Unheard Voices

1. Roses & Sexual Harrassment (July 2008)

2. Open letter to the Chancellor of Jahangirnagar University (Oct 2001)

Anu Muhammad, Rahnuma Ahmed, Naseem Akhter Hussain, Amir Hossain, Nurul Hoque, Sayeed Ferdous, Sharmind Nilormee, Mirza Taslima Sultana, Mafruhi Sattar, Rayhan Raine, Manosh Chowdhury

Honourable Chancellor, Jahangirnagar University
For the last couple of weeks, a section of the students of Jahangirnagar University and its cultural activists have been spearheading a movement. Their demands are chiefly, that those students who were accused of committing rape in 1998 should not be allowed to sit for their exams, that their certificates should be withdrawn and, that a code against Sexual Harassment should be implemented. It is obvious that the demands raised by the students are principled ones and, these have the support of a section of the teachers of Jahangirnagar University out of a sense of commitment toward these principles. In 1998, the teachers of Jahangirnagar University had condemned the incidence of campus rape. As a matter of fact, the Jahangirnagar University Teachers Association (JUTA) itself had taken a stand on the matter. In this respect, we would also like to point out that the head of the previous caretaker government, Chief Justice Habibur Rahman, while delivering his address at the last Convocation of the University, had paid his respects toward the spirit of the campus anti-rape movement. Honourable Chancellor, we know that you yourself are well aware of these events. (more…)

[New Age Photo]

SSC results are out. For the first time in history of Bangladesh, students could get their result via the cell phone interactive SMS. A whopping 70% test takers passed the exam this year.

This is significantly different from when I took my public exams in the mid 80s. During those days, the only way to get the results were either school notice board ( which will be torn and taken out as souvenir within hours after posting) or the fine print result sheets in the national newspapers. The pass rate is an improvement too. The pass rate used to be a lowly 30 something percent those days. A better pass rate is a remarkable and much needed leap forward. ‘Nearly 2/3rd of the students are flunking the first national public exams and majority of those failing are from the rural downtrodden communities’– It was indeed a lousy state of affairs.

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“ Apko kia pata, ke humara dil apke liye kitna rota hai. Jab aap logo ko koi taklif hota hai to humain lagta hain k taklif humain ho raha hai. Bohot pyar karte hai hum aap se. alag ho gaye to kya hua. Bhai to bhai hota hai. Bangladeshi to humare bhai hai.”
Rafe, 60-something, Bus-driver, Lahore

I’ve met people from different parts of the world and traveled to a few places myself. But never, not once, in any of my interactions or travels, have I ever come across a race of people who have made me feel so proud of my nationality: Bangladeshi. But then, I visited Pakistan. I was born in an independent Bangladesh. I’ve never had to struggle to get my voice heard, I was allowed to vote (till quite recently) and I’m allowed to speak my mind. Until my trip to Pakistan, I had never realized how precious all these things are. I had always regarded Pakistan, a distant country, as a bitter chapter in our history. But only after meeting the people did I realize how close we could be and how much my heritage means to them. Never before have I received so much respect for just being Bangladeshi. (more…)

Barack Obama, with his compelling life story, is inspiring America like nobody has since John F. Kennedy. The child of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, and raised by his grandparents, Obama started his political life at the bottom of the food chain as a community organiser in Chicago, and is now reaching for the US presidency.

As a curious outsider, I have watched Obama with polarised emotions over the last couple of months. I have alternated between inspiration and depression; inspired by his magnetic promise for the American youth and saddened by the lack of such leaders at home.

What does Obama mean in the Bangladeshi context? He represents a breed of bottom-up politicians who can inspire and unite the younger generation to dream of tomorrow — and then deliver.

Faisal Salahuddin’s piece here

A very angry post from Dhaka Shohor that makes some poignant points.

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Yeats should have sailed to Bangladesh.

For in Bangladesh, the old in one another’s arms dance on the bloodied corpses of the young.

I speak not only of “cowardly liberals” such as our twin editors, who seem to have sacrificed a man each to save their own political hides. Whereas they should have been leaders, voices of experience and bulwarks of strength who sheltered the more adventurous of their flock – Mohammad Arifur Rahman and Tasneem Khalil – they have instead proven themselves to be sell-outs and sycophants through not just their “sacrifices” but also their silence.

No, I come not to speak only of these so-called progressive voices of a decrepit generation with suitably unoriginal, decrepit ideas. I speak also of other older, more honourable men. Men who vow to keep us safe, where “us” equals every person who inhabits our green land. Men who send our finest and bravest to battle. Men who have taken on young men and women to fight for their land and are responsible for their safety.

After a generation of INDOCTRINATING our young army personnel against India as opposed to TRAINING THEM TO THINK about countering India’s influence meaningfully, I see the most honourable of men travel to Delhi. The Bangladeshi media reports sycophantically on it. The Indian media talks about “joint exercises” aimed at eradicating the Indian North-East of “rebels” and “terrorists”.

Now unlike Mr. Farhad Mazhar, whose write-up on the topic I appreciated highly and urge everyone to read for its section on the Bay of Bengal gas blocks issue, I am not about to make emotional appeals that go like, “Our army is doing India’s bidding!”. Joint exercises are not doing anyone’s “bidding” and, if our army is to become/remain well-trained and have a global outlook instead of the parochial one that pervades it, such exercises are positive. I will not make such emotional appeals.

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We recognize the leadership qualities for these new leaders this year. Leadership is a thankless task. But we want to recognize some of their efforts which have opened up new doors of opportunities. Our thanks to all the volunteers, donors, readers and friends of drishtipat. We wish you happy holidays and very happy new year.

Details here.

Perhaps the rest of my days will be spent in this deep agony. Because, that time has come in my life— the time of old age when Shamsur Rahman began to regret everything. We will not live to see a good time. At the time of January 11, I dreamed that such a time would really come to this country. But, what was supposed to happen, and now what is happening? Why couldn’t I bring those words out of the deepest provinces of my heart: please don’t go, stay with us, this country will have its time as well.
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With the weekend coming, time to focus on something different and explore the lighter side. Sahana Bajpaie, as some of you know, has recently released an album on Rabindra Sangeet. Last time we checked, the cds were flying off the shelves and the buyers were mostly of younger kind who do not typically pick Tagore when it comes to their music taste. So what made the difference this time around? Well partly its Sahana’s singing and partly it is musical composition around the songs by Ornob. Both gives a very trendy brush up to the old man’s song. Here is one of the songs from the album. Click here to listen or download.

Feedback’s Maqsud tried something similar 8 years ago. At that time, he said he wanted to make Rabindra Sangeet played in the dance floor of clubs in 2010 and that was his attempt of updating the songs. Novel idea but poor execution. But even outrageous was the reaction he got. Out came the knives of the Tagore fundamentalists. Pages after page were written by Wahidul Huq, Sanjida Khatun and the similar leading Rabindra gurus saying that this shows extreme disrespect towards the great poet and these should immediately stop. Bechara Maqsud was virtually banned from doing any further show in BTV after that.

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An inspiring success story of a girl named Doly Akter, born and raised in a Dhaka slum tells how change is always more effective when it comes from within. Doly was born and lived against all odds amid the poorest of the world in one of many slums in Dhaka. Though she was more likely to fall victim to early marriage, abuse, health hazards and many other possible risks, she managed to rise above it towards getting education to secure a brighter future that many fortunate ones take for granted. Doly didn’t forget the community that harbored her and gave back through service to improve of health and education of her fellow residents. Perhaps, we need to turn our focus on ‘Dolys’ that are out there in hopeless communities all over Bangladesh and empower them to help their own communities to get out of the cycle of agony.

Click here to read Doly’s success story in BBC News website.

Going home for the summer after hanging around “international development” students of myriad nationalities throughout the academic year was always a falling-back-to-earth sort of experience. Whereas these students - rarely Bangladeshi - were generally cautiously optimistic and well-informed about Bangladesh’s socio-economic progress since 1971, our fellow countrymen were not. This became doubly true when it came to comparisons with the rest of South Asia.

Back home, one is likely to encounter disbelief more often than not if one mentions that we are doing better than India and/or Pakistan (the rest of South Asia somehow never matters). Yet, in some very important dimensions of development, we are actually ahead. Rehan’s excellent post on UV last week brought back memories of making this very point with people back home, only to be met with disbelief. Yet, if I had said, “Bangladesh is a poor country”, everyone would have nodded with that blanket, almost meaningless statement without hesitation…

Hard though it may be to believe, Bangladesh is actually doing better than our bigger neighbours on several fronts.

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Progressive Bangladesh, a new online magazine, has started its journey with the mission to analyse “society and politics with an aim toward what Alan Lightman has called “actively disturbing the status quo”. Among all the articles published, my favourte one is the one by Rubaiya Ahmad. Rubaiya Ahmad was educated at the University of Texas in the United States. After working in the US for over 5 years, she returned to Bangladesh. She is currenly engaged with Bangladesh Golden Agri Seed Associates (BGASA) and a project called Champions of Change, which aims to highlight positive grassroots initiatives. This new project Champions of Change is something that you all will hear about in the coming days as some of us from Drishtipat plan to engage with it heavily. Rubaia’s report is from one such village where she went to find a champion of change.

Read Rubaia’s inspiring article here.

Helaluddin asked, “Tumi ki kaaz koro”? I said, “Brac e kaaj kori”. He replies promptly, “Tomago Brac to amader shob dhani beez ar jomi shesh kori disse! Sakri korba koro, dyasher kawthao to bhabti hobe!”

Read the Progressive Bangladesh here.

Image: Mahrukh Mohiuddin

There is a saying in Bangladesh “শিশুরাই জাতির ভব্বিশ্যত”. Save the Children’s annual State of the World’s Mothers for 2007 indicates that impressive progress in cutting down the infant and child mortality rates and placed us well over India and Pakistan among 60 developing nations in this regard. In fact, the percentage drop in the mortality rates is much higher than South Asian average of thirty percent. If things progess at this rate, Bangladesh is sure to have a positive contribution to the Millennium Development Goals that targets to reduce child mortality rate by two thirds by 2015.

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A while ago, I had written about apathy among the urbanites and the need to awaken the social consciousness of the youth. I don’t usually get around to reading the youth sections of BD newspapers, but a friend sent me a link to a recent “Rising Stars” section from th DS. Judging by the article, it sounds like the winds of change are already blowing.

It was a brief profile on 1° Initiative, a youth led development group in Dhaka that collaborates with local school kids to help out with various social programs. Although a little cliched, the author of the article gave a beautiful description of what their name means and what their guiding philosophy sounds like:

“They have named themselves as ‘One-Degree Initiative’, because of their motto that a small, 1° change can make a huge difference. 1° is all it takes to turn ice into water; 1° is all it takes to revolutionize one’s mind - so a 1° change can indeed be the most significant change. 1 is the number of hands they need from each one of you!”

“Perspectives need to be reshaped and redefined. And one way of doing that is through hearing the voices of the young”, says DS in its intro for the roundtable it did to find out what the younger chaps in desh are thinking. But how are you going to “reshape and redefine perspective” when you are perfectly happy to just interact with people who are just like you? Going through the list of participants in the roundtable, the first thing that struck me was how undiversified the group was. This was a group of people who probably bump into each other in social gatherings on a weekly basis. Yes, I am talking about the representation of the wider spectrum of the society in such talks. For a change, it was refreshing to see the young bloods in the round table. But when at the end of the discussion with the youth reps of Bangladesh, the moderator says, “One thing that did not come up today is employment. There is a large number of youth in Bangladesh. How can we employ them? The unemployment problem is pushing people into drugs and crime. This needs to be addressed. “, you just know there is something wrong with the representation in that talk. (more…)

admin update: Deshantori screening in big cinema theatre in New York on May 5th. Buy online before ticket disappears. You won’t regret.

Buy online from here

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