Mon 26 Dec 2005
I went to see the new Spielberg movie “Munich” today. My pre-movie intention was to write on my observations of Hollywood’s changing tone on politics, especially middle east politics. But a dialogue of a movie character gave me a new question to think on.
In a scene, a character, referring to the plenty amount of food in dinner table, makes a comment, that is something like ” There is Enough food here to feed Bangladesh..”…
Well, the movie was based on events of early 70s. Bangladesh has just came out of the famine of 1974. The infamous comment, international basket case, is already well circulated. What Sub saharan Africa is now a days, Bangladesh, in 70s, was indeed an example of extreme poverty, misery, hunger, strife etc.
We would hope that we have moved on. That sort of stereotyping, hopefully, will not happen with Bangladesh again. Although Bangladesh is no longer the example of the most extreme, hunger, poverty are still there. In fact in international and lately in Indian media also, I see referrences like, ‘a desperately poor and impoverished country’, ‘very impoverished’, ‘hopelessly poor’ , ‘One of the poorest countries in the world’ etc when Bangladesh need to be mentioned for any reason.
My question, how many years it will take Bangladesh to leave behind the poverty curse? Will this happen in one generation?
-Rumi
December 27th, 2005 at 4:13 am
how many years it will take Bangladesh to leave behind the poverty curse?
Thats a subjective argument and it depends a lot on the narrowing the gaps of the rich and poor. E.g. a BMW in Dhaka street does not represent standing above the poverty line.
But as a Bangladeshi we must be vocal to break the misconceptions of many in the world that Bangladesh cannot feed its citizens. Bangladesh is self sufficient in many ways. In recent days no severe famine was caused by natural calamities or war as evident in some of the African nations. Of course we should not forget the Monga in the northern region, but the situation is man made and because of anomaly in the planning by the administration.
I am proud to say Bangladesh do not need food aid. But going forward, we need to keep the population increase at a very lower rate so that our resources are not exhausted.
Going back to the dialogue, the author has no idea how much food is required to feed 140 million people with limited resources. I think many developed nation would not be able to sustain the burden, which Bangladesh does without any help.
December 29th, 2005 at 10:54 am
[...] dvised to take note of the Islamist ascendance that presently imperils the country. Though Bangladesh is one the poorest nations in the world, it is stra [...]
January 18th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Food show caters to variety of tastes
From chef extraordinaire Christine Cushing to the Dairy Farmers of Canada, an upcoming high-end trade show has diverse offerings for food and wine lovers through to milk drinkers. The Western Fair Association’s first London Wine and Food Show, Frida…
March 11th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
“how many years it will take Bangladesh to leave behind the poverty curse?”
if you spend some time outside of the cities, you will be struck by the people living in absolute poverty. whats even more amazing to me, is their mental attitude that does its part to lock them into this poverty cycle. they are poor and illiterate, they are unable to help themselves — all good reasons, i will admit. but they are busy blaming everybody else for their misfortune, which pisses me off. when will these people take a stand and say “i may be poor and i may be hungry, but i will not stand for this anymore, i will go out there, learn a skill and feed myself. i will stop begging. an honourable life is my birth right and i will attain it for myself and for my family.”
it will take years and years for our villagers to overcome the problems we have created. i will probably not be lucky enough to see them better off before i die. but the change is happenning out there, very slowly, but its happening. we need the people to take ownership of their own lives. its the job of us, the more fortunate few, to help them take this ownership. if you are sick and tired of seeing this poverty, if you are sick and tired of asking “how many years it will take Bangladesh to leave behind the poverty curse?” — then ask yourself this –”what have i done to make things better?”
-shahpar, dhaka