslims and Hindus lived peaceably until the election of 2001. The Hindus tend to vote for the Awami League, as Muslims in India tend to vote for the Congress Party. In 2001, the League lost, and a coalition of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and an Islamist Party won.

Immediately, an anti-Hindu pogrom swept the land: there was arson, looting, raping...the nation was stunned.

Clearly, religion had nothing to do with it: it was politicians stirring up hatred, and, of course, greed for the spoils of victory, which seems to include women.

Interestingly, the parties went on to persecute a heretical Muslim sect, the Aḥmadīyahs, with almost equal ferocity. Again, secular observers blamed it on religion.

Not so.

Consider the following extract from the Britanica:

"In their theology, the Ismāʿīlīs have absorbed the most extreme elements and heterodox ideas. The universe is viewed as a cyclic process, and the unfolding of each cycle is marked by the advent of seven “speakers”—messengers of God with Scriptures—each of whom is succeeded by seven “silents”—messengers without revealed scriptures; the last speaker (the Prophet Muḥammad) is followed by seven imāms who interpret the Will of God to man and are, in a sense, higher than the Prophet because they draw their knowledge directly from God and not from the Angel of Revelation. During the 10th century, certain Ismāʿīlī intellectuals formed a secret society called the Brethren of Purity, which issued a philosophical encyclopaedia, The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, aiming at the liquidation of positive religions in favour of a universalist spirituality.

The late Aga Khan III (1887–1957) had taken several measures to bring his followers closer to the main body of the Muslims. The Ismāʿīlīs, however, still have not mosques but jamāʿat khānahs (“gathering houses”), and their mode of worship bears little resemblance to that of the Muslims generally."

You can't get more heretical than this! Yet the Aga Khanis - as the Ismailis are known in Bangladesh - are some of the richest people here. Their location is highly conspicuous (many live in flats near Bailey Road, Dhaka across from one of the best schools in Dhaka) and their mode of worship is strikingly different. They have a jamaat khanah, where they gather every evening, and regular Muslims are not allowed in there. Naturally, weird stories proliferate about the goings-on in the jamaat khanah. When I set up a poultry farm, some of my best customers were Aga Khanis: they are extremely rich, as I said.

Their influence is international.

When General Ershad arrested Aziz Mohammed Bhai, probably the richest Aga Khani in Bangladesh, Prince Aga Khan himself came down to secure his release.

All this influence and wealth explain why the pogrom never extended to these people: it wasn't a religious pogrom at all.

The fuse was democracy, and the politicians vented their anger on the weakest members of society: as happens in India during anti-Muslim pogroms.

The spread of democracy throughout the world will bring disaster for religious minorities: in Egypt, Christians are already worried - as they well should be.

Human Rights Watch and Modernity

2011-04-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Reform in Saudi Arabia: At a snail's pace | The Economist: "A recent report on political reform in Saudi Arabia by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group, argues that although gradual changes are welcome, unless they are properly institutionalised the kingdom risks sliding backwards again, as it has done many times before. “Newly gained freedoms are, for the most part, neither extensive nor firmly grounded,” the report concludes. “The limited reform that has taken place suggests the elite is still floating trial balloons, undecided about the type of government and society it wants to steer towards.”

On some specific human-rights issues, the report praises the kingdom’s progress: reform of the justice system, women’s rights and freedom of expression. Yet it notes with concern that, whereas legal reform is one of the areas where changes are under way, new courts have yet to materialise, and new, transparent procedures have yet to be put into practice. Greater freedom of speech is not codified, and so remains subject to arbitrary intervention by the state. Earlier this year, a newspaper editor made the mistake of printing a blunt critique of puritan religious beliefs, and was summarily fired. As for women’s rights, an official loosening of the ban against the mixing of the sexes in public places has not been widely implemented. The same goes for an ostensible liberalisation of rules that require women to have a male “guardian”. Women are still forbidden to drive.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

What business is it of Human Rights Watch to try to change Saudi Arabia's culture?

These westerners want all cultures to be the same - a universal monoculture. Western culture, of course. After all, there is only one legitimate civilisation in the world, Western civilisation. All other civilisations and cultures fail to measure up to this ideal.

Anthropologists and sociologists may foam at the mouth trying to explain that cultures are different, the product of their history and environment, but imperialists like Human Rights Watch will turn a deaf ear. If a woman does not drive, she is not a modern woman.

Thus Grace Davie, in her book 'Sociology of Religion, has pointed out that: "Once again, it is the application of the concept [of modernity] elsewhere that causes the difficulty - a way of working that leads quickly to the conclusion that any society or group of societies that does not conform to the patterns of Western modernity is in some sense less than modern (my italics)." Thus, she, and other sociologists, are more comfortable with the notion of 'modernities', rather than 'modernity'.

But reason is powerless against imperialists: they have to be beaten back with weapons of destruction. If your way of life is threatened, you have to fight back.

Democracy and Intolerance

2011-04-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

EGYPT: Muslims protest Coptic Christian governor in Qena | Babylon & Beyond | Los Angeles Times: "Thousands of mostly Muslim protesters swelled through the streets of the Egyptian city of Qena on Friday to demonstrate against the recent appointment of a new Coptic Christian governor.

Crowds gathered Immediately after prayers outside the city’s mosques, chanting against Gov. Emad Mikhael and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf: “Oh Sharaf, say the truth … you’re being unfair to us or not?” and “Oh freedom where are you ... Mikhael is standing between us and you.”

Mikhael, a police general who served under former President Hosni Mubarak, is the only Copt among 18 new governors named by Sharaf on April 14. The decision was met by anger and exasperation from the city’s Islamic extremists and ultra-conservative Salafi groups.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Democracy will bring out the worst in any people - Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims.

The people of the Middle East should learn from the (brief) democratic experience of the world. The democracies unleashed two major wars in the previous century. The first has been described as the "most democratic war in history" by historian J.M.Roberts.

The question of whether democracy promotes violence is an old one and goes back to Thucydides (his answer was 'Yes'). Two thousand years later, Thomas Hobbes translated Thucydides to reveal the horrors of democracy.

The free world in history stands in sharp contrast to the subjugation of the rest of the world by it over 500 violent years. Where there was parliament, there was violence inflicted mostly on foreigners.

China could have conquered the world, and started out to do so, but then stopped. The Portuguese took up where they left off.

In Bangladesh, lynching - absolutely unknown during dictatorship - has become so commonplace, nobody even notices. In 2007, the country nearly experienced civil war between the two political parties, and the west had to call in the army to restore sanity.

We must remember that it's a western idea - democracy - that's causing all the mayhem.

Oriana Fellatio

2011-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Oriana Fellatio, better known perhaps as Oriana Fallaci, was an Italian journalist who made a second career out of loudly hating Muslims.

"The increased presence of Muslims in Italy and in Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom."

That's one of her milder diatribes.

It is surprising that Ms. Fellatio found the events of 9/11 so outrageous: only 3,000 Americans had been killed. And that was promptly made up for by killing an equal number of civilians in Afghanistan.

There's one thing people like her can't stand: it's the fact that, for the very first time, the South had struck a blow in the heart of the North.

People like Ms. Fellatio though it was only the North's privilege to murder people in the South. For 500 years, the North did just that: crime after crime was visited on the hapless South. Did they think it could go on forever?

It was Nemesis at work on 9/11, and what pathetic nemesis at that, too. Whereas the North kills people by the millions - in seven digits - the South could kill only in four digits. That's pathetic.

But you have to look at the competition. The South (meaning the Muslim world in this case) has amateurs at work, whereas the North has expert bureaucracies and professional spy networks attacking the Muslim jihadis. Yet what a wonderful job Muslims have done in Afghanistan - they have brought the combined military might of the North to its knees. Who cannot but admire these people?

"The Muslims refuse our culture and try to impose their culture on us. I reject them, and this is not only my duty toward my culture-it is toward my values, my principles, my civilization."

Muslims do not try to impose their culture on anyone. They don't tell French women not to strip half- or even fully naked on the beaches. And Ms. Fellatio could perform as many as she liked. Muslims have their own culture, just as other civilisations do. No, she was projecting her culture's hegemonic tendencies on to Muslim civilisation.

And what kind of civilisation did Ms. Fellatio have? As stated, a murderous, genocidal monstrosity.

Killing Muslims

2011-04-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Killing Muslims - in Lybia or Somalia - is popular with the American or European public back home. It is good for electoral prospects, a democratic sport. And we in the Muslim world who espouse democracy endorse the practice because it is carried on by 'democratic' countries. We have become monsters to our own brothers and sisters.

Have we no conscience? Have we sold it for a few dollars? For a little appreciation? What happened to our 1,400-year-old civilisation? How can we admire nations that kill Muslims? For surely, then, we are fratricides and sororicides!

Democracy and Faith

2011-04-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Would you mind terribly if an artist in your country drew humorous cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh)? Or if a writer made fun of him in a novel? or if an artist painted verses from the Qur'an on to a naked female body?

All these things have been done, and Muslims have reacted with swift outrage, sometimes murder (Theo van Gogh, who filmed a naked women with verses from the Qur'an was murdered and beheaded by a Muslim jihadi).

For these are freedoms of expression - a central tenet of democracy. According to democrats, freedom of expression includes the freedom to shock and offend.

Yet Muslim men and women espouse democracy as if it won't hurt the religion - or the sentiment of 1 billion Muslims. In our country (Bangladesh), we have traitors who would love to make fun of the Prophet and Islam. That is one reason they love democracy.

Yet I know a devout Muslim woman who loves democracy - she doesn't realise, the idiot that she is, that democracy means freedom of expression - freedom to make fun of Islam and everything we consider sacred and holy. She is a misguided fool, who wants to appear an 'intellectual'.

Fundamentalists can take an idea to its logical conclusion - unlike the foolish woman mentioned above. They realise that in a democracy, everything will be permitted - from blasphemy to burning holy books (heaven forbid!).

The second khutbah of the Friday prayers forbid us to criticise our rulers - democracy means criticism of rulers. Surely, democracy was forbidden by our ancestors!

Curse democracy as you would curse the plague or snakes - for it pits brother against brothers, and leaves nothing sacred. Let democracy be preached only by the enemies of Islam and Muslim civilisation. They are friends of the Great Satan.

The Last Virus

2011-04-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

The first western virus to penetrate the Muslim world was nationalism Imagine! Seven hundred years of Ottoman civilisation was permeated by nationalism. Where once, different nationals coexisted cheek by jowl under one government - the Sultan's - now Turkish nationalism reared its ugly head. Today, we have Muslims fighting Muslims, Turks fighting Kurds....What could be sadder?

Then came the second virus, Marxism. Leaders like Nasser ousted their kings and proclaimed Arab nationalism....This didn't work. They married nationalism with another western ideology, Marxism, and even that didn't work. The Arab-Israeli war of 1967 discredited both ideologies, paving the road for Islamic fundamentalism.

Today, the third virus has been taken up by the Arabs: the virus of democracy. How will this end? No doubt in some terrible upheaval.

Why does the Muslim world have to borrow from the west? We have our own political philosophy: the zel Allah, the shadow of Allah. The ruler is the shadow of Allah, but, thanks to western ideology, we demand democracy. That is not our heritage. The khutbah of the mosque prayer prohibits us from criticizing our rulers. How dare we do that?

Surely the Middle East is destined to wickedness...it has sold out to the west, the Great Satan. In a year's time, we shall see chaos in the Maghreb, for these people have disobeyed.

Democracy and Violence

2011-04-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

I remember the electoral fight between my uncle, Major General (retd.) M. Khalilur Rahman and the president's man in their constituency of Jamalpur.

The general was winning, when suddenly the counting was stopped on state television. When it was resumed, we found that the general was losing. General Ershad, the president, had rigged the polls.

And what a wonderful thing that was: it meant that my uncle, no matter what he did, could not win. That meant that even if he had employed thugs he would still have lost. So, naturally, neither side employed thugs. This was the benign aspect of 'democracy' under dictatorship: the absence of goons.

When Ershad fell from power, of course, thugs and murderers and rapists became the norm. Without these criminals, you couldn't win an election.

This is what 'free and fair' have meant for Bangladesh: rule by criminals.

Of love and happiness

2011-04-14T12:57:00.000-07:00

"...men who might have tower'd in the van
Of all the congregated world, to fan
And winnow from the coming steps of time
All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime
Left by men-slugs and human serpentry
Have been content to let occasion die
While they did sleep in love's Elysium."

I quote these words of Keats from memory.

But how true these words are! The lover is an unambitious person because he is a happy person. And happy people don't try to change the world. At most, they might fling a few arrows into the marketplace, and then idle around the beloved.

Thus, the 'movers and shakers' of the world are necessarily not lovers and not happy people. All that the beloved and the lover seek are peace, not tumult.

Perhaps I, too, might have gone into the fray but for the influence of love. Hence, my ardent desire for peace...May we all be at peace. Let lovers unite and marry and live happily ever after.

That is why western ideologies in my country - introduced by ambitious men and women with no love in their lives - disturb my peace because there's no peace in my motherland.

I would try and change it all were it not for the fact of my happiness. Happiness, after all, is the supreme good, and once somebody has achieved it, there's no persuading him to choose any other path.

Muslim Amnesia

2011-04-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

"When the streets of Damascus were lined with lamps, London was a village."

- Peter O' Toole in Lawrence of Arabia

I was chatting with a devout Turkish girl. She had resisted her family since the age of eighteen, and worn a headscarf. I thought she must truly be a Muslim. I was wrong.

We got on the subject of dictators, as the Arabs were trying to topple them. She asked me if I liked dictators. I said I loved them. She did a double take. She couldn't believe how I could love dictators. Incidentally, she said that probably I knew more about her ancestors than she did.

It seems that was correct.

I know that under the Sultans, Muslim civilisation made room for diverse religions and created one of the long-lasting civilizations of the world.

And all this was achieved under dictators, autocrats, despots....

The tragic thing about Muslims is their loss of memory. They have lost all sense of time. They don't realise that 1,400 years of Muslim history - a glorious, benign and noble history - have passed. They are either fundamentalists, or 'modern' Muslims like the Turkish girl. The latter group look to Europe and America for inspiration.

When I said that she was hopelessly westernised, she reacted quickly. "Hey," she said, "I am not westernised." Yet, unbeknownst to her, she was.

Why are Muslims so servile?

The encounter with the west has so knocked the stuffing out of us that we have lost all self-respect. We have become thoroughly defensive. We have forgotten that Hazrat Uthman liberated thousands of slaves, and that the west was based on slavery. Ours, and the Chinese civilization, were benign. In this, lies our greatness.

Peace Corps Rape Victim Jess Smochek Honored By Congress - ABC News

2011-04-07T01:52:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps Rape Victim Jess Smochek Honored By Congress - ABC News: "Smochek was attacked while serving as a volunteer in Bangladesh in 2004. She says that a group of men began to stalk her from the very first day she arrived in the city where she was assigned. The men tried to kiss her and touch her, and ultimately gang raped her.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Jess Smochek had repeatedly reported that she felt threatened, but the Peace Corps didn't relocate her.

Bangladesh used to be a very safe country. I remember when my cousin's American girlfriend came over in the '80s, she was comparing Dhaka with cities in Latin America. She said that she would never think of going out casually in those cities, whereas she felt perfectly safe in Dhaka.

This was before our, and after Latin America's, democratic transition.

Violence was very low in Latin America under military rule; when we reverted to democracy, rapes rose from 250 in the '80s to over 900 in 1992, and soon reached four digits. I'll never understand why the Peace Corps didn't relocate Smochek. They must have known that Bangladesh was a dangerous country. Adding insult to injury, during counseling she was made to write out all the things she had done to create the rape situation - meaning, it was her fault.

Corrupting the Youth of the Middle East

2011-04-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

freedomhouse.org: Program Detail: "A new generation of young Egyptian citizens is dedicated to expanding political and civil rights in their country. Referred to as the 'YouTube Generation,' many of these courageous men and women are supported by Freedom House to enhance their outreach, advocacy and effectiveness. The New Generation project helps to reinforce the values of free expression, human rights, women's rights, and rule of law.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

In a previous blog, I described how software has been used to spread the idea of democracy. Freedom House (financed mostly by the US government) has been training and indoctrinating young Egyptians. It would seem safe to assume that the germ of democracy around the Middle East has been cleverly spread by the US government, and was not a sudden expression of 'people power'. However, my theory was the 'mad crowd' theory, so beloved of Gustave Le Bon. The method-in-madness hypothesis has been well-argued by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulirich, a close watcher of the Middle East (she herself is Iranian).

The two hypotheses may not be contradictory. After priming the pump for democracy, Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy and others must have been pleasantly surprised to give 'crowd control' a whole new meaning.

Socrates was tried for corrupting the youth of Athens. Freedom House, et al, have been corrupting the youth of the world in general, and those of the Middle East in particular. Their corruption will no doubt pay off when these kids start realising the value of money. Until then, it must be people like El Baradei who will need to be bought.

A Question Of Inheritance

2011-04-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

New Age | Newspaper: "A skirmish between Islamic Law Implementation Committee activists and law-enforcers left one man killed and at least 30 people injured in Jessore on Sunday.

The clash erupted when the police intercepted a procession brought out by the Islamic bigots to drum up support for today’s countrywide general strike called by the ILIC in protest against the Women Development Policy 2011 that they claim to contain anti-Islamic provisions ensuring a spectrum of women’s rights.

The deceased was identified as Hafiz Hossain Ahmed, a student at Madaninagar Hafezia Madrassah and son of Ismail Ahmed of Chakla under Monirampur upazila of Jessore.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Notice the language of the New Age: the protesting mullahs are 'bigots' and 'zealots'. Is this reportage? Naturally, such language diminishes the death of the young student, who was nothing but a 'bigot' and a 'zealot'.

I sympathise with Anjuman-e-Hefajat-e-Islam (Society for the Protection of Islam), though I deplore their method: instead of a hartal, they could have resorted to peaceful protest.

These people are struggling against 'desacralisation', though they would not use the term. Islamic law has, since the encounter with the west, been whittled down to Muslim Family Law: the clerics are struggling against even this remnant being whittled away. For the government, NGOs and western donors want to repeal the Muslim law of inheritance and give equal inheritance rights to women. The mullahs have nothing against women: women are the safest in the Muslim world, thanks to Islam.

In a brilliant letter to the editor in the now-defunct Bangladesh Observer (no other newspaper would have printed it, certainly not the New Age or the Daily Star), a writer argued thus: "...whenever questions of inheritance comes it seems that a hundred per cent of the people take for granted that each and every parent leaves behind a (sic) huge property and their heirs are just to distribute them and enjoy. In fact, this is a misconception. Many a father leaves behind huge debts. Who pays back the debts? Usually in our society not a single girl is asked to pay the debt of her father (Md. Shah Jahan, Letter, 4 April 2008). "

When a father passes away, and his janaza is held at the mosque, it is the son who tells the congregation that if his father had any debts, the debtor should come to him. Daughters never do this. Culture, religion and law are perfectly aligned here.

The above writer foresees "doomsday" for women if they are also expected equally to inherit assets as well as liabilities. It is only the propertied elite that leave behind property.

"It is the microscopic wealthy section of society, which may claim for equal right of inheritance for boys and girls but the majority of girls will not prefer to pay debts of their parents. They are far greater in number and their voice is not heard." True.

Equality is a western obsession born of the experience of freedom, a preoccupation unknown in the rest of humanity.

More generally, people who hate Islamic law are quite happy to live and work in the UAE, for instance, protected by the sharia and the monarchy. My uncle lived in Abu Dhabi for years, made a packet and moved to Canada, from where he looks down on 'autocracy'. It seems that people like to go where the money is: mullahs can offer very little cash unlike NGOs and western donors.

I hope for the best for the Anjuman-e-Hefajat-e-Islam.

Democracy in the Middle East: Did the US do it?

2011-04-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Mining social networks: Untangling the social web | The Economist: "Once these societal networks of influence can be accurately mapped, they can be used to promote the spread of particular ideas—those that support stability and democracy, for example. Last year America’s army, which jointly funds SOMA with the air force, began disbursing about $80m in five-year research grants for network analysis to promote democracy and national security. An authoritarian government, for instance, may have difficulties slowing the spread of a new idea in a certain medium—say, internet chatter about a book that explains how corruption undermines job creation. Diplomatic services can use this information to help ideas spread. Brian Uzzi of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who advises intelligence agencies on democracy-promotion analytics, says diplomatic services are mapping the “tipping point” when ideas go mainstream in spite of government repression.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Did the US military start off the revolutions in the Middle East?

It seems that there is software that can spread an idea like a virus. Of courses, the US Congress claims to have been on the back foot, but the military and the secret services could have been working with the president and his staff to spread democracy in the Middle East. The reason? How to replace ageing autocrats.

In Tunisia and Egypt, the question of succession was acute as both countries' rulers were long in the tooth. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was known to be terminally ill nearly a year ago. But who would succeed him? Besides, these rulers had no popular mandate, and that was stymying efforts to block the peace process, with Israel looking increasingly bad.

A democratic mandate for Israel from surrounding countries was thereby needed: hence the bottom-up democratic transitions.

But the question arises: won't a democracy be harder to control? The answer is, No.

Look at Bangladesh: a democratic Muslim country of 150 million is a docile poodle of the United States. That's because the article points to another influence on public opinion: the 'influencers'.

These are people who direct social thinking: advertisers have long known that people follow certain role-models: hence the promotion of watches and shoes by popular stars. The same thing is at work when selling an idea. If a sufficient number of influencers can be corrupted by America into praising democracy and keeping mum about Israel, then the rest of the population will follow. In Bangladesh, two such influencers are Dr. Mozaffer Ahmed (PhD from University of Chicago) and Dr. Kamal Hossain (PhD from the University of Notre Dame). There are countless other PhDs - who are a dime a dozen in Bangladesh - from western universities who have been co-opted by the west, particularly America.

El-Baradei, et al, will no doubt serve a similar purpose in Egypt.

People underestimate how easy it is to corrupt a democracy. As a Greek dramatist observed:

"...Our wise
Democratic allies
Are ruled by our state democratic."

At Lawacharra

2011-03-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

It was good to get away to Lawacharra Forest in the north-east...away from the news, the noise, and the pollution. There was only a generator and that sputtered for just part of the night.

Right after dinner, my wife and I were left alone in silence and darkness surrounded by the bending trees and the glowing stars.

Orion was plainly visible, and its belt pointed to the brightest star, Sirius. After sunset, the zodiacal light bathed our bungalow.

Sometimes, a firefly seemed a deceptive star.

For the first time, I saw Saturn, rising at azimuth east 94 degrees, and situated by ten just above the areca palm. It glowed majestically through my binoculars.

The moon rose promptly at 8:33 (well, we assumed it did) and we saw its progress across the sky on the vernal equinox (nowrooz) till midnight. We tried to stay awake till after midnight to see Anatares, but our eyelids revolted, and we turned in, to the music of numerous night-creatures...crickets, frogs, tuctoo lizards....Or sometimes I preferred to read Jalaluddin Rumi indoors while the generator was on.

Fortunately, the sky wasn't draped, as on nights before, with the altostratus translucidus, a thick transparent cloud that reveals the moon but not the stars. And the wind was everywhere and the night was cold.

The expression 'azimuth', so important for star-gazers, reminded me of Arabia: al-sumut, the directions. The Arabs were master astronomers, and my favourite character is Tusi. After he helped Hulegu Khan destroy Baghdad, his patron built him a giant observatory. From that observatory, some of his sightings and insights made their way to Copernius, and we have the Copernican Revolution.

In a forest, one can muse on these things....

Sayyid Qutb and Bangladesh

2011-03-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Sayyid Qutb has been described as the father of Islamic fundamentalism, but that's inaccurate. Islamic fundamentalism has several progenitors, but he was unique in his advocacy of violence. He was also innovative in his use of the term 'jahiliya'. Jahiliya was the period before Islam, a period of unknowing and iniquity.

Qutb felt that the contemporary Muslim world had ceased to be Muslim, and he described this as jahiliya. Clearly, this was an emotionally powerful slogan. Here I am concerned with how the term (as used by Qutb) would apply to Bangladesh.

Clearly, between 1971 and 1975, Bangladesh belonged to the period of jahiliya (Jahiliya 1). Over these years, we were concerned with what Arnold Toynbee has called "the worship of our collective selves", that is, nationalism. Nationalism, for a Muslim, is idolatry.

After the killing of Sheikh Mujib, Islam was reestablished in our constitution and in practice. Jahiliya had been overcome: not by fundamentalists, mind you, but by military officers, especially General Zia. This was the reverse of the experience of Egypt, Qutb's homeland, under Nasser.

General Ershad carried on this post-jahiliya period over nine years.

However, after the election of December 2008, jahiliya has returned with a vengeance (Jahiliya 2). Islam has again been disestablished: the democratic government hasn't dared to wipe Islam from the constitution, but it clearly would have loved to do so. The clause expressing our solidarity with the umma has been erased. The country is now a vassal of India. Language-worship and Mujib-worship are back.

Who will take us out of the present jahiliya - military officers or fundamentalists? Let's wait and see.

The Tyrant and the Mountebank

2011-03-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

Between a tyrant and a mountebank, Bangladesh has displayed quite a spectacle. By the former I refer to the prime minister, and by the latter, Mohammed Yunus, formerly of Grameen Bank.

We know that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded purely on political - and politicised - considerations. Yunus had lobbied hard to get the Prize. And the west wanted to blinker the world to the fact that they were not going to do anything for the truly poor of the world - there would be no more export-led growth, as in East Asia. So some kind of opium was necessary, and microcredit came along. We also know it doesn't work. Indeed, microfinance has been known to kill the poor. The model is not only useless, but dangerous. In fact, gouging the poor has not been a recent story. And, as the Norwegian documentary has shown, the original borrower died in poverty and her children are beggars.

But that's not surprising: even Elie Wiesel won the Peace Prize. As did Barack Obama (we'll never figure that one out).

What is shocking, then, is not Yunus getting the Prize, but Bangladeshis feeling that he's done them proud. We claim that he brought us dignity and prestige. Can a bauble really do that?

Dignity and prestige comes from honesty, fair dealing, uprightness, equity, compassion...not from foreigners and their tinsel.

Al-Ghazali said that any work undertaken with equity and compassion is ibadat. Where are equity and compassion in Bangladesh?

Our intellectuals are hired liars, as has been obvious from the exhibition on both sides of the farce. Self-respect comes from the self, not from others.

One has but to consider one of Yunus's closest drinking buddies, a rogue known as Bill Clinton. This unconscionable man coldbloodedly murdered 1.7 million children in Iraq through sanctions; and his lackey, the secretary of state, went on prime-time TV equally coldbloodedly to defend the indefensible.

A man is judged by the company he keeps, or should be: and this is the kind of man we consider a hero in Bangladesh. That says a lot about Bangladesh.

This whole circus has revealed nothing but our moral bankruptcy.

S&R Fiction – “Sahel” by Iftekhar Sayeed | Scholars and Rogues

2011-03-08T12:32:00.000-08:00

S&R Fiction – “Sahel” by Iftekhar Sayeed | Scholars and Rogues

(click above for story)

This story is set in Kuakata, in the south of Bangladesh, where two men and a woman arrive from the Middle East by sea in a boat on a moon-lit night to join Zafar Shah for a deadly venture.

Excerpt:

"The sun sank under the cirrocumulus clouds that draped the sky in sheets of muslin while low, cumulus clouds appeared blue-back. I pushed off to a discreet distance so I could only hear the surf and the wind, and not their conversation, although it was carried on mostly in Arabic, with a few English words and the name of the petroleum company distinctly audible. I wanted to know as little as possible about the three locals in case I was tortured. I wish it had been dark when I saw their faces.

The moon had risen hours ago, but only now came into its own. Sirius twinkled, and soon Orion appeared in majesty. The wind grew cooler by degrees. The sputter of an engine-boat reached me as it floated down the Andarmanick, then grew quieter, decibel by decibel. The tide had turned, and it would come further up than before, being spring tide."

A Pious Lady And Her American Sons

2011-02-24T20:09:00.000-08:00

I know a devout Muslim lady who says her prayers five time - sometimes six times - a day, and observes all the fasts no matter how unwell she is.

And she is proud of her sons because they live in America.

She is proud, no doubt, of the fact that her high-income earning offspring pay high taxes to fund Israel's wars against Muslims and America's murder of Muslim children. They have sworn an oath of allegiance to Eblestan.

As a devout lady, she should hang her head in shame that her children live in dar-al-harb. If we, as individuals, would abstain from praising these people, we would achieve a necessary internal rebellion: we should, on the other hand, praise the person who studies abroad and then comes back to serve the country.

If we do not achieve an internal revolt against the west, we shall remain slaves.

OCHLOCRACY (article)

2011-02-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

OCHLOCRACY

(click above for article)

Events in the Middle East and elsewhere are being increasingly shaped by the crowd. Since the French Revolution, the crowd has emerged as a legitimate force, not always with happy consequences.

The People of Egypt and Israel

2011-02-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

We thought that America-backed dictators and their regimes were for Israel: now that Hosni Mubarak is gone, and the military has affirmed its ties to Israel, did The People object?

No.

Apart from the Muslim Brotherhood, I doubt if anybody in Egypt cares about the Palestinians. In fact, it would be easier to run a corrupt democracy than a corrupt autocracy, for then the west would have The People's consent to their pro-Israeli policy.

If there's one thing worse than a corrupt autocracy, it's a corrupt democracy: we know; in Bangladesh, we know.

We have our own political philosophy

2011-02-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

Most people in the Muslim world don't know that we have our own political philosophy. If we had followed our own ideas, we would not have been in the mess we are in. If we had listened to al-Ghazali, then these two begums in Bangladesh couldn't have buggered the nation (my metaphors are a bit mixed, forgive me).

If we had listened to al-Ghazali, then the Middle Eastern dictators would not have needed coercion to stay in power; if we had listened to al-Ghazali, Tunisians would not be leaving their country by the thousands.

We have a rich array of political philosophers, but most agree on one thing - nonresistance to the ruler. To them, a democratic revolution would have amounted to bida.

How long will we let the western world and their paid local lackeys shove John Locke and John Stuart Mill up our collective backsides? If we don't guard our rear, nobody will. The question is: do we enjoy being buggered?

Chaos after the Revolution

2011-02-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

Radio New Zealand : News : World : Hundreds of refugees flee Tunisia by sea: "'Like I feared, the huge political and social crisis in countries in the Maghreb is triggering a mass escape towards Italy, especially from Tunisia,' Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said on Friday.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Meanwhile, back where it started, chaos rears its ugly head: refugees flood the Italian island of Lampedusa after the 'revolution' in January.

Why don't people think before they act?

Ochlocracy

2011-02-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

'Egypt is Free,' crowds chant after Mubarak quits - Yahoo! News: "The protests were started by a small core of secular, liberal youth activists organizing on the Internet who only a few months earlier struggled to gather more than 100 demonstrators at a time. But their work through Facebook and other social network sites over the past few years built greater awareness and bitterness among Egyptians over issues like police abuse and corruption.

'Facebook brought down the regime,' said Sally Toma, one of the main protest organizers.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

This Associated Press report is hard to believe. How can anyone be so naive?

Let's see what they are saying: A bunch of children on Facebook enlightened their elders (who rarely use social networks) and the poor (who are rarely, if ever) connected as to what was going on in their own country, such was the secret efficiency with which the regime had been operating. Of course, before these kids used Tweeter and Facebook, the average Egyptian lived in complete ignorance of what was happening: they knew Mubarak to be a nice guy, and then suddenly they see on Facebook (which they rarely use, remember) that that was not true. A people's coup takes place in Tunisia, the kids (left alone by the hideous regime to do their missionary work, remember) congregate people, and, well, the rest is contemporary history.

Anyone who swallows this should stop taking hashish.

There has been a persistent pattern of anti-government protests by the 'mob' (a French innovation) since the Berlin Wall collapsed. In Bangladesh, a democratically elected government was brought down after three months of intense street agitation amounting nearly to civil war - one in which the people had no interest whatsoever. In the Philippines, the democratically elected government of Joseph Estrada, the people's darling, was brought down by the middle- and upper-classes (it was dubbed a 'cell phone' revolution; the people lost because at the time sell phones were too expensive!). In Indonesia, thanks to IMF mismanagement, a mob overthrew General Suharto (and investment has never recovered while corruption has remained the same). In Kyrgyzstan, an autocratic government was overthrown by a mob of a couple of thousand, an event repeated a few years later against a democratically elected government. In Tunisia, a mob overthrows a dictator; a bigger mob overthrows the president of Egypt. In China, a mob had tried something similar, but not comparable (see J.M.Roberts' History of the 20th Century). In Iran, a mob tried to overthrow the regime.

Rule by the mob - ochlocracy - is here.

Mind you, the mob has always been there, wherever cities had sprung up. We remember the Roman mob that had to be appeased with 'panim et circenses'. And Lisan al-Din Ibn Khatib's (1313 - 75) advice to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid was this: "The common people may be simple, but they are quite powerful, especially when they act collectively. If the king is faced by them as a rioting crowd, he should be diplomatic with them and stick firmly to his position until they disperse." And then? "The king should strike hard at them and leave no room for mercy towards them."

But what is new is that the mob is no longer seen as illegitimate: a rabble is held to be legitimate just because it is a disgruntled group, as opposed to an individual. The mob, and mobocracy, is here to stay, thanks to the French Revolution, and western ideology. The Americans have been caught on the back foot, but it was their ideology of democracy and people power and mobocracy that has unleashed the mob.

How long will it be before the mob becomes illegitimate again? For that we have to await the decline of western civilisation itself. What these Egyptians have done, is to betray the values of their own, benign civilisation by espousing western ideas of freedom and equality - values observed in the breach, as we have seen.

The Wise Hindu Lady

2011-02-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

I suddenly recalled LotikaDi (perhaps the events in Egypt triggered my memory). She was the mother of one of my students, and she was Hindu. After the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power in the election of 2001, a widespread pogrom against the Hindu minority was initiated by the thugs of the parties. Women were raped, houses and people were burned, owners evicted - because the Hindu community tends to vote for the (then) opposition, Awami League.

This lady, a history graduate and a music teacher, had the wisdom to realise that a return to military power would be best for her community - and for the whole society.

I have never ceased to respect her.

Corrupting Morality

2011-02-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

If I tell you to give $100 to a third person because then I will give you $200, are you being moral or corrupt? For this is how NGOs are financed by western donors. This is the final corruption: the corruption of morality.

Suppose, then, I tell you to preach democracy, and you get a further $100, are you sincere in your preaching? Psychologists call this 'cognitive dissonance' and it has been found that the lower the reward for lying about your true feelings, the greater the stress. No wonder donors pay handsomely to reduce stress.

What is at work here is that you never internalise the morality: it remains external and your whole life a sham. This is what western donors and we have done to ourselves.

Then I say, if you say anything about Palestine in public, you will lose all your $200, then naturally you clam up about Israel and Palestine. This is what has, in fact, happened: there is never any public discussion on Palestine in Bangladesh, according to the Palestinian Embassy. The anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat goes unmarked and unnoticed, year after year, while the death of a democracy activist the preceding day in 1987 is regarded as a holy event.

Of course, there are subtler forms of corruption. I might tell you that if you speak about Palestine (in public), I will not give you a scholarship to a prestigious western university, or finance a junket abroad, or I'll blackball you from all academic events.

Thus, the finest part of our society - the thinkers - are the most corrupt.

Getting To Know The General

2011-02-08T17:09:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege of meeting General Ershad, our former dictator of nine years, at his suite in Baridhara.

During the conversation, I asked him if he was aware of Muslim political philosophy. He grinned and said he knew nothing about Muslim political philosophy.

This was unfortunate ignorance on the General's part, for his long and fruitful rule rested on no ideology. He had built, as he told me, 8,000 kilometres of highway, 3,000 MW of generating capacity...all of which I knew to be true.

Nevertheless, he had groped towards an ideology: he amended the constitution to make Islam the state religion, for instance. He was seeking a rapport, a religious rapport, with the people.

More interestingly, the General tried to tap into the people's native Sufism. As the reader may know, Islam was spread in South Asia by Sufis, dervishes, ascetics. I know the son of a holy man whose father's death is still celebrated as an urs and to which many people come - including Hindus. This is very common here.

The holy man whom General Ershad cultivated was the Pir of Atroshi, famed as having a jinn of his own. It was said that he could not leave his khanqua because then he would be killed by jinns, or something of the sort. A friend of mine, Samuel Peter Landell-Mills, did his PhD thesis (unfortunately unpublished, with a copy on my shelf) on the pir as part of his work on Islamic holy men. He used to regale us with vivid descriptions of the pir's goings-on: thousands used to flock to his dargah, from president and bureaucrat to humble shopkeepers.

However, this holy man was unable to help the General keep his throne. For the power that matters in Bangladesh is of a less mystical nature: it is the power of western donors. And as soon as the cold war was over, they pulled the rug from under him.

Now, to get back to the General's suite. If the General had implored Muslim political thought, and insisted on the philosophy of nonresistance that sunni thinkers have insisted on, then the donors might not have been able to use a rent-a-crowd of students to overthrow him on December 6, 1990.

Death Of A Civilisation

2011-02-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

The events in the Middle East have upset me no end: I see in these 'people's insurrections' the death of Muslim civilisation.

Over 1,400 years, Muslim thinkers from Ibn Hanbal to al-Ghazali to ibn-Jamma have painstakingly, bit by agonising bit, built up an edifice of political thought: the repeated injunction of that body of thought has been that one must not resist a leader.

In Bangladesh, a land of 140 million Muslims, it has become received wisdom to celebrate the overthrow of a military ruler. I know pious Muslims, who say their prayers five times a day and observe every fast during Ramadan, who accept calmly and casually an insurrection against a Muslim military ruler. These people have wholly, knowingly or otherwise, accepted the odious political philosophy of John Locke. Indeed, it is to be doubted if these people are Muslim at all.

It seems that the west has conquered us with its ideas, money and military might - the first copiously assisted by the latter two. We have been bought and bribed. I fear that the murder of Muslim civilisation by the west is not far distant.

However, recent events elsewhere give me pause and hope: China once embraced a disgusting western philosophy which led to the death of millions of Chinese. But today China is beginning to cast off its slavery to western ideas, and has happily rediscovered its Confucian roots. Will such a rebirth happen in the Muslim world?

Perhaps it will; perhaps it won't. Either way, by then, I will be six feet under the earth.

Prometheus Unleashed

2011-02-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;
A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;
A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:"

I once used to thrill to these lines; indeed, I was once awe-struck by Shelley's 'Prometheus Unbound', from which these lines have been quoted.

Notice the use of the past tense: man is no longer a dupe and a deceiver: he has achieved moral perfection by means of Prometheus.

The moral is that man, suitably emancipated from the tyranny of religion and custom, will one day arrive at perfection. This was a dangerous doctrine whose danger became manifest only in the twentieth century.

Even today, while the pursuit of The New Man has largely been abandoned outside Cuba and North Korea, the Perfect Institution is still reverentially sought. Man (and woman) this time will achieve perfection in the Perfectly Democratic Society. Indeed, such Societies already exist; it is not mere Utopianism.

It has been only sixty-five years since the most terrible war in history was fought (one in which religion as Shelley knew it played no role), and only twenty since the end of the quest for the New Man with all its attendant horrors on all sides.

Can anybody really believe that western civilisation has achieved Shelley's vision of a sanitized human nature? No more repugnant a spectacle than the west has ever presented itself to the human gaze.

"...Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature impelled by the purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends." Thus we see Shelley celebrate his ideal in the introduction. This gives me the shivers: here we have a portrait of a semi-divine character filled with limitless energy working towards man's salvation.

Doesn't that accurately describe those westerners who would 'make the world a better place'?

"We owe the great writers of the golden age of our literature to that fervid awakening of the public mind which shook to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of the Christian religion. We owe Milton to the progress and development of the same spirit: the sacred Milton was, let it ever be remembered, a republican and a bold inquirer into morals and religion. The great writers of our own age are, we have reason to suppose, the companions and forerunners of some unimagined change in our social condition or the opinions which cement it. The cloud of mind is discharging its collected lightning, and the equilibrium between institutions and opinions is now restoring or is about to be restored.*"

Good God! If only he could have foreseen the horrors that were to come from these 'institutions and opinions'. Recently, more than a million people have been wiped off the face of this earth by a benign force determined to improve a Middle Eastern society. And we have neocons like Amartya Sen, recently seen in Bangladesh hobnobbing with an indicted murderess, proclaiming that we are all ready and willing and waiting to embrace democracy: through suffering and mistakes (like those million deaths) we shall aspire towards a higher order, the Perfect Man.

*Indeed, Milton was probably the first neocon, the first proponent of the universality of democracy. He said: "Surrounded by congregated multitudes, I now imagine that . . . I behold the nations of the earth recovering that liberty which they so long had lost; and that the people of this island are . . . disseminating the blessings of civilization and freedom among cities, kingdoms and nations."

CONFESSIONS OF A STUDENT POLITICIAN OF BANGLADESH

2011-02-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

CONFESSIONS
OF
A STUDENT POLITICIAN
OF
BANGLADESH

An Interview

by

IFTEKHAR SAYEED

[The People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Democratic People's Party (DPP) are both fictionalized names of real parties. This manoeuver has been undertaken to protect the identity of the student politician, who is now undergoing his umpteenth rehab.]

“1987. Age 13. Class 8. I was mildly involved. From 1988 I joined the PDP, when I was in class 9.
“Family. I didn’t used to get along with my father. Normal with my mother. Normal with my brother. My brother knew about it a little; my studies were not being hampered by politics.

“Since I was in class 6, I had been observing the activities of the DPP with distaste. I used to avoid the party....

“1988. Age 14. Disgusted with the DPP, I myself created a group against them at school. This group used to print anonymous leaflets against the DPP. We used to prevent other boys from joining the processions organised by the DPP.

“1988. I knew a student worker of the PDP personally; he lived in my neighborhood. He organised a committee for me at my school. After the committee was formed, we printed posters and leaflets using the name of the PDP. Apart from the movement at school, I would take my boys to participate in movements conducted by the PDP outside school. Nobody at home knew because I would stay home at night, and was active only during the day. My grades started getting worse. I missed classes. Teachers would harass students belonging to the PDP, not because the students would not study, but because the teachers belonged to the DPP.

“1989. Age 15. The first ‘action’ at school. The boys of the DPP always came to school organised, in a group. We took an action against this. We decided we wouldn’t let the other boys enter school that day. Some boys used to stay at the school hostel. During the afternoon tiffin period, I left my pipe-gun and cocktail with my boys who stayed at the hostel and some of us left. We missed class that day. The other boys got wind of this, and they told their teachers that there were arms at school. If they didn’t get rid of them, they would inform the police. The teachers then started to question us. Then my boys put the arms in a sack and dumped them. So the teachers didn’t find anything. Then my boys showed the DPP’s papers to the teachers.

“The next day, the school was full of the DPP boys. On that day, I arrived at school at 9:30, long before classes started. We used to hold our meetings on the roof of the nearby market building. On the way there, the boys surrounded me. I ran. I reached the roof. We decided that some of us would have to attend class, no matter what it would take. After two of us entered class, the teacher started accusing us of wrongdoing. Then the teacher beat me and the other boy, and tore our hair.

“How I got hold of arms. The aim was to organise a program at school, save money and buy arms. The teachers tried to stop us, but we went ahead with the program. We also collected tolls [=extortion money] from businessmen in the area. Then we bought arms from an ironsmith. Pipe-gun, 250 takas ($4.5); cocktail, 1100 takas.

“After this episode, the PDP started giving us total assistance. They started to send boys from the armed cadres, or cells. They were our age; they didn’t attend school. Their sources of income were gambling, black marketing in cinema tickets, mugging, selling drugs, and extorting money from hawkers and shop-owners. These were ‘taxes’. Taxes were collected on a fairly regular weekly basis. The cadre boys would receive tax proportionate to the area they could control.

“1990. The aim was to disrupt the meeting of a prominent leader of the DPP. The DPP also had their armed cadres guarding the place. I now joined the student wing of the PDP. We led a procession towards the meeting. But the police stopped us. From then on the mid-level leaders of the student wing gave me a pipe-gun.

“1990. Age 16. I got into college in August. November. The anti-Ershad movement began [General Ershad was dictator at the time]. Everyday, we threw bombs at police cars, barricaded the roads and violated curfews to lead processions, then run.

“Nobody at home, except my brother, knew about my participation in these activities.

“Ershad broke up his own student body and harassed the other student bodies. He had broken up his student body, but he employed his own parties’ students as goons. These goons would beat us up in front of the police and walk around openly with arms. Besides, during election Ershad used to steal votes. All these things made me and my friends react to them. I reacted by joining the oust-Ershad movement.

“Ershad fell. The election came. There were two candidates for the party nomination, Ahmed and Azam [names disguised]. I was on Ahmed’s side. But he didn’t get the nomination. Then Ahmed got another candidate, Afzal [name disguised], from [a third] Party to run against Azam, so that Azam couldn’t win. My friends and I began to work for Afzal. The party members knew about all this, but nobody would talk about it openly. During the election, we used to break up the offices of the DPP.

“27 February. Election day. We went from door to door and picked up people in rickshaws and got them to vote. The rickshaw-fare was paid for by the party. We got people from slums to give false votes. We cast false votes ourselves. The election ended.

“1991. 1st year college. Age 17. The two factions formed during the election started to bicker. There were 50 boys in my group. The other side had around 10 or 12 boys. We threw them out of college. Then they started attacking us at sudden intervals. They used to beat us up when we went out. We used to get together before coming to college and stuck together even inside the college. We couldn’t go out of the college alone.

“We hadn’t yet had our Fresher’s Welcome. Using the welcome as an excuse, we collected money from the students. Later, we collected money from students when they sought admission to college, around Tk.1200-Tk.2000 per head. We bought arms with the money, mostly bullets and powder. That was what we did the whole of 1991.

“April. I learned from one of the boys that the other faction had taken over the college. This information turned out to be wrong, as I discovered after coming to college. I beat up the boy who had misinformed me. He became furious.

“July. Three months later, one night some boys from the other faction came to my house and called me out. I wondered to myself, 'Let’s see what they are going do to me.' A shopkeeper in my area had warned me earlier not to leave the house. They broke the lights and darkened the street. Fourteen boys slapped and hit me and beat me up with the blunt end of hockey sticks – they hit me everywhere, on my head, chest, arms, legs, body.... Sensing an opening, I sneaked out. I ran to the party’s central secretary at the college. I couldn’t stand on my feet; the secretary took me to a doctor. One of my boys got wind of what had happened, and they seized the area. I went home at midnight. The groups were agitated, and senior members came and got us to make up. But the resentment lingered in the area for fifteen to twenty days. We had made up only on the surface; inside we were angry.

“Family. Before this incident, I didn’t use to talk much with my family. I used to come home at night just to eat and sleep. There were no words spoken between me and my father. On that night, when I came home, I had to knock a long time before my father opened the door. He wouldn’t let me in. He said, “You go wherever you like, I have nothing to do with you”. When he saw what shape I was in, he softened a little, and let me in.

“In 1991, I had no feeling for anyone at home. I just lived there. Even if my father hadn’t allowed me in that night, I would have stayed somewhere else. I didn’t care. There was only one thought on my mind: how was I going to get even with those boys? My mother was crying, and nursing me. My brother was lost. I had to stay home for fifteen days in order to recover. Then my father’s affection for me increased. But I felt nothing for anyone. After fifteen days, my father sent me to another town to my grandfather’s place. I stayed there two months. I lost touch with the party. I used to stay home, rest, read books and go out now and then.

“Two months later. October. Things had cooled down. I returned. I wasn’t interested in the party like before. I kept thinking about only one thing: how to get more arms and recruit an armed cadre of boys.

“December. Two of the boys who had beaten me up were hanging around in my area. Four of us beat them up good and proper: we used hockey sticks, knives, and cola bottles. The doctor gave one of them 48 hours to live. They both survived.

“I couldn’t stay home after this. Most of the time, I would stay out. I would return at midnight, and leave at dawn. One night, on my way home, I was shot at, but they missed. I ran. Things went on like this.

“One day there was a shootout between us and them. We made up and things cooled off, more or less.

“January, 1992. One day, the DPP boys picked me up from the back of the college and beat me up in a college room and locked me in. My friend’s brother was a leader of the DPP. He got me freed.

“February, 1992. I formed my own gang of boys at college, mostly boys of my own class. I would recruit boys who were reckless and wild. They had a kill-or-be-killed mentality. I used to get into trouble with the party over these boys. I used to get into trouble over other things, like power, admission of boys to college, money, arms....

“March. The intermediate exams drew near. I had to study. I lost the power I had. I appeared for the intermediate exam in commerce, got a second division.

“August. After the exam, I got back to the party. I’d lost my earlier power. I started afresh to acquire power. I became insubordinate; I would refuse to listen to commands from the top. I would send boys from my own group, or simply say no.

“One day, in a procession led by the DPP, three boys belonging to that party were shot and killed. I wan sent there by command from the party bosses. I didn’t want to go there, but I had to. I knew there would be violence, even murder. However, I went in the morning and came back in the evening. The murders happened at night.

“I wanted to give up the party, but I couldn’t, I was too involved. I needed protection. My frustration mounted. I started taking drugs. I used to take drugs before the exam, but for fun. Now, it became a regular thing. After taking drugs at night, I would resolve not to take anymore. But even if I somehow managed to stay home all day in great agony, I couldn’t stay at night. This is how things went on.

“I went back to my grandfather’s place. I took the drugs with me.

“I used to feel very helpless at the time. I wanted my father’s help. But he didn’t understand that. He would only give me orders. I grew more desperate, more angry with my father.

“October. I went to my uncle’s house in another town. I felt terrible that night, but I was under control. I stopped taking drugs for three months at a stretch. I wanted to join the army, but that didn’t work out. From January I started taking drugs again right until June. My grandparents caught on. They told my parents; I stopped again.

“After June. I still take drugs. I feel very frustrated. Now I regret everything. What have I done with my life? And for what? I could have done better in my exams. The whole family – cousins, aunts, uncles – have become aloof; they avoid me. They think I am a goon. And this causes enormous frustration. I start taking drugs whenever I get frustrated. I am studying for my bachelor’s exam in commerce, but my heart’s not in it. I study just because I have to. I have no interest in commerce, but I don’t know what I want. I can’t sleep at night; I have nightmares. Most of the time, I see people fighting. I don’t want to rejoin the party. Now I realise what the party has done to my life. Now I want other boys not to get involved in politics, but I can’t quite put it into words.”

Advice from Ibn Khatib on How to Deal with Mobs

2011-02-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

'The common people may be simple, but they are quite powerful, especially when they act collectively. If the king is faced by them as a rioting crowd, he should be diplomatic with them and stick firmly to his position until they disperse.' And then? 'The king should strike hard at them and leave no room for mercy towards them.'

This was Lisan al-Din Ibn Khatib's (1313 - 75) advice to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid.

Hosni Mubarak would do well to listen to these words; he has time on his side; let him be moderate now until the crowd is exhausted, and afterwards he can pick off the ringleaders by night.

Incidentally, this is exactly what the regime in Tehran did: they exhausted the young boys, and then brutalised them. It seems to have worked.

A Pathetic Spectacle in Egypt

2011-01-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

I have a book on my shelf on the History Of Muslim Political Philosophy. These young Egyptians don't know their own culture..brought up on Hollywood, they think they can will anything. At one time it was nationalism, now it's democracy....Don't they realise they can't change their culture of 1,400 years? All they will achieve is a score of dead bodies and a date - and things will remain the same.

Every time we've overthrown a dictator in Bangladesh and erstwhile East Pakistan, we've repented at leisure. And Bangladesh is prime exhibit of how a 'democracy' can be ruled from Washington and Brussels through corruption of the intelligentsia. The only difference is that violence escalates under a democracy.

And the Egyptian people have been deluded into western modes of thought by the opposition. Since Ibn Hanbal and al-Ashari, nonresistance has been Sunni political doctrine. A veneer of democracy may emerge, as in Bangladesh and Pakistan, but the deeply rooted culture will remain.

What a pathetic spectacle!

Democracies are just as biddable

2011-01-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

Bangladesh is a prime exhibit of how a democracy can be run from Washington and Brussels through the corruption of the intelligentsia.

These poor Tunisians and Egyptians actually believe they will have democracy and self-rule! The democracy will be bought almost overnight; the only thing that will change is that, instead of a secure society, they will have a violent one, riven by factions like dogs, just like Bangladesh.

Better Sixty Years Of Tyranny

2011-01-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Tunisia | Riots | Middle East | US | Democracy: "But one thing is clear from the “Tunisian example”: People in the Middle East have given up any hope that the United States can be a force for democratic change. As the uprising spread in Tunisia, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama stayed largely silent until the day Ben Ali fled. That was when Obama issued a statement condemning the use of violence against peaceful protesters and applauding “the courage and dignity” of Tunisians. By then, it was too late: The U.S.-backed dictator was gone, and the Arab world chalked up another example of how Washington favors stability over democracy.

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This analysis is flawed.

It is not only the US government that prefers stability over democracy: so do the Arabs, and other non-western people. Democracy is a (western) historical accident. "The forum polity – democracies and republics – owes its origin to two major accidents in human history: accidents that were unique to the western world, and which, indeed, created western civilisation in contrast to the others, which were all palace polities." These are my words, and the two unique events were the two Dark Ages: the one in Greece around 1100 BC to 750 BC, and the one in Western Europe. These events removed government for prolonged periods of time, ensuring a love of 'freedom', or suspicion and questioning of government.

The Tunisians revolted because they had been infected by ideas coming from the West. Otherwise, they would have endured their lot, and, therefore, no repression would have been necessary. It is interesting and important to note that during the long military rule of General Ershad there was no desire except among a handful of westernised Bangladeshi intellectuals to remove the dictator, and finally it was the donors that removed him. He did not need to repress at all because there was no one to repress: there was no opposition to his rule.

Even Imam Khomeini had to face criticism from the clergy during the height of his struggle against the Shah. "A certain akhund wrote to me a few years ago to ask me: "Why do you oppose the government? Do you not know that God gives authority to whomever He wishes?" writes the great Imam. Plainly the akhund was echoing Al-Ghazzali's dictum that one must never overthrow a ruler 'no matter how mad or bad'. "Sixty years of tyranny are better than an hour of civil strife,"maintained al-Ghazzali.

In the Introduction to Sa'adi's Golestan, we find the poet referring to the king as "zel Allah tala fe arze": the shadow of Allah on earth". This implies complete obedience, and remember, Sa'adi had just lived through the Mongol onslaught and chaos. Imam Khomenie says, "Yes, the Islamic ruler is the shadow of God, but...."

"But now we find one of the `ulama (may God grant him mercy) saying: "If the Imam of the Age (pbuh) considers it to be the appropriate time then he will come. I cannot claim to be more concerned for Islam than he is and he is well aware of the present situation. Thus, he is the one who must make the first move to remedy our affairs and not I!" This is plainly a reference to the Shia belief in the return of the Mahdi. Not until he returns, bringing peace and justice, should one rise up against the authorities. "There are people among us who tell us we must swallow whatever poison the "holders of authority" wish to force down our throats, simply because they are the "authorities". We mustn't say a word against these tyrannical "authorities"".

He rebuts these arguments with his own, and I leave it to the reader to judge their effectiveness. All I am pointing out right now is that there is a considerable consensus among Muslim scholars that we should not rise against our rulers. Indeed, we must not even speak out against them: this leaves democracy out completely as a possibility.

Western Sanctions Terrorism

2011-01-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

Timeline: Plane crashes involving Iran | Reuters: "Following is a timeline of aircraft crashes involving Iran in the past 10 years:

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14 crashes in ten years: that's quite a record for a wealthy country. In dirt-poor Bangladesh, there hasn't been a single plane crash in the last ten years (and more).

'Iran's civil fleet is made up of planes in poor condition due to their old age and lack of maintenance.

The country has been under international sanctions for years, preventing it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West.' Thus observes the BBC.

This is western sanctions terrorism.

In Iraq, the west murdered 1.7 million children with sanctions in 1991-2002. This is how they kill people: covertly. Even the Economist came up with only a one and a half page report on the genocide (September 14th, 2002, p 39). The west is a murderous and genocidal civilisation, that has been at it for 500 years.

We must stand up for the Iranians: these sanctions are inexcusable. Innocent men, women and children are being killed in these plane crashes. How long will this go on? It has already gone on too long.

Ambrose Bierce on slavery in east and west

2011-01-16T16:22:00.000-08:00

Online Reader - Project Gutenberg: "Because the brutality of the civilized slave owners and dealers created a conquering sentiment against slavery it is not intelligent to assume that slavery is a maleficent thing amongst Oriental peoples (for example) where the slave is not oppressed.

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I wish I had had the benefit of the above observation several years ago. In one pithy sentence, Ambrose Bierce, in his essay 'Civilisation' (collected in 'A Cynic Looks At Life') has summed up what took me years of study and reflection. Doubtless living in a slaving economy helped his perspective no end.

Slavery has been universal, but not significant. Only 1 per cent of China's population were slaves, as opposed to a third of Athens's. Indeed, it has been recognised by scholars that slavery created Greek democracy. The latter rested on the former, like a rose on a dung-heap. In Egypt, slavery was practically unknown. Some people point to the pyramids and ask, "Who built those", as one gentleman indeed asked me. Good question. Recent research has established that the pyramids had not been built by slaves.

Biblical narrative of the Jews' captivity in Egypt is interesting. It seems that the so-called 'slaves' had houses and could afford to offer sacrifices. Indeed,experts believe that the narrative prior to the taking of Canaan to be largely myth, in both senses of the word.

Slavery was a western product: after the Greeks, it disappeared under the Hellenistic monarchies, reappeared with the Roman Republic with a vengeance, disappeared under the Roman Empire, then reemerged with the Renaissance....This is western civilisation.

Interestingly, slavery coexisted with political freedom, and never arose under Empires.

Our Guantanamo?

2011-01-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

Questions Remain About U.S. Commitment to International Human Rights Standards at Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal | War Crimes: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

This is a very important blog: it questions US commitment to upholding rights in the context of the Bangladeshi war crimes trial. "Pre-charging" detention has been claimed by most people to be a violation of rights: Guantanamo is the egregious example. Hundreds of innocent men have been kept there without being charged year after year. Is the US colluding in something similar in Bangladesh?

The arrested so far have not been charged with war crimes. They have been charged with another - unrelated - offence and are being held and, it is reported, tortured. The war crimes trial is already off to a dubious start.

China and Us

2011-01-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

New Age | Newspaper: "China will give scholarship to 100 Bangladeshi students to study in China in 2011

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I remember how the Soviet Union used to offer scholarships to high-scoring students during the cold war. This, however, is not the Cold War Redux.

Bangladesh has a golden opportunity to move away from the India-America nexus and towards the China-Middle East one. An ambitious and patriotic army officer can save the nation like General Zia did, and, after a coup, snuggle up to China and the Middle East. These countries will have no objections to a coup, and a long military-led period of growth can begin.

It would be foolish of us not to take up this opportunity.

Terrorism by Sanctions

2011-01-13T12:13:00.000-08:00

tehran times : 77 killed, 33 injured in Iran plane crash: "The Iranian airline industry, which is heavily reliant on the second-hand Russian planes, has suffered from a series of plane crashes in recent years due to its aging fleet of passenger jets seriously affected by the Western sanctions banning the sales of planes and spare parts to Iran.

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These 77 people who were killed in the Iran plane crash were murdered by the United States and its allies.

Iran is prevented from buying parts from and doing business with western suppliers. As a result, planes crashes are a regular phenomenon in Iran. What pleasure do the American people get in murdering Iranian men, women and children? What has Iran done to America? This is terrorism.

America armed Saddam and abetted in the murder of thousands of Iranians defending their liberty and country. Today, no foreigner can engage in financial transactions with Iran. I asked here in Bangladesh how I could send money to Iran from Dhaka; I was told that I couldn't. I wondered why, and I was told that dollar transactions have to go through New York.

Some of my happiest days were spent learning Farsi at the Iranian Cultural Center in Dhanmandi. What nice people they are! And what culture! Slowly, I began to be able to read Persian classics with the help of my teacher, Dr. Kulsum. Rumi, Sa'adi, and Omar Khayyam became accessible in the original. How can western literature compare or compete with Persian classics?

The only comparison possible is with Latin literature (and no doubt Greek, which I cannot read): there is a similar terseness and nobility of expression, both being Indo-European languages.

As for American literature, the less said the better: it is a derivative of a derivative culture, being derived first from English literature which in turn was derived from Greco-Roman literature. No one who has read Virgil's Eclogues will ever feel passionately about Wordsworth and Co. again, never mind the pathetic Whitman and Dickinson.

And yet the Iranian Cultural Centre hardly draws people who pass by without notice or pause: even the Alliance Francaise is full of young people learning another derivative language like English.

We prefer the murderers to the victims, however great.

Democracy and Violence in Latin America

2011-01-12T17:07:00.001-08:00

A glance at the experiences of Latin American countries ‘before’ and ‘after’ democracy reveals an explosive growth in murder rates under democratic governments

Murder rates per 100,000 population in Latin America

[Late 70s –early 80s] Late 80s - early 90s

Brazil [11.5] 19.7 [1964 –1985 Military rule]
Mexico [18.2] 17.8 [1929-2000 Monopoly of power of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)]
Trinidad and Tobago [2.1] 12.6 [1956-1986 30-year rule of the People’s National Movement]
Peru [2.4] 11.5 [1968-1980 Military rule]
Panama [2.1] 10.9 [1968-1978 Virtual dictatorship of Torrijos]
Ecuador [6.4] 10.3 [1945-1979 Military rule]
Argentina [3.9] 4.8 [1976-1983 Rule by military junta]
Uruguay [2.6] 4.4 [1973-1985 Military rule]
Paraguay [5.1] 4 [1955-1990 Alfredo Stroessner (president for 35 years) overthrown in coup by Gen. Rodriguez, later elected on 1st May]
Chile [2.6] 3 [1973-1989 General Pinochet rules]
Colombia [20.5] 89.5 [1957-1974 National Front’s monopoly; voter apathy threatens military involvement; voters confident in 1982 – ditto drug-traffickers]
Venezuela [11.7] 15.2 [1969-1999 Two-party democracy: oil-bonanza creates privileged elite – glut stagnates economy till late 1980s; austerity leads to violence : constitutional rights suspended as armed forces restore order in 1990]

Sources: The Economist, March 8th, 1997, p. 48; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition; Britannica Books of the Year 1989 - 1991

Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S. - NYTimes.com

2011-01-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

Muslim Women Gain Higher Profile in U.S. - NYTimes.com: "we will have some communities in the future that have female imams

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These women praise the 'freedom' that American society gives them: the freedom to form associations, for instance. As I have argued elsewhere, freedom is an unimportant issue outside western civilisation because of the lack of large-scale slavery. But these women have become Americanised - indeed one of them is an American, and she longs to have a 'female imam'. Doesn't she know that innovation in religion is strictly forbidden in Islam?

“Muslims coming to North America are often seeking an egalitarian version of Islam,” says Ebrahim Moosa of Duke University. Implication: Islam outside America is inegalitarian. But egalitarianism is itself a western concept born out of slavery. Our societies are not equal/unequal but hierarchic. Every man has a superior in his mother and aunts, just as every woman has a superior. The notion of 'equality' is a non-concept: it can have meaning only for western Muslims or westernized Muslims.

If you wish to live in a slavery-infected society, go ahead, but keep the resulting ideological garbage to yourself.

It ain't over till he comes

2011-01-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

"Now I'll never know how it ends!" exclaimed the irate husband, driving through the tangle of traffic.

His wife remained silent as long as she could, but he went on and on. "I'm sorry I turned off the PC, ok?" she finally burst out.

"Sorry? But how does it end? I'll never know!"

She sat silent as he went on complaining about the unknown ending. At last, she could take it no longer, and screamed out: "It was just porn! Don't you know how porn ends?"

A Market for Western Exports

2011-01-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

The American ambassador has been caught with his pants down by Wikileaks. He coerced the government of Bangladesh to give deals to Conoco Philips and Chevron; he also leaned on the government to buy Boeing.

As the credit crunch deepens in the first world, it will increasingly push deals in the third world: the economy has to move away from living off credit and importing goods, to saving and exporting. We can cheerfully expect ambassadors to be acting as Robert Clives.

The emerging economies, of course, have learned their lessons since 1998: never trust western capital. So who's going to borrow from the west, when its own consumers and firms would refuse to? You guessed it: flunkeys like us.

Noble as a Savage

2011-01-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

The tale of the Comanches: The battle for Texas | The Economist: "the Indians waged a campaign of terror against white settlers streaming into the brand-new Republic of Texas. Rapes and scalps were common.

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'...the merciless Indian savages...'

This is the description to be found in the American Declaration of Independence, one of the most absurd pieces of propaganda ever penned. The line quoted sits oddly with how the Declaration begins: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...." But some are more equal.

The description of the 'merciless Indian savages' goes on thus: '...whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.'

Can we blame the Indian? He was merely defending his home, his territory, his way of life.

Today, replace the word 'Indian' with 'Taliban' or 'Afghan' and you have the old struggle all over again. But there has been an intermediate struggle, where the word has been replaced by 'Palestinian'. Mike Huckabee said that America and Israel are alike in that both were founded by people “escaping the galloping terror of tyranny”. Let me correct that: they were "running towards the galloping terror of tyranny".

"As against the Bedouins, our pioneers are in a position not unlike the American settlers against the Indians." These were the words of Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to sit on the Supreme Court (1916 - 1939). Jews were not escaping from any tyranny when people like the learned judge vigorously championed Zionism: they were heading towards tyranny.

The Indian, the Bedouin, the Afghan...the list is continuous. These people are the 'savages'. I do not see how these people can commit any crimes in defending their lands and their way of life.

May we be noble as the savage!

(Self-)Censorship in the USA

2011-01-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

"Mr Pope had a plum job and respects the [Wall Street] Journal for being an honest newspaper. But all the same he had deep trouble with its editing criteria, especially regarding anything destined for its coveted front page. By means of omissions and headlines, editors, in his view, would turn out finished stories that were politically correct in the context of America’s pro-Israeli and anti-Islamist beliefs. The demand, particularly concerning Arab-Israeli affairs, was for upbeat stories reporting good news about what the author calls the “virtual world” of the peace process."

This extract is from a review of Hugh Pope's book "Dining with al-Qaeda" (Thomas Dunne) which appeared in the Economist (March 6, 2010).

This is how civil society, in the guise of the AIPAC and Christian fundamentalists, has turned newspapers into political mouthpieces. This was inevitable: "In no country in the world has the principle of association been more successfully used, or more unsparingly applied to a multitude of different objects, than in America," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville.

What is freedom to the Americans, is literally death to non-Americans. But for Wikileaks we would never have known that Israel deliberately maintained the economy of the Gaza strip "on the brink of collapse" without "pushing it over the edge," a leaked US diplomatic cable from 2008 showed.

This shows that the US government has been captured by civil society of a nasty type, and that US newspapers are unwilling to tell their readers the truth about the world.

In Bangladesh our biddable intellectuals are constantly touting the benefits of democracy and civil society to please their American masters, and so shut our eyes to the twin evils.

The Joke That's 'Transparency International'

2011-01-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

THOSE WHO BETRAYED GOT RICH: "Who were the winners? The rating agencies, the senior officers who walked away rich, the least moral appraisers, the least moral of the outside auditors at the big accounting firms. They were all the winners. They got rich by betraying their responsibilities.

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Every time Transparency International (Bangladesh) produces a report, I guffaw. TI chases gnats in the Third World while ignoring the elephants in the First.

TIB makes us the most corrupt nation on earth - a veritable Sodom (by the way, Sodom was not destroyed for sodomy). And then if we aren't the most corrupt, then we are at least as corrupt as we were last year, while some other Gomorrah has moved up the ladder. It's just a relation among countries, and tells us nothing about the countries themselves. Mount Everest is the highest mountain; buy that says nothing about Everest but something about it and other mountains. 'Bangladesh is the most corrupt country' says nothing about Bangladesh, but about a particular relationship with other countries.

And who finds these reports of interest? They are not even accurate.

In the United States, trillions of dollars have been lost through fraud and regulatory capture, and the world economy has been brought to its knees - and still the Third World is the most corrupt? Who writes these reports? You can't take TI seriously.

'And, of course, bottom line, all of these things are what the FBI aptly term the "epidemic" in mortgage fraud and warned in September 2004, in open congressional testimony, would cause a financial crisis if it were not dealt with.' Thus says William K. Black, an expert on fraud.

Thus, in 2004, the FBI knew something criminal on a gargantuan scale was afoot - and the regulators did nothing. That's a classic case of regulatory capture.

Mr. Black explains, in case we don't know how to count (and some of us, for instance at TI, don't): "...a crisis measured in trillions of dollars of losses—and a trillion dollars is a thousand billion...."

And that's dollars, not takas.

The Meaning Lies in How You Use the Word

2010-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

“We are scared to the point where we are no longer free.”

This observation was made by Max Price, vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, to The Economist ('The Great Scourges', A Special Report on South Africa, '5th June 2010) after the murder of yet another member of the staff last March.

The murder rate in South Africa is 33 per 100,000, compared to 5.1 in the United States. The rape rate is the highest in the world. 50 murders, 100 rapes, 330 armed robberies and 550 violent assaults are recorded every day. And the violence is often mindless.

Yet - and this is even more mindless - Freedom House gives South Africa a ranking of 2 in its 'freedom of the world index'(7 being completely unfree).

If you are not free not to be raped or murdered, then what kind of freedom is that? Clearly Freedom House's definition of freedom is very different from what most of us mean by that word.

The Mule

2010-12-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

“A class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect.”

Thomas Macaulay thus proposed to train a new class of English speakers: neither Indian nor English, but an illegitimate offspring of the two cultures - in short, a mule.

This mule has proved remarkably sturdy.

It has carried the twin loads of equalitarian democracy and inegalitarian caste; of election by the people and a Lok Shova of criminals, of popular rule and a durable dynasty, of an English-speaking elite and regional linguistic nationalism...and so on.

A mule is sterile, as we all know - we can expect nothing further from it. And here the analogy ends. When the mule dies, what happens? Do we once again get a horse and a donkey? Or perhaps Pegasus - or pig-asses?

UK/USA made use of Uzbek torture

2010-12-31T05:26:00.000-08:00

UK/USA made use of Uzbek torture: "Anybody who is a religious Muslim of any kind, no connection to terrorism, anyone who prays five times a day, is described, will be arrested as a terrorist. Any young man with a beard will be arrested.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

The US and UK have used Uzbekistan as a torture centre: reading the transcript, it is hard to say whether Uzbekistan practices torture or the US/UK practice torture in Uzbekistan. I suppose there is hardly any difference: Uzbek torture is part and parcel of US/UK interrogation techniques. To blame Uzbekistan as a country that tortures its own people seems wrong: it has been encouraged to torture not only its own people, but people from outside, by the UK/US.

So we have the world's great democracies practicing torture literally with their own hands and preaching liberalism to the rest of the world.

The army, our constitution and our history

2010-12-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

Front Page: "‘Two military regimes, the first being with effect from 15th August 1975 and the second one being between 24th March 1982 and 10th November 1986, put the country miles backward. Both the martial laws devastated the democratic fabric, as well as the patriotic aspiration of the country,’ the verdict said.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Did the military regimes put the country miles backward?

Let us review the facts. 50,000 people starved to death even when there was enough food in the country - and that food, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edition,'famine'), was exported to India. Was this part of the 'democratic fabric' and 'patriotic aspiration of the country'?

Next, a one-party rule was instituted by the beloved Bangabandhu, thereby being guilty of violating the constitution himself, yet, to the learned judges of the Supreme Court, he is 'Bangabandhu' - friend of Bengal.

"The original constitution of the republic of 1972 was mercilessly ravaged by General Ziaur Rahman who erased from it, one of the basic features, “Secularism” and allowed communal politics, proscribed by Bangabandhu, to stage a comeback." This language, with all due respects, doesn't sound like the language of an apex institution of the country. 'Bangabandhu' was not the name of the first prime minister and president of Bangladesh. His name was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. One would expect the learned court to use the legal, certified name of an individual, no matter who he is, instead of a popular appellation in a landmark judgment. The uncharitable may discern a certain servility here, of which our honourable judges are surely incapable.

Besides, the 'original constitution of the republic of 1972 was mercilessly ravaged by' Sheikh Mujib himself, as we find in the fourth amendment. It was the fifth amendment that nullified the fourth. One tyranny was replaced by another - a far better one. The country moved away from the choking socialism of the early '70s towards capitalism and free trade. Today, it is because of the move away from socialism undertaken by General Zia and General Ershad that the country's private sector is flourishing and GDP growth rate is high (although the poor have not benefited much, yet they are not starving in their thousands either).

Again, the military had to take over the country in 2007 because democracy was driving us to civil war. The current prime minister was indicted on five counts of murder - and yet there she sits in power and pomp. The two begums spent nearly a year in prison, where they, unfortunately, could not be kept confined for all 'eternity' (to borrow one of the words used by the judges) because of our constitution and its supporters. It seems that the people exist for the constitution, not the constitution for the people. But we will not commit 'shirk' and worship a few pieces of paper.

‘Martial law is totally alien a concept to our constitution.’ Fair enough. But it is not alien to out culture and civilisation - the Muslim civilisation. In his prayer for the emperor, Sheikh Saadi in the Golestan, refers to him as 'The shadow of Allah' - 'zel Allah' in the original language. Al-Ghazali and Al-Mawardi find no place for democracy in a Muslim polity. Sheikh Saadi observes: "A sultan rules by means of his troops'. Every learned person with whom I have discussed the subject, be he Bangladeshi or Iranian, has concurred with my view of the subject. "Zel Allah" is the attribute of a Muslim ruler. He is beyond criticism and controversy - the very opposite of democracy.

The Muslim polity - autocracy - has been the most tolerant of polities in history. A civilisation cannot be eliminated by a mere flourish of words; the apex court may command that a man be put in prison, but it cannot command that a man rid himself of his civilisation - or that an entire society comprising mostly of Muslims should do that.

History cannot be writted away.

Zahra's Paradise - Zahra’s Paradise

2010-12-27T10:13:00.000-08:00

Zahra's Paradise - Zahra’s Paradise: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

It is impossible to feel any sympathy for Iran's middle- and upper-classes. They hate Arabs and Palestinians; they hate their government for building hospitals in occupied Palestine; for supporting Hamas and Hezbullah - in short, for supporting the Umma. And, of course, they love the Great Satan.

Let's be precise: according to independent pollsters everywhere, Ahmedinejad would have won the election anyway. It was just the scale that the regime wished to expand. For, the truth is, Iran is split between an America-loving middle-class and an Iran-loving people. An Iranian journalist once asked me "Why doesn't America drop a nuclear bomb on Cuba?" She meant to say that America is so good that it refrains from nuking the small island. And this was a journalist talking. No wonder her paper was banned! America won't use nukes because then others will up the nuclear ante, simple as that. Besides, Cuba's too close to shore...imagine all the noxious radioactivity killing the fish on the Miama beaches.

John Locke observed that revolutions would be rare events, for he was advocating them. He was wrong. Today, revolution has become a habit - and with it coercion. In Kyrgyztan, there have been two revolutions in five years. In Bangladesh, there is perpetual revolution. Thailand is having a long-drawn-out revolution after regime change in 1992. The removal of Estrada in the Philippines was a shabby middle-class triumph.

As for elections, they are there to be rigged. Take the US election of 2000. According to S.E.Finer, rigging elections is one of the pathologies of democracy. In Bangladesh the Carter Center and the EU actively connive at rigged elections. The 1994 election in South Africa was rigged. In Africa today, western governments turn a blind eye to rigging - because there's just too much of it around, and without rigging there would be even more violence.

The Iranian middle-class has plainly become ungovernable. If they want paradise on earth, then they should wait for paradise - including Zahra.

The new constitution of Bangladesh

2010-12-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

The revised, complete and unexpurgated edition of the constitution is forthcoming. I see that we draw our inspiration from Islam as well as the Franco-German religion called nationalism (which the Franco-Germans have been trying to inter for the last sixty years).

At any rate. I shall no doubt sleep better knowing that the next morning I might find that my assets have been nationalised. There will be an equally soporiferous effect on foreign investors.

Now that the document has been revised, we are surely about to take off like a rocket. After all, the only obstacle between Bangladesh and development has been a few sheets of paper.

Behind Julian Assange's Arrest: Sweden's Sex-Crime Problem - TIME

2010-12-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

Behind Julian Assange's Arrest: Sweden's Sex-Crime Problem - TIME: "Each year, Sweden records 46 cases of reported rape per 100,000 people, roughly twice the rate in the U.S. or the U.K. Yet the conviction rate is a measly 10%, one of the lowest in the developed world.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

And why is the conviction rate so low? Victims "drop their charges out of fear, shame or loyalty to the accused." That doesn't sound like an empowered lot of women; rather, the reverse.

It may well be that both claims are correct: rape has been increasing in number, and women feel more empowered to report it (but not to follow through).

It is a well-kept academic secret that men are evolutionarily programmed towards rape: it is a low-cost effort to procreate. Given female assertiveness, greater male assertiveness is likely to be the case. There's nothing the Swedish state can do about it: millenia of evolution lie behind such phenomenon. A society that regards men and women as the same is going to do its weakest members a great deal of disservice.

Grameen Bank's Yunus 'stole' $100 mn

2010-12-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Grameen Bank's Yunus 'stole' $100 mn: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Is this really so surprising? NGO people are slick operators; every gentleman I know who has tried to do good has come to grief. You have to be cold-blooded and sly to create a money-generating organisation.

What is even less surprising is the donors' complicity in keeping the matter hushed up. Donors know well how sleazy the world of NGOs is: only 25% of donor money ever reaches the poor.

Furthermore, during the caretaker government rule, it was found that Grameen Phone was guilty of massive illegal activity in the provision of VOIP services which were illegal. Yunus, of course, knew nothing about such shenanigans.

One NGO that collapsed because the protege got out of hand was GSS (Gono Shahajjo Shangstha): donors had known for years that the director was a predatory skirt-chaser.

Another large NGO that imploded was Proshika: its former director eventually resorted to vandalism of his own erstwhile offices to try and get it back. He had packed the board with cronies and gone into politics, something an NGO is not supposed to do.

The function of NGOs in Bangladesh and elsewhere is not to help the poor but to buy the loyalty of the elite.

In this, they succeed admirably.

Bangladesh: Stalker kills victim's father

2010-12-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

Bangladesh: Stalker kills victim's father: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

This kind of youth violence has occurred in the past couple of months because the ruling party patronises student and young thugs.

This is how politics is conducted in Bangladesh. When ruling party thugs can get away with any crime, it encourages the others.

This explains why such events are so new - they never used to happen before.

mohajer in eblestan

2010-11-22T14:01:00.001-08:00

The devout Muslims in the foreground don't seem to realize what they're doing: they're swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States, that is, to ebles.

Thousands of Muslims emigrate to these eblestans without a thought as to what their actions mean. They are swearing to kill the enemies of their new civilization, and in our case today, it happens to be Muslims.

Furthermore, they're going to pay tax (only net tax-payers are encouraged to emigrate) with which their adoptive nation is going to build bombs to drop on men, women and children in Muslim countries.

This is munafiqi of the highest degree.

To Whom Can I Speak Today? (short story)

2010-11-08T12:49:00.000-08:00

To Whom Can I Speak Today?

(click above for the story)

The democratic transition brings murder to the streets and even homes of Bangladesh. Several NGO directors mysteriously die trying to scrawl a message in blood. Zafar Shah takes it upon himself to decipher the vermilion calligraphy.

Excerpt:

'“Let me start from the beginning, Zafar sahib. When General Harun-ur-Rashid was in power, I was an MBA student. I was – and am - an avid fan of both the General and you, Zafar sahib. I have read all your newspaper articles and several of your books. You predicted that with the overthrow of the General, and the introduction of multi-party democracy, there would be violence, and a strong demand for security. As soon as I passed, I borrowed from banks and invested my own money in my security agency. The General was overthrown and my firm prospered.”'

Shaken and Speared, Not Stirred

2010-10-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

we weren't conquered
by Shakespeare

we were conquered
then Shake-speared

an open
and shut
case of
de-Sa'adification

The Dead Girl Syndrome

2010-09-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

The Dead Girl is a must-watch movie for those interested in the plight of the American woman. Unfortunately, given the facts below, the film doesn't go far enough.

In the well-researched paper, SEX TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES, we find that the sex trade is sponsored by 'lawyers and judges'.

"U.S. military bases, especially in the South replicate the sexual rest and recreation (R&R) areas that proliferate near military bases abroad. This infrastructure of sex clubs, brothels and massage parlors has been recreated here, with inordinate numbers of Asian women especially trafficked and exploited in the sex industries surrounding the bases.

"Controllers and operators of the sex industry vary. Some sex businesses are family owned and others may be owned or backed by prominent local community members, including judges and lawyers. Others are controlled or financed by organized crime groups. The majority of law enforcement agents reported that 76-100 percent of the sex enterprises in the Northeast, Metro New York, the Southeast, and Metro San Francisco are controlled, financed, or backed by organized crime groups. In some cases, trafficking rings supply women to sex establishments. "

Brave US soldiers and their officers are involved in the sex trade and know very well where the prostitutes are coming from - if they are not bringing them themselves.

"U.S. servicemen have also been involved in recruiting Asian women, especially from Korea, Vietnam and Japan into the sex industry in the United States. Often the servicemen marry prostituted women around military bases abroad, bring them to the United States and pressure them into prostitution. A large number of foreign military wives become victims of domestic violence, displaced or homeless, and end up in prostitution around U.S. military bases."

It seems that NCOs finally get to have sex with the Major's (ex-)wife.

"The role of U.S. servicemen in the trafficking and pimping of women was noted by a significant number of international and U.S. women, law enforcement officials and social service providers. Often, U.S. military personnel promise marriage or wed women formerly in sex industries around U.S. military bases in Korea, the Philippines and Okinawa. One battered women’s advocate reported that over half the women seeking refuge at her shelter near a military base in Jacksonville, North Carolina, were abused wives of U.S. military personnel. From speaking with her clients at the shelter, she heard accounts of Okinawan women, married to U.S. Marines, who were pressured into the sex industry in the United States by their military husbands. Thus prostitution added another layer to the violence and control of the battering situation.

"Like the Korean fiancés and brides who had been in the sex industry around the military bases in Korea, many Japanese women had formerly been in sex industries around the military bases in Okinawa. Lacking English language and job skills and displaced in a foreign culture, many are at the mercy of their husband/abuser/pimp’s demands and are recruited or coerced in massage parlors around military bases in the United States. "

One wonders how many Iraqi and Afghan women have been 'liberated' by US servicemen in the host countries as well as in the invading nation.

"The military demand for prostitution in the towns and cities surrounding U.S. military bases abroad continues to be responsible for the exploitation, rape and prostitution of impoverished local populations in these areas. This infrastructure and culture are recreated here in the United States, with inordinate numbers of Asian women especially, trafficked and exploited in U.S. massage parlors, strip clubs, bars and brothels surrounding U.S. military bases."

Needless to add, the record of policemen is not that portrayed on prime-time TV.

"One social service provider near a marine base, who had identified military personnel as frequent consumers of commercial sex, reported that officially, prostitution establishments were off limits to U.S. Marines. The regulation is never enforced, however, and the prostitution establishments are 71 filled with military men. The interviewee’s husband, who is a taxi driver, often picks the men up in full dress uniform and takes them to outcall venues or massage parlors.

"Several U.S. women reported that police officers or undercover cops had asked for sex in exchange for dropping charges against them.

Police officers – they were abusive. The undercover cops asked me to have sex with them – straight and oral – in order to drop the charges.

Police are frequent customers, though, and they walk in like they own the place. In fact one of the cops ran his own house somewhere in Brooklyn and was always trying to get me to be part of his posse. They’d come in and be on a power trip and treat us like we were nothing.

Another U.S. woman commented that her first “trick” was a policeman. She was not arrested, because he let her off(italics original)."

The theme of husbands-as-pimps is a recurring one in the study: which makes you wonder just how much women are respected by their partners in the USA, or even by society for that matter. The movie, The Dead Girl, makes it clear that women have a very low position in American society.

"Twenty percent of the international and 28 percent of the U.S. women had intimate relationships with the men who pimped them. They and other victims described classic dynamics of battering that evolved into pimping. Emotional and physical coercion were used to break the women’s resistance to entering prostitution. Pornography was used as an “educational tool” with many (50%) of the international women. For some, stripping was the entrance point into the sex industry, after which they were constantly pressured into prostitution."

"All of these partner-pimps were violent and physically, sexually and emotionally abusive to the women. One international woman reported: “His goal was to hold me and the other women prisoner and impregnate all of us and abuse us at his will. He thought he was doing us all a favor by rescuing us from our poverty.” Another stated, “…my husband tortured me every week. …[He] would beat me for everything or just to relieve his stress…” Other women reported that their pimps included family members and drug dealers."

"Violence was initially used to season women into prostitution. One U.S. woman talked about her husband, who sold her to his friends, and forcibly initiated her into having anal sex with him when she refused to comply with his friends’ demands. Another reported:

He used to physically abuse me when we were driving and push me out of the car and drive off. Then drive back and get me saying he’s only doing this for my own good and provide me affection. Looking back I don’t know what made me so blind to him. He must have been preparing me for the eventuality of prostituting for him (italics original)."

"Others mentioned domestic violence/prostitution situations in which movements were controlled by abusive partner/pimps. "

Often, there is a thin line between domestic violence and pimping:

"A number of the respondents in this study have described similarities between prostitution and domestic violence in the ways in which women are abused, whether traffickers and pimps were partners or husbands, or whether they were women’s daily agents of control."

"Friends should have all things in common - at a price" seems to be a common dictum.

"...one international woman did not report she was a victim of sexual assault, but said that her husband/pimp sold her to his friends. When the buyers asked her for anal sex, she refused to comply. She said, “I refused. Then my husband tortured me a week. He decided to train me himself. It was horrible. A lot of things happened.”"

Here follows a litany of what husband-pimps routinely do.

"One international woman whose husband/pimp physically and sexually abused her said, “He always told me that I am nothing without him.”"

Drugs and alcohol are used to control women.

"Another international woman whose husband/pimp repeatedly physically and sexually abused her said that, “I was sober until I met him. But he made me drink, especially after a fight.""

Pornography is a constant.

"One international woman spoke of her husband/pimp threatening her with exposure. “… my husband… shot [pornographic films of] me and promised to send the tape to my parents.” "

"One international woman summed up her health consequences and her present needs:

I need a lot of help, medically and I need therapy to deal with all the trauma I’ve suffered. I need plastic surgery and dental reconstructive surgery (from when pimp/husband knocked my teeth out). It’s hard because at the drug program, they won’t allow me to get on any assistance until I complete the program. My self-esteem is so low and I have a complex about speaking with people. I’m going to start writing (italics original). "

"One international woman whose pimp was her husband reported that, “In the morning, as all wives, I cleaned the apartment, cooked, went shopping…Then at approximately 8:00 p.m, he took me to the disco. I had two to three clients there and then went home.”"

Here's a vivid description of group sex by a male client.

"When women were brought into bachelor parties or conventions, they might have to engage in sex with up to 20 men. In the men’s writings, one man describes a party with over 20 men and one or two women. He writes about it as great fun, but the reality for the woman was most likely quite different.

In the LR [living room] was about 15 guys in towels … In the room to the left a group of about seven guys surrounded a slender attractive young looking latino girl. She was lying on her back getting fucked. … I stood over the crowd and watched her … I tried to get down and copa [sic] feel, but I really couldn’t get close. … She sucks me for about 10 minutes while 4-5 guys watch in the dimly lit room. I plow her for about 12 minutes… She kept her eyes closed while I fucked her and didn’t say much. Later, I go into the back room and some black guy is giving this girl another plowing … Most everyone has left. So me and another guy lay her down. I bang her … finally I slam her hard a few times … I look in the BR and she’s laying there with one leg splayed out and the other bent at the knee. Her head is turned to the side and her hair is everywhere. She looks like she’s been fucked (italics original)."

(Mis)Reporting Events

2010-09-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

"Hundreds of Somalis may have been killed for being Christian since the Shabab arose in 2005." What a shocker! Until, of course, you notice the modal auxiliary and the present perfect: 'may have been'. It may not have been, too. Yellow journalism? No: the line is part of an Economist report on Christians in Somalia (24th October 2009).

Surely there must be some evidence offered? Yes, but it is not the Economist's own (foreign journalists could hardly get into Somalia). The report adduces second-hand evidence: "According to Somali sources and Christian groups monitoring Somalia from abroad, at least 13 members of underground churches have been killed in the past few months".

I have always been intrigued by the accuracy of reports on unreachable, obscure places. A real gem was an Independent report on honour killing by Robert Fisk.

"A 10-month investigation by The Independent in Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Gaza and the West Bank has unearthed terrifying details of murder most foul. Men are also killed for "honor"...."

Yet the article does not cite a single case of a man being killed for honour: all the victims are women. This makes the attentive reader immediately suspicious. But there's worse to come.

"Many women's groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations' latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year."

"But lest these acts - and the names of the victims, when we are able to discover them - be forgotten, here are the sufferings of a mere handful of women over the past decade, selected at random, country by country, crime after crime."

"British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner Aso Kamal, of the Doaa Network Against Violence, believes that between 1991 and 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of "honor" in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq alone - 350 of them in the first seven months of 2007, for which there were only five convictions". Well, she might believe that, but why should the reader? What's her evidence? What are her sources? After all, almost by definition, these crimes are well-concealed.

"In Jordan, women's organizations say that per capita, the Christian minority in this country of just over five million people are involved in more "honor" killings than Muslims - often because Christian women want to marry Muslim men. But the Christian community is loath to discuss its crimes and the majority of known cases of murder are committed by Muslims. Their stories are wearily and sickeningly familiar."

Since the Christians are 'loath' to discuss their honour crimes, and the Muslims presumably very happy to do so, we get not a single report on Christian honour killings - a curious omission, since Jordanian women's organisations make a very accurate claim.

"According to police figures between 2000 and 2006, a reported 480 women - 20 per cent of them between the ages of 19 and 25 - were killed in "honor" crimes and feuds. " Feuds? Where did that come from? Feuds are a totally different matter from honour crimes. In feuds, men are as often killed, surely? And feuds are a sign of tribal society, not male oppression.

But this line takes the biscuit:

"But the contagion of "honor" crimes has spread across the globe...."

First, it's a contagion -presumably from Muslim countries to erstwhile innocent Christians and Hindus (two Hindu cases are mentioned). Second, it has 'spread' - presumably from those nasty Middle Eastern societies.

Third, it has even spread to Bangladesh (a Muslim country). And are parents and brothers in Bangladesh killing their daughters and sisters for having strange phone numbers in their cell phones? No, it's taken a different turn:

"But the contagion of "honor" crimes has spread across the globe, including acid attacks on women in Bangladesh for refusing marriages."

The (western) reader would tend to think that the acid attack is made by parents and brothers when a girl refuses to marry the man of their choice.

Robert Fisk clearly knows almost nothing about Bangladesh. Acid attacks in Bangladesh are not authored by the family, but by criminal youths (they were almost unknown before our democratic transition of 1990). And the reason is only sometimes frustrated romance - land disputes have played a significant part, and men are also victims.

The subject surely deserved to be treated with respect, considering its seriousness.

On a less serious note, a report in the same issue of the Economist recounts how Arab men have been divorcing their wives for falling in love with a Turkish television personality:

"Yet the marital bliss portrayed in “Noor” is said to have prompted a rash of divorces in the Arab world, as female viewers compare their own husbands to the hero, Muhannad, who washes up the dishes. In Jordan a man is said to have dumped his wife after he caught her with Muhannad’s picture on her mobile phone. In Syria another did the same when his wife apparently said, “I want to sleep with Muhannad for just one night and then die.”"

It seems that Western journalists are said to have high standards of reportage. But don't believe everything you hear - or read.