Unheard Voices

Rawshan Ara from Comilla, a paralysis survivor was sent back to her father’s home by her husband and in-laws. To support herself, her family and to help the local village women she founded the organization called “Podabika”. A successful entrepreneur, with the loan from Grameen Bank, established poultry farm and tailoring businesses. Read this remarkable story of her survival.

I want to open up this thread to see what people think about Dr. Yunus’ speeches these days. I have heard him talk in person. Some of it are quite inspirational specially when he talks about the changes in the rural areas in the last 10 years. However, when he veers into the politics, that is when it gets rather depressing. Some people have said you need a dreamer to show you what can be possible thinking outside the box. However, to me when I hear him stress on holding any election rather than a good, credible election, he seems to be trying too hard to keep the status quo. Similarly, couple of days ago he said that his new fear is what will happen after election since the loser is bound to say that the election was rigged. Now, I understand that the last 3 elections were relatively fair and the the parties were unjustified in complaining about rigging. However, this year the situation is a bit different. The chances of partial administration is higher than any other time. Don’t take my word for it. Take any other foreign credible source like NDI, EU etc. In this light, when Dr. Yunus makes light of the chance of potential rigging, it almost seems that he is certain that the election will be free and fair and any charges of rigging in the aftermath will be unfair. Question is what does he know that we don’t know or is it a mere attempt to just protect the status quo. I received the following poem today from the poet and it instantly reminded me of Yunus’ above the fray let-them-eat-cake “neutral” speeches.
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Hasina talks “secularism” to Bangali Christians on the same day that Jalil announces MOU with Shaikhul . Like Marie Antoinette, she thinks “let them eat cake,” cutting a Christmas cake with our beleaguered Christian citizens. A dessert to choke on.
Full op-ed is at today’s DAILY STAR
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Open Letter to Abdul Jalil, the General Secretary, Awami League

Dear Mr. Abdul Jalil,

Ever since this morning, I am feeling very sick to my stomach. I feel like vomiting all day. It is not because of something I ate but it is because something that YOU did which is proving very hard to digest. You left us, who fought for some ideals, cheated. Just for some petty short-term interest of getting to power, you betrayed the policy that you championed the last 5 years.

Today, we watched with disbelief and horror your 5 point agreement with a little known party Khelafat-e-Majlish. You termed it as a “tactical electoral ploy”. My utter disbelief turned into shame when I turned on ATN Bangla to find you defending the “good fatwas” against the bad ones. When pressed on by the journalists, you said with total non chalance, “I know what I signed” without providing any explanation for why you did it. You couldn’t even defend the stand that you took and lied on camera saying that you didn’t sign anything regarding the Ahmadiyas where in fact you did sign an agreement regarding blasphemy law.

Excuse me, Mr. General Secretary(GS)! Have you got no shame?
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Awami League reportedly has a 5 point agreement with Khilafat andolon which among others gives moulanas right to give Fatwas. I just got back from a break to find out about this. To say I am angry would be an understatement. Here are couple of reactions from my progressive friends:

You must all have seen this http://www.prothom-alo.org/index.news.details.php?nid=MjQ5NQ==

I generally try not to be bothered much by bangaldesh politics as we (jonogon) are not in control anyway….but after awami league’s promise to bring blasphemy law (anybody who insults the prophet or islam will be punished)and sharia law (as parliamaent cannot pass any law which will be against quran and sunnah) and ofcourse declaring qadianis non muslim (whoever do not believe prophet muhammad PBUH as the last prophet will have to declare themseleves non muslim) I am feeling sick to the stomach and realising how meaningless our democracy , constitution , courts are….our fate is actually being written at shaikhul hadith’s home in old dhaka

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The Islamists have always focused on a 100-year plan, while the main parties claw at each other and think of a 5-year survival plan. Already deep inside the universities, Islamists are quietly infiltrating the civil service (hence the recent upgraded BA/MA status for madrasa degrees), business sector, and army.
Full op-ed @ DAILY STAR

Nobel laureate Dr Yunus stressed this point all along. “Bangladesh has no option but going to election. People will need to start the festivities of election. Once festivities start all the violence and deadlock will be over.”

Looks like Dr Yunus, again, was right. Bangladesh is indeed going to elections. And festivities, fanfare all are already here. It will go on for the next 30 days.

Good luck Bangladesh with election 2007.

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A few drishtipat members are on the news today.

In a news about photographer Saiful Huq Omi, Arab news quoted me and mentioned Drishtipat. Unfortunately Omi’s name was misspelled as Umi.

Lopa Tasneem, a founding member of DP and founder of uttorshuri, was interviewed in Daily Star for her online forum Uttorshuri. [Full disclosure: We are related]

Lastly, Tahmima Anam, an active member from Drishtipat London, who has been very much on the news lately for her upcoming book, has been profiled in Prothom Alo, Guardian and Bookseller. I was lucky to get an advanced copy of this book, the review for which will be published in this blog in January.

On our first day of the internet fundraising, we have had 28 student’s SSC exam fee paid for i.e we raised $490. We have 513 more students to reach out to. Come on all. We can do this before year end. $17 pays for 1 student. All of you can afford at least one student. Enough talk. Let’s do something that will actually make a difference. Here is the list of schools we are going to in Bhobodoho.

• Online donation
• Crisis Report
• General blog
• Article by Muhammad Zafar Iqbal

If you are in Dhaka, send an SMS Message “VOBO” to ‘2233′ from any mobile phone operator in Bangladesh. This money will aid the students at Bhobodoho to complete their SSC/ HSC exam registration. Also for larger donation, write to info At Drishtipat dot org or type in a comment in this entry with your contactable email.

Update: Slight miscalculation in converting $ to taka. For each student the cost is 1200 take which roughly$17 a student.

List of people who donated:
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Many years ago, I was just an elementary school kid then. We used to live in a walled government residential quarter and just outside the wall there was the huge slum. During those years, up from my upper floor balcony, I had an up close look at the slum life of Bangladesh.

Every morning their day started with a noisy quarrel. As the day proceeded the noise used to heat up. It was like everybody was fighting with everybody. Morning, noon, evening and night. And along with these quarrel, life used to go on. Cooking, shopping, gossiping and even quite frequent procreation; all used to go on quite aptly in this non stop quarrel environment.

Since I started blogging I feel like I went back to those days. Now I myself is quarreling, day in day out. Everybody is busy fighting with each other.

Then I look out of the blog world and to the real world. Its’ the same thing there too. Its’ nothing but Hoongkar and palta Hoongkar. Look at the TV screens–that’s all the same. Politicians, in public meetings, in press conferences, in TV shows, in party meetings—everywhere they are busy with relentless yelling at each other.

Shamefully our nation is divided.

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While its good to be the talking star in a blog, when it comes to real work, its always the quiet ones who do the work.

I did not get much of a response on my query about the tragic story of Bhobodoho and the call for help to pay for the 550 water clogged students’ SSC examination fee. It seems the quiet ones and the students of different universities now have come forward.

If you are in Dhaka, please go to the show of solidarity tomorrow at Shahid Minar at 1 PM.

Also an update from the young leader Avijit who is in Dhaka now.

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In a significant body blow to the movement for good candidates, the supreme court stayed the landmark high court verdict on disclosing the candidates profile today. It has stayed for three months the High Court verdict on candidates furnishing information in eight categories, including statements of income and expenditure in the form of affidavits, to contest Jatiya Sangsad elections. I wonder what Dr. Yunus will have to say about this.
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It looks like we are seeing the very first signs of benefits that the submarine cable can bring to Bangladesh. Singapore’s SingTel in collaboration with our local Advance Data Networks System Limited (ADNSL) launched “ConnectPlus” earlier this week that is capable of providing a scalable integrated communications solution over a single, privately managed network, commonly known as VPN or virtual private network. In layman’s term – if you have internet connection, VPN let’s you connect to another computer or network anywhere in the globe and work on it securely as if you are in the same building where the computer computer/network is physically located.
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Done-to-death idea of dragging children in front of TV camera to wring tear-jerking anecdotes (more…)

To follow up on Rehan’s piece…

There are some intriguing twists to this Deshi version of the tried and trusted format. Pop Idol back home is just one of a raft of ‘reality TV’ programmes whose agenda is only partly to showcase talent, or give an insight into psychology. The real rationale behind the shows in which people are either locked in a building and drone endlessly on about their neuroses, or swap lives, wives or houses, or try to express their showbiz dreams in filmed auditions, is to exercise our new-found western delight in watching people whose lives are even more miserable than ours making complete buffoons of themselves. And if, in a competitive programme like this, we can rely upon one or more of the judges to deliver a scathing and humiliating verdict, so much the better.
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