E-Bangladesh

[Strawberry, Bangladesh.]

For last two days, things are looking much brighter. Just a few days ago, I was frustrated, said a lot of cynical things such as we are done for good and that there is no way out from this incredible pressure that this army-led caretaker government is putting on general people like us.

Kicking the hawkers, spitting on slum-dwellers, shooting the jute-mill workers — what not have this government done so far? Hungry, homeless kids are standing there on water for weeks, hoping when the generals would come and give them few pieces of biscuits. And when they do come, they do not forget to preach us with a few sophisticatedly placed patriotic words as if they are our birth-mothers. What they always forget is that they are playing the reign of fire.

Yesterday and today’s screaming students, wanting their space and freedom back, are not any particular party’s so called little-put leaders. They went to study, earn a degree, with hopes that someday they would stand with their heads held high, dignified. They are not thugs. They have been holding their breaths. Hoping things will change, eventually. But it did not.

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[Our Correspondent, Dhaka.]

Anti-army riots in Dhaka University continued Tuesday as thousands of students clashed with police and army demanding immediate army pull-out from their campus. Riots started Monday protesting assault of students by army personnel in Dhaka University. Street-battles spread out of the university campus to different parts of Dhaka and campuses across the country on Tuesday leaving at least 250 injured.

The students, demanding withdrawal of army camp from the university gymnasium, brought out processions and clashed with police on the campus intermittently while police fired rubber bullets, blank shots and lobbed teargas canisters to disperse the demonstrators.

Demonstrators burnt an effigy of Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed and two effigies of the army chief, General Moeen Uddin Ahmed, in front of the Aparajeyo Bangla. Agitating students damaged more than a hundred private vehicles and public buses and set fire to an army vehicle in Shahbag.

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Anti-army riots in Dhaka University continues as thousands of students clash with police and army demanding immediate army pull-out from their campus. An E-Bangladesh news team is now on the ground. We expect to update our coverage with exclusive photos and videos from Dhaka later in the evening. Meanwhile, incoming reports [via news text] from our correspondents in Dhaka update:

[Exclusive] Different sources in Dhaka identify the senior army official who was assaulted by the students in DU campus Monday night. Brigadier General Chowdhury Fazlul Bari — Director, Home Intelligence Bureau, DGFI — was shouted at, kicked, punched and pushed as he went to the campus.

Video: TV grab from ATN.

Earlier, BDNEW24 reported:

Angry students of Dhaka University late Monday chased a senior army official on the campus when he had gone to talk to them introducing himself as a teacher of the university, witnesses said. The official, a brigadier general, took two teachers of the university with him at 11:45pm to pacify the protesting students who rampaged through the campus for hours on end. The students however recognised and swore at him before they started kicking and pushing him. The official finally fled by a motorcycle, according to two bdnews24.com correspondents who witnessed the incident. DU assistant proctor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah was at the scene along with another teacher. The incident occurred on the street between the vice-chancellor’s house and the Teachers’ Club when the angry students elsewhere on the campus were fighting with the security officials. The students swooped on another security official, who tried to save the troubled army officer. The second man left the scene with a bleeding head, the witnesses said.

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[Staff News Writer, E-Bangladesh.]

Professor Muhammad Yunus — Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Founder of Grameen Bank — urged South Asian nations to get closer quickly by resolving conflicts and work collectively towards slashing poverty to zero in the region. His appeal came Saturday as part of his keynote speech at the sixth conference of the South Asian Free Media Association in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Photo: Dhanmondi 32, August 15, 1975.

[Mashuqur Rahman, USA.]

On a Friday evening more than three decades ago a man named Khondker Mushtaque Ahmed, with blood on his hands, addressed the nation of Bangladesh over television and radio. He declared that he was now President of Bangladesh. He said the Bangladesh military had taken over power under his leadership in the “greater national interest” in response to “the historical necessity.” It was August 15, 1975.

Earlier in the day the founding leader of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was brutally murdered along with nearly his entire family by junior officers of the Bangladesh military. Bangladesh had committed fratricide and has been struggling since to come to terms with the crime.

The Bangladesh Observer, the leading English language newspaper in Bangladesh at the time, editorialized the day after the carnage:

Corruption and nepotism inevitably led to continuously increasing prices and the economic misery of the masses that left no alternative for them but to languish and perish. In this suffocating situation the Armed Forces could not be true to their conscience and the nation except by coming forward to bring about a change in the corrupt and oppressive government.

…

From all accounts the people are convinced of the government’s crusading determination to obliterate the last traces of corruption, nepotism, and all other social vices and therefore they are ready to co-operate with the government in facing the great challenge thrown by history. With the infinite mercy of Allah the Government and the nation will overcome all obstacles and resolutely march towards the cherished goal.

Thus the doctrine of “historical necessity” entered the Bangladeshi lexicon and military intervention found its rationale.

Soon the figurehead civilian leader of the country, Khondker Mushtaque Ahmed, began to promulgate regulations and ordinances for the “greater good” of the country. On August 20, 1975 Ahmed promulgated martial law regulations providing for “penalty of death or transportation for life, rigorous imprisonment, fine and confiscation of property for offenses such as corruption, criminal misconduct, illegal possession of arms and ammunition and illegally acquired properties.” The regulations he promulgated also provided for “setting up of Special Martial Law Courts, Summary Martial Law Courts and Appellate Tribunals for the trial and hearing of offenses specified by the regulations.”

A few days later “life sketches” of three military officers appeared on the front page of the Bangladesh Observer. Two of the men, recently promoted Chief of Staff of the Bangladesh Army Major General Ziaur Rahman and the Deputy Chief of Staff Major General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, would rule Bangladesh for the next sixteen years.

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Photo: Ekushe February, 1953. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with Maulana Bhasani.

[Tasneem Khalil, Sweden.]

Since its birth, Pakistan has been said to be ruled by triple A: “Allah,” “Army” and “America.” Even today, years after the independence of “East Pakistan,” endless sectarian riots in Karachi confirm the murky influence of religion in Pakistani politics. And when Condoleezza Rice — the American Secretary of State — flies in from Washington to Islamabad to meet the President, she is greeted by a man in khaki.

Policies that govern the modern day Pakistan are, one way or the other, observers argue, set by the adherents of mullahism or imperialism, and accordingly enforced by the military junta. That is Pakistan in 2005 and that was Pakistan in 1971. Little has changed, that too in a negative direction.

But, in 1971, one finger that rose in admonishment of these entrenched powers was of the Sheikh. Throughout February-March, East Pakistan was virtually ruled by a leader with seven million people rallied behind him. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as a dot of difference on the world map.

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Artwork: Anonymity/Graham Lampa.

[Rezwan, Germany.]

All over the world, there are regimes that discourage free speech and try to suppress dissidents. They keep an eye on its netizens and in recent years many bloggers across the world have been interrogated, arrested, tortured and sent to prison for the “crime” of speaking critically about their governments.

Bangladesh is under a state of emergency now. Although the situation of press freedom is much better than many countries quoted above, a few bloggers have already been detained and abused for their writing. Certain journalists were questioned or cautioned by the security forces. This fear has contributed to an alarming trend of self censorship in the Bangladeshi media. One can wonder; how do you express yourself freely and without fear? There is always someone to edit what you write in traditional media. So asking for total press freedom is really pointless in this situation.

One tip for those who want to speak their hearts out is to write in blogs. You can write on controversial issues and taboo topics, be a citizen journalist, exercise your literary talents or just write mere daily journals what the public media won’t publish. And to protect yourself from danger, you have the advantage of blogging anonymously. Anonymous blogging can also help in those situations when you are writing about your work place or about a big corruption without divulging your identity.

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Photo: Selling Religion/Bri Vos.

[Saleem Samad, Canada.]

This article exposes the mindset of the majoritarian Bangalee Muslim nationalist population in Bangladesh. To consolidate the power base, the political parties, politicians and military dictators, have always used religion as a tool.

It is evident from the series of amendment of the Constitution from a secular to Islamic trend portrays the hegemony of the majoritarian, the Islamic nationalist chauvinist of course, over the marginalized communities.

It is indeed a losing battle of the proactive secularists entailed with the civil society and the human rights organizations. Possibly due to their inability to forge a common platform, as some political scientist would explain. Let it be informed that the civil society is divided in thin lines and sometimes partisan, thus failed to make any dent in the fragmented society.

The only hope is the strong civil society among the rural population, specially the peasant society, particularly — women, who are apparently modest in practicing religion and discreetly turned down Sharia laws championed by rural elites.

After the end of military hegemony in state politics in 1991 (which of course is another debate, whether military has at all remained out of polity), the consecutive elections to parliament, municipalities/City Corporations and Union Parishad have anchored confidence in the electoral system of the voter