Unheard Voices

Every year during the 3rd week of August we see many pieces about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Most of these are of ‘Bangabandhuke jemon dekhechi’ type, though some do contain rare pieces of 1970s articles and declassified government documents. Last August, angry blogger Dhaka Shohor wrote a very different piece that describes how the post-1970s generation views the national leader.

In addition to a very violent coup, 15 August also marks partition and the end of the empire in the subcontinent - events that cannot be separated from the shaping of our national identity. Identities can of course get really confusing - Bangladeshi / Bengali Muslim / Muslim / Bengali / Indian / Ghoti / Bangal - it’s not always clear where one ends and the other begins. Dhaka Shohor’s post also shows how the post-1970s generation - born in the free country, with no hang ups about our neighbours or former compatriots, comfortable in our surrounds, focussed on our needs, and at ease with the world - tackles these identity issues.

We’ve lamented about there being no clear articulation of what it means to be a Bangladeshi. May be this articulation will come from some future leader. Not everyone from his generation is as articulate as Dhaka Shohor, not everyone has the same opportunities. But while words may vary, the message is probably the same. And that, much more than the lamenting of the past, is why we reproduce his post below.

Ekti Mujiburer thekey

I don’t like simple stories, but I’ll make an exception for the one that follows because even this is an improvement from the over-simplified bullshit we are asked to believe by political parties and their embedded intellectuals. If you disagree on the details, remember these are simplified stories.

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Today is Tajuddin Ahmed’s birthday.  The following was written last year.

-Shahnoor Wahid

On Monday, the 82nd birth anniversary of Tajuddin Ahmed came and went by without making much of a noise. Can we expect a grand celebration of his birth anniversary one day? Does he not deserve one? Is his memory fading away from our collective minds? Will our next generation remember him at all?

These are questions worth delving into, since laudable attempts are being made at the moment to recognise and restore the rightful place of great national leaders along with that of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the chief architect of Bangladesh.

 

In fact, the illustrious political career of Tajuddin and his contribution to the creation of Bangladesh will remain an inspiration for all freedom loving peoples of the world. But, unfortunately, the apathy and disrespect that has been shown to him since his assassination will go down as a nation’s collective story of shame. And we must correct ourselves at the first available opportunity.

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I met Smriti Kona Biswas a couple of times — first when I was working on an article on CHT and I was meeting a friend of hers for information. The next time I met her I was doing a story on lead pollution. A Fulbright scholar, Dr Amal Mitra, wanted to carry out a survey on the level of lead in the blood of Bangladeshi children. Her NGO, Society to Uplift Social Harmony (SUSH) helped Dr. Mitra carry out the survey on schools in some parts of Bangladesh, including the night school that was part of her organisation.

Later I came to know that this Smriti Kona was the same person who was brutally gang-raped in 1995 (when she was a college student) by a notorious gang of miscreants who used to haunt the campus of Barisal’s Brojmohon University College (BM College). The only thing that saved Smriti Kona’s life was that the incident, which took place in an abandoned building inside the college, was spotted by someone who informed the college authorities who rushed in and caught them. The culprits received 10 years rigorous imprisonment each.

Winning the court battle was not the end of the story though. She faced constant prejudice from society. Only after getting admission into Dhaka University did she get some peace of mind. Her organisation SUSH is an attempt to help women like her, who are struggling to earn a place for themselves in this cruel society. Unfortunately, her organisation is in trouble. Read all about it here.

These days, on February 14, Valentines Day is celebrated in Bangladesh with great fanfare. The students and teen/ post teen generation as well as the older ones use their energy; ingenuity in doing thing to convince their loved ones.

Exactly 25 years ago on the 14 the February, I was about to finish my high school in Dhaka. I had no clue what Valentine day was. Then during the rest of student life in colleges throughout the 80s, I still did not know or do much with Valentines Day.

However 14th February remained a special day for us, the students and young people in the 80s. When the military establishment illegally captured state power on 24th March 1982, on this day, 14 the February the following year i.e. 1983, students lodged a large scale protest against the military occupation of governance. Five students – Zafar, Dipali Saha, Jainal, Mozammel and Ayub – were killed in the police firing, leading to the formation of Chhatra Sangram Parishad (students’ action council), the first politically organised platform against the military junta. The following year, on the same day during a student procession marking the event, the military rulers ran a truck on the peaceful procession instantly crushing Selim and Delwar to death.

Over the next six years, many more lives were lost. We invoked the names of Dipali Shaha, Mozamel, Selim, Delwar millions of times. Students were followed by trade unions followed by professionals and they gloriously defied the military rule. Politicians joined hands and later the civil service stepped in. Military had no options but to surrender and retreat back to the cantonment.

With restoration of democracy, along with many other things, we also forgot those who shed their lives for the democracy. And we badly mangled up militarycracy with a person Ershad. Ten years after fall of Ershad, he came back with a significantly limited capacity of a small political party leader. This time his power was not the military establishment. Ironically the people of his region were his principle force.

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Munni Saha’s very moving anniversary tribute to the founder of Daily Star and Ekushey TV A S Mahmud.

“When I bring out the amazingly inspirational stories of some of the most amazing common men and women of Bangladesh, I imagine in the corner of that table Abu Sayeed Mahmud is smiling — bringing forward the paperweight that has the word “THINK” scribed in it in front of me and telling me “Just think what a country of amazing possibility Bangaldesh is.” I often think of him and wonder in my career life, would I not meet another person like him whose wisdom and philosophy would shadow me on every good thing I do?”

Read this worthwhile write up here

Click To PlayI saw Elachi’r Ma several days ago. She was in TV news. She probably will be in late twenties or early thirties. She was wearing what all Bangladeshi poor women wear. A plain grey/green Sari with Black Par and a Nakful. She was looking exceedingly fresh, most likely she just had bath before talking to TV crew. And the poor people of Bangladesh, My God, are very camera smart. They will talk clearly and in an articulate manner without any shyness, nervousness or hesitation. (more…)

I still remember my late Mama’s voice in a phone conversation in the late nineties when he told me that now we will just have to say Bismillah and drink the water here. He was referring to the higher than acceptable arsenic concentration in the drinking water from groundwater sources in Bangladesh that was discovered earlier and widely “acknowledged” around that time. Groundwater contamination by arsenic at such high quantity is not just happening in Bangladesh, it is also happening in India, China and in other parts of the world. In fact, worldwide 140 million people, especially in the developing countries, are at risk of arsenic poisoning through drinking water.

So far, we have been hearing mostly about the risks of water with high concentration of arsenic on people and what may be causing it and how many lives maybe at stake. The burning question of how we divert this inevitable calamity went unanswered for too long. The government and international organizations kept pondering upon the question giving no priority and significance to the issue. Even the organizations that initially funded the tubewell project to tap into the groundwater for drinking, where the root of the problem goes back to, failed to recognize and work towards diverting the catastrophe until many years later.

Do a chemistry professor named Abul Hassam, an expatriate Bangladeshi, finally have the answer that will provide a simple yet affordable way to avert what he calls the arsenic poisoning of drinking water “one of the worst natural disaster on earth”? Will Abul Hassam, named this year “Heroes of the Environment” by Time, with his solution save millions of lives of his fellow Bangladeshis as well as millions more elsewhere in the world? Read more about it in Time magazine.

Abed Shaheb makes us proud. Congratulations. BRAC’s committment to social changes is remarkable. Here’s how Clinton foundation portrayed his achievements.

When 10 million refugees were returning to the newlyindependent Bangladesh 35 years ago, Fazle Hasan Abed could not sit idly by in his comfortable executive position in London.

Returning home, he used the funds from selling his flat to respond to the crisis. The relief organization he created, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), has become a development engine whose methods have lifted over 35 million people out of abject poverty, educated over 3 million children, and improved the health of over 100 million.

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This is based on a personal blog post from August 2005.

He is the absolute leader of his people. He has led them through war, and now he is trying to steer them through peace. But all is not well, and our leader is forsaking liberty, assuming dictatorial power. Meanwhile ambitious politicians are plotting. The leader is assassinated, by his trusted friend, who says – it’s not that I love him less, it’s I love my country more. But it is soon evident that the conniving politicians are seeking power for themselves. The dead leader’s ally raises arm. Havoc, it is cried, and let loose are the dogs of war. Out of confusion arises a new strongman with a new order. Liberty takes a back seat for many years.

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The following was published in Time right after the liberation war victory. It has lots of interesting things about him about his pre-71 life which often gets lost because of the discussion on the last three years of his life. How many of you know that he was in jail for political reasons for 10 and a half years of his 55 year life?

Monday, Jan. 17, 1972
Time
Great Man or Rabble-Rouser?

THE history of the Indian subcontinent for the past half-century has been dominated by leaders who were as controversial as they were charismatic: Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammed AH Jinnah, Jawaharlal Nehru. Another name now seems likely to join that list: Sheik Mujibur (”Mujib”) Rahman, the President of Bangladesh. To his critics, Mujib is a vituperative, untrustworthy rabble-rouser. To most of the people of his new nation, he is a patriot-hero whose imprisonment by West Pakistan has only enhanced his appeal. “He was a great man before,” says one Bangladesh official, “but those bastards have made him even greater.”

Even his detractors concede that Mujib has the personal qualifications to become an extremely effective popular leader. He is gregarious, highly emotional and remarkably attuned to the needs and moods of his supporters. He has an uncanny ability to remember names and faces. Mujib is also a spellbinding orator with a simplistic message and a pungent, fervent style.

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While I’m sure the recent arrest of Sheikh Hasina has captured the attention of every other Bangladeshi from Dhaka to Barbados, let us not forget the multitude of silent heroes that are able to work through the partisan chaos and do us proud in the global arena.

One such hero is a young HSC student named Tarif Ezaz. Over the past year, Tarif has been in the vanguard of a movement - conducted mostly on a cellphone - to make the “Bangladesh Language Movement” entry on Wikipedia a Featured Article. As many of you may know, getting an article to the status of “Featured Article” on the famous online encyopedia is a long slog up the mountain of peer review and consensus building.

Ragib Hasan does a great job of chronicling the struggles of Tarif and his colleagues as they worked to bring this inalienable piece of Bangladeshi history to the center stage. I’m not a superstitious man, but it seems almost portentious that something representing the soul of the Bangladeshi nationalist movement would be brought up in a time when our country continues to face tough choices about its fate.

Great job Tarif. We need more young people like you to bring us back to basics.

Bill Gates Commencement Speech to Harvard this year:

President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.”

I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me “Harvard’s most successful dropout.” I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.

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 Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibr Rahman’s sister Asia Khatun breathed her last yesterday. Not much is known about her personal traits. However some events of this person’s very personal life and her losses has been intricately associated with that of the nation.
On that night of August 15 1975, this mother, grandmother and sister, lost both of her brothers, her eldest son with the whole family and almost 20 other members of her extended family in political massacre. She didn’t have the scope to mourn all the deaths during that time of devastation. She had to become strong to protect, hide and safeguard her surviving sons. And she did what she had to do out of her maternal instinct.
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Picture Courtesy: Uttorshuri

The brilliance remains
Syed Badrul Ahsan

Jahanara Imam’s life ended thirteen years ago, in a blaze of glory. That is the truth. The courage she demonstrated in her final years of temporal existence remains an inspiration for all of us to follow.
When you consider the criticism she came under in her later years, from old collaborators of the Pakistan army to such men of the law who displayed little shame in mocking her after her death, you have that certain belief welling up in you that she caused imprints of her cause to be left behind nearly everywhere.

For a woman who had seen a son taken away by the Pakistanis, never to be returned, it was a monumental task taking upon herself the responsibility of waging an old battle in new form. For an individual who witnessed the swift decline and death of a husband who had survived, barely, degrading torture at the hands of the Tikka-Niazi hordes, it was sheer bravery setting bad memories aside and coming forth to inform her fellow Bengalis that not all had been lost, that indeed we had it in our power to point the finger at those who had once humiliated us in the company of their foreign masters and tell them that shame was writ large for all time on their dark lives.

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