Dedicated to the restoration of pluralist, representative, democracy in Bangladesh. I write because they can't speak anymore.
The involvement of Bangladesh’s security personnel in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations is a source of three critical resources for the Bangladeshi dictatorship: The visit of the head of the UN peacekeeping operations to Bangladesh is thus rightly triggered calls from major human rights organizations to do a better job in screening security personnel from that …
Continue reading “Human rights abusers do not belong in UN peacekeeping operations”
Some of us advocated, called, pestered, wrote, emailed about this since the Trump administration. At times it felt like a useless endeavor given the forces arrayed against this. Now let’s use this…and add phony journalists and their ‘editors’ as well (I mean absolute haters of free elections like Syed Badrul Ahsan and Syed Ishtiaque Reza …
Academic freedom was never really a thing in Bangladesh, despite nonsensical utterances about “Oxford of the East”. Things have only gotten worse since the one-party, one-family dictatorship came to power in 2008 and got rid of free elections and a free press. Universities themselves are little more than factories to nurture and produce the armed …
If there was any doubt that the ‘official opposition’ Jatiya Party (JP) is anything more than a front-organization of the ruling one party Awami League junta, it should be dispelled with this meeting where the Bangladeshi dictator is setting up the leadership of the ‘opposition’. This blog has long maintained that JP—founded by the late …
Continue reading “DDR, China, DPRK, Bangladesh…multi-party democracies!!!”
That a brutal dictatorship is trying to silence dissenters abroad is not surprising; small mercies for the cartoonish approach to these things. That Bangladesh’s entire “free media”–the Prothom Alo, the BFUJ, the (regime owned) Dhaka Tribune, the Daily Star–are all entirely silent about this says a lot about their phony commitment to democracy. As I …
If sycophancy was an Olympic sport, the so-called journalists of Bangladesh would certainly be in the running for the top three slots every four years. In the run up to the opening of the controversial Padma Bridge last month, ostensibly respectable journalists left no stone unturned to show their obeisance to the unelected “prime minister”, …
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!!”
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”