The surprise is not that Bangladesh’s heavily politicized one party state and its military apparatus are so shockingly full of brutality and corruption as shown by the shocking expose of Al-Jazeera’s investigative journalism team. The bigger surprise, perhaps, is the subservient, cowardly, and craven attitude of Bangladesh’s ‘free’ press and ‘intelligentsia’ which is shooting the …
Author Archives: DocEsam
Another August 15…Bangladesh’s National Sycophancy Day
August 15, another annual day of Bangladeshi intellectual sycophancy
COVID19 Relief…another opportunity for Awami League loot
Those who lived through the famine of 1974 in Bangladesh know well how wholesale plunder of relief goods was carried out: tonnes of aid material–tents, blankets, ready-to-eat meals, medicine, toiletries–donated by the UN and major Western countries were whisked away in broad daylight from airports, train stations, and bus depots by leaders at every level …
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Rape…a veritable weapon of intimidation by the Awami League
No surprise in the drama called “Dhaka City elections’ where the usual Awami League tactics of a subservient election commission, a silent police, fearful mainstream journos, and pre-poll violence by the inhouse terror squad BCL made sure that there was no doubt how the results will turn out…as they always have at every election at …
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Selecting Dhaka’s mayors: some call it ‘city elections’
So the old joke is back in currency: Dhaka City’s two municipal corporations will have ‘elections’ again in January now that the supposed term of the previous city bosses is over. Sounds very normal and democratic and civic, except it’s a cruel parody that most Western journalists–never mind the local ones–simply gulp in stride. Sure …
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A little less outrage and a little more action
The outrage expressed by the chief envoys of the US, UK, and EU regarding the brutal murder of Abrar Fahad is commendable. What would be much better would be for these diplomats to exercise their reserve authority as head of consular missions, and impose temporary sanctions on nonimmigrant visa applications by members of the BCL …
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A vassal state like Hungary and (former) DDR
The de facto prohibition in Bangladesh of any peaceful protests against India’s unfortunate actions in Kashmir remove one more figment of doubt that Bangladesh–under the current unelected one party, one family dictatorship–is little more than a vassal state of India. Kind of like Hungary, Poland, and the former East Germany were of the USSR back …
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Rape and threats of rape: the tools of intimidation Bangladesh style
It seems not a day goes by where even the muzzled mainstream media of Bangladesh doesn’t report some girl, infant, woman being raped or threatened with such barbarity by some local leader of the BCL–the ‘student’ wing or actually the inhouse terror squad of the ruling one party Awami League junta. Two days ago the …
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Fire hazards in a dictatorship
Almost every week another building goes up in flames and dozens die in Dhaka. For those wondering why nothing is done to fix the zoning, structural, and fire code violations, ask yourself this: what is the incentive for an unelected government to do that ESPECIALLY when the violators—almost always big businesses with ownership interest held …
The Cadre’s Training School ULAB
Every dictatorship needs its own institution of higher learning to train cadres outside of the military academies. China has its Central Party School; the USSR had its The Higher Party School or VPSch. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had its Saddam University (now called Nahrein University). The purpose for all these was to train smooth faced interlocutors …