The Bad Barrel Of Bangladeshi Democracy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

an invaluable poem

You promised me democracy,

But look what you have done to me.

You robbed my past,

and future stole,

and a present

left to me,

crushed beyond

a mending hope.

Ten years before invading me,

you broke my dams

and bridges bombed,

and power plants,

and sewage lines,

and water mains,

You fed the plants

with pesticide,

The baby food and medicine

you destroyed;

and the silos

of my grain

you set aflame.

So I may not

make good my loss

nor repair

my water mains,

you shackled me

in sanctions,

and a million kids

you starved to death.

I lived Saddam’s

nightmare through.

I knew what I

must watch out for.

But now I don’t know

where to hide

for death has lost

its pattern now.

He used to kill

and bury us,

friendless in

our unmarked graves;

but our names

he kept on files.

And now that you

are killing us,

we do not even

have a grave,

nor a number

nor a name–

thus in your books

we never lived.

He was your friend

who hurried us,

so many to their

early deaths,

with weapons that you

sold to him,

while you looked

the other way.

He was not

a ‘tyrant’ then,

which of late

he has become.

You merely changed

the label,

so you could come

and liberate,

the wealth that we

are sitting on,

and this you call

our liberation!

You promised me

democracy,

but look what you

have done to me.

With bombs you won

my heart over,

with blows you changed

my mind.

You tore into

my home at night,

and pulverized

my only peace.

And shrieking as

my mother watched,

with frightened children

Gathered ‘round,

you floored my father

in a heap,

with kicks and blows

and rifle butts,

and tore my humble

home apart.

Then you led

our men away,

with tied hands

behind their backs,

and with their eyes folded blind,

into the endless prison night.

And there you tore

my father’s robe.

To cover then

his nakedness,

upon his head

you put the hood,

and leashed him like

a dog on show,

and your dogs

unleashed on him.

You promised me

democracy,

but look what you

have done to me.

You took my youth

in prime away–

you shredded wedding

gatherings.

The little joys

that I had left,

merriment in

a broken life,

now in collateral

damage rest,

rising up

in smoke and flame,

of a mindless

bombing run.

‘Tis peel and husk

I have for food,

and water mixed

with sewage now

is all I have

to slake my thirst.

You even took

my sand away,

polluted by

uranium dust,

so when I have

my children they

shall be deformed,

unlovely and

unkissable–

and so unlike

your lovely kids!

My millions homeless

roam the road,

and orphaned children

beg in streets.

My women raised

in sanctity,

are now the stuff

of ravishment.

My men are slaughtered

out of hand,

and widows search

the morgues for them.

My dawn is dull,

and dusk is blood,

and bombs and blasts,

my afternoons.

My night in hopelessness is sunk,

when peace with me

a refuge takes,

and heaps on me

another dawn–

another search

of bodies lost;

another count

of heaped insults;

another day

to death evade,

call it life,

and celebrate.

So now when I

am fighting back,

my fearlessness

is causing awe.

Unequal,

but unafraid,

when I equalize myself,

and blow my only

life away,

you are shocked,

and label me

a terrorist!

I who want

my honor lost

and country back–

–a terrorist?

And you who came here

for my oil,

on crutches of

a shameless lie,

are and always

shall remain,

the humanist!

I know your type.

I see your greed

and hunger know,

but it is those

I want to know,

whose vote does so

empower you.

Do they not see

what they have done?

They promised me

democracy,

but look what they

have done to me!

(c) 2010 by Saeed Malik

Zionism's Reach

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

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

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

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

The Biddable Intelligentsia

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

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

Why this antipathy towards the intellect?

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

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

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

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

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

In The Beginning Was The Word (fiction)

In The Beginning Was The Word

(click above for fiction)

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

Excerpt:

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

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

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

"And why’s that?"

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

"But I’m popular."

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

"What can I do?"

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

"What are you going on about, Zafar?"

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

"Eh?"

The Raj is Still Here

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

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

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

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

A civilisation of monekys

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

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

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

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

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