Unheard Voices

They also work in the production line. But instead of producing shirts, sweaters, undergarments, hats, pants etc., these workers are busy producing educated human being. Most of them have more than twenty years experience in these production lines.

They are the teachers of non government schools in Bangladesh. For the last 11 years they have been demanding a raise in salary.
While standard salary of these teachers is Tk 2600 a month ( $35), some of them are paid as low as Tk 750 a month.
One such teacher Mahbubul Alam says,

“We used to get Tk 500 as monthly salary from the government in 1992. Now after 12 years, we get Tk 750 when prices of essentials have shot up tenfold since 1992,”

Employed to teach 10 lakh students across rural Bangladesh, they also do not get their salaries regularly whereas the education sector always gets the highest allocation in the national budget.

“We are given our salaries most of the time three months after the salary dates,”

said Hafizur Rahman, president of Bangladesh Community Primary Teachers Association.

A teacher’s salary even in the government primary school is less than of a driver in a government office. It is even lower in the registered non-government primary schools, reports Mr Manjoor Ahmed of BRAC university in an in-depth analysis.

These are pictures from last 3 years. This scene is repeating every year for the last 11 years.

They only want their salry to be equal to their government school counterparts, i.e. Tk 4000 a month.

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The sad part is that nobody listens to them. Even as I write this blog, hundreds of teachers are in hunger strike. And these news was absent from most of Bangladesh news media. I could not find any nerws in the Daily Star, neither in Ittefaq or prothom Alo.

Rather than sticking to non violent means, should they start burning their schools, breaking public properties, cars, I am pretty sure they would have been very much in the radar screen of our media, our nation and definitely our bloggers.

As soon as you are violent, you are noticed, you are mourned, you are talked about and you are taken care of. People start deep analysis of your plight.

You follow Gandhi doctrin, remain within civilized means, don’t break the law, you are doomed, nobody will talk about you.

In the pages of Bangladesh interest blogs, where you will be labeled BNP supporter if you dare disagree with even a single policy of Sheikh Hasina and where neutrality is a hated concept, one needs a lot of courage to write a tribute to Late President Ziaur Rahman. And I decide to take the unwise step to show the arrogance of writing a blog on Ziaur Rahman, foreseeing a barrage of attacks and a bleeding myself at the end of the ordeal.

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A quarter of a century passed since President Ziaur Rahman was assassinated by a group of ranking army officers. Before being assassinated he could rule Bangladesh for around five years. Here are some of my observations about Zia, his life and death, the people’s love and the legacy.

1. Freedom fighter Zia is way overshadowed by military ruler turned president Zia. His role in 1971 war never got the due respect, even during the current hay days of his party.
First attack on freedom fighter Zia came from his fellow jealous freedom fighters like Major Rafiq who smeared against Zia’s activities preceding March 25 revolt.

Intellectually retarded leadership of post Zia BNP, while unduly focusing on his declaration of Independence, always failed to portray the valiant fighter sides of Zia, his brave, shrewd war plans, his overall contribution to the warfare of 1971.

It is yet unclear to me why Zia, senior most sector commander in active duty was superseded by Gen Shafiullah, an officer of significant lower caliber and courage, to be the first army chief of independent Bangladesh.

2. While Zia is blamed ( To some extent rightly) for his heavy handed dealing with the army coups, killing of dozens of freedom fighter army officers, killing of sector commander- war hero- war wounded Colonel Taher; his role is stabilizing Bangladesh Army into a disciplined force has never been appreciated. We have to understand that when Zia was rescued from house arrest on 7th November 1975, a large portion of Bangladesh armed forces was under control of Marxist philosophy, and the other part of army was resorting to coup and counter coup on a weekly basis. The whole chain of command was shattered. And at the end, when Zia paid for his cruelty with his own life, Bangladesh Army was a more disciplined force.

3. Zia could have kept the one party rule mandated by 4th amendment of the constitution, but he decided to nullify the fourth amendment to pave the way for multi party democracy. He was well aware of the grassroots power of Awami League and he opted take the challenge with tools of democracy.

4. While Zia was immensely popular to the youth and the students of the 80s and 90s, he failed to develop any following among the intelligentsia. In my observation, the weakest link of Zia legacy is that there is not a single progressive intelligent mind in Bangladesh who will talk publicly in favor of Zia. Bangladesh media or blog scenarios are such examples. You will get hundreds of trash quality books on Zia written by BNP MP wannabees, not a single enlightened analysis of his political philosophy.

Has any poet ever write poem on Zia? Did any painter lovingly painted Zia’s portrait? Did any Zia follower dedicated a website on Zia? Answer to all of them in NO. And these are Zia’s failure.

5. Zia’s rehabilitation of dalals and razakars was, although short sighted, very much needed to politically face a huge grass root party like Awami League. Shah Aziz is one such example who very successfully tackled AL in the parliament. But all these razakars kept their name by dumping BNP for Ershad’s JP in the first opportunity.

6. Zia’s scrapping of secularism, another short sighted step, was, although very popular at that time, took Bangladesh a leap backward. Zia didn’t have that significant political opposition at that time to resort to this sort of drastic constitutional measure.

The irony is that although Zia is regularly termed as “unknown major”, ” Military dictator”, ” tyrant”, his vision of Bangladesh’s political system, a ‘quasi religious, quasi nationalist, half-hearted democracy”, is being followed page by page by all the proceeding governments. Nobody ever expressed any feeling of discomfort in this system.

7. While Zia struggled and succeeded in maintaining a corruption and nepotism free image, his legacy, his dynasty, his family is solely based on rampant corruption and shameless nepotism. This is probably the worst failure of Zia legacy.

8. I used to live in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar when Zia was killed. I’ve never seen a bigger human gathering in Bangladesh and I’ll probably never ever see the collective spontaneous expression of deep grief by millions present in the funeral service. Unfortunately that generation is not in existence anymore. Zia’s party, although carry Zia’s image in election posters, depend more on votes from Awami League haters than the votes of Zia lovers.

9. Zia should never be compared with Bangabandhu Mujib. They are not comparable. Mujib will always have a different, high up place in history. But there should not any hesitation in crediting Zia for holding the country in steady hand during the post-Mujib vacuum.

Yesterday the courts passed down the sentence of capital punishment on two notorious individuals (plus five of their associates). Where does DP as an organisation stand on the issue of capital punishment?

I have read DP’s mission statement, and the About Us section of the main site in which the phrase “human rights” occurs 6 times in the first two paragraphs and once in the footer. The context is about upholding them. The footer text (small print!) reads like this:

Drishtipat is a non-profit, non-political expatriate Bangladeshi organization committed to safeguarding every individual’s basic democratic rights, including freedom of expression, and is opposed to any and all kinds of human rights abuses in Bangladesh.

From the above statements it seems to me that DP would be against capital punishment. However from recent forum exchanges I have some doubts (although I understand forum views are not the views of the outfit itself..)

Amnesty International, the big grand daddy of human rights organisation, has this to say about capital punishment:

The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights…..It violates the right to life. It is irrevocable and can be inflicted on the innocent. It has never been shown to deter crime more effectively than other punishments.

As an organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, Amnesty International (AI) works for an end to executions and the abolition of the death penalty everywhere. (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-index-eng and http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-stats2005-eng )

So will DP as an organisation be opposing this capital sentence? The About Us statement is quite explicit about what needs to be done: 1. Highlight specific incidents of alleged human rights abuse through its website and listserver

Recent spate of “violence” in the textile industry merits special analysis to flag what really went wrong that sent those thousands of workers rioting in the streets. I emailed Anu Muhammad – Economist, Editor – for his comments. This is his response.

Garment industry is the largest foreign exchange earning sector in Bangladesh. The six billion dollar industry functions with 2.2 million workers, 80% of whom are female. Yet workers in this sector get the lowest wage rate in the world. In 1994, the minimum wage (monthly pay) was fixed at 930 taka. There are many factories those pay workers below this line. Since 1994, cost of living for workers increased more than 100%. No revision of the minimum wage took place since then and garment owners or their umbrella organization BGMEA had no agenda on this in twelve years.

As export oriented industry, garments sector receives many incentives from the government and also gets support to ensure a regimented environment in the factory. Workers do not get appointment letters when they are appointed for work, therefore there is no security of job, and any worker can lose her /his job anytime for any reason management feel suitable for them. Moreover, management has the authority to behave with the worker like anything; there is no scope on the part of worker to have any safeguard. Bad words, harassment and also physical assault are common in many factories. Sexual harassment is also noticed in many studies on female workers in the industry.

Owners feel free to put load on workers to work for 12/13/14 hours or for continuous shifts to ensure shipment. They prefer not to appoint necessary number of workers but to overload fewer ones. Therefore, many workers have to work for seven days a week. No weekly holiday, even public holidays find garment industry working. Even after this Herculean job load, regular payment of wages and overtime has been rare in the industry. Arrear of wages and overtime reaches to more than 20 billion taka in the industry. We know many instances where workers were fired without payment after working for months.

Things do not end there. There are many owners who do not feel necessary to ensure workers safety. In the last few years, many hundred workers were killed because they were not allowed to go out when fire broke out; about a hundred were killed by collapsing faulty designed factory building. Few days ago, a teen-age worker was mercilessly beaten and killed by the management in a factory. No action was taken in any of these incidents. On the contrary, on 21st May an agitating worker was killed by police in Gazipur, another was killed on 22nd May.

This context should be brought in when we try to understand the violent incidences that took place in and around Dhaka in 22-23 May, where garment workers showed an unprecedented uprising and violent expression. They were not allowed to form trade unions or have links to any organization. Therefore, the uprising could not find any organized effort, there was no leadership and not clearly spelled out objective, only anger. This was an explosion of long suppressed deprivation, insult, harassment and super exploitation. One may find parallels in 19th century Europe.

This may happen that competitor countries or vested interests of home and abroad take advantages of this unrest and uncertainty. Nevertheless, that should not be made excuses to hide the real field of frustration and anger of millions of workers.

Thousands more die in Indonesia. Earthquake strikes once again. Poor Iran, Indonesia, these countries lie on the fault line. Historically most of the earthquakes happened on the fault lines. California is also situated on a tectonic plate border, the fault line. And all the structures in California are built earthquake safe.

Here is a map of all the major and monor tectonic plates of the world.

If you can locate Bangladesh in the world map, you will see two plate bounderies, i.e. two fault lines cross Bangladesh. On the noth, the Indian plate clashes with the Eurasian plate and on the east, Indian plate borders Australian plate and continues to Burma plate.

I am not a geology student and won’t pretend to know or understand the basics of the importance of these plate bounderies and earthquake possibilities.

Different newspaper reports inform us that many scientists have been warning about the probability of a devastating 8-9 richter scale catastrophic earthquake in the northeastern and southeastern parts of Bangladesh.

So, major earthquake is also possible in Bangladesh. Are we ready?

Can the authority in Bangladesh speak out with certainty that at least one, only one single rsidential apartment in Bangladesh have been bult to withstand a7.0- 9.0 richter scale earthquake?

We we talk about issues, a variety of issues. There is a word in english dictionery, ‘Priority’. Should we, as a nation, relearn the meaning and implication of the word?

Reprinted with permission from the author Farid Bakht

The fearsome black-clad, bandanna-wearing soldiers of the Rapid Action Battalion were out on the streets of industrial towns near the Bangladeshi capital lobbing tear gas and struggling to bring a rapidly escalating situation under control. They joined the police in trying to quell this week’s industrial unrest, now being called the most serious in the history of Bangladesh.

Major highways were blocked, scores of factories torched, and hundreds vandalized. Dozens of cars were set on fire, including

one in Dhaka’s wealthy diplomatic zone of Gulshan. Initial losses have been estimated at US$77 million, and this figure could easily double if many factories are not reopened soon and therefore miss their deadlines for time-sensitive orders.

The human toll is worse. Apart from at least one death and many injuries in the riots, the future of thousands of families remains in doubt. Several hundred factories have suffered extensive damage and many have temporarily closed their doors.

The stakes for the Bangladeshi economy could hardly be higher: ready-made garments are the No 1 industry in the country, accounting for 75% of its exports. More than 4,000 factories employ 1.2 million workers. The sector is irreplaceable.

As Bangladesh’s public sector was emasculated over the past two decades, the slack was taken up by small private outfits engaged in small-scale textile production. Such units provide a $6.4 billion export lifeline. Even taking into account the associated import bill, the net foreign-exchange impact comes close to $2.6 billion annually. This dwarfs any other sector. Moreover, the banking, insurance, shipping and urban-property sectors have all piggybacked on the entrepreneurship of the small-time owners, some of whom have expanded into Western markets and become millionaires. Whenever the country is slammed for its high level of corruption and squabbling - even criminal - politicians, the garment industry is held up as a success story.

The rag trade’s dark side
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Ship-breakers of Bangladesh Exhibit opens in Asia Society on June 8. We’re publishing 32 page catalogue with images+text from the exhibition. We’re raising $2000 to match funds given by Asia Society for printing the catalogue (~1000 copies which would be distributed at the exhibit). Anyone who donates $200 or more will have their name (or website) listed as sponsor on the back of the catalogue.

DEADLINE FOR DONATIONS: May 30th

INSTRUCTIONS:
Make check out to “ASIA SOCIETY” and mark it “BANGLADESH SHIPBREAKERS”
Mail Check To:
Attn: Shyama Venkateswar (Shipbreaker Project)
Asia Society
725 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021

In addition, e-mail me by May 30 to make sure your names goes into the catalogue.

SHIP-BREAKERS OF BANGLADESH
Photographs by Robert Bailey with Text by Naeem Mohaiemen
June 6 through July 9, Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York
The ship-breaking yards of Bangladesh showcase many of the dilemmas faced by developing nations globalizing at rapid speed. These yards provide mass employment for Bangladeshi workers, many of whom have low-skills and few alternative options. However, the working conditions are extremely hazardous; the ship-breakers are exposed to high levels of toxic chemicals that are handled without protection or regulation. As demand for ship-breaking expands and competition grows among countries with low levels of industrialization, the acuteness of this dilemma will only increase. This exhibit seeks to explore these issues, while simultaneously highlighting the quiet dignity of the manual laborers engaged in this difficult and dangerous work.

Our sick President was flown to Singapore for further treatment. One news told he was in coma, one news told he had chest pain. But there has been no clear press briefing from a medical person about the real conditions.

Last week Shafiur mentioned leader Saifuddin Ahmed manik was also in Singapore for treatemnt.

What a testimony to our healthcare system! Even our head of the state don’t have the trust in our healthcare systemhas and travel to foreign land for for an emergency critical treatment.

Our prime minister goes to Saudi Arabia for her knee treatment.

Our opposition leader goes to Singapore for treatment of her ear injury.

And every hour, hundreds of thousands of people die in Bangladesh with diseases which were easily preventable.

Recently I wrote a post about the remedy of our politicians power lust.

One remedy was to bar government leadership and politicians, law makers from going abroad for treatment.

That will help im multiprong way.

1. One our leadership will be sincere in cleaning the mess in healthcare sector in Bangladesh.
2. Leadership positions hopefully will be less tempting
3. According to good old friend rafiq ahmed, it will help in this way, ” Actually another net benefit of barring medical treatment abroad, or forcing treatment at home, is to allow government officials to die natural deaths, therby cleansing the system a little at a time. I like this one.”.

Its obvious that Bangladesh is the biggest loser in this riot. If the police cracks down on the owners, the pictures in front of the world market is the last thing we need. We need saner heads to prevail. Owners really need to listen — for their own sake and for the future of the industry which faces its biggest danger. Government must act now decisively to enact some of this very legitimate workers’ demands. No buyer will want to dirty their hands with the blood and sweat of Bangladeshi workers.

Get this straight. I am least interested in being politically correct as I write this. And unlike the mainstream media, am not going to weep for BGMEA and its members who were at the receiving end of yesterday’s workers riot in and around Dhaka.

These are the Shylocks, now in utter terror, asking for army deployment. Well, are we to believe that earning some billions of dollars soaked with blood gives this group the immunity to push their workers towards slow death? And if the workers raise their hands in protest against the nauseating trend of inhuman repression and exploitation, that gets termed “anarchy”, “violence”…. blah… bla… bla… [Mu-a-ha, you don't comply and prostrate before the Chamber building, we will call in the generals to take over].

And this is the bloody country, with a shameless government, that can not ensure fair wages for its workers and when those very workers refused to get raped like this day in-day out, ministers will cry foul and smell “external influence”, “conspiracy”. There are times, marital rapes become pilgrimage compared to the sheer level of impunity our “husbands” in the business blocks enjoy. [O god. I was about to fuck her, my wife. And that bitch slapped me. How can a wife raise her hand against her husband! Maybe, she's an evil look-alike. That handsome neighbour must the behind this. I am going to call in the ARMY]

While a propaganda assault against the worker’s movement is on, burning task is to keep the records straight. This comes refuting the baseless and disgusting allegations that have made their way to the front pages this morning.

– This riot was not influenced or organised by “outsiders”, as alleged. It is very much apparent that legitimate and established labour organisations like Bangladesh Garment Sramik Trade Union Kendra and Bangladesh Garment Sramik Oikkya Front (President Moshreffa Mishu was arrested from Gazipur yesterday) were the key organisers.

– It was not a riot without reason. Just to list a few: fair wage, fair working hour arrangements, weekly holiday, maternity leave…

New Age needs a honourable mention as they are probably the only mainstream daily presenting the “other side” [should have been the core] of the story.

Labour leaders put unrest down to years of deprivation
Abul Kalam Azad

Labour leaders attributed the ongoing agitation by readymade garment workers to years of systematic deception and deprivation by factory owners.

Factory owners have hardly ever bothered to address the legitimate concerns of workers, they said. Time and again workers have demanded that their wages should be increased, and their rights and safety at workplace be ensured, in vain, they added.

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The other side of immigration

A House of Commons study recently revealed that the highest number of women who are non-skilled and un-educated are Muslim and Bangladeshi. They can’t speak English and hence are isolated. Simple tasks such as going to the doctors is difficult and the women take their young children, sometime as young as 4 years old to translate for them.

There are incidents where a girl of three has to speak to the 999 team and explain that her brother has collapsed. Why this reluctance to learn the language? I have spoken to some husbands who declare that learning the language and going out of the house will “spoil the women”. They will be corrupted by being westernised.

More here

Pat on the back to our judiciary for a courageous verdict. Any prediction on when this grumpy old man will resign?

Is it really all about the class struggle between oppressed workers and the blood sucking garments/textile factory owners? May be. Most likely. Then shouldn’t we all, who talk and work for the oppressed, support all what is being done by the workers in Bangladesh today?

But I am really having trouble loooking at the events in plane black and white and take the right side i.e the side of the workers and start supporting all the anarchy that is happening in Bangladesh right now.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no sympathy for the garments factory owners or current government. Garments and it’s subsidiary industry has the highest rich and poor gap in Bangladesh. Time and again I have seen what a lavish life the garments buusinessmen’s children lead around the private universities in Bangladesh. You, with your western wage, go to Helvetia and can afford to have a chicken brost once a while. This kids do it daily, hours after hours a day while indulging in Tk 5000 an hour pool game. And I have no doubt the money for this chicken brost and Tk 5000 an hour pool game comes from exploiting those poor teenage boys and girls working behind the locked collapsible gates.

But what good it brings to the nation when bands of hooligans go in rampage, start burning industries that come in front of them. These industries are backbone of the nation.

Today, about 500 garments factories around Dhaka are closed. They are closed for an indefinite period. What will be the immdediate implication?

Those poor daily paid workers will have no income for days. Who will feed the famly?

Factories will miss shipment datelines. They will definitely loose business to competitors in China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam ,Cambodia, Mexico, Jordan, Oman, Nepal, Jamaica etc.

I know garments owners also play with the sentiment, they kind of blackmail the nation with these issues.

But other than being blackmailed by these businessmen, what option this nation has?

Like all of you, I also can write emotional or factual stories on garments horror. But what purpose it will serve?

Should we support the anarchy of burning all the compliant units, all the showcase better workplace units or the joint venture units in EPZs?

Then what?

How?

I see the media in Bangladesh has taken a middle of the road aproach in this event. Lets follow that lead. First let the anarchy stop.
Then keep vigil for a follow up. Lobby, pressurize the government, regulatory agencies, owners association to ensure a minimus wage, work hour requirement. With buyer’s help, this is doable.

Please don’t burn a single more industrial unit. Bangladesh needs more industry. Can’t afford to burn whatever few we have.

[Photo: (Fair use) Bangladeshi textile workers during a demonstration. Several people were injured when security forces fired live rounds to disperse tens of thousands of textile workers protesting for higher wages near the Bangladesh capital. AFP/Jalan Rahman]

Earlier I posted this. And now as I am writing Dhaka, Savar, Tongi and Gazipur are riot-zones. Thousands of ready-made garments workers are now on the street burning factories, cars and pelting stones at what to them are icons of endless repression they are suffering for years.

BDNEWS is reporting,

Garment workers go wild, force closure of 150 factories

Dhaka, May 23 (BDNEWS) — Agitation of the garment workers for due wages and other demands turned wild Tuesday as they set fire to factories and vehicles and blocked roads in Dhaka and suburban industrial belts, forcing closure of over 150 apparel factories.

The closed garments units are located mostly in the Dhaka Export Processing Zone (DEPZ) in Savar, Gazipur and Dhaka’s Mirpur areas. Monday’s strike at the Universe Knitting Ltd. in Savar for fair wage turned wild when garment workers from other nearby factories joined them to unleash an attack on other garment factories in the areas to push for their 11-point demand.

The workers’ agitation spread to Dhaka and suburban areas Tuesday as Monday’s incident left one garment worker killed in firing by Ansar troops. In DEPZ, thousand of garment workers demonstrated for the second consecutive day Tuesday.

They torched two garments factories and damaged over 50 vehicles putting up barricade on the Tongi-Ashulia road. The protestors also torched a factory in Dhaka’s Tejgaon area, damaged large numbers of offices and over 500 vehicles in Mirpur, Banani and Uttara areas.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), angered by the attacks, blocked the busy Karwan Bazar square for 15 minutes at around 1 pm Tuesday demanding deployment of army in all the factories.

The BGMEA leaders termed the incidents an outcome of a “conspiracy” by a neighbouring country to destroy the apparel sector of the country and also criticised the Prime Minister for her failure to avert the situation.

They also threatened to lay off all the factories unless the government is able to bring the situation under control in five hours. The movement of convoys of the para-military Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), police, fire brigade and ambulance at the trouble-torn created panic among the city residents, specially for the HSC examinees.

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With the 33rd Annual Student Academy Awards ceremony inching closer to its June 10 date, Mak Hossain is already leaving for Los Angeles.

The Purdue University student was notified last week that he is one of an elite group of 13 students from nine universities and colleges across the country to win one of the coveted awards.

Hossain, 24, has been making films since high school and recently hit the jackpot when he submitted his latest film, Three Beauties, to the competition.

More here