Thu 23 Mar 2006
Has everyone ignored this development? I think this is the biggest development in the past few years. Are we finally going to have a voice - a voice led by Dr. Yunus? More on this later this weekend. How can we the NRB’s get involved in this initiative unitedly?
Abdullah Abu Sayeed led the environmental movement. Muhammad Zafar Iqbal led the anti-uni education policy movement. Finally they are coming together along with many other big shots who has tremendous influential power. Here is a reaction from Muhammad Jahangir of Apni ki Bhabchen fame:
Something positive is developing regarding election. I wrote an article with some proposal. Keep your eyes on Prothom Alo. You can also contribute. You can organize a meeting in London on this proposal. Very positive reactions are coming from deferent parts of the country.
Also another friend who was present at the convention said, “the atmosphere was unbelievable. I guess this was what it felt like in 1991 when every body came united to establish parliamentary democracy. The wind of change is blowing.”
The wind of change is blowing indeed.
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:33 am
For starters, how about a compilation of analytical/critical case studies (DP should have a signigicant amount of material with involvement in various initiatives)that we forward to the CPD and the sub-group Citizen’s Group? In so many ways, DP exhibits qualities of a think tank — which is what such a movement can benefit from. Dr. Yunus leads with vision … NRB’s being outside the corruption but being closely aligned with the realities of the system in Bangladesh invariably have their own vision. It is precisely this vision we need to make sure that groups like the above mentioned are aware of.
Information sharing, awareness, knowledge is all good … but to translate that into credible action that has an impact is a challenge. Hosting discussions, forums, and events are a start, but I feel an actual volume of case studies will really draw attention to key factors.
I recently went to a Qawali event organized by an organization endorsed by the Pakistani Embassy, a government initiative) that is composed of entirely NBP’s who are involved in American public life (established or aspiring). India has a number of similar endeavours. It’s high time we solicited the Bangladesh Embassies’ interest and endorsement to get them involved in something like that.
The first thing is to get NRBs interested…then involved…then maybe, just maybe, there will be a united action.
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:25 pm
As I was telling Asif the other day, we can do a lot. What I think can be easily done are,
1. Arranging round table, symposiums regarding fair election, better governence of BD. DC can be he best place to do so as both US govt officials, members of the senate/congress bangladesh caucus, diaspora leadership can participate if it is held in DC. I remember attending a Bangladeshi professional meeting last summer in Reston, VA and I met several current and ex senator, ex US ambassadors to BD, whole bunch of Bangladesh embassy officials, and representative from lobbyist firms.
2. In the line with Drishtipats stop violence portal site, stopviolence.drishtipat.og, we can create a portal, we may name it good goverence/fair election portal. Starting with all the speeches of Dr Yunus’s initial speech, last weeks symposium. Then there will be constituency wise pages, 300 in total, which will profile candidates. This should start before nomination is finalized. As once someone gets party nomination our hands become tied as we want to remain nutral. However there will always be scopes to profile peoples comments about certain candidates. Hope it does not get into a partisan mudslinging.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:35 am
I think this is a good thing if we can put pressure on the political parties to think twice about picking a criminal as a candidate. We can almost operate as a pressure group.
Will “Sushil Samaj” be able to give a thumbs down to powerful candidates like Tarek Zia though?
March 24th, 2006 at 4:58 am
Salam Dhaka,
Let’s not muddle up the issue with the issue of TZ in here. He is just one candidate. The issue is much bigger and broader than one person. Its about institutions of democracy. Focusing on indiviuals just trivialises the issue.
On a separate note, please don’t forget to follow up on Kohinur Mia. I haven’t seen a link to the original entry in your blog as yet. Ask readers and you will never know who may have the information.
March 24th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Asif,
Thanks for reminding me about Kohinoor Mia. I did find out from a freind who is from Khulna that Kohinoor Mia is originally from the police contingent in Khulna.
I’ll keep trying to find out more.
March 26th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Please update my new link to my blog:
http://salamdhaka.shuchinta.com
Thanks,
Rubel
March 27th, 2006 at 5:19 am
Here is my piece from last week:
http://www.thedailystar.net/2006/03/24/d60324020325.htm
some really good suggestions above. i specially like the idea of a website/portal. think the real value addiiton here would be 300 constituency pages which could profile who are the main candidates in each. if we made it a wiki, then anyone could add info. or is this asking for trouble? but it would be a very useful adjunct to the project and be a greta way to get all the information about crooked candidates etc in one place.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:49 am
The problem with Wiki is the same problem Wikipedia had - candidates manipulating the data.
However it is about time that someone could go to one place and see the background of all the contestants in the 300 seats. Who will do it is another question. The other problem is how do you gather the info since most candidates lie anyways.
March 28th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
I am really glad to see the initiative of “Shushil Shomaj”. However I am kind of skeptic, is it mostly Dhaka based initiative (Pardon my ignorance)?
In order to make a difference it must be done in all the remote areas. I think there should be volunteers for each constituency (may be from progressive news papers and local shushil shomaj) who can come up with a list of possible good candidates. Not to forget an Election needs lots of money. Is that part of the plan to raise that fund?
We have seen Dr Kamal Hossain lost the election to a Bad person. It happened in Dhanmondi area (where people are very educated). What are we doing differently to prevent this kind of inicidents?
-Sharmin
March 28th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
OK, if we want to keep discussing about the problems, weaknesses, limittaions of this proposal, we can do that for years. But we will not be able to deliver.
I will encourage to aside our search for possible flaws and work together to make it happen.
Let’s brainstorm how to make an effective webportal, how to make the voices of the diasopra heard in a better way.