Dedicated to the restoration of pluralist, representative, democracy in Bangladesh. I write because they can't speak anymore.
A great tragedy of the Bangladeshi people is that their own journalists have simply disappeared into sycophantic oblivion like the Pravda journalists of yore; the very idea that any newspaper or broadcast show would even ask where does the so-called Prime Minister’s uber-nationalistic son live, or who he is married to, or how he makes …
Continue reading “The One party, One family dynasty ruling Bangladesh”
When the corrupt politicians dithered and tucked tail to the red-light district of Calcutta as the Pakistani military let loose its savagery on the night of March 25, 1971, a patriot, officer and gentleman stood up and fought the Occupation Forces, and led others from the front. http://southasiajournal.net/bangladesh-i-am-zia-speaking-in-that-case-we-revolt-major-ziaur-rahman-march-25-1971/ “In that case, we REVOLT”. ..he said. …
Continue reading “And revolt we did! Happy Birthday Bangladesh!!”
The US sanctions on a few high level leaders of the Bangladeshi dictatorship’s brutal security establishment are not only welcome news but are already having a measurable impact: since the announcement of the sanctions until last night, not a single victim has died in staged encounters with the regime security forces, and no known cases …
Continue reading “Punitive sanctions are good; preventive ones are even better”
Blame the “western media”, blame “conspiracy against us”, blame “lack of patriotism”, blame “colonialism”, blame “but what about..”…that’s in a nutshell the toolbox of every barbaric dictatorship–and its paid and unpaid interlocutors–which is criticized for the horrid treatment of its own citizens. That apologia is pathetically old and worn out; it may impress the usual …
Continue reading “The middle-school apologia for dictatorship: predictable, uniform, unoriginal”
Have you noticed that all those politicians, journalists, ‘experts’, and ‘civil society’ types who engage in ‘profound’ debate on “democracy vs development” have their own spouses, children, and investments safely abroad in capitalist, democratic societies? In fact in many cases they themselves either live in such free societies or have residency/citizenship in those countries? See, …
Continue reading “Democracy vs Development: the phony ‘debate’”
Kudos to WaPo for publishing this https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/08/kashmir-civil-society-khurram-parvez-democracy-summit-india/story. Such a frontal assault is also what’s happening in Bangladesh, albeit sans the religious angle. But Bangladesh being a much ‘smaller’ and perhaps ‘backwater’ country, the journalists who cover her, as I mentioned in my previous post, are simply too incompetent or compromised to be this bold. Or …
Continue reading “Bangladesh’s real civil society faces the same assault, but you wouldn’t know”
In the first 20 years of her existence, neatly coinciding with the last 20 years of the Cold War, Bangladesh was decidedly a backwater in the global scheme of things; as such the “Bangladesh beat”–at foreign offices, major Western media, university research centers–was the place where ambitious late 20 somethings went to dabble in things …
Continue reading “The second stringers who ‘cover’ Bangladesh”
About time…but more needs to be done The sanctions imposed on 5 of the regime’s security leaders and human rights violators by the United States this month https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0526 is a case of better too little and late, than never. Years of engagement by thoughtful individuals in the diaspora has helped move this effort to this …
Continue reading “Finally….sanctions by the US on the Bangladeshi dictatorship’s chief henchmen”
It’s a decided surprise when occasionally the once respected Prothom Alo newspaper in Dhaka (a sister concern of the Daily Star of regime pet ‘critic’ Mahfuz Anam) spills out the beans on the nature of the ‘democracy’ that that the graduate interns at the Bangladesh beat at the New York Times or Washington Post or …
The horrendous attacks on Hindus across Bangladesh–under an ostensibly secular regime–lay bare the dirty secret of the unelected Bangladeshi regime that none of the pet press dares touch: in the absence of legitimacy gained from the ballot box, the dictatorship (like many others in developing countries) has leaned on religious zealots for a veneer of …
Continue reading “Phony secularism of the Bangladeshi dictatorship”