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.
Showing posts with label Sheikh Mujib. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheikh Mujib. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The army, our constitution and our history
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.
- 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.
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Father Figure
Sheikh Hasina, the current prime minister of Bangladesh, was charged with murder under the caretaker government (2007 - 2008). The charge was entirely justified: the workers of her party killed several opposition activists in broad daylight during a riot witnessed by the entire nation. Of course, she never killed anyone with her own hands: neither, presumably, did Al Capone. But the authorities couldn't get her even for tax evasion, although several cases of extortion were lodged against here. The dirty nature of politics in Bangladesh was underscored by the release of Sheikh Hasina from a makeshift jail - to become the prime minister once again. And this wasn't the first time that her henchmen had committed murder. Yet the loyalty of her supporters - which included my parents and my wider family - never diminished, never wavered.
Why?
Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first member of the dynasty, was a murderer on an even greater scale. He is also known as the father of the nation, and it is true that his demagoguery created the conditions for a civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. A detailed record of the murders and the deliberate famine that led to his killing by the army appears here.
The paradox that needs to be explained is the continuing loyalty towards the dead monster on the part of a section of the educated of Bangladesh (the uneducated never count in this country: as a writer put it, Bangladesh never represents Bangladeshis). That immoral loyalty has been transferred to his living daughter, as we saw above.
How do we explain this phenomenon?
I was baffled by this question for years until I began to study anthropological psychology, especially the role of anxiety in national culture.
What is the biggest anxiety of middle class persons? That they would cease to be middle class, and fall below their station - or, more accurately, that their children will. For the parents have struggled towards a certain elevation, and can see their way clear for some distance in time. Still, even they might slip....But they don't want their children to struggle...and slip.
Now, the working classes have their ability to labour, as Marx astutely pointed out, so their dread is of a different calibre - the dread of illness, and injury. In fact, anthropological studies have revealed that in Bangladesh, the working class define health in terms of the ability to work. This has unnerving implications: infections like HYV would not be regarded as a threat so long as full-blown AIDS did not occur. Also, doctors know that the poor suffer from chronic depression and ulcers through worry.
But the middle class is a class-unto-itself. They are highly articulate, clubby and ambitious. They can make and break nations. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan, the eastern wing of Pakistan, with the western king a thousand miles away, known as West Pakistan, the middle classes had just emerged from two hundred years of British rule. They had seen what the Indian middle class achieved - independence for India, and the devil take the poor. Today, 800 million Indians labour for a minority of 200 million of the middle class. This was to be their paradigm for Bangladesh.
A full-blown mythology was created - that the West Pakistanis spoke Urdu, and the East Pakistanis Bengali, when in fact Urdu was the language of a minuscule minority of the polyglot West Pakistanis. But the trick worked: the Urdu-speakers were exploiting the Bengali-speakers.
And the man who delivered the message on behalf of the middle class was Sheikh Mujib, rabble-rouser extraordinaire. His speeches remind one a great deal of the speeches of Hitler, the leader who led a ruined middle-class to horror.
Thus, the Bengali-speaking intelligentsia identified completely with Sheikh Mujib, who was to relieve them of their anxiety. Psychiatrists have long known that patients tend to identify them as father figures: indeed, Freud spoke of the need to transfer feeling to the pseudo-father figure to cure neurosis.
Freud observed: "It is clearly not easy for men to give up the satisfaction of this inclination to aggression. They do not feel comfortable without it. The advantage which a comparatively small cultural group offers of allowing this instinct an outlet in the form of hostility against outsiders is not to be despised. It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness (Civilisation and Its Discontents,tr. James Strachey, W.W.Norton & Co: New York, p 61). Recent research has confirmed this to be true of chimpanzees as well.
What Freud has to say about the father in the same book is most illuminating: "In my Future of an Illusion" I was concerned much less with the deepest sources of the religious feeling than with what the common man understands by his religion - with the systems of doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains to him the riddles of this world with enviable completeness, and, on the other, assures him that a careful Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustrations he suffers here. The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father." One doesn't have to agree with Freud here: current research has shown that identification with a father figure is important for a child's emotional well-being. Infantile powerlessness clearly has a great deal to do with it.
However, Freud is completely wrong in his definition of religion: there are religions which have no transcendent father figure, such as Confucianism (Confucius was an earthly father figure). And that modern religion - nationalism - needs no father figure at all. Nevertheless, Sheikh Mujib was a father figure of the Mosaic type: he led the chosen people - the Bengalis - against the West Pakistanis, the Canaanite equivalent, promising the former a land of milk and honey. Sheikh Mujib was the prophet of Bengali Nationalism - perhaps even the God. There are many young kids among the foot-soldiers of the Awami League, the party he led, who reject their own fathers for Sheikh Mujib: I have done a systematic study of the subject.
Hence, Sheikh Mujib's infallibility: he assuaged a terrible anxiety, delivered the land of milk and honey for narrow, corrupt elite, and drove out the Canaanites. His lineage must equally be infallible: hence the idolatry of the Mujib family against Islam, the religion of Pakistan. Awami Leaguers favourite - intramural - pastime is ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed
Naturally, the middle class are a bookish people, like all scribes: their only source of success was through education. These were the people Mujib led. Consequently, the Awami League's biggest supporters are to be found among the university teachers, and the intelligentsia. They are in a position to refute history and sanction murder.
Why?
Her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first member of the dynasty, was a murderer on an even greater scale. He is also known as the father of the nation, and it is true that his demagoguery created the conditions for a civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh. A detailed record of the murders and the deliberate famine that led to his killing by the army appears here.
The paradox that needs to be explained is the continuing loyalty towards the dead monster on the part of a section of the educated of Bangladesh (the uneducated never count in this country: as a writer put it, Bangladesh never represents Bangladeshis). That immoral loyalty has been transferred to his living daughter, as we saw above.
How do we explain this phenomenon?
I was baffled by this question for years until I began to study anthropological psychology, especially the role of anxiety in national culture.
What is the biggest anxiety of middle class persons? That they would cease to be middle class, and fall below their station - or, more accurately, that their children will. For the parents have struggled towards a certain elevation, and can see their way clear for some distance in time. Still, even they might slip....But they don't want their children to struggle...and slip.
Now, the working classes have their ability to labour, as Marx astutely pointed out, so their dread is of a different calibre - the dread of illness, and injury. In fact, anthropological studies have revealed that in Bangladesh, the working class define health in terms of the ability to work. This has unnerving implications: infections like HYV would not be regarded as a threat so long as full-blown AIDS did not occur. Also, doctors know that the poor suffer from chronic depression and ulcers through worry.
But the middle class is a class-unto-itself. They are highly articulate, clubby and ambitious. They can make and break nations. When Bangladesh was East Pakistan, the eastern wing of Pakistan, with the western king a thousand miles away, known as West Pakistan, the middle classes had just emerged from two hundred years of British rule. They had seen what the Indian middle class achieved - independence for India, and the devil take the poor. Today, 800 million Indians labour for a minority of 200 million of the middle class. This was to be their paradigm for Bangladesh.
A full-blown mythology was created - that the West Pakistanis spoke Urdu, and the East Pakistanis Bengali, when in fact Urdu was the language of a minuscule minority of the polyglot West Pakistanis. But the trick worked: the Urdu-speakers were exploiting the Bengali-speakers.
And the man who delivered the message on behalf of the middle class was Sheikh Mujib, rabble-rouser extraordinaire. His speeches remind one a great deal of the speeches of Hitler, the leader who led a ruined middle-class to horror.
Thus, the Bengali-speaking intelligentsia identified completely with Sheikh Mujib, who was to relieve them of their anxiety. Psychiatrists have long known that patients tend to identify them as father figures: indeed, Freud spoke of the need to transfer feeling to the pseudo-father figure to cure neurosis.
Freud observed: "It is clearly not easy for men to give up the satisfaction of this inclination to aggression. They do not feel comfortable without it. The advantage which a comparatively small cultural group offers of allowing this instinct an outlet in the form of hostility against outsiders is not to be despised. It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness (Civilisation and Its Discontents,tr. James Strachey, W.W.Norton & Co: New York, p 61). Recent research has confirmed this to be true of chimpanzees as well.
What Freud has to say about the father in the same book is most illuminating: "In my Future of an Illusion" I was concerned much less with the deepest sources of the religious feeling than with what the common man understands by his religion - with the systems of doctrines and promises which on the one hand explains to him the riddles of this world with enviable completeness, and, on the other, assures him that a careful Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustrations he suffers here. The common man cannot imagine this Providence otherwise than in the figure of an enormously exalted father." One doesn't have to agree with Freud here: current research has shown that identification with a father figure is important for a child's emotional well-being. Infantile powerlessness clearly has a great deal to do with it.
However, Freud is completely wrong in his definition of religion: there are religions which have no transcendent father figure, such as Confucianism (Confucius was an earthly father figure). And that modern religion - nationalism - needs no father figure at all. Nevertheless, Sheikh Mujib was a father figure of the Mosaic type: he led the chosen people - the Bengalis - against the West Pakistanis, the Canaanite equivalent, promising the former a land of milk and honey. Sheikh Mujib was the prophet of Bengali Nationalism - perhaps even the God. There are many young kids among the foot-soldiers of the Awami League, the party he led, who reject their own fathers for Sheikh Mujib: I have done a systematic study of the subject.
Hence, Sheikh Mujib's infallibility: he assuaged a terrible anxiety, delivered the land of milk and honey for narrow, corrupt elite, and drove out the Canaanites. His lineage must equally be infallible: hence the idolatry of the Mujib family against Islam, the religion of Pakistan. Awami Leaguers favourite - intramural - pastime is ridiculing the Prophet Mohammed
Naturally, the middle class are a bookish people, like all scribes: their only source of success was through education. These were the people Mujib led. Consequently, the Awami League's biggest supporters are to be found among the university teachers, and the intelligentsia. They are in a position to refute history and sanction murder.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Real Stigma
"Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous."
- Exodus 16:19
They say that the stigma that attached to Bangladesh has been removed with the trial and hanging of the assassins of Sheikh Mujib, supposedly the pater patriae.
Really?
The real stigma has been permanently reinforced.
And the real stigma is the fact that you have to be a very powerful person to exact revenge in the guise of justice in Bangladesh. You have to get hold of the entire state power and get the press and the flunkeys of the so-called civil society on your side, undermine the judiciary, and secure the lynching you desire.
And if you are a poor man whose daughter has been raped and murdered by student politicians, then there is no way in this world that you are going to get justice. In the next world, yes, but not in this diabolical den of despair; for here every injunction from the book of Exodus above has been violated: yet seven righteous men refused to hear the case.
- Exodus 16:19
They say that the stigma that attached to Bangladesh has been removed with the trial and hanging of the assassins of Sheikh Mujib, supposedly the pater patriae.
Really?
The real stigma has been permanently reinforced.
And the real stigma is the fact that you have to be a very powerful person to exact revenge in the guise of justice in Bangladesh. You have to get hold of the entire state power and get the press and the flunkeys of the so-called civil society on your side, undermine the judiciary, and secure the lynching you desire.
And if you are a poor man whose daughter has been raped and murdered by student politicians, then there is no way in this world that you are going to get justice. In the next world, yes, but not in this diabolical den of despair; for here every injunction from the book of Exodus above has been violated: yet seven righteous men refused to hear the case.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Rats and the People
The Daily Star is caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, it has to make the right noises about the killers of Sheikh Mujib to please the ruling party and its thugs. Besides, the editor and his cohorts are sympathetic to the Awami League, if not actually Awami Leaguers themselves.
On the other hand, Mahfuz Anam and his wife have to please the European donors as well, and Europe is against the death penalty. The Star dare not say openly that the death penalty should have been commuted to life imprisonment. The office will be raided the next day by armed thugs of the ruling party and by every intellectual in Bangladesh.
This example clearly shows the hypocrisy of our ruling elite: they seek the approval of foreigners, but subscribe to local prejudices. They pretend to be liberal, when they are anything but. They support two tyrannies, the House of Mujib and the House of Zia, all in the name of democracy and the people.
All they want is to advance their careers and make their moolah, and sound a bit like their European masters.
They are like those rats that were given contradictory pleasure-pain stimuli simultaneously: they showed clear neurotic symptoms. Our scatophagous elite receive double stimuli, one from abroad and one from here; only they are not neurotic. They are perfectly sane: totally unscrupulous, but perfectly sane.
However, it has been a pathetic – or perhaps ennobling - spectacle that the execution of the assassins of the beloved 'Father of the Nation", Bangabandhu, has been greeted by not an atom of enthusiasm on the part of the people who are supposed to love him so: all excitement and anticipation have been concentrated in the bloodthirsty, intellectual elite. As Lawrence Ziring pointed out, Bangladesh will never represent Bangladeshis. The former have no affinity with the latter, and no more apodictic display has been in evidence than the apathy of the people to the 'celebrated' and 'long-awaited' executions, celebrated and long-awaited by a bigoted microscopic minority we miscall 'the nation'.
On the one hand, it has to make the right noises about the killers of Sheikh Mujib to please the ruling party and its thugs. Besides, the editor and his cohorts are sympathetic to the Awami League, if not actually Awami Leaguers themselves.
On the other hand, Mahfuz Anam and his wife have to please the European donors as well, and Europe is against the death penalty. The Star dare not say openly that the death penalty should have been commuted to life imprisonment. The office will be raided the next day by armed thugs of the ruling party and by every intellectual in Bangladesh.
This example clearly shows the hypocrisy of our ruling elite: they seek the approval of foreigners, but subscribe to local prejudices. They pretend to be liberal, when they are anything but. They support two tyrannies, the House of Mujib and the House of Zia, all in the name of democracy and the people.
All they want is to advance their careers and make their moolah, and sound a bit like their European masters.
They are like those rats that were given contradictory pleasure-pain stimuli simultaneously: they showed clear neurotic symptoms. Our scatophagous elite receive double stimuli, one from abroad and one from here; only they are not neurotic. They are perfectly sane: totally unscrupulous, but perfectly sane.
However, it has been a pathetic – or perhaps ennobling - spectacle that the execution of the assassins of the beloved 'Father of the Nation", Bangabandhu, has been greeted by not an atom of enthusiasm on the part of the people who are supposed to love him so: all excitement and anticipation have been concentrated in the bloodthirsty, intellectual elite. As Lawrence Ziring pointed out, Bangladesh will never represent Bangladeshis. The former have no affinity with the latter, and no more apodictic display has been in evidence than the apathy of the people to the 'celebrated' and 'long-awaited' executions, celebrated and long-awaited by a bigoted microscopic minority we miscall 'the nation'.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
To Dance Upon The Air
http://www.opednews.com/articles/To-Dance-Upon-The-Air-by-Iftekhar-Sayeed-091231-260.html
(click above for article)
Five former army officers will hang within the next few weeks in Bangladesh, raising deep questions about a people's right to protection from a tyrannical executive in the context of John Locke's political philosophy.
Excerpt:
"Seven High Court judges refused to hear the lower court's verdict: they declared themselves 'embarrassed' without explaining why. The names of these High Court judges should be engraved in gold – not golden – letters in the premises of the High Court. To any student of law, the reason for their refusal was transparently obvious – they did not wish to embroil the judiciary in a moral issue that had no legal redress without, at the same time, politicizing the judiciary. The distinction between law and morality has been clearly drawn by Immanuel Kant. The best illustration of the discrepancy was provided by Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. This decision undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court: yet Taney was merely stating the law, keeping his deeply held belief that slavery was an evil to himself. The seven judges of the Bangladesh Supreme Court similarly, no doubt, wished to draw a line between morality and the law: this, they felt, was a moral issue, not a legal one, certainly not an open and shut case of murder. "
(click above for article)
Five former army officers will hang within the next few weeks in Bangladesh, raising deep questions about a people's right to protection from a tyrannical executive in the context of John Locke's political philosophy.
Excerpt:
"Seven High Court judges refused to hear the lower court's verdict: they declared themselves 'embarrassed' without explaining why. The names of these High Court judges should be engraved in gold – not golden – letters in the premises of the High Court. To any student of law, the reason for their refusal was transparently obvious – they did not wish to embroil the judiciary in a moral issue that had no legal redress without, at the same time, politicizing the judiciary. The distinction between law and morality has been clearly drawn by Immanuel Kant. The best illustration of the discrepancy was provided by Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. This decision undermined the prestige of the Supreme Court: yet Taney was merely stating the law, keeping his deeply held belief that slavery was an evil to himself. The seven judges of the Bangladesh Supreme Court similarly, no doubt, wished to draw a line between morality and the law: this, they felt, was a moral issue, not a legal one, certainly not an open and shut case of murder. "
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Amnesty International - sometimes - opposes the death penalty
Amnesty International urged Bangladesh not to execute five former army officers who have been sentenced to death for the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
"However, bringing people to justice must not itself violate the human rights of the accused,” it said in a statement issued here and urged President Zillur Rahman to commute the death sentences “as a matter of urgency”.
It also asked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s elder daughter, to request the president to commute the sentences.
Bangladesh Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of the five jailed convicts, upholding a previous High Court order awarding death sentences to twelve former army officers.
“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner,” the statement said.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327712&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24
Really?
So why didn't Amnesty urge the government not to hang the jihadis? Why doesn't Amnesty International urge the government not to torture jihadis?
Where jihadis are concerned, anything goes - murder, hanging, torture....
What a hypocrite!
Of course, the government flatly refused Amnesty's request: after all, a family vendetta is a family vendetta.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327975&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24
"However, bringing people to justice must not itself violate the human rights of the accused,” it said in a statement issued here and urged President Zillur Rahman to commute the death sentences “as a matter of urgency”.
It also asked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Mujib’s elder daughter, to request the president to commute the sentences.
Bangladesh Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the appeals of the five jailed convicts, upholding a previous High Court order awarding death sentences to twelve former army officers.
“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner,” the statement said.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327712&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24
Really?
So why didn't Amnesty urge the government not to hang the jihadis? Why doesn't Amnesty International urge the government not to torture jihadis?
Where jihadis are concerned, anything goes - murder, hanging, torture....
What a hypocrite!
Of course, the government flatly refused Amnesty's request: after all, a family vendetta is a family vendetta.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=327975&version=1&template_id=44&parent_id=24
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The Background to a Killing
What was the background against which Sheikh Mujib and his family were killed? The younger generation do not know and those who know do not care to enlighten them. Here are a few excerpts from Lawrence Zirring's classic "Bangladesh" (Dhaka: UPL, 1994). Please share this blog with as many as you can.
"Mujib believed he was Bangladesh, more so that he was good for the country and that it could not manage without him. Those who reinforced Mujib's impression of himself and his role did so because it benefited them politically or materially, not because they truly believed in his leadership." (p. 93)
"Mujib's bitter struggle with the army high command is illustrated by the decision to construct the Jatiyo Rakhi Bahini or National Security Force.…The Rakhi Bahini had quickly developed a reputation for intimidation and wanton aggression against the Bengali nation. Opinion was strong that that the para-military organization was no different from Hitler's Brown Shirts or the Gestapo. To informed observers as well as to a large segment of the population, Mujib and the Rakhi Bahini, not the Bangladesh army, posed the more significant threat to the country. The Bangladesh army, therefore, began to think of itself as the nation's salvation, the 'true' friend of Bengal." (pp 97 – 98)
"Unrestrained by law or law enforcement, defiant of the formal military establishment, gangs of toughs, many identified with the Rakhi Bahini even if they were without any official affiliation, roamed the countryside, looting the poor villagers and committing bodily harm on those resisting their demands. In the name of protecting society, the Rakhi Bahini, Bangabandhu's own, was viewed employing methods no different from the other anarchic groups." (p 98)
"In point of fact, Mujib exerted little if any control as the Rakshi Bahini assumed a life of its own and took upon itself the responsibility of eliminating Mujib's adversaries." (p 98)
"By 1974, several thousand local politicians had paid with their lives for their defiance or support of Mujibur Rahman. [Footnote: The environment of violence contributed to the events that ultimately took Mujib's life.] (p 99)."
"The momentum of violence had shifted from non-governmental to quasi-governmental contingents. Mujib, therefore, could not avoid the responsibility for the climate of fear and terror that gripped the country. Many of those allegedly killed by the Rakhi Bahini were rural leaders who had defeated Awami League candidates in the local polls that followed the parliamentary election (p 99)."
"Famine, always a threat, spread through the countryside in the summer of 1974, and no one, in or outside the government, seemed capable or willing to effectively grapple with the situation. Mujib was forced to acknowledge the starvation deaths of almost 30,000 people, and that was known to be a very low estimate (p 99)." [According to the Britannica, the figure was around 50,000, and there was food in the country, but the food was exported to India: see 'famine', Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition.]
"Thus, rather than starve in their remote villages, tens of thousands of peasants trekked to the towns and cities in search of relief….The task of keeping the famine-stricken outside the city limits was given to the Rakhi Bahini which showed little sympathy for their plight. The popular reaction to this callous display, this apparent breaking of a sacred promise, was predictable. Mujib was held accountable and he finally could not talk himself out of a hopeless situation. Empty words and gestures were exposed and the 'Friend of Bengal' witnessed the fading of his beleaguered popularity (p 100)."
"By the end of 1974, four thousand Awami Leaguers were reported murdered, including five members of parliament. There was reason to believe that many of the Awami League deaths had been cased by the Rakhi Bahini, which sensing a declining government apparatus and the loss of Mujib's prestige, sought to advance as well as protect itself….Mujib's fear had reached panic levels and he understood that this crisis would not pass. In a fateful move, he tried to back away from his reliance on the Rakhi Bahini, publicly attacked their violent excesses, and called upon the regular army to contain and control the smugglers and criminal elements in and outside the government (p 100)."
"Mujib found himself entangled in a web of his own making. His first order exposed the Bangladesh army to the magnitude of the national problem. His second order proved to be more fateful. On 28 December 1974, Mujib proclaimed a 'State of Emergency' in the country. These acts implied a form of martial law imposed by civilians rather than the military. Mujib had swept aside the constitution. Eventually the parliament was itself dissolved and the Awami League was transformed into a non-entity. Mujib had already laid plans for his new functional organization that he said better reflected his goals and hopes for the nation. BAKSAL was the inevitable outcome of these manoeuvres, but it was to be short-lived. Mujib sealed his own fate when he abandoned the three-year-old constitution and publicly condemned it as a legacy of colonial rule….But Mujib's coup did not have army support (p 101)."
"In January 1975, Mujib had himself sworn in as the country's president….Mujib, not the Bangladesh army, had removed the constraints on the arbitrary uses of power (p 102)."
"Having reached a moment when the only instruments of government lay in the utilization of violence, the question that emerged centred on where the violence would be directed. Mujib must have believed he could punish his enemies, i.e., anyone who challenged his supremacy. Indeed, Bhutto shared that thought two years later. But Mujib, as Bhutto was to learn, had the violence visited upon himself (p 102)."
"Mujib presided over a court corrupted by power. It acted as though it could shelter itself from the realities of Bangladesh. But the license that might have been ignored in some other societies, could not be ignored in a country overrun by self-styled enforcers, gouged by profiteers, and raped by government officials. With literally hundreds and thousands dying from hunger, with millions more threatened, high living in Bangladesh could only be equated with debauchery and hedonism, with irresponsibility and indifference. To anyone with a grudge or a sense of national purpose, the conclusion was the same. Deliberate efforts had to be made to reverse course, and the only option for such a reversal lay with a new team, and the only team capable of making the manouevre was the Bangladesh army (p 103)."
"BAKSAL was not only a coercive assembly, it was predicated on the elimination of other organizations. BAKSAL was Mujib's way of expressing his One-Party State. Thus in a more significant way, BAKSAL was meant to serve the purpose of the Bangabandhu's personal dictatorship, not the cause of national development and unity. BAKSAL was proof positive that Mujib intended to convert the country into a personal fiefdom for himself and his family members, and his many detractors did not need convincing that their once respected leader, not they, was the real threat to the nation's 'democratic' future (p 105)."
"Mujib believed he was Bangladesh, more so that he was good for the country and that it could not manage without him. Those who reinforced Mujib's impression of himself and his role did so because it benefited them politically or materially, not because they truly believed in his leadership." (p. 93)
"Mujib's bitter struggle with the army high command is illustrated by the decision to construct the Jatiyo Rakhi Bahini or National Security Force.…The Rakhi Bahini had quickly developed a reputation for intimidation and wanton aggression against the Bengali nation. Opinion was strong that that the para-military organization was no different from Hitler's Brown Shirts or the Gestapo. To informed observers as well as to a large segment of the population, Mujib and the Rakhi Bahini, not the Bangladesh army, posed the more significant threat to the country. The Bangladesh army, therefore, began to think of itself as the nation's salvation, the 'true' friend of Bengal." (pp 97 – 98)
"Unrestrained by law or law enforcement, defiant of the formal military establishment, gangs of toughs, many identified with the Rakhi Bahini even if they were without any official affiliation, roamed the countryside, looting the poor villagers and committing bodily harm on those resisting their demands. In the name of protecting society, the Rakhi Bahini, Bangabandhu's own, was viewed employing methods no different from the other anarchic groups." (p 98)
"In point of fact, Mujib exerted little if any control as the Rakshi Bahini assumed a life of its own and took upon itself the responsibility of eliminating Mujib's adversaries." (p 98)
"By 1974, several thousand local politicians had paid with their lives for their defiance or support of Mujibur Rahman. [Footnote: The environment of violence contributed to the events that ultimately took Mujib's life.] (p 99)."
"The momentum of violence had shifted from non-governmental to quasi-governmental contingents. Mujib, therefore, could not avoid the responsibility for the climate of fear and terror that gripped the country. Many of those allegedly killed by the Rakhi Bahini were rural leaders who had defeated Awami League candidates in the local polls that followed the parliamentary election (p 99)."
"Famine, always a threat, spread through the countryside in the summer of 1974, and no one, in or outside the government, seemed capable or willing to effectively grapple with the situation. Mujib was forced to acknowledge the starvation deaths of almost 30,000 people, and that was known to be a very low estimate (p 99)." [According to the Britannica, the figure was around 50,000, and there was food in the country, but the food was exported to India: see 'famine', Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition.]
"Thus, rather than starve in their remote villages, tens of thousands of peasants trekked to the towns and cities in search of relief….The task of keeping the famine-stricken outside the city limits was given to the Rakhi Bahini which showed little sympathy for their plight. The popular reaction to this callous display, this apparent breaking of a sacred promise, was predictable. Mujib was held accountable and he finally could not talk himself out of a hopeless situation. Empty words and gestures were exposed and the 'Friend of Bengal' witnessed the fading of his beleaguered popularity (p 100)."
"By the end of 1974, four thousand Awami Leaguers were reported murdered, including five members of parliament. There was reason to believe that many of the Awami League deaths had been cased by the Rakhi Bahini, which sensing a declining government apparatus and the loss of Mujib's prestige, sought to advance as well as protect itself….Mujib's fear had reached panic levels and he understood that this crisis would not pass. In a fateful move, he tried to back away from his reliance on the Rakhi Bahini, publicly attacked their violent excesses, and called upon the regular army to contain and control the smugglers and criminal elements in and outside the government (p 100)."
"Mujib found himself entangled in a web of his own making. His first order exposed the Bangladesh army to the magnitude of the national problem. His second order proved to be more fateful. On 28 December 1974, Mujib proclaimed a 'State of Emergency' in the country. These acts implied a form of martial law imposed by civilians rather than the military. Mujib had swept aside the constitution. Eventually the parliament was itself dissolved and the Awami League was transformed into a non-entity. Mujib had already laid plans for his new functional organization that he said better reflected his goals and hopes for the nation. BAKSAL was the inevitable outcome of these manoeuvres, but it was to be short-lived. Mujib sealed his own fate when he abandoned the three-year-old constitution and publicly condemned it as a legacy of colonial rule….But Mujib's coup did not have army support (p 101)."
"In January 1975, Mujib had himself sworn in as the country's president….Mujib, not the Bangladesh army, had removed the constraints on the arbitrary uses of power (p 102)."
"Having reached a moment when the only instruments of government lay in the utilization of violence, the question that emerged centred on where the violence would be directed. Mujib must have believed he could punish his enemies, i.e., anyone who challenged his supremacy. Indeed, Bhutto shared that thought two years later. But Mujib, as Bhutto was to learn, had the violence visited upon himself (p 102)."
"Mujib presided over a court corrupted by power. It acted as though it could shelter itself from the realities of Bangladesh. But the license that might have been ignored in some other societies, could not be ignored in a country overrun by self-styled enforcers, gouged by profiteers, and raped by government officials. With literally hundreds and thousands dying from hunger, with millions more threatened, high living in Bangladesh could only be equated with debauchery and hedonism, with irresponsibility and indifference. To anyone with a grudge or a sense of national purpose, the conclusion was the same. Deliberate efforts had to be made to reverse course, and the only option for such a reversal lay with a new team, and the only team capable of making the manouevre was the Bangladesh army (p 103)."
"BAKSAL was not only a coercive assembly, it was predicated on the elimination of other organizations. BAKSAL was Mujib's way of expressing his One-Party State. Thus in a more significant way, BAKSAL was meant to serve the purpose of the Bangabandhu's personal dictatorship, not the cause of national development and unity. BAKSAL was proof positive that Mujib intended to convert the country into a personal fiefdom for himself and his family members, and his many detractors did not need convincing that their once respected leader, not they, was the real threat to the nation's 'democratic' future (p 105)."
Friday, November 20, 2009
Vendetta in Bangladesh
15 August, 1975 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and part of his family killed
June, 1996 His daughter Sheikh Hasina comes to power after western donors restore democracy
April, 2001 High Court confirms death sentences for 12 of the accused
October, 2001 Shaikh Hasina loses election and Khaleda Zia becomes prime minister
December, 2008 Sheikh Hasina reelected
August, 2009 Final appeal hearing begins
November 19 2009 Appellate division confirms judgment of death by hanging
Thus, we see that the case had lain dormant, under the protective mantel of an Indemnity Ordnance, promulgated by President Khandker Moshtaque Ahmed, and later ratified by General Zia as Indemnity Act of 1979.
The "assassins" were rewarded with lucrative posts and given heroes' status by every subsequent government until the election of 1996 produced Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Mujib. She had survived the killing becasue she had been out of the country in 1975.
Therefore, the pattern that emerges is this: killers are hailed as heroes till 1996, the dynasty acquires state power in that year, loses it in the election of 2001, when proceedings against the killers stop, and are resumed again after Hasina, the daughter, returns to power in December, 2008.
A personal vendetta? A lynching? Victors justice? All three.
I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was fourteen, and I lived in Dhanmandi, very near the scene of the killing. At dawn, I heard the booming of guns, and woke up in fear. Later, we learned that Mujib and his family had been killed: there was rejoicing throughout the land!
Against this background, what are we to make of the Supreme Court verdict? Well, to put it mildly, it opens up an enormous gap between law and morality. The law must posit that every killing in peacetime is murder; but a moment’s consideration will show that morality can never posit that every killing in peacetime is immoral. Was the killing of Caligula murder? Certainly. But was it immoral? Certainly not.
Furthermore, we cannot consent to the proposition that the law, and the legal process, is always just.
Take Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. When the Bengal terrorists were gunning down British officers and, after due process, were being carted off to the Andamans, Bengalis hated the English for that: now, several streets in Calcutta are named after 'terrorists'.
Moreover, the Supreme Court, respect for which must be implanted in the heart of every citizen if we are to live in peace and with a clear conscience, has been sullied by a case that was basically moral, not legal. Now, no one, except the narrow band of fanatics devoted to the House of Mujib, who reck with neither morality nor logic, will regard the ‘due process’ as little more than an elaborate charade. The Supreme Court came into bad odour the day democracy was introduced: December 6, 1990. On that day, after General Ershad resigned, the Chief Justice became president, instead of the vice-president per constitution; later, he had this illegality legalized when parliament sat and passed two amendments. Since then, no one has ever believed that the Supreme Court is above politics.
Now, they will say, there goes the last institution to the democratic dog.
June, 1996 His daughter Sheikh Hasina comes to power after western donors restore democracy
April, 2001 High Court confirms death sentences for 12 of the accused
October, 2001 Shaikh Hasina loses election and Khaleda Zia becomes prime minister
December, 2008 Sheikh Hasina reelected
August, 2009 Final appeal hearing begins
November 19 2009 Appellate division confirms judgment of death by hanging
Thus, we see that the case had lain dormant, under the protective mantel of an Indemnity Ordnance, promulgated by President Khandker Moshtaque Ahmed, and later ratified by General Zia as Indemnity Act of 1979.
The "assassins" were rewarded with lucrative posts and given heroes' status by every subsequent government until the election of 1996 produced Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Mujib. She had survived the killing becasue she had been out of the country in 1975.
Therefore, the pattern that emerges is this: killers are hailed as heroes till 1996, the dynasty acquires state power in that year, loses it in the election of 2001, when proceedings against the killers stop, and are resumed again after Hasina, the daughter, returns to power in December, 2008.
A personal vendetta? A lynching? Victors justice? All three.
I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was fourteen, and I lived in Dhanmandi, very near the scene of the killing. At dawn, I heard the booming of guns, and woke up in fear. Later, we learned that Mujib and his family had been killed: there was rejoicing throughout the land!
Against this background, what are we to make of the Supreme Court verdict? Well, to put it mildly, it opens up an enormous gap between law and morality. The law must posit that every killing in peacetime is murder; but a moment’s consideration will show that morality can never posit that every killing in peacetime is immoral. Was the killing of Caligula murder? Certainly. But was it immoral? Certainly not.
Furthermore, we cannot consent to the proposition that the law, and the legal process, is always just.
Take Chief Justice Taney. A devout Catholic, he had emancipated all his slaves; yet, when the Dred Scott case came up, he had to assert that 'a black man has no rights'. When the Bengal terrorists were gunning down British officers and, after due process, were being carted off to the Andamans, Bengalis hated the English for that: now, several streets in Calcutta are named after 'terrorists'.
Moreover, the Supreme Court, respect for which must be implanted in the heart of every citizen if we are to live in peace and with a clear conscience, has been sullied by a case that was basically moral, not legal. Now, no one, except the narrow band of fanatics devoted to the House of Mujib, who reck with neither morality nor logic, will regard the ‘due process’ as little more than an elaborate charade. The Supreme Court came into bad odour the day democracy was introduced: December 6, 1990. On that day, after General Ershad resigned, the Chief Justice became president, instead of the vice-president per constitution; later, he had this illegality legalized when parliament sat and passed two amendments. Since then, no one has ever believed that the Supreme Court is above politics.
Now, they will say, there goes the last institution to the democratic dog.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Prophet Motive
When I was at university, a friend of mine wrote inside her book: "There is no God, and Marx is His prophet'.
She didn't know much about Marxism, of course, but she sure hated Islam. Back in the early and mid-80s, if you weren't a Marxist, you weren't respected at Dhaka University, or any university in Bangladesh for that matter (there were no private universities then).
Consequently, universities were hotbeds of communist hotheads. One can imagine the hatred inspired by General Zia and General Ershad's privatization policies, reversing the property-grab of the Sheikh Mujib era. However, we were never immune to the blandishments of money.
My friend – a staunch feminist – received an offer of marriage from a rich Bangladeshi expatriate resident in the USA (yes, the devil's lair). Moreover, this man was a devout Muslim. He would wake up and recite the Koran every day!
Did she agree to such a marriage? In an eye-blink.
I remember how senior students, seemingly addicted to Marxism, would suddenly disappear. On inquiry, it would be learned that he had taken off for some university in America. Ah well! Nothing wrong with acquiring knowledge. Then, after some time, one would learn that he had joined the IMF!
Today, public university teachers routinely moonlight at the (more lucrative) private universities, against the regulations.
You see, there's one thing we can't resist: money.
Marxism brought prestige, which was good for an undergraduate, when your father footed your bills; but the moment you graduated and found yourself in the international labour market, and realized your potential, well, money determined everything. Without a murmur, university teachers went over to democracy and capitalism after the Berlin Wall came crashing down.
Now, there's one idea that pays no earthly dividends: Islam in particular, and religion in general. The old hatred for Islam (that ideological state apparatus, remember?) has, therefore, remained on the campuses. Teachers take every opportunity to instill it into their students. If 90% of American university teachers are democrats (according to The Economist), then 90% of Bangladeshi teachers are supporters of the dynasty of Sheikh Mujib, the apostle of secularism (for which read anti-Islamism).
Hence, when a member of the dynasty was arrested by the army, the teachers incited their indoctrinated students (and paid goons) to burn cars, lorries, restaurants…anything that could be broken and torched.
The intelligentsia squarely blamed the military rulers for raising prices: even though the international media made it abundantly clear that the blame lay on the wrongheaded policy of oil-substitution through ethanol and the planting of maize. From 2007, a chart in The Economist showed a steady rise in international food prices – and January 2007 was when the army took over from the psychopaths
(For international food prices - including Bangladesh's - see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=13886235 Conveniently for our intellectuals, international food prices began to fall just when their psychopathic leader came to power in a rigged election!)
A teacher at a local university blankly accused a bureaucrat of raising food prices – and she was a teacher of (you won't believe this) economics! A banker brazenly asked my wife, "What have international prices got to do with us?"
This year, prices, especially of sugar and ahead of Eid, have risen again – but not a whisper has been heard from the "secular" intellectuals because the dynasty is now in power.
For sugar prices, see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=14209265
She didn't know much about Marxism, of course, but she sure hated Islam. Back in the early and mid-80s, if you weren't a Marxist, you weren't respected at Dhaka University, or any university in Bangladesh for that matter (there were no private universities then).
Consequently, universities were hotbeds of communist hotheads. One can imagine the hatred inspired by General Zia and General Ershad's privatization policies, reversing the property-grab of the Sheikh Mujib era. However, we were never immune to the blandishments of money.
My friend – a staunch feminist – received an offer of marriage from a rich Bangladeshi expatriate resident in the USA (yes, the devil's lair). Moreover, this man was a devout Muslim. He would wake up and recite the Koran every day!
Did she agree to such a marriage? In an eye-blink.
I remember how senior students, seemingly addicted to Marxism, would suddenly disappear. On inquiry, it would be learned that he had taken off for some university in America. Ah well! Nothing wrong with acquiring knowledge. Then, after some time, one would learn that he had joined the IMF!
Today, public university teachers routinely moonlight at the (more lucrative) private universities, against the regulations.
You see, there's one thing we can't resist: money.
Marxism brought prestige, which was good for an undergraduate, when your father footed your bills; but the moment you graduated and found yourself in the international labour market, and realized your potential, well, money determined everything. Without a murmur, university teachers went over to democracy and capitalism after the Berlin Wall came crashing down.
Now, there's one idea that pays no earthly dividends: Islam in particular, and religion in general. The old hatred for Islam (that ideological state apparatus, remember?) has, therefore, remained on the campuses. Teachers take every opportunity to instill it into their students. If 90% of American university teachers are democrats (according to The Economist), then 90% of Bangladeshi teachers are supporters of the dynasty of Sheikh Mujib, the apostle of secularism (for which read anti-Islamism).
Hence, when a member of the dynasty was arrested by the army, the teachers incited their indoctrinated students (and paid goons) to burn cars, lorries, restaurants…anything that could be broken and torched.
The intelligentsia squarely blamed the military rulers for raising prices: even though the international media made it abundantly clear that the blame lay on the wrongheaded policy of oil-substitution through ethanol and the planting of maize. From 2007, a chart in The Economist showed a steady rise in international food prices – and January 2007 was when the army took over from the psychopaths
(For international food prices - including Bangladesh's - see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=13886235 Conveniently for our intellectuals, international food prices began to fall just when their psychopathic leader came to power in a rigged election!)
A teacher at a local university blankly accused a bureaucrat of raising food prices – and she was a teacher of (you won't believe this) economics! A banker brazenly asked my wife, "What have international prices got to do with us?"
This year, prices, especially of sugar and ahead of Eid, have risen again – but not a whisper has been heard from the "secular" intellectuals because the dynasty is now in power.
For sugar prices, see http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933596&story_id=14209265
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
PSYCHO
The prime minister again defends her record on the ground that, had the army been sent in, there would have been "civil war".
Suppose that's true – the cure would then have been worse than the disease. Let us concede Hasina her point. Then the question arises: could not the whole diabolical episode have been prevented?
For as Colonel Kamruzzaman (who is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder) relates (and Hasina never refutes) the PM had been apprised long before any violence began – by the BDR chief himself. She said help was on its way – if help had arrived in the next thirty minutes, none of the murders and rapes would have occurred.
Why didn't she send assistance?
In these recordings, we have the testimony of Dr. Kabir, who was saved because he was on leave but nonetheless inside the compound with his family. The jawans came for his family, and called them "sons and daughters of whores" repeatedly.
Later, when the families had been gathered together, Dr. Karim says, the jawans came to the women and said, "The Punjabis impregnated you with Punjabi babies, we will impregnate you with BDR babies." At this point, the file breaks off...leaving the horror of the next moments unsaid yet described in detail.
Sahara Khatun, the home minister, did not even bother to inquire about the families, but left with a few arms.
Hasina delivers a sob story about how her family had been killed in 1975 (what relevance that has here escapes me); and she adds that the killers were rewarded for their deed; indeed, I was fifteen at the time, and I remember the nationwide jubilation at the murder of the Mujib family. These are facts.
She complains that she and her sister were not allowed into the country for six years – because, no doubt, she was deemed a menace to the nation, which she has indeed proven to be (the army didn't lock her up, with the other banshee, for two years for traffic violation).
This time, the nation was not delighted – only Awami Leaguers are delighted. They cannot forget that the army had held their "beloved leader" in jail for the past two years.
This sort of personality cult, so redolent of North Korea, passes for democracy in Bangladesh.
Indeed, it is absurd to expect Sheikh Hasina to handle a situation like that – or even to value human life – when young student politicians belonging to her party are dropping like flies, and she – just doesn't care. Yesterday, a student politician was thrown off the second floor of a building, and he died a painful death. With so much murder in the ranks of the ruling party, why should it spare a thought for human life or dignity?
"Hasina, in fact, has been the biggest disappointment for even AL supporters. Throughout her term she showed incredible tolerance to her party-men, who virtually unleashed a reign of terror all over the country. She did not ask any of her cabinet members to resign even after knowing about their criminal activities. The student wing of AL the Chhatra League carried on the legacy of their predecessors, the Chhatra Dal, with equal zeal, occupying the university halls, controlling tenders and spreading crime across the country. One group became famous for their serial rape spree in Jahangirnagar University where a Chhatra League (interestingly former Chhatra Dal) leader celebrated his 100th rape on campus. Again Hasina remained silent." http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2004/03/04/coverstory.htm (As usual, the Daily Star is wrong: Hasina never ever disappointed her supporters: no matter what the crime, she receives blind support from her devotees: like a queen, she is never wrong.In the 2001 election, despite a horrendous spate of violent crime like the one described above, her party still won 40% of the vote, and would have won if the election had not been rigged.)
How can a sane nation expect that a psychopath would try and save officers and their families? Only a person who has an atom of respect for human life would begin to make an attempt to bring succour to the distressed. I am amazed that the nation can even believe that this woman tried to save lives...to her, lives are as drops of water. This alone answers the query raised above: why didn't she send assistance right away?
As for the nation itself, this is not the first time such heinous acts have been perpetrated since 1990– we have forgotten the rapes at Jahangirnagar University, the rape and suicide of Mahima, the rape and death of Tahura Begum, the decapitated bodies, the disarticulated remains....This time, the unspeakable has occurred in one place over a compressed period of time.
We lost our humanity a long time ago. Al-Ghazali would have blamed us for our rebellion in 1990, for, defending autocracy wholeheartedly, he said, "Sixty years of tyranny are better than an hour of civil strife".
These new audio files shed further light on evil - if that's possible
Suppose that's true – the cure would then have been worse than the disease. Let us concede Hasina her point. Then the question arises: could not the whole diabolical episode have been prevented?
For as Colonel Kamruzzaman (who is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder) relates (and Hasina never refutes) the PM had been apprised long before any violence began – by the BDR chief himself. She said help was on its way – if help had arrived in the next thirty minutes, none of the murders and rapes would have occurred.
Why didn't she send assistance?
In these recordings, we have the testimony of Dr. Kabir, who was saved because he was on leave but nonetheless inside the compound with his family. The jawans came for his family, and called them "sons and daughters of whores" repeatedly.
Later, when the families had been gathered together, Dr. Karim says, the jawans came to the women and said, "The Punjabis impregnated you with Punjabi babies, we will impregnate you with BDR babies." At this point, the file breaks off...leaving the horror of the next moments unsaid yet described in detail.
Sahara Khatun, the home minister, did not even bother to inquire about the families, but left with a few arms.
Hasina delivers a sob story about how her family had been killed in 1975 (what relevance that has here escapes me); and she adds that the killers were rewarded for their deed; indeed, I was fifteen at the time, and I remember the nationwide jubilation at the murder of the Mujib family. These are facts.
She complains that she and her sister were not allowed into the country for six years – because, no doubt, she was deemed a menace to the nation, which she has indeed proven to be (the army didn't lock her up, with the other banshee, for two years for traffic violation).
This time, the nation was not delighted – only Awami Leaguers are delighted. They cannot forget that the army had held their "beloved leader" in jail for the past two years.
This sort of personality cult, so redolent of North Korea, passes for democracy in Bangladesh.
Indeed, it is absurd to expect Sheikh Hasina to handle a situation like that – or even to value human life – when young student politicians belonging to her party are dropping like flies, and she – just doesn't care. Yesterday, a student politician was thrown off the second floor of a building, and he died a painful death. With so much murder in the ranks of the ruling party, why should it spare a thought for human life or dignity?
"Hasina, in fact, has been the biggest disappointment for even AL supporters. Throughout her term she showed incredible tolerance to her party-men, who virtually unleashed a reign of terror all over the country. She did not ask any of her cabinet members to resign even after knowing about their criminal activities. The student wing of AL the Chhatra League carried on the legacy of their predecessors, the Chhatra Dal, with equal zeal, occupying the university halls, controlling tenders and spreading crime across the country. One group became famous for their serial rape spree in Jahangirnagar University where a Chhatra League (interestingly former Chhatra Dal) leader celebrated his 100th rape on campus. Again Hasina remained silent." http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2004/03/04/coverstory.htm (As usual, the Daily Star is wrong: Hasina never ever disappointed her supporters: no matter what the crime, she receives blind support from her devotees: like a queen, she is never wrong.In the 2001 election, despite a horrendous spate of violent crime like the one described above, her party still won 40% of the vote, and would have won if the election had not been rigged.)
How can a sane nation expect that a psychopath would try and save officers and their families? Only a person who has an atom of respect for human life would begin to make an attempt to bring succour to the distressed. I am amazed that the nation can even believe that this woman tried to save lives...to her, lives are as drops of water. This alone answers the query raised above: why didn't she send assistance right away?
As for the nation itself, this is not the first time such heinous acts have been perpetrated since 1990– we have forgotten the rapes at Jahangirnagar University, the rape and suicide of Mahima, the rape and death of Tahura Begum, the decapitated bodies, the disarticulated remains....This time, the unspeakable has occurred in one place over a compressed period of time.
We lost our humanity a long time ago. Al-Ghazali would have blamed us for our rebellion in 1990, for, defending autocracy wholeheartedly, he said, "Sixty years of tyranny are better than an hour of civil strife".
These new audio files shed further light on evil - if that's possible
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Dual Dictatorship
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Dual-Dictatorship-by-Iftekhar-Sayeed-090309-281.html
(click link above for article)
Western donor governments, especially America, have created civil wars in several Muslim countries by imposing democracy: in the next few months, Bangladesh will probably be added to the list.
Excerpt:
" But the unholy alliance between the army and the two politicians has been forged under the watchful eyes of the western donors. They saw it happening: true, they tried to get rid of the two 'begums' (banshees, rather) in a minus-two formula (exile or jail), but such was the tenacious loyalty of the followers (especially of Hasina's), that it proved impossible. Where, prior to 1991, we had one dictator, now we were destined to be blessed with two."
(click link above for article)
Western donor governments, especially America, have created civil wars in several Muslim countries by imposing democracy: in the next few months, Bangladesh will probably be added to the list.
Excerpt:
" But the unholy alliance between the army and the two politicians has been forged under the watchful eyes of the western donors. They saw it happening: true, they tried to get rid of the two 'begums' (banshees, rather) in a minus-two formula (exile or jail), but such was the tenacious loyalty of the followers (especially of Hasina's), that it proved impossible. Where, prior to 1991, we had one dictator, now we were destined to be blessed with two."
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Die Nasty: The Sins of the Fathers
The sins of the parents visit the child.
Consider the fate of Benazir Bhutto. She was warned not to come to Pakistan. It was almost like a Greek chorus hissing disapproval, yet powerless to do anything. She was destined to death.
For the sins of her father.
At an Oxford debate, an opponent described her father's calling as that of “a tradesman of some description. A butcher, I gather.” She looked like she had been slapped across her mug.
The speaker was referring to the genocide of 1971 for which half the blame must rest with her father.
The other half must rest with the other demagogue elected from East Pakistan – Sheikh Mujib. Together, they destroyed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. And both men died violent, unnatural deaths. I was fifteen when Sheikh Mujib was killed – and I still remember the nationwide jubilation at his passing.
When there's no other way to remove a dynasty –the ballot cannot do that – there remains only one way: the bullet.
Sheikh Hasina has received intelligence report that she is on an international terrorist hit list. They say there have been 21 attempts on her life – which if true, reflects very badly on the military prowess of the jihadis. Kidding aside, how long does Sheikh Hasina have – a year, two years?
I'm not a betting man, but if I were to wager a significant amount, I would take a punt on 1 year – that is, 2009. Before the year's out, she'll be out. Of course I could be wrong about the timing, but it's a foregone conclusion. Just a matter of time.
And then? The dynasty will renew itself, and there will be more assassinations...nemesis, like evil, never tires.
Consider the fate of Benazir Bhutto. She was warned not to come to Pakistan. It was almost like a Greek chorus hissing disapproval, yet powerless to do anything. She was destined to death.
For the sins of her father.
At an Oxford debate, an opponent described her father's calling as that of “a tradesman of some description. A butcher, I gather.” She looked like she had been slapped across her mug.
The speaker was referring to the genocide of 1971 for which half the blame must rest with her father.
The other half must rest with the other demagogue elected from East Pakistan – Sheikh Mujib. Together, they destroyed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. And both men died violent, unnatural deaths. I was fifteen when Sheikh Mujib was killed – and I still remember the nationwide jubilation at his passing.
When there's no other way to remove a dynasty –the ballot cannot do that – there remains only one way: the bullet.
Sheikh Hasina has received intelligence report that she is on an international terrorist hit list. They say there have been 21 attempts on her life – which if true, reflects very badly on the military prowess of the jihadis. Kidding aside, how long does Sheikh Hasina have – a year, two years?
I'm not a betting man, but if I were to wager a significant amount, I would take a punt on 1 year – that is, 2009. Before the year's out, she'll be out. Of course I could be wrong about the timing, but it's a foregone conclusion. Just a matter of time.
And then? The dynasty will renew itself, and there will be more assassinations...nemesis, like evil, never tires.
Monday, November 17, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
a demagogue delivers
"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)"
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)"
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Tyrannicide, or murder?
Immanuel Kant first drew the distinction between morality and law. Since then, the distinction has become commonplace, even trite: we know that what is illegal is not necessarily immoral, and what is immoral is not always illegal.
On August 15, 1975, this bifurcation of law and morality made itself apparent in our country. The question is: did what happen on that day constitute an immoral act, as well as an illegal one?
That murder is illegal in peacetime is well-known: is it also immoral? Did the assassination of Sheikh Mujib constitute justifiable tyrannicide or plain, ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill murder? Were the circumstances of the president such as to warrant a violent end to his life?
People may be forgiven for thinking that they did. After all, Sheikh Mujib had become hated by then, and with good reason. To take one instance: while a famine raged in the country, he permitted the export of food to India by domestic merchants (“Famine”, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition). Further, his sons and his private army, the Rakhshi Bahini, terrorized the nation. Further examples of tyranny can be adduced from history books (for instance, Albert Reynolds observes in his book “One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945” - New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 2000, p. 217 - - “He failed to disarm the guerrillas or check the rampant corruption, and the country soon degenerated into anarchy”), but the memory of those frightening days are as vivid as yesterday’s events.
Had the soldiers not acted, would they not have been even more culpable? Not to come to the aid of your nation when it is sliding into anarchy must surely be immoral, even wicked – though illegal. They made it possible to take the nation away from atheist Soviet Union and polytheist India; away from a disastrous socialism that refused to feed the people; towards what prosperity this unfortunate nation has known over the last decades.
And can it not be argued that what they have received so far is victor’s justice – but for an electoral quirk in 1996, the indemnity ordnance shielding them, and conferred on them by an approving and grateful government, the law would have remained silent on the subject. For every honour was heaped on the soldiers by successive governments: the nation rejoiced on that day as it has never done since. These are facts: they testify to the gratitude of the people, whatever the law may decide.
And in South Asia’s dynastic democracy, it is a pathetic fact that assassination needs must extend to the family: the soldiers, it can be said, are being tried, not for killing the first family, but for failing to kill the first family.
And should they be denied a presidential pardon, and walk the gallows, will it not be said that they were condemned merely by the law, and exonerated – nay, perhaps even elevated – by a higher law?
And should a verdict be reached, the Supreme Court will be accused of taking political sides; our learned judges are well aware of the schism between law and ethics. Whether they say “aye” or “nay”, the Court will make itself controversial, for one cannot legislate over men’s hearts. And the sorry tale would have an even sorrier epilogue: a compromised judiciary. And the nation itself shall feel the cleavage within, one half approving, the other half deploring the outcome of a trial – whatever the outcome. For the country is so divided along partisan lines that not even a word can be breathed without having to nominate the faction for whom, and against whom, it is intended.
Such are the perils that await the nation since passions cannot be disinflamed by the magistrate.
On August 15, 1975, this bifurcation of law and morality made itself apparent in our country. The question is: did what happen on that day constitute an immoral act, as well as an illegal one?
That murder is illegal in peacetime is well-known: is it also immoral? Did the assassination of Sheikh Mujib constitute justifiable tyrannicide or plain, ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill murder? Were the circumstances of the president such as to warrant a violent end to his life?
People may be forgiven for thinking that they did. After all, Sheikh Mujib had become hated by then, and with good reason. To take one instance: while a famine raged in the country, he permitted the export of food to India by domestic merchants (“Famine”, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition). Further, his sons and his private army, the Rakhshi Bahini, terrorized the nation. Further examples of tyranny can be adduced from history books (for instance, Albert Reynolds observes in his book “One World Divisible: A Global History Since 1945” - New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 2000, p. 217 - - “He failed to disarm the guerrillas or check the rampant corruption, and the country soon degenerated into anarchy”), but the memory of those frightening days are as vivid as yesterday’s events.
Had the soldiers not acted, would they not have been even more culpable? Not to come to the aid of your nation when it is sliding into anarchy must surely be immoral, even wicked – though illegal. They made it possible to take the nation away from atheist Soviet Union and polytheist India; away from a disastrous socialism that refused to feed the people; towards what prosperity this unfortunate nation has known over the last decades.
And can it not be argued that what they have received so far is victor’s justice – but for an electoral quirk in 1996, the indemnity ordnance shielding them, and conferred on them by an approving and grateful government, the law would have remained silent on the subject. For every honour was heaped on the soldiers by successive governments: the nation rejoiced on that day as it has never done since. These are facts: they testify to the gratitude of the people, whatever the law may decide.
And in South Asia’s dynastic democracy, it is a pathetic fact that assassination needs must extend to the family: the soldiers, it can be said, are being tried, not for killing the first family, but for failing to kill the first family.
And should they be denied a presidential pardon, and walk the gallows, will it not be said that they were condemned merely by the law, and exonerated – nay, perhaps even elevated – by a higher law?
And should a verdict be reached, the Supreme Court will be accused of taking political sides; our learned judges are well aware of the schism between law and ethics. Whether they say “aye” or “nay”, the Court will make itself controversial, for one cannot legislate over men’s hearts. And the sorry tale would have an even sorrier epilogue: a compromised judiciary. And the nation itself shall feel the cleavage within, one half approving, the other half deploring the outcome of a trial – whatever the outcome. For the country is so divided along partisan lines that not even a word can be breathed without having to nominate the faction for whom, and against whom, it is intended.
Such are the perils that await the nation since passions cannot be disinflamed by the magistrate.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Guns or Bombs: The Assasin's Dilemma
The botched attempt to kill Sheikh Hasina holds valuable lessons. It shows that the Harkatul Jihad (Huji) don't do their homework, for one thing. Killing a leader with a bomb has a success rate of only 7% and killed bystanders. Of course, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was remarkably successful, but then the bomber got sufficiently close tot he target to blow her up (as well as himself). Ditto the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.
Huji would have done better to use firearms, which have a kill rate of 30%. The killing of Sheih Mujib and sundry other public figures (Bandaranaike, Kennedy, Bhrindranwale, Indira Gandhi....) was accomplished with guns.
Killing leaders (especially if they are in power) is not easy: between 1875 and 2004, there were 298 attempts made on the lives of leaders – of which only 59 hit the bull's eye, and killed the bull.
In the 1910s, a leader had a 1% chance of being done in; today, a measly 0.3%, according to research by Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken.
Huji would have done better to use firearms, which have a kill rate of 30%. The killing of Sheih Mujib and sundry other public figures (Bandaranaike, Kennedy, Bhrindranwale, Indira Gandhi....) was accomplished with guns.
Killing leaders (especially if they are in power) is not easy: between 1875 and 2004, there were 298 attempts made on the lives of leaders – of which only 59 hit the bull's eye, and killed the bull.
In the 1910s, a leader had a 1% chance of being done in; today, a measly 0.3%, according to research by Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
where failure pays
Nirad C. Chaudhuri, in his otherwise stimulating article ‘India, West Bengal and East Bengal’ overlooked two leaders who would disprove ‘the fact...that no responsible political or military leader has ever played with the security of his people when military resistance seemed irrational’. They are Napoleon and Nehru.
The French revolutionaries had every reason to fear that their cause would not succeed: they were surrounded by monarchies bent on killing the infant republic in its cradle. By all rational calculations, republicanism was bound to fail. That it did not was largely the work of Napoleon. However, his astonishing military successes were due to that epochal innovation in military history: the National Army – a body of people dedicated to a set of ideas for which they were willing to die by the thousands.
Again, on his return from Elba, Napoleon knew that this time, not only was all Europe against him, but even his own country: he still destroyed 100,000 lives on a personal gamble.
In our own day, we have seen similar revolutionary wars undertaken by a nation covetous of dignity and freedom against – by all rational reckoning – seemingly invincible military might. Vietnam and Iran are the latest examples. As Joseph Conrad said, “It is not the clear-sighted who lead the world; great achievements are carried out in a warm, blessed mental fog.”
Therefore, pace Nirad Chaudhuri, it is not the “fact of the matter that East Bengal Muslims and their leaders did not know the basic principle of seeking or continuing a political conflict when faced with an overwhelming military superiority of the opponent”. The fact of the matter is that there was no revolutionary, national sentiment shared by the whole people. As Mr.Badruddin Umar has observed, the winners of 1971 were the new elite, totally divorced from the aspirations of the people. As Mr.Afsan Chowdhury has pointed out, those villagers who took up arms did so to protect their homes or as a reaction to violence against their villages, not for the ‘nation’.
There is another parallel to the actions of Sheikh Mujib: those of Nehru during the border-conflict with China. Here was a ‘responsible’ political leader who had been advised by diplomats and military experts not to confront China on the battlefield. He chose to ignore them. Nehru refused to negotiate; he was goaded on by the political class; he firmly believed that China would not attack; the army was politicised at the top and the officers were inefficient.
The very possibility of Chinese retaliation for Indian provocation was rejected. Without a shred of evidence, the Intelligence Bureau endorsed this illogical view; those officers who questioned the assumption were shunted aside to make room for more docile soldiers. And the most docile of them all was General Kaul. The chief of general staff, without any combat command experience, was moved to active command despite the knowledge of his total unsuitability for the post! When General Thapar suggested that China might counter-attack, Nehru said that he had ‘good reason to believe that the Chinese would not take strong action against us’. Soon, the situation was out of his hand – he was a pawn of the powers he had encouraged, both national as well as international.
Therefore, it is not the Bengali Hindu or Bengali Muslim who has 'the disease’, as Nirad Chaudhuri put it. Rather, it appears to be a South Asian trait: intransigence, the inability to accommodate any other point of view but mine, an unrealistic appraisal of the situation – all these qualities are on abundant display in South Asia. We see them at work in the Kashmir question in India, in the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, and in our own domestic politics in Bangladesh.
However, the real lesson of Nehru’s debacle is different. Despite losing the newly-won freedom of India to China (but for Chinese forbearance), he not only did not resign, there was not a murmur against his continued leadership. Moreover, his daughter and his grandson went on to inherit his position. Similarly, Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, despite losing half the country, managed to bequeath power to his daughter. The Bandaranaike family, notwithstanding the fact that it was father who started the Tamil-Sinahlase division, managed to keep the prime ministership as well as the presidency simultaneously in the family! Our dynasties have their similar origins in fiascoes and debacles.
The experience of being ruled for several hundred years by foreigners must have eaten away the intellectual fibre of our elites. Surely, it will take several generations before we start thinking for ourselves, and not let others do our thinking for us. Perhaps 60 years of ‘independence’ is not enough for independent thought. How long before the slave mentality finally disappears?
In South Asia, failure pays.
The French revolutionaries had every reason to fear that their cause would not succeed: they were surrounded by monarchies bent on killing the infant republic in its cradle. By all rational calculations, republicanism was bound to fail. That it did not was largely the work of Napoleon. However, his astonishing military successes were due to that epochal innovation in military history: the National Army – a body of people dedicated to a set of ideas for which they were willing to die by the thousands.
Again, on his return from Elba, Napoleon knew that this time, not only was all Europe against him, but even his own country: he still destroyed 100,000 lives on a personal gamble.
In our own day, we have seen similar revolutionary wars undertaken by a nation covetous of dignity and freedom against – by all rational reckoning – seemingly invincible military might. Vietnam and Iran are the latest examples. As Joseph Conrad said, “It is not the clear-sighted who lead the world; great achievements are carried out in a warm, blessed mental fog.”
Therefore, pace Nirad Chaudhuri, it is not the “fact of the matter that East Bengal Muslims and their leaders did not know the basic principle of seeking or continuing a political conflict when faced with an overwhelming military superiority of the opponent”. The fact of the matter is that there was no revolutionary, national sentiment shared by the whole people. As Mr.Badruddin Umar has observed, the winners of 1971 were the new elite, totally divorced from the aspirations of the people. As Mr.Afsan Chowdhury has pointed out, those villagers who took up arms did so to protect their homes or as a reaction to violence against their villages, not for the ‘nation’.
There is another parallel to the actions of Sheikh Mujib: those of Nehru during the border-conflict with China. Here was a ‘responsible’ political leader who had been advised by diplomats and military experts not to confront China on the battlefield. He chose to ignore them. Nehru refused to negotiate; he was goaded on by the political class; he firmly believed that China would not attack; the army was politicised at the top and the officers were inefficient.
The very possibility of Chinese retaliation for Indian provocation was rejected. Without a shred of evidence, the Intelligence Bureau endorsed this illogical view; those officers who questioned the assumption were shunted aside to make room for more docile soldiers. And the most docile of them all was General Kaul. The chief of general staff, without any combat command experience, was moved to active command despite the knowledge of his total unsuitability for the post! When General Thapar suggested that China might counter-attack, Nehru said that he had ‘good reason to believe that the Chinese would not take strong action against us’. Soon, the situation was out of his hand – he was a pawn of the powers he had encouraged, both national as well as international.
Therefore, it is not the Bengali Hindu or Bengali Muslim who has 'the disease’, as Nirad Chaudhuri put it. Rather, it appears to be a South Asian trait: intransigence, the inability to accommodate any other point of view but mine, an unrealistic appraisal of the situation – all these qualities are on abundant display in South Asia. We see them at work in the Kashmir question in India, in the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, and in our own domestic politics in Bangladesh.
However, the real lesson of Nehru’s debacle is different. Despite losing the newly-won freedom of India to China (but for Chinese forbearance), he not only did not resign, there was not a murmur against his continued leadership. Moreover, his daughter and his grandson went on to inherit his position. Similarly, Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, despite losing half the country, managed to bequeath power to his daughter. The Bandaranaike family, notwithstanding the fact that it was father who started the Tamil-Sinahlase division, managed to keep the prime ministership as well as the presidency simultaneously in the family! Our dynasties have their similar origins in fiascoes and debacles.
The experience of being ruled for several hundred years by foreigners must have eaten away the intellectual fibre of our elites. Surely, it will take several generations before we start thinking for ourselves, and not let others do our thinking for us. Perhaps 60 years of ‘independence’ is not enough for independent thought. How long before the slave mentality finally disappears?
In South Asia, failure pays.
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