Unheard Voices

A lead newsitem following Mr. Wahidul Haq’s death was donation of his body for medical science. His body was handed over to BSMMU. In the past, several similar gestures and wishes could not be fulfilled due to family unwillingness as well as inaction of the authority citing lack of guideline and law. When Aroj ali Matubbor first donated his body for medical science, that created a huge backlash and controversy. Writer Humayun Azad’s wishes could not be fulfilled as apparently the family was not sure about it. In this context after death, Mt Wahidul Haq created another milestone in Bangladesh. He finally succeded in donating his body while all previous attempts failed.

With his donation Mr Wahidul Haq threw a challenge to the medical community of Bangladesh. Now it was the responsibility of the medical community to harvest all the organs and save multiple lives by transplanting them. I don’t know what exactly happeneded with his body, but I doubt his organs could have been harvested for proper transplantation. We simply do not have an efficient system in effect to harvest body organs and parts those can be life saving to others.

In this juncture I also take the opportunity to remember Dr Enamul Haq who first donated his cornea in Bangladesh. In a very humble move late Shahadat Chowdhury, ex editor of Bichitra and 2000, was the one who came forward to receive that cornea for his injured eye. Thanks to the way they showed, only organs that is regularly harvested in Bangladesh is the cornea (eye).

I hope, thanks to the way Mr Wahidul Haq showed just showed us, someday our poor healthy young man and women will no longer have to sell their organs. Posthumous donations will ensure enough organs for transplantation.

Related Blog is here.

Update: Yunus hints at joining politics “if circumstances force”
Details

Overview: written Oct 23, 2006 :
Two days after Dr. Yunus, got the award, I started a world wide collection of signatures
asking political parties and Dr. Yunus to accept a formula where he could be the caretaker government chief to avert the country from immediate crisis. While the signature campaign got momentum fairly quickly, criticisms were plenty against that move. For better or worse, it generated a lot of passionate and intense debate. One thing that came out of that discussion quite clearly was that Dr. Yunus is now considered a national treasure that all of us, the Bangladeshis, regardless of our affiliation, now want to fiercely protect. Because such treasures are so rare in this country, we are arguing on how and where to use his leadership skills. This article will try to address some of the concerns raised in those criticism and at the same time offer some thoughts for the future.
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A few heartening developments.

All 5 election commissioners after meeting the president have resigned. This now sets up the stage for reforming the council. Former Secretary Anisuzzaman Khan is tipped to be the Chief Election Commissioner,

In a less of a significant move the agricultural adviser went to the remote villages of Mymensingh without any government protocol today. Goal was to see first hand to verify the source of the news of the fertilizer crisis first hand. The farmers came to him directly and told him of they are not getting the fertilizer they need. With the adviser was Channel I’s Shaikh Siraj. Shaikh Siraj with his very popular program Mati O Manush has been instrumental in publicizing the news of the fertilizer crisis. Previously, Siraj was called into the adviser’s meeting as an expert to brief on the situation.

COMMENT: Back from the brink or in the drink? —William B Milam

The fundamental question is the attitude of the Bangladesh military. Will this intervention resemble those of Turkey — quickly in to set things right and quickly out with civilians back in charge? Or will the temptations of power and the difficult reform agenda lead it to resemble those of its former partner, Pakistan?
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Update:Here are some people who might like to see JMB hanged without any delay…

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By strange coincidence, this appeared on Day 1 of State of Emergency. It was originally written right after the Yunus Nobel, but DS did not publish @ the time as they were flooded with these types of pieces. DS sent it to press @ 6 pm, SOE was announced that same night.

Wounded Nation, Still The Dreamer
Naeem Mohaiemen (more…)

I sent the following letter to the daily star day before yesterday. We all need to raise our voice about this issue. I urge to all who are affected, please mail a letter to the newspapers in Bangladesh and voice your opinion about unplanned shortsighted actions against VoIP operators in Bangladesh. .

WE ARE DISCONNECTED

While I and all my siblings are living outside Bangladesh, my elderly parents live in Bangladesh. Daily phone calls from me and my siblings used to keep them going with their lonely life.

There are hundreds of thousands of non resident Bangladeshi and as a consequence, in a situation similar to us, there are thousands of lonely elderly parents who are emotionally dependent on overseas calls from their children.
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BBC Bangla reports:

10000 People arrested
19 people killed in custody

since emergency declared.

4 years ago I was @ a Dhanmondi cafe and was astounded to see how much weight a once-tubby friend had lost.
“Ki byapar, e tho dekhi MED BHURI KI KORI er biggapon, etho shukaiso kibhabe?”
“Arre bujhos na,” interrupted a friend, “Yabba e dhorse.” (more…)

CPJ urges Bangladesh to rescind emergency media rules

New York, January 26, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned about new regulations imposed by the Bangladeshi interim government that severely restrict news reporting. The Emergency Powers Rules of 2007, announced on Thursday, restrict press coverage of political news and set penalties of up to five years in prison for violations.
The new rules aim at a wide range of political activities. Those dealing specifically with media allow the government to ban or censor print and broadcast news about rallies and other political activities that it deems “provocative or harmful.” Under the rules, the government can seize printed material and confiscate printing presses and broadcast equipment. The government also has power under the regulations to censor or block news transmitted in any form.
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We mourn the passing of Wahidul Huq who was a legendary organizer, musician and journalist.

Waheedul Haq was the founder of Chhayanaut, which played a vital role in igniting the flame of freedom among the people in the late 1960s prior to the country’s Liberation War.

Apart from establishing the vanguard cultural organisation in 1961 along with some other enlightened persons, he also founded a number prominent cultural and poetry recitation organisations like — Kanthashilon, Nalonda and Anandadhani.

His brother Rezaul Haq is also a journalist while another brother Ziaul Haq was a martyr in 1971.

During his 55-year long career in journalism, Waheedul served in the major English dailies of the country, including The Daily Star, where he worked as the joint editor. He was a shift in-charge of the daily Observer in the 1960s. Besides, he worked in The People, the Morning News and the New Nation.

The following picture was published in Daily Star yesterday of a petty thief being punished by being tied to the ceiling at the local thana in Bogra. However, in a swift action as per the instruction of the chief adviser, 5 police officers were immediately sacked from their post. A few exemplary actions like this one and it won’t take long for the local administration to get the message.

During last years of Ershad, there was a tide of road building projects throughout Dhaka. ‘Bijoy Swaronee”, “Pantha Path” and “Malibagh Biswa Road’. Beautifully paved road, walled out from the neighborhoods by ceramic/grill walls. There was bougainvillea blossoming on still grilled structures in short intervals. They all really looked like parkways and malls rather than a 3 rd world country road.
Soon after Ershad fall, all the beautification vanished. Pantha path pavments and Biswa road footpaths turned into slums, and fish markets. Those bougainvilleas all are gone. The still frames for bougainvilleas turned into structures holding the shanties. Middle class people resented democracy and thought Ershad was better off. (more…)

About Turkey and Algeria

Robert Kaplan had the following to write about the current state of democracy in Turkey. This is an excerpt from the Globalist.
“In the past, when a Turkish general announced a coup, he also promised to hold elections and return the army to its barracks after a designated period. Now the military’s role is more insidious, and it is more likely to become a permanent presence in Turkish politics. As one Turkish analyst told me, ‘At National Security Council meetings, the generals bring thick dossiers from which to lecture, and the civilian cabinet ministers come as tourists. ‘
Without actually doing anything official, through a soft, postmodern process in which … the deep military state lying beneath the civilian surface had reasserted itself. It was not deep in a conspiratorial sense but deep in the sense that it was firmly grounded. To middle-class Turks, the generals were… well-meaning and paternalistic notables. ”

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When the State of Emergency was declared on January 11, most people including the international diplomats expressed their sign of relief. However, most kept wondering what actually happened behind the scene when the State of Emergency was declared which of course brought the apparent normalcy to public lives. It has been two weeks since the declaration of the State of Emergency and we have developed few different opinions as to what might have happened though new speculations is still come out. Nora Boustany writes in Washington Post Foreign Service today with yet another viewpoint that the State of Emergency is a Camouflaging Efforts to Delay Vote Date. (more…)