Charles Taylor and modern 'altruism'

I was terribly impressed by Charles Taylor's understanding of modern 'altruism': it is a codified, moralized altruism and blind to the consequences that it involves (A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor).

I shudder to think how many fathers are going to be burying their politically active sons after the election imposed by western governments this year (interestingly, Taylor mentions Mandela: he lied to his people about the first election - though Taylor doesn't mention this, probably out of politeness – but he approves of the code-defying behaviour of Mandela: he was after a 'higher' good, even if it wasn't rights-based, that is, formulaic. He waived the rights of the 'victim' for peace, to avoid civil war.)

Taylor contrasts this sort of 'goodness' with agape, which is a 'gut' feeling of love. Agape extends towards the living, breathing individual: the good Samaritan crossed a line, not because any code told him to (on the contrary), but because he was moved by
a man's suffering.

So many women have been raped in Bangladesh by politically active young men in the service of the political parties - and so many of these young men have killed each other!

Doesn't this move anyone, as the Samaritan was moved? NGO after NGO has evaded the subject, never mind western governments.

Here is an article that might be of interest:


http://unlikelystories.org/sayeed0808.shtml A Defence of Religion



It is, in fact, a defence of the irrational: I come at the subject from economics, since that's the discipline I (literally) laboured under. The whole idea of a rational producer-cum-consumer seems repellent since contrary to the evidence right under our noses!

of cats and dogs – and their masters

A mullah was walking down the road, stroking a purring cat in the cradle of his arms. He crossed a Bangladeshi intellectual similarly cradling a dog, and they both stopped.

"Why are you carrying a cat?" asked the Bangladeshi intellectual.

"Don't you know cats are beloved of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And why are you carrying a dog. Don't you know they are unholy?"

"I'm carrying a dog because dogs are beloved of my masters, peace be upon them."

they know more about us that we know about us

When a Bangladeshi diplomat visits America, American journalists ask: "What's happening in Bangladesh?"

When an American diplomat visits Bangladesh, Bangladeshi journalists ask the same question.

development and democracy : the inverse relationship

"What makes infrastructure investments in developing countries tricky is politics. Even in China, where agricultural land has been ruthlessly acquired for new roads, opposition is growing. In democracies the obstacles are even greater. Mr. Kant [of Tata Motors] says that in the five decades after independence India built almost no new roads. That changed when the pro-business Baharatiya Janata Party came to office in 1999. But since a Congress-led coalition took over in 2004, road-building has dropped off again."

"About 40% of India's road traffic is carried on just 2% of its roads, most of which leave much to be desired."

The Economist, A Special Report on Cars in Emerging Markets, November 15th 2008, p. 17

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Company

In the early '70s, soon after the birth of Bangladesh, NGOs like BRAC were perceived as bulwarks against communism, according to a top NGO insider. That was when western governments began to channel money to NGOs.

Forward to 9/11.

Today, NGOs serve a different purpose: purchasing the allegiance of the elite against Islam.

This explains the Conrad H. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to BRAC.

And the tissue of disinformation printed in the page from The Economist (25 October 2008, p. 64).

Oral rehydration? The credit for that usually goes to the ICCDR,B – the international centre for cholera and diarrhoeal research. The kudos should go, if to anyone, then to the Institute for Public Health. Actually, according to a well-informed doctor, the remedy is an indigenous one that has been used for centuries.

Control of tuberculosis and malaria?

Tuberculosis has been on the rise. and not only in Bangladesh. Surely there is a limit to mendacity!

Malaria? Every time I go down to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, doctors urge me to start a course of chloroquine – even though the drug no longer works. I once tried to buy artemisinin, and I had to search the drugstores in Dhaka high and low – and when I found a few doses, the astronomical price put me off against buying any prophylactic.

I hoped to have better luck in the Hill Tracts. But I couldn't find a single store selling artemisinin (in fact, I couldn't find a single store or individual who knew what artemisinin was!). This is a familiar story throughout the malarial world. Surely there are limits to mendacity!

A university? Now we're talking. BRAC university is for the ultra-rich. If I had kids, I wouldn't have been able to afford the exorbitant fees charged by BRAC university. The ad above leads you to believe that the university is for the indigent: it is for the children of the extremely well-heeled.

Fees structure of BRAC University:

Fee Structure

Non-refundable Fees
Admission Fee Tk. 12,000 (one time)
Computer Lab Fee Tk. 1,000 per semester
Student Activity Fee Tk. 500 per semester
Library Fee Tk. 500 per semester

Tuition Fee per Credit*

BBA
BSc in Computer Science
BSc in Computer Science and Engineering
BSc in Electronics and Communication Engineering
BSS in Economics
BA in English
LL.B (Hons)
BSc in Physics
BS in APE
BS in Mathematics

Tk. 4,400/-

B.Arch
- Studio Courses
- Lecture Courses


Tk. 5,500/-
Tk. 4,400/-

*subject to enhancement with a notice before a semester

http://www.bracuniversity.net/admission/admission_instruction.php#FEES

Oddly enough, the ad says nothing about BRAC bank – an institution serving the mega-rich of Bangladesh.

BRAC is not a humanitarian institute – it is a business conglomerate.

It is like a giant pig with many teats, and everyone who is favoured has his/her lips to the teats. Or imagine a giant trough where the initiated come to guzzle – with donors pouring the fodder at both ends.

This silences criticism of BRAC.

a demagogue delivers - destruction and death

"First he [Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman] opposed British rule in India. After the subcontinent's partition in 1947, he denounced West Pakistan's dominance of East Pakistan with every bit as much vehemence. "Brothers," he would say to his Bengali followers, "do you know that the streets of Karachi are lined with gold? Do you want to take back that gold? Then raise your hands and join me."

TIME Magazine, Monday, Apr. 05, 1971



"And one of the worst clusters of grossly overcrowded shacks and hovels, unfit for animals to live in, lay beside the main route from one of the airports to the rich centre of the city. Visiting foreigners were appalled, not merely by what they saw and smelt, but by the apparent helpless apathy of successive political Cabinets towards this mass of human misery unmitigated on their doorstep. Probably nothing so discredited Pakistan internationally, during the confused years before the military coup, as the persisting shameful squalor along the pavements of her capital."

(Ian Stephens, Pakistan, Old Country, New Nation, Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1964, p 309)"

1) Sheikh Mujib campaigned against the British: no Muslim wanted that the British should leave. The 'Quit India' movement was an entirely Hindu movement. The terror that had driven men like Sir Sayyed Ahmed Khan was the terror of democracy where the Hindus would be the majority. Since 1947, these terrors have been amply well-founded. Apart from the violence against Muslims, Muslims' job prospects are worse than that for Dalits.
2) After 1947, West Pakistan could hardly dominate anyone – never mind the far more populous East Pakistan. Indeed, Jinnah's energies were consumed by the Kashmir struggle.
3) According to my late, lamented friend, Omar Ali Chowdhury, who was personal secretary to Hussein Shahrawardy, the only reason that Shahrawardy picked Mujib to run the Awami League was because he was rabble-rouser par excellence.
4) Shahrawardy and protégé were both inimical to the Pakistan concept. The former was hobnobbing with Nehru and Gandhi while Jinnah was trying to forge a state single-handedly. When the new Indian government taxed his property away from him, he emerged in East Pakistan to revive his fortune – a carpetbagger.
5) Mujib, therefore, brought to East Pakistan, the same nationalism that had enthused the Hindus. The distance between West and East Pakistan, and the linguistic majority of the Bengali Muslims, were fertile soil for the ambitions of a demagogue to reap a bitter harvest. We in the East tended to believe everything we were told about the West because we couldn't go there – it required an expensive plane ride, or a prolonged sea voyage. Whether the streets of Karachi were paved with gold or cobble-stones was something we couldn't verify.
6) The distance between East and West also helped Mujib and others to recreate the metropolis-colony, or Britain-India, dichotomy. The psychology was powerful since so fresh, and succeeding economics, Marxists to the last man (some of them were my teachers at Dhaka University in the '80s), provided 'facts' to back up this dichotomy.
7) Furthermore, we were told that 'they' spoke Urdu, while 'we' spoke Bengali. In fact, Urdu is the mother tongue of a fraction of the people of Pakistan even today. Contemporary Pakistan is a polyglot nation.
8) Democracy produces demagogues and the last straw was the election of 1970 – the most terrible event to befall the country – one in which our servant voted seven times.

sex, alcohol, smoking - and cinema

Is this a love scene? A murder scene? From an adult film? None of the above.

The picture is from "Constantine", a fantasy film starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. It's obviously a movie for all ages.

Then what explains the revealing water scene, where the beautiful Weisz sports a diaphanous top and disports in a fetching black bra?

Scenes like these are very common in Hollywood movies: even where no hint of nudity is called for, a none-too-subtle suggestion of eroticism is inserted for effect. Weisz is beautiful in any kind of clothes: why exploit her body?

The pressure to reveal (and, incidentally, have sex) is immense in western culture.

"Diseases which half a century ago mostly affected men and female prostitutes are now affecting men and women in roughly equal numbers. STDs affect people in all sections of society, though in Britain the most noticeable increase in numbers of patients is among teenagers(Don MacKean and Brian Jones, "Human and Social Biology", London: John Murray 2004, p 267)."

Incidentally, in this film Constantine is a chain smoker – he had been smoking since he was fifteen – and is now coughing up blood: he is going to die. He lights up in nearly every scene: young boys are known t be influenced by "macho" scenes of men smoking like chimneys. In the end, Constantine pops a chewing gum into his mouth, of course, but kids have seen him puffing in more manly fashion.

Smoking, alcohol and sex are a heady combination for teenagers – and movies help to promote all three.