Unheard Voices

by Hasan Ferdous
Bangladesh has an “image” problem, and it’s not a pretty one. Foreign newspapers and electronic media, while referring to Bangladesh, usually add a prefix to identify it: the most corrupt country, the most polluted country, the most impoverished country, etc. Our government leaders – and some intellectuals of mixed stripes — love to brand such epithets as “foreign conspiracies” and kick them right under the carpet. Sitting in their comfy chairs, it is so easy for them to close their eyes and turn on Zee-TV. As, here comes O. Rai!

Since I live outside Bangladesh, my situation is a little different. Each time I introduce myself as a Bangladeshi, I have to be watchful about that little smirk, that slowly fading grin, on people’s faces. They don’t have to say, I just know what is behind that smirk.

Last month, at a meeting in San Jose, California of Bangladeshi engineers and architects, we were confronted with a simple question: what can the non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) do to improve Bangladesh’s image? My task was to look at the question from the media’s perspective and come up with some suggestions. For good or bad, here are my thoughts, organized in six questions and answers.

#1: How is the image of a country formed and what is the media’s role in it?

(more…)

The Boston Conference on Bangladesh in the 21^st Century was envisioned by Bangladesh Development Initiative, a small group of academics and professionals who for the past decade or longer, run an organization that puts out the Journal of Bangladesh Studies (JBS) and occasional books on development.

Information on the group is at www.bdiusa.org

(more…)

The Indian diaspora seizes any and all cultural signifiers (from American Idol to Spelling Bees to Harold & Kumar) and melds it to a narrative of cultural triumphalism. We can have a left/subaltern debate about whether that “India Shining” super-narrative is a healthy thing, but majority of Bangla diaspora (centrist/conservative/apolitical) has not rejected such a narrative for political reasons. Therefore, is the Bangla diaspora’s failure to capitalize on similar moments cultural ambiguity, hysterical blindness, or incompetence or…? (more…)

Should expatriate Bangladeshis have a right to vote? Having championed this for a long time, I was, however, torn when BBC Bangla asked me to discuss this for a show tomorrow. Yes, certainly voting for a country is every citizen’s birth right. But a citizen who has left the country years ago and hardly has any connection with the local issues, how can he vote on the matters of local importance? I am instantly reminded of some of the horrendous out of touch comments that I read in this blog. “Corruption is the main problem”, “Let’s clean the streets and get those slum dwellers out”, “Just get rid of the two leaders and all will be fine” etc etc. Will they know what is the most pressing item in their locality in Rustampur in Pabna? They won’t. But the good news is that they are in the minority. The fact of the matter is for a majority of our citizens who have emigrated outside the country, the local issues are very much relevant and they are very much connected. Yes, think about the migrant worker in middle east who has been suppressed without a voice for years, having the power to change government who does not work for their benefit but reap the benefit of their hard work. May be a voting right will make the embassies in those countries more accountable to them. Think about the young student who had to move outside Bangladesh because the government could not manage to provide dissent research facility in his/her university. This will be their chance for getting back to those leaders and letting them know that they matter too. However, the biggest benefit of having expat voting rights is that it will give the expatriates a sense of ownership which will translate into many bigger and better things in future. It will mean that they are equal stakeholders in the process.
(more…)

John Steinbeck once wrote: “‘I have homes everywhere, many of which I have not seen yet. That is perhaps why I am restless. I haven’t seen all my homes.” Never has a statement resonated more deeply with me. I’ve been a traveller all my adult life, dipping like a swallow into a whole variety of countries, for days, weeks, years at a time, and feeling a sudden sense of belonging in every one of them. It gets easier as the years go on to settle wherever I am, for however long. Whether in Bangladesh, Singapore or New York, I treat the streets as my own, see the echoes and resonances in people’s faces, try to perceive the patterns and themes that make up our lives. There, among strangers, I feel welcomed, amongst friends, at home. (more…)

This week’s Economist carries an article highlighting positive developments within Britain’s Bangladeshi community. Until now, Bangladeshis have lagged behind other ethnic minorities on most socio-economic indicators, but this is beginning to change. Especially encouraging is the fact that Bangladeshi youngsters are starting to pull ahead in terms of academic achievement. (more…)

I’m sure most readers of UV are already familiar with the events of the last few days involving expatriate Bangladeshi workers. A small recap:

15th September AFP:

Malaysian immigration authorities have established a makeshift camp in the car park of Kuala Lumpur’s airport for foreign workers waiting to be collected by their agents, a report said Sunday.

Immigration Department chief Wahid Don said that corralling the workers in the car park prevented them loitering in the main airport buildings and creating an “unpleasant” situation for other travellers.

“We can’t have them running around the airport and congesting the premises,” he told the Sunday Star newspaper.”

(Frankly I personally don’t like the “chief’s” tone, but am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his sympathy isn’t best conveyed in print.)
(more…)

Crossposted from Ihtisham Kabir’s BackToBangladesh blog

During my recent trip to Silicon Valley, I repeatedly asked my Non Resident Bangladeshi friends to at least think about working in Bd. So, how badly does Bd need skilled managerial, business and IT skills? Example: there are at least 100,000 Indians who hold high-paid jobs in Bangladesh (BOI has issued 65000 work visas to Indians, and the rest are there temporarily or with other visas). While I do not begrudge them one bit - they bring a lot of value to our businesses (eg, Unilever Bd, headed by a group of Indians, is one of the most profitable branches of Unilever) - surely, this number indicates the need for talent, right?

Guess what I repeatedly heard back from my NRB friends? “Yeah, sure, they will pay Indians or other foreigners well, but as soon as they see another Bangladeshi - no matter how much American experience they have - Bangladeshi organizations will not want to pay high salaries.”

Is this really true? Anyone have real experiences? Certainly my short experience with the BD IT sector indicates otherwise - there was no end to the ways in which the IT community made me feel welcome back home - but maybe I am an exception or did not have grand enough expectations?

(more…)

Bricklane, Bangla TV channels and the whole community are abuzz by the latest scandal to rock the Londoni Bangladeshi community. Unlike other times, this one is homegrown and we don’t have any Monica Ali or Salman Rushdie to blame. But over the last two years coupled with TV channel called Channel S, their unlimited access to the Bangladeshi power base during the last government, Dr. Fazal Mahmood, the managing director of both Channel S and First Solutions, and his cohorts shamelessly used the pitch “trust us because we are from the community”. Along with using the local pitch they also used Islam to get the trust of people in the community. They took an office in the London Muslim Centre. They filled up channel S with Jamat sympathizers, they (the same business group) had regular programs in TV asking for unregulated contribution to Islamic charities. In the end, as it transpired they just played shamelessly and irresponsibly with the hard earned money of the blue collar workers. On Friday night, when callers where calling the Bangla TV channel in a live show talking about how they got scammed, it was painfully depressing for the viewers. One person re mortgaged his house and sent 70 thousand pound only to see it disappear. One person’s money sent for his mother’s treatment did not make it to Sylhet. Now why are people so angry at them?

(more…)

June 17, 2007: Washington, DC – The Bangladeshi-American Foundation, Inc. (BAFI), the largest umbrella organization of Bangladeshi diaspora in USA, announced Our Pride Awards to seven Bangladeshi-Americans for their achievements and contributions in their respective fields.

And this is how NYBAP’s ( New York Young Bangladeshi professional) Rasheq Rahman broke the news,

No doubt Asif is too shy to announce it, but I wanted to share some great news with all of you. We found out earlier this week that Asif will be awarded a Bangladeshi American Our Pride award at the upcoming Bangladeshi American Federation Inc (BAFI) convention in Mclean, VA on July 7th.

(more…)

I was running past the crowd in a hot summer day to buy ice cream at Baskin Robbins for my kids inside Square One mall in Mississauga (Toronto’s largest mall) the other day. I couldn’t believe when my Chachi (aunt) stopped me and pointed out Bangla newspaper (Bangladeshi newspaper based in Canada) on a shelf in the main newsstand inside the mall. I am and possibly most Diasporas in North America are probably past that stage of getting surprised to find Bangla newspaper in Bangladeshi or Indian stores but finding Bangla newspaper in the newsstand of a major North American shopping mall was a pleasant surprise indeed! I am sure many of your had experiences like this one that took your by surprise. Are we getting to that point in some of the major North American cities like Bangladeshis in London?

দৃষ্টিপাতের দুই বছর পুর্তি উপলক্ষে শুরু হচ্ছে বাংলায় ব্লগ।

ইউনিকোড ব্যবহার করে এখন অতি সহজেই বাংলায় ব্লগে লেখা সম্ভব এবং যে কোন প্লাটফর্মে থেকেও আপনি বাংলা পড়তে এবং লিখতে পারবেন। আপনার কম্পিউটারে বাংলা স্ক্রীপ্টে লেখা দেখানো এবং টাইপের কোন সমস্যার সমাধানের জন্যে বাংলাপিডিয়ার এই তথ্যগুলো কাজে দেবে।

(more…)

The following harrowing report was sent to us by a student from a London university. The name of the victim has been changed to hide the identify. Email address is below, should you try to act and find out how you can help.

Dear colleagues,

(more…)

If you are in London this weekend, don’t miss the chance to see Amra Kojon at 6 pm this Sunday.
Amra Kojon, a musical group based in Boston, caused a stir when they did their first show performing thousand years of Bangla songs in front of a sell out audience of 1200. If you think this is just another group of expats performing Bangla songs, defiinitely, think again. They are different — mainly because of the passion of the performers and because of the extra ordinary professional quality of their performances. What also makes it special is their terrific choice of songs — it will take you back in a time machine and make you realise how rich the Bangla culture is.

Check out their round the clock blog highlighting the tour.

Those who can not make it, perhaps can get a glimpse of their past performance here.

Also their main website is here.

London Program Details:

(more…)

[admin: we are going to republish old articles time to time that deserves more attention than the political diatribes that we see here often. Here is one:]

From Bikrampur to Tokyo
When I was but a young boy of 12, a long time ago now, my cousin Shobuj bhaiya left Bangladesh for Japan, in search of work. This was sometime in the late 1980s, when a sudden wave of opportunities in Japan, Korea, Singapore & Malaysia lured many young men from our villages and small towns to those strange lands. These young men saved, borrowed, sold off assets and property to put together the fees that the adom-bepari would charge. In Shobuj bhaiya’s case, he planted potatoes in the black soil of Bikrampur for several years before he’d finally saved up enough. If memory serves, the amount charged by the bepari even then was in excess of 1 lakh takas. But off he went and before long, his younger brother Maroof followed him to Japan.

(more…)