“National security” should mean security for the people. Not just the people who make above 20,000 TK./month. Not just select religious groups. Not just select professional groups. Not just a certain gender. Not just a certain race. But all the people within this Bangladeshi nation of ours. Any less inclusive form of security really cannot be called “national” in its scope.

Unfortunately too often our view of “national security” is myopic, if not outright tragic in its wrongheadedness. And when I say “our”, I mean less the bureaucrats and security-establishment people entrusted to safe-guard our security. I refer to us, the general people. I’m not absolving the government agencies of all blame, but until we as a people change our attitude towards these matters and indeed make an effort to learn more about them and tolerate dissenting views, there will be no fundamental change. Military personnel, secretaries and ministers do not spring out of a vaccuum. They are products of our intolerant, class-conscious society: our sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers and children.

To give you a few examples of what constitutes wrong-headedness, let’s examine four cases.

1) The garments workers agitation last summer. Unrest in the industry would benefit a certain neighbour’s garments sector, so clamping down on it hard could be said to be an act of “safeguarding national security”. Although, as one ex-bureaucrat pointed out, negotiation is always the better option than using force and sending in the police/para-military/military forces.

Now let us be clear about this. Whether you suspect this neighbour of intentionally meddling with our garments industry (the “paid agents” theory) or you think the workers had justifiable reasons for their protest (the “low wages” theory) is besides the point. What is true is that unrest in this industry would benefit all our competitors, not just our suspected neighbour but other, bigger, northern neighbours as well. Why the blame/suspicion is put on the workers only, but not the employers who in some cases did not provide adequate pay or conditions is my question. Are they not equally guilty of harming the security of workers - Bangladeshis first and foremost - with their inadequate fire escapes, their delapidated buildings and their inadequate wages?

2) We see this same myopic view of what constitutes “security” in another recent article about a potential European Commission decision to ban the export of old ships to Bangladesh. First of all, I haven’t heard anything about it since, so until I do I’m treating this as a rumour. I stress once again, so far only a rumour.

What got my attention was the way the issue was already being framed in the media, as a potential “national security” threat with our “big brother neighbour” ready to benefit:

“Ship-breaking industry leaders presume that international propaganda about the safety issue of labourers in the yards may have influenced the EC to impose such ban”

and

“SBA (Ship Breaking Association) chairman Jafar Alam said India will be benefited most from such a EC move as the local steel industry will have to rely on the neighbour for the import of billet and iron ores”

Without even knowing or giving the details of the decision, which for all we know might just apply to India’s dirty ship-breaking industry as well!

Moral of the story so far: workers and NGO-s with their “international propaganda” are threats to “national security”.

My question: aren’t they part of the nation too? Couldn’t it just be that they are working for what they believe - as Bangladeshis - to be right rather than with some “uddeshsho”? Look, this isn’t a blanket statement of innocence for everyone who claims to work for human rights. This is to say: judge people by their actions/motivations, not by labels.

This article by Naeem Mohaiemen looks into this dynamic where even local NGOs are seen as threats to “national security” or “national interest” in much greater detail than I am able to go into here.

3) Most recently and perhaps most tragically, there is the “national security” scare going on right under our own nose. There is a security alert in Khalishpur over the closure of the government-owned jute mills.

Yes you read it right. We have people on alert because there may be trouble in Khalishpur like last year. At the same time, we have a shortage of people on the ground to help people out in a flood which is happening. In my experience, this CTG has taken some very sensible steps since 1/11, but I find it hard to fathom the kind of twisted logic behind this.

Except of course unless I become cynical and think that, like all other governments before them, the only security they are worried about is that of their own government, not the people’s. After all, workers can cause trouble to the government through agitation, especially in mills that they own. What trouble can flood-ridden people make for the goverment? Nothing.

Call Khalishpur whatever you want, just don’t call it a “national security” threat. People make nations, not machines bought second-hand from a dying empire.

But it gets worse.

Lightening the burdens of their suffering, of their unpaid wages would be an amazing step to take by the government. In this, just as in flood relief, the government cannot do this alone, but needs help from that much maligned group of people, “civil society”. Now I know that some on DP are allergic to the those two words put together, so try and think of it as citizens helping out citizens. Like when you hold the door for someone walking in behind you, (but only in Amreeka!).

And what does the government think of citizens helping citizens? You guessed it, threats to order and national security. I sorely need an explanation of this move to shut down the gruel/soup kitchen by “intelligence agencies”. Anyone? Anyone??

Internationally, who benefits from closing these industries? Don’t hold your breath dear readers. Unlike garments and shipbuilding with their multiple competitors, Bangladesh has only ONE real competitor in the jute goods trade. Yup, I’m talking about big, bad India with its multiple tentacles into Bangladeshi society in the form of ordinary workers, NGOs and HR activists (bloggers are next, I assure you). But never - nay, neverever - are bureaucrats or industrialists ever suspect of being in India’s pay or harming our national security. Not even when they take steps that clearly have no other beneficiary.

I said at first and I’ll say it again. The fault lies not ONLY with the government agencies, but in us the people as well, that we are swayed so easily by rhetoric like “Civil society people/HR activists are all foreign agents” or jargon like “national security” which is “national” in name alone. And in being so easily swayed, we clearly miss the REAL threats to our national security, like the de-industrialization going on in Khalishpur “industrial” (again, in name only) belt.

Industries make money and brings in revenue for the government. Industries that export bring in wealth from other countries. Wealth and revenue that can be used to heighten our security vis a vis other nations. Political scientists call this “the fungibility of power”. Our government is acting as if shutting down industries is in interest of “national security” and those who are opposing it are “threats” and those who are trying to help these “threats” need to be shut down. This twisted sense of (national) security is almost physically painful for me to write about.

So far to my limited knowledge, no one in the media - especially not the “security experts” - have worried about this particular aspect of what’s going on in Khalishpur. I would LOVE to be corrected on this. I feel this is because - “experts” though they are - they still operate within the same myopic paradigm as everyone else. Should we not expect more from someone considered an “expert”? Maybe a contrarian view or two?

4) The Tasneem Khalil saga continues and this for me is the strongest indictment I have against the general people’s attitude towards security matters. What really got me thinking is the comment left by Boishakhi, a commenter I highly respect and with whom I’ve argued previously about Mr. Khalil’s detention:

A person who is regarded as a threat to national security can certainly be detained and questioned. Mr. Khalil and his family had access to the judiciary to fight his detention. As far as I have read he did not contest his detention in the court.

Mr. Khalil is now running a blog site with podcasts, which I visited couple of days ago. (Someone please provide the link)

Sad to say that IMO I found it to be more of a propaganda/hate site than a credible news blog.

He comes across as a bitter person who presents skewed one sided opinions, interviews and views which conforms to his agenda.

He comes across as being a cowboy journalist rather than a “fearless” one

Firstly, to suggest that arrest and torture is the correct response to bad or partisan reporting is completely wrong.

Secondly, take it from someone who firmly disagrees with most things Tasneem Khalil writes on his blog and says on his podcasts,(ie. me): closing down those jute mills is a far WORSE threat to national security than sending out a childish SMS or anything else he says on his podcasts. If the government agrees with the DP commenters here - and their arrest, subsequent torture and harrassment of Mr. Khalil and their lack of concern about de-industrialization in Khalishpur suggests they do - then we all have to worry about their misplaced notions of “national security” as well.

Summary of the fantasia we all seem to be living in:

Security threats to Bangladesh:

#1 reporters who are constantly destroying our international Bhaabmurti
#2: blue-collar workers who are constantly destroying factories
#3: HR activists/NGO who are constantly destroying our international Bhaabmurti

Defenders of national security:

#1 Industrialists
#2 Any government official who makes some anti-India noises while selling out to any of the other 190 states in the world (remember KAFCO)
#3 Any government official who makes some anti-India noises while selling out to India (if it happened, would we even care enough to find out? After all, the official SAYS that “India is evil” right?)
#4 Any government official

What happens when dreams collide with hard reality where labels don’t matter but actions do?