It was only Muslim communities in the urban centres of Punjab characterised by a market or money economy, who followed the Sharia precepts of property and inheritance. Since Muslims in India are overwhelmingly Sunnis, this meant adherence to the Hanafi school of Islamic law.
But the overwhelming majority of Punjabi Muslims (rural, peasants), prior to the British annexation of Punjab, led lives fundamentally similar to that led by non-Muslims, with the exception of rites performed at birth, marriage, and death: a call for azan whispered to a new-born Muslim child. Kolma instead of shaat-paak ghora signified Muslim marriages. Corpses were buried instead of being cremated.
Muslims and non-Muslims led similar lives, what does this mean? It meant that during Sikh rule in the Punjab, the members of the joint family were bound together by a common interest and a common right. They conducted their affairs within defined conditions, in accordance with certain rules. The individual, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, could not alienate land because it was not his alone to alienate. He could not enter into individual contractual relations with others because he had nothing of his own to pledge or offer, as Asad notes in his highly perceptive study of the changes wrought by British colonisation in the Punjabi Muslim family structure (1961). Individual obligations therefore did not arise. Daughters did not normally have a share in the inheritance because strictly speaking there was no inheritance which devolved, there were only statuses of closely-related adult men (based on blood ties, baap, chacha) to which adult males succeeded.
What was life like in the villages? How was social life organised? Rights to landed property, says Asad, were distributed in accordance with definite principles within a precise kin-group. It was, in a certain sense, “owned” by the lineage, but held and worked by the joint family (equivalent to Bengali notion of joutho poribar). It was the joint family, as a whole, that comprised the work and consumption unit. The head of the local descent group (goshti) was the undisputed controller : all members together formed a single economic and legal unit. The oldest male member was its head. If relations between sisters-in-law grew strained, a separate hearth might be set up, the wife would then prepare meals for her husband and children separately, but food rations would still be taken from the common stock (joutho bhandar). It did not change the manner in which farm work was organised as male members continued to till the land together. Marriage was an affair that involved the entire joint families of bride and groom. It did not mean the setting up of a separate hearth, on the contrary, the daughter-in-law was inducted into the joint household. Bride-price (the Bengali correlate is pon) was given by the groom’s family to the bride’s; with its transfer, the wife belonged to the husband’s joint family. A widow, whether chaste or co-habiting with her deceased husband’s brother (debor) or a patrilineal cousin was entitled to life-long maintenance, losing this right only if she were to re-marry outside the descent group (I have written about this in one of my earlier pieces albeit not in the context of property, see `The familial order, not easily undone,’ New Age, September 22, 2008).? Continue reading “Reflections on Women Development Policy and IOJ's hartal – Concluding Part”
I had ended last week’s column (Part III, April 9, 2011) with these lines, What I find striking is how few women?s organisations, human rights and cultural activists are willing to publicly condemn the war on terror zealots, as they do the religious zealots. I had raised the question, is it odd to ask, what holds them back?
An unstated reasoning, seemingly, is that any condemnation of the `war on terror’ will further embolden those characterised as religious zealots, but this, to say the least,? is problematic. It is unethical. It makes our silence complicitous in international war crimes, in a context where people of conscience the world over have been demanding the trial?not assassination Abottabad-style?of George Bush Jr., Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair, aka `Bliar,’ for nearly a decade. In present Bangladesh, as various political and social forces align and re-align themselves in their efforts to re-fashion a secular order, one notices two different streams, one, more prominent than the other due to the power structures in which it is embedded, which through its silence on WOT may be regarded as friendly towards imperialist forces, the other, more fragmentary, articulated by left parties and left-leaning intellectuals, which is critical of imperial invasion and occupation. The latter includes parties such as the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Workers Party (electoral allies of the ruling Awami League), Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal, and intellectual-activists, such as, Badruddin Umar, Farhad Mazhar, Anu Muhammad, Salimullah Khan, Nurul Kabir.
One would have liked to see leaders and activists belonging to the women’s movement taking a principled stand too. To see them express their solidarity with the sufferings of women in US `occupied territories’ (Afghanistan, Iraq), and in Palestine. It should have come forth easily because of our experience of 1971, particularly, because of the women’s movement’s acute awareness of the gender-specific impact of war, summed up beautifully in the words, narir ekattur. It is the name given to an edited collection of oral histories recounted by women who survived 1971, a collection markedly pluralistic through its inclusion of Bengali and adibashi/indigenous women, and women of diverse religious backgrounds, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc. (researched and published by Ain o Salish Kendra, 2001). `Women’s 1971′ thus is more than a mere book title, it encapsulates a perspective instead, from within which Bangladeshi women/feminist authors, researchers, artists and film-makers have developed critiques of masculinist accounts which glorify the 9 month long liberation struggle, the sacrifices made (only) by Bengalis. War impinges on all women’s lives. But despite our tales of suffering being distressingly similar to those of women living under US occupation now??deaths, of husband, children, other family members, economic ruin, sexual assault, rape, fleeing from home, becoming refugees overnight, turning to prostitution to survive, to support children, to feed maimed male family members?expressions of solidarity with women elsewhere, are yet to occur. Continue reading “Reflections on Women Development Policy and IOJ's hartal – PART IV”
Apnader naamte hobe, had said my friend.
We were discussing the Women Development Policy and both he and Nurul Kabir were astonished. Women’s organisations had not taken to the streets. They had not protested against Islami Oikyo Jote leader Mufti Fazlul Huq Amini’s fabrication, nor against the Awami League-led government’s shocking betrayal of women’s rights.?
The Policy contains anti-Islamic provisions, said Amini. Equal shares to inheritance are against the Quran and Sunnah, these should be scrapped, its implementation would destroy “family values and social norms.” It would encourage the “breakup of families and [lead to] illegitimate births” (bdnewslive, April 21, 2011).?
The lie was used by the Islami Ain Bastobayon Committee (Committee for the Implementation of Islamic Law, or ILIC) to call a daylong countrywide hartal, which, in all likelihood, benefitted the government. It gave credence to Sheikh Hasina’s allegation that the previous BNP-Jamaat led government (2001-2006) in which the IOJ was an alliance partner, had “smeared” the name of Islam,had turned the country into “a haven for terrorists and militants.” (I myself think that the situation is more complex than it is made to appear, for reasons which I’d mentioned previously: the ties between some of the militant Islamically-oriented parties and state intelligence agencies are unclear, as are the reasons as to why Sheikh Hasina has agreed to setting up the regional Counter-Terrorism Centre (for South Asia) in Dhaka, for which the European Union is reportedly providing 1.5 million euros along with technological assistance. And while we are on the topic, I think it’s worth mentioning that American soldiers recently landed at Dhaka airport in a special aircraft with “arms and tools.” According to news reports, they were `disarmed’ by airport customs; apparently, Bangladesh army personnel receiving them had been unaware of customs laws; hurriedly-dispatched home-ministry-authorised documents ensured the release of the armaments which had been brought by visiting US soldiers “to train [the] Bangladesh army” (New Age, April 21, 2011).?
Interestingly enough, Sheikh Hasina’s government seemed to assist the hartal. Summons’ and arrest warrants issued against Amini by a Dhaka court on March 31, 2011?sedition and defamation cases filed respectively by Sammilita Islami Jote, and Jananetri Parishad?were swiftly retracted by the magistrate on the advice of the chief metropolitan magistrate.?Being not under lock-and-key must have helped Amini organise the April 4 hartal. Continue reading “Reflections on Women Development Policy and IOJ's hartal PART III”
It’s been more than a week since my friend had said, apnader naamte hobe, but there has not been much of a response from women’s organisations to the government’s back-pedalling on the Women Development Policy regarding equal inheritance shares for Muslim women.
Meanwhile, news has come to light of a group?variously described in media reports as religious extremists, villagers, local influentials, members of the ruling party?having assaulted 28 Bauls (mystics) who had met in a two-day programme, held annually in a Pangsha village (Faridpur) on April 6. Media reports vary regarding the reasons, according to one, their meet was termed anti-Islamic as Baul songs contain lyrics which go against the Quran and Sharia (Blitz, April 8, 2011); according to police sources, the house where the programme was held was near the mosque, local leaders requests to Lalon followers had been disregarded (New Age, April 9, 2011). Altercation started soon after the programme began, followed by Bauls being dragged off to the mosque. Their long locks of hair and beard were cut short, mustaches were shaved off, all under the instructions of the local mosque’s imam. They were forced to pray, to utter words of repentance (touba). The thana initially refused to file a case. Only one of the named aggressors, a madrasa principal, has been arrested thus far, all others have reportedly fled the village.
In the meanwhile, Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini, chief of the Islami Ain Bastobayon Committee (Committee for the Implementation of Islamic Law), and chairman of a faction of the Islamic Oikya Jote, has threatened to “paralyse” the country at an hour’s notice if the Women Development Policy is not annulled. Twenty thousand madrasas will “respond to our call immediately.” He also threatened to launch counter attacks if his son, Abul Hasnat, allegedly picked up by law enforcing personnel in plainclothes on April 11, who hasn’t been released yet, was harmed.
Amini claims his son was kidnapped, and that too, on the prime minister’s orders. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party says, the abduction was carried out at the instruction of the government, that Hasnat should be publicly handed over to his family.
We are not against the development of women, says Amini, but it must be in accordance with the holy Quran and Hadis. Members of the current cabinet do not understand the language of the Quran, they interpret it wrongly. We are not against the celebration of the Bangla New Year either. Only against those anti-Islamic activities which were committed on April 14.
Protests demanding exemplary punishment to the assaulters have been held, by left and cultural activists (outside Jatiya Jadughor), by university teachers and students (Rajshahi),by others too, including the Palli Baul Unnayan Sangstha, a recipient of financial support from US embassy (Dhaka) in recognition of helping “save the music of the wandering ministrels of Bangladesh” (ambassador Patricia Butenis, May 24, 2006).
Amini has demanded the resignation of the law minister, and the director general of the Islamic Foundation (April 11). Qawmi madrasas are breeding centres of militants, they should be brought under the education ministry, these comments, attributed to the minister, are denied, he claims he was misinterpreted. The government, adds Amini, blames subversive activities on Islamist groups without conducting proper investigation.
It is worth noting that Amini’s threat to paralyse the country by calling on madrasa students refers to Qawmi i.e., private madrasas which follow the Deobandi curriculum, their growth was patronised by military rulers, generals Ziaur Rahman and
H M Ershad, 1975-1990. That, according to WikiLeaks Dhaka revelations, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has been working with USAid to develop and implement a standardised curriculum for unregulated madrassas as a “common counter-terrorism goal” (Guardian, December 21, 2010). Alia madrassas i.e., the government ones, include science, mathematics, English and vocational training in their curriculum in addition to religious teachings, whereas the Qawmi curriculum teaches only the Quran, hadis, sunnah, and orthodox interpretations of the sharia.
Apparently 300-400 crores taka flow into madrasas annually, spendings unsupervised by the government, a cause for concern which has recently led the DGFI (military intelligence agency) to recommend that a madrasa university be set up. It is a proposal which has the support of US embassy staff who are involved in the project ; according to Afsan Chowdhury, the underlying idea is that a university opened under DGFI scrutiny and control, complemented by US advice, will aid in containing the money and those who have militant interests, that it will assist in tracing the money to their funding sources (DGFI and US embassy push for a madrasa university : concern about incompetence, opinion.bdnews24.com, January 17, 2011).
I find it also worth noting that the regional Counter-Terrorism Centre (for South Asia) is being set up in Dhaka, that the European Union is providing 1.5 million euros alongwith technological assistance, that training will be provided by counter-terrorism experts from European countries, the US and Canada to investigators, police and intelligence agency personnel across South Asia, this includes India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Myanmar, possiby some other countries as well. The proposed centre’s Southeast Asian counterpart, SEARCCT (The Southeast Asia Regional centre for Counter Terrorism), was launched in Malaysia in 2003, it offers courses on terrorism financing investigation/money laundering, enhancing port and aviation security, cyber terrorism, counter terrorist laws, chemical and biological terrorism, examining documents for fraudulence etc., etc.
The prime minister’s strong commitment to eliminate all sorts of terrorism and Dhaka’s support for EU causes in international forums and the UN, has been cited as being the reasons for selecting Dhaka. It is a move that has been welcomed by opinion-makers in the country, as the editorial of the leading English daily worded it, the news is a “welcome development” because although Bangladesh is not a “focal point of terrorism,” its “vulnerability to this global menace cannot be overemphasized.” Therefore, we need to “make the most of it” (The Daily Star, October 21, 2010).
What I find mind-boggling is the blind refusal of the majority among those who identify themselves as the thinking sections of society, whether writers or journalists, poets, politicians, women’s movement activists, academics, teachers, researchers, developmentalists, NGOs, business people, entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors, engineers, other professionals and so on, to intellectually and politically confront the ten-year long war on terror for what it is. A hoax. A fraudulent war, actually being conducted to occupy lands and resources, one that has led to the killing and maiming of millions, to untold sufferings, to irreversible uprooting, dislocation and destruction.
Okay, I grant that for many of them to think (alone, silently, hand-wringingly), let alone lend support to the idea that 9/11 was in all likelihood a false flag operation is irreverent of America Almighty, a sin they would not dream of committing. But at least the WMD lie, the irrefutable evidence that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were planned prior to 9/11 (Libya too, at least, according to US ret. General Wesley Clark),the living proof that suicide hijackers of 9/11 have-risen-from-the-dead, the US’ open acceptance that Osama bin Laden has long been dead (since December 13, 2001, see Years of Deceit, Veterans Today, December 5, 2009), one would have thought that that would encourage people to think independently. Critically. What prevents people? Fear? Of what? Being irreverent? Possibly. Now that America, as George Monbiot points out, has become a religion, where US leaders see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons (Guardian, July 29, 2003).
There is a possibility, one that cannot be ruled out, that we are loath to let go of a deeply-nurtured belief that violence is exclusively religious, one that is deeply-rooted in ekattur when we struggled to liberate ourselves from our Pakistani rulers and their local collaborators, in whose eyes we were deemed to be not pukka Muslims, to be filthy Hindus. That we cling to the idea that the violence unleashed by secular forces, despite all the coups, counter-coups, the institutionalised violence committed by civilian governments, repeatedly so, continually so, is accidental. Stray. Aberrations. Time magazine cover (August 9, 2010), exploiting Afghan women's suffering to justify and perpetuate the occupation of Afghanistan. ??Jodie Bieber for Time Magazine
And, that it is religious violence, particularly of the Islamically-oriented variety, which targets women. It is a story that was craftily manipulated to invade Afghanistan (Laura Bush,Cherie Blair), that is being regurgitated endlessly by mainstream western media to justify its continued occupation, as does the Time magazine cover of August 9, 2010, the photo of an 18 year old Afghan whose nose was severed as punishment for disgracing her family, underlined by the question, What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan? One that coincided with the release of 76,900 classified Afghan war documents which tell the story of the horrors of war. Afghan women, says a leaked CIA document, “could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] role in combating the Taliban…” (Anne Holmes, The Face that Launched a Thousand Drones?) US Army Cpl. Jeremy Morlock grins and gives a thumbs-up sign as he poses with Gul Mudin?s body, who was unarmed and executed by U.S. soldiers. Note that the boy?s right pinky finger appears to have been severed. Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs reportedly used a pair of razor-sharp medic?s shears to cut off the finger, which he presented to Holmes as a trophy for killing his first Afghan (Rolling Stone, March 27, 2011.
But what about the other photo? In early 2010, a platoon of US soldiers in Afghanistan went on a shooting spree, killing at least 4 unarmed civilians and mutilating several corpses. Members of the “kill team” took scores of photos chronicling their kills. Before these became public, the Pentagon went to extraordinary lengths to suppress them (Rolling Stone, March 27, 2011).?Just in case you are thinking, but these are men killing each other, let me remind you that acts of rape in Abu Ghuraib, of imprisoned Iraqi women were photographed, but totally suppressed. And, just in case you are thinking, that it is all the act of a few bad apples, know that more than 1/3rd of American women soldiers are raped, that 41% of female veterans allege to have been sexually harassed. That more are likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq. That the US defense department did not cooperate with a House panel investigating sexual assaults of female soldiers by ordering its top official on sexual abuse not to show up despite a subpoena.
We cannot counter terror, by being, by insisting on being, half-blind. To fail to do so, makes one culpable.
Muslim and Adivasi women unite in their fight against multinationals. Phulbari Bangladesh. 30 September 2006. ? Munem Wasif/DrikNews
The bulldozers are warming up: any moment now a massively destructive coal mine could be approved in northwest Bangladesh that would displace tens of thousands of families, destroy vital farmland, and devastate mangrove forests that protect the climate-fragile country from rising sea levels.
A movement of local protesters has stopped the mine once before, and this week they bravely blocked major roads in a desperate bid for the government’s attention. But the global consortium backing the mine has launched a massive lobbying effort to win, flying MPs to Europe for VIP coal tours. Wikileaks cables even show the US ambassador lobbying for them.
Now, the movement has appealed to our global network for solidarity — to raise a worldwide outcry to counter the international financiers and stop this mine. Prime Minister Hasina has spoken out against the mine, but she is under enormous pressure to approve it. Let’s build a massive petition urging the Prime Minister to side with her citizens and their environment by rejecting the devastating mine — local organisations will deliver it to the Prime Minister and consortium if we reach 300,000 signatures.
by rahnuma ahmed Gaddafi vowing to crush protestors on February 22, 2011, from Bab al-Azizia, the very spot where US president Ronald Reagan sent fighter jets to kill him on April 15,1986, preserved as it was for 25 years
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forty one-year reign has witnessed phenomenal shifts, after coming to power through a military coup in 1969, his anti-imperialist position?expressed through lending political and material support to various national liberation movements around the world (the Palestinian cause, alleged connection to the killing of Israeli athletes in 1972 Munich Olympics)?gradually gave way to embracing neo-liberalism toward the end of the last century.
In other words, from being a “terrorist rogue state” Gaddafi’s Libya became a “neoliberal client.” (Peter Boyle, Libya: How Gaddafi became a Western-backed dictator, Mathaba, 26.2.2011). ?The first had led to economic sanctions, to bombing raids ordered by US president Ronald Reagan aimed at assassinating Gaddafi. He survived. Those who didn’t are: his 15-month old adopted daughter, 45 Libyan soldiers and government officials, 15 civilians.
The second led to the development of close and personal friendship with many western leaders. Tony Blair’s relationship with Gaddafi was described by the latter’s son Saif, as being “excellent.” He has come to Libya many, many times. He stays with my father (Daily Mail, June 2010). ?While Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s relationship was described by some as a “slavish courtship” (Flavia Krause-Jackson, Berlusconi’s `Slavish’ Courtship of Qaddafi Haunts Italy, Bloomberg, February 23, 2011). ?In June 2009, Berloscuni shut down Rome’s biggest park to allow Gaddafi and his entourage of all-female bodyguards to set up camp. Beside Libya’s investment in Italian companies (Fiat SpA, UniCredit SpA, Juventus soccer team), beside Italy’s reliance on Libya for a quarter of its crude oil, Italy, according to the European Union’s latest annual report on arms export (2009), tops the list in Libya’s military suppliers in Europe, worth 112 million euros. Britain ranks fifth with 25.5 million euros (Report exposes Italy and Malta as top EU arms exporters to Libya, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 23, 2011).
Was it this, Italy’s business ties with Libya, which led Berloscuni to not call Gaddafi after 4 days of protests? To say that he did not want to “disturb” Gaddafi?
David Cameron, British prime minister, however, was critical of his predecessor’s relationship with Gaddafi. It had been “too close.” It did not have “clear parameters.” These “should have been in place” when the relationship began (James Kirkup, Libya: Tony Blair ‘too close’ to Gaddafi regime, David Cameron claims, The Telegraph, 23 Feb 2011). Continue reading “`The Opportunity of a Century.' Western Military Intervention in Libya?”
A vicious cyclone had struck the night before. Dawn, stillness. A calm and eerie light. I tagged behind my older brothers as they ventured out, gazing in awe at a neighbouring house, its roof had flown off, while scenes of devastation lay around us with trees uprooted, branches severed from trunks, debris lying in the middle of the road. Fragments of a childhood memory.
As news of death and destruction poured into our home, so did groups of radio artists?singers, musicians?and many others, all working for the Chittagong radio station, like my father, a journalist, who worked in its news section.
By midday we were out in the streets, singers and musicians at the front, the rest behind, two rows of men, women and children, holding on to the corners and edges of a white billowing bedsheet. As the long procession wound down major roads, pedestrians turned around at the sound of singing, reaching for their pockets as we drew nearer. Women and girls peered at us, while boys were sent out, clutching notes, or a handful of coins (in those days, coins mattered). As the hours passed, the chador no longer remained taut; heavy with cash offerings, it sagged in the middle.
We trooped home. Instructed to separate coins from banknotes, we kids worked feverishly as my mother busied herself in rustling up some food for the sudden influx of guests. Neatly laid out piles of banknotes, tottering columns of coins. My father and his colleagues counted, double-checked. The money was sent off to aid cyclone victims. It was 1965. It was Chittagong. We belonged to Pakistan.
The central seat of power, Islamabad, was far away. It was (still) possible for state functionaries and artists to come together. To take to the streeets spontaneously, aroused by community feelings of helping people in distress. An event that was not orchestrated. No heads had rolled. Had cameras clicked? No, not that I remember.
Fast forward to now. Natural disasters. Large cheques are donated to the prime minister’s relief fund. Banks. Multinational mobile phone companies. Business associations. Civil society. NGOs. Smaller cheques too, a day’s salary of government employees, of private firms. An extended hand offers a cheque, as the other accepts, both faces turn toward the TV cameras, toward the photojournalists. The state-capital-media nexus, although riven by internal disagreements and rivalries, work collectively to manufacture national interests. A far cry from earlier times when broadcasting and telecasting space was controlled by state-owned Radio Bangladesh and Bangladesh Television, when 5-10 regular privately owned dailies, and a film industry, not known for signs of originality, was all that there was. Before things began changing in the 1990s.
Market reforms however, began earlier, Ziaur Rahman (1975-1981) and Hussain Mohammad Ershad (1981-1990) used them as instruments to build and maintain political coalitions, particularly with traders and industrialists. Economic liberalisation programmes, traded off for garnering the political support of business elites, did not, as Fahimul Quadir points out, contribute to the micromanagement of the economy, nor to the advancement of human development goals.?Instead, they allowed big business to emerge as a major player in national decision-making. Not unsurprisingly, contradictions emerged?it adversely affected the state’s ability to enforce contracts, to develop a mechanism for redistributing assets?but these were ignored by the military rulers as the issue of gaining legitimacy among civilian sectors was far more pressing.
Despite General Ershad being ousted from power in 1990, subsequent regimes, led by Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, treaded earlier paths, smoothed by undisclosed contributions to party coffers, far more important than improving the living standards of the majority. These patterns are similar to those in Philippines, president Marcos, US ally and long-time friend, was deposed in 1986 through a popular uprising, but despite his ouster, many, if not most, of the “fundamental relations of exploitation,” remained intact. Democracy was “nominally restored” while the masses continued to suffer, writes Jonathan Beller; prostituted Filipinas became overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), radicals continued to be murdered, giving lie to a particular fantasy about the importance of individuals (autocrats are deposed, but the system does not get dismantled).
Ceaseless political party bickering which has characterised politics in Bangladesh for the last two decades, has benefited media corporatisation’s ideology, “impartial” and “neutral” news journalism has been redefined as that which is independent of political party allegiances, distracting attention from the fact that corporate media works to further corporate interests, to create a consumer culture, to advance the interests of market forces (Fahmidul Huq). Not surprisingly, there have been other contradictions as well. As Zeenat Huda Wahid notes, Khaleda Zia’s new media policy in 1992 initiated satellite television, leading to scores of Indian channels being available to Bangladeshi viewers. Despite, Huda argues, the BNP government’s crafting of a religio-territorial identity, one that was portrayed as resistant to Indian domination. ?Or, as Meghna Guhathakurta writes (1997), Sonar Bangla, the rallying cry of the liberation struggle?evoking images of classlessness, prosperity, peaceful agrarian relations?was not only abandoned by the Awami League post-1971, it has become “fossilised.” Sheikh Hasina’s government (1996-2001; 2008 onwards) has not veered from liberalisation policies initiated by previous governments, including those which are her sworn enemies, the BNP-Jamaat alliance that ruled the nation (2001-2007); the present government’s proclamation of Muktijuddher pokkher shokti is shorn of Shonar Bangla ideals, as fundamental relations of exploitation remain. Intact.
The culture industry’s victory lies in two things, “what it destroys as truth outside its sphere can be reproduced indefinitely within it as lies.” We can no longer simply talk of control, writes Sefik Seki Tatlic, we must talk of the nature of the interaction between one who is being controlled and the one who controls.?Of how the one that is “controlled” is asking for more control over him/herself while expecting to be compensated by a surplus of freedom to satisfy trivial needs and wishes. Of how the fulfillment of trivial needs is declared as freedom. Readers, remember, RC Cola, freedom of choice? Or, remember Grameen Phone’s current slogan, Stay Close, invoking family ideology (security, warmth, intimacy, support, romance) to further corporate profits (Stay Close so that we can fleece you?). Consumer freedom, Tatlic reminds us, implies as well the freedom to choose not to be engaged in any kind of socially sensible or politically articulated struggle. Very true in the case of Bangladesh, for one does not see media celebrities, singers, actors and actresses, writers, playwrights, intellectuals, advertising industry’s geniuses etc etc, those who froth at the mouth at the slightest mention of 1971, lend support to any of the pro-people struggles and movements current in Bangladesh, two of the foremost being the garments workers struggles for living wages and safe and secure workplaces, ?and, the Phulbari peoples struggle to not be uprooted from their land and livelihood, to resist the impoverishment which multinationals, and the government (both present and past) have destined for them.?Life is so much more comfortable for the ruling class and its functionaries when Muktijuddho gets divested of Shonar Bangla ideals, when fundamental relations of exploitation can, and do, remain intact. Telenor and Grameen Telecom have shown how a for-profit company can work with a non-profit one for the greater social good. Outlook India, Dec 26, 2009.
The category of the “spectacle” is the medialogical paradigm, says Beller, as the accumulation of capital becomes an image (think of all the commodities advertised), and again, as “the diplomatic presentation of hierarchical society to itself.” The spectacle is not merely a relation, but a relation of production for it produces consciousness. We must put language on images, he writes. Excited by Beller’s theory, I return to YouTube to watch Shahrukh Khan’s performance in Dhaka (I missed when it was shown live on TV), where Dhaka crowds, who had paid exorbitant amounts to purchase tickets, were said to have been bowled-over by the mega-star’s performance.?A few voices have expressed their disgust at the “vulgarism,” ?at the “obscenity,” at his cultural arrogance, his condescending attitude toward the Bangladeshi audience, at his oft-repeated use of a “slang” word (not written by those who felt offended, I had to go to great trouble to discover it). Shala! Now, shala is a kinship term, used by the husband to indicate his wife’s brother. Gentrification has led to `shaylok‘ being preferred over shala, and I have yet to find a Bengali able to explain why it offends. The answer lies in its underlying message, embedded in patriarchal power relations, deeply sexualised, “I f..k your sister.” Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan at the Dhaka army stadium, dancing with Russian models, at the all sold King Khan Live in Dhaka show, December 12, 2010.
The diplomatic presentation of hierarchical relations between India and Bangladesh as the BSF, the Indian border forces, kill Bangladeshis randomly, systematically? The King Khan tamasha made us forget the truth that lies outside the sphere crafted by the culture industries. Shala is a patriarchal lie, it must be dismantled. Published in New Age, Monday February 21, 2011
Mubarak’s Ignominious Departure and the Fear Factor
by rahnuma ahmed
Mubarak is gone! Egypt is free!
Equally true is the fact that power has been assumed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. That the 30 year-old state of emergency has not yet been lifted, neither has any time frame been set, nothing beyond the invocation, “as soon as the current circumstances are over.” ?Equally true is the fact that Egypt’s new, transitional (military) rulers have been quick to affirm Egypt’s commitment to all regional and international obligations and treaties, an implicit signal that the treaty of all treaties, Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel?propagated as a bulwark for peace and stability in the region, but in reality, one which helps sustain Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the seige of Gaza?is not under threat. An affirmation swiftly welcomed by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who described the treaty as “having greatly contributed to both countries,” as “the cornerstone for peace and stability in the entire Middle East”; close at his heels was US president Barack Obama who welcomed the Egyptian pledge to “stand by” its international obligations.
But, it is also true that while Egyptian demonstrators, both young and old, rallied to scrub off slogans and graffiti from walls, to clean up the streets of Cairo of rocks, debris of violence, charred remains of Mubarak’s effigy (“Clearing the streets is just a start. It is our country now”), protestors still camped out in Tahrir square, refusing to leave until the military issued official statements on their next steps. It is also true that pro-democracy activists insist that their revolt was not against one man but against the whole regime, which Mubarak and his predecessors, had instituted. It is also true that their invincible strength prevented Omar Suleiman?the CIA’s man in Cairo who devised and implemented the programme for renditioning and torturing terrorist suspects,?in whom Mubarak transferred authorities while still clinging to power?from taking charge. Pro-democracy activists insist that the revolution will not be over until all responsible for the hundreds of deaths will be investigated, tried and punished. It will not be over until Egypt’s stolen funds are restored. Swiss banks have frozen assets of the ousted president, who is currently hunkered down in his residence at the Red Sea tourist resort, Sharm al-Sheikh. Former interior minister Habib El Adly, former prime minister Ahmed Nazif have been banned from travelling, their assets have been frozen. Former information minister Anna El Feqy has been placed under house arrest while rumors fly of business tycoons fleeing. But it is also true that while figures are totted up of how much the former president, his Welsh wife and their son fleeced Egypt, that while the huge personal wealth amassed by other members of the corrupt coterie are calculated, one does not hear of corruption within the army. That these stories are silenced.
But it is undeniable that the mass uprising was organic. One that persisted after Mubarak’s ouster, attested to by scenes of youths in Alexandria, the mainstay of the uprising, stopping cars and telling their occupants, abide by traffic rules. Of telling pedestrians, do not give bribes, read up the constitution.
It is also true that the mass uprising did not occur overnight but was, as Marwan Bishara reminds us, “the culmination of countless sit-ins, strikes, pickets, and demonstrations.”
That behind the 18 day popular revolt lies long years of grassroots mobilisation, the tireless efforts of scores of coalition builders who worked with labour unions and opposition parties, both old and new, including the Muslim Brotherhood. That we must not forget people such as, says Bishara, the late Mohammad El-Sayed Said who helped to found the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies and, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights. Who underwent arrest and torture for writing the “much-acclaimed report about the punishment of dissidents by torture” (Al-Ahram). Who died last year after a long period of ill-treatment at the hands of the Mubarak regime, and a 2-year struggle with cancer. Who was “much missed in Tahrir Square.” There were many others. CAIRO, EGYPT - FEBRUARY 01: Anti-government protestors wave their shoes, in a gesture of anger, after President Hosni Mubarak announces that he will not seek re-election on February 1, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt. Protests in Egypt continued with the largest gathering yet, with many tens of thousands assembling in central Cairo, demanding the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek. The Egyptian army has said it will not fire on protestors as they gather in large numbers in central Cairo. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
It is also true that Mubarak was suffering from severe delusions when he confided in a 20 minute telephone conversation to former Israeli defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a close friend and ally, that he was looking for “an honorable way out” (Press TV, February 12, 2011). ?This was on Thursday, February 10, the day he refused to step down as anticipated, offering his “children” constitutional changes instead, and transfer of authorities to Suleiman. It was the speech greeted with raised shoes, the ultimate sign of dishonor for leaders and politicians in our parts of the world. One that was globally iconised by Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at George Bush in 2008. A farewell parting. Continue reading “THE END OF AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE ARAB WORLD?”
When southern countries host international events, it has become de rigeur to punish poor people and beggars.
The Delhi government cleared the capital of beggars, particularly areas tourists were likely to visit during the Commonwealth Games (September 2010). The South African government displaced its poor black residents living near stadiums to shanty towns, `tin-can towns’ during the FIFA World Cup Finals (June 2010). Shirin Ara a beggar in the streets of Dhaka being taken away in handcuffs, as part of a clean up drive prior to the international cricket tournament. Photo Taslima Akhter
The Bangladesh government too, in preparation for the ICC Cricket World Cup (February 2011), has decided to clear beggars and hawkers from major streets of Dhaka city. Banishing beggars is obviously easier than taking policy measures which will tackle the problems of poverty and immiseration. But, as the investigative journalism by Taslima Akhter reveals, what is happening in reality belies what the home minister Shara Khatun had told the press, ?We may take the street beggars to the social welfare ministry?s shelters for the time being.? Women are are being arrested for begging. Shirin Ara, who was arrested from Mohammadpur, eked out a meagre living from alms-seeking. She was arrested by thana police on February 11, 2011 and produced in CMM court the next day. Shirin said she did not know why she had been arrested, nor had she been informed by the police about her alleged offence.
According to Section 81, begging is an offence, but Shirin was brought to court and taken away later, while in handcuffs, which is a violation of Police Regulations of Bengal 1943. According to Regulation 330 (a): “In no case, shall women be handcuffed nor shall restrain be used to those who either by age or by infirmity are easily and securely kept in custody.”
Very few British people would beat up a poor person to get cheaper petrol. But our governments do it all the time. Why?
The old slogan from the 1960s has come true: the revolution has been televised. The world is watching the Bastille fall on 24/7 rolling news. An elderly thug is trying to buy and beat and tear-gas himself enough time to smuggle his family’s estimated $25bn in loot out of the country, and to install a successor friendly to his interests. The Egyptian people ? half of whom live on less than $2 a day ? seem determined to prevent the pillage and not to wait until September to drive out a dictator dripping in blood and bad hair dye.
The great Czech dissident Vaclav Havel outlined the “as if” principle. He said people trapped under a dictatorship need to act “as if they are free”. They need to act as if the dictator has no power over them. The Egyptians are trying ? and however many of them Mubarak murders on his way out the door, the direction in which fear flows has been successfully reversed. The tyrant has become terrified of “his” people.
Of course, there is a danger that what follows will be worse. My family lived for a time under the torturing tyranny of the Shah of Iran, and cheered the revolution in 1979. Yet he was replaced by the even more vicious Ayatollahs. But this is not the only model, nor the most likely. Events in Egypt look more like the Indonesian revolution, where in 1998 a popular uprising toppled a US-backed tyrant after 32 years of oppression ? and went on to build the largest and most plural democracy in the Muslim world.
But the discussion here in the West should focus on the factor we are responsible for and can influence ? the role our governments have played in suppressing the Egyptian people. Your taxes have been used to arm, fund and fuel this dictatorship. You have unwittingly helped to keep these people down. The tear-gas canisters fired at pro-democracy protesters have “Made in America” stamped on them, with British machine guns and grenade launchers held in the background.
Very few British people would praise a murderer and sell him weapons. Very few British people would beat up a poor person to get cheaper petrol. But our governments do it all the time. Why? British foreign policy does not follow the everyday moral principles of the British people, because it is not formulated by us. This might sound like an odd thing to say about a country that prides itself on being a democracy, but it is true.
The former Labour MP Lorna Fitzsimons spoke at a conference for Israel’s leaders last year and assured them they didn’t have to worry about the British people’s growing opposition to their policies because “public opinion does not influence foreign policy in Britain. Foreign policy is an elite issue”. This is repellent but right. It is formulated in the interests of big business and their demand for access to resources, and influential sectional interest groups.
You can see this most clearly if you go through the three reasons our governments give, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, for their behavior in the Middle East. Explanation One: Oil. Some 60 per cent of the world’s remaining petrol is in the Middle East. We are all addicted to it, so our governments support strongmen and murderers who will keep the oil-taps gushing without interruption. Egypt doesn’t have oil, but it has crucial oil pipelines and supply routes, and it is part of a chain of regional dictators we don’t want broken in case they all fall taking the petrol pump with it. Addicts don’t stand up to their dealers: they fawn before them.
There is an obvious medium-term solution: break our addiction. The technology exists ? wind, wave and especially solar power ? to fuel our societies without oil. It would free us from our support for dictators and horrific wars of plunder like Iraq. It’s our society’s route to rehab ? but it is being blocked by the hugely influential oil companies, who would lose a fortune. Like everybody who needs to go to rehab, the first step is to come out of denial about why we are still hooked.
Explanation Two: Israel and the “peace process”. Over the past week, we have persistently been told that Mubarak was a key plank in supporting “peace in the Middle East”. The opposite is the truth. Mubarak has been at the forefront of waging war on the Palestinian population. There are 1.5 million people imprisoned on the Gaza Strip denied access to necessities like food and centrifuges for their blood transfusion service. They are being punished for voting “the wrong way” in a democratic election.
Israel blockades Gaza to one side, and Mubarak blockades it to the other. I’ve stood in Gaza and watched Egyptian soldiers refusing to let sick and dying people out for treatment they can’t get in Gaza’s collapsing hospitals. In return for this, Mubarak receives $1.5bn a year from the US. Far from contributing to peace, this is marinating the Gazan people in understandable hatred and dreams of vengeance. This is bad even for Israel herself ? but we are so servile to the demands of the country’s self-harming government, and to its loudest and angriest lobbyists here, that our governments obey.
Explanation Three: Strongmen suppress jihadism. Our governments claim that without dictators to suppress, torture and disappear Islamic fundamentalists, they will be unleashed and come after us. Indeed, they often outsourced torture to the Egyptian regime, sending suspects there to face things that would be illegal at home. Robert Baer, once a senior figure in black ops at the CIA, said: “If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear, you send them to Egypt.”
Western governments claim all this makes us safer. The opposite is the truth. In his acclaimed history of al-Qa’ida, The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright explains: “America’s tragedy on September 11th was born in the prisons of Egypt.” Modern jihadism was invented by Sayeed Qutb as he was electrocuted and lashed in Egyptian jails and grew under successive tyrannies. Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, was Egyptian, and named US backing for his country’s tyrant as one of the main reasons for the massacre.
When we fund the violent suppression of people, they hate us, and want to fight back. None of these factors that drove our governments to back Mubarak’s dictatorship in Egypt have changed. So we should strongly suspect they will now talk sweet words about democracy in public, and try to secure a more PR-friendly Mubarak in private.
It doesn’t have to be like this. We could make our governments as moral as we, the British people, are in our everyday lives. We could stop them trampling on the weak, and fattening thugs. But to achieve it, we have to democratise our own societies and claim control of our foreign policy. We would have to monitor and campaign over it, and let our governments know there is a price for behaving viciously abroad. The Egyptian people have shown this week they will risk everything to stop being abused. What will we risk to stop our governments being abusers?
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-we-all-helped-suppress-the-egyptians-so-how-do-we-change-2203579.html
