The Bangladesh Poet of Impropriety

Our 'National wishlist' and the noose around our neck

2012-01-20T19:15:00.000+06:00

Mac Haque

“Hewho lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies” Tertulian

Thearrest of Golam Azam on 11th of January and his imminent trial for War Crimesof 1971 is an indicator of the peoples will in action - NOT that of our selfserving political parties or politicians. If memory hasn't failed us, we allknow that over the years both Awami League and BNP and their lackeys havecovertly and overtly collaborated with Jamaat at every opportunity to derailour nation, for reasons of political expediency or sheer petty interest.01/11/2012 will therefore live on as a day when the justice delivery system gotactivated, but the real verdict is still a along way away. This is hardly the time to rejoice or eventhink that victory is already in hand. The hard job has only just begun.

To begin, Ihope and pray Golam Azam's trial does not get bogged down over technicaljudicial trivialities as witnessed with those that have already been arrestedfor War Crimes. Enough time has been wasted by the War Crimes Tribunal withdifferent Ministers and different Government officials reading from differentpages of law books, at different periods of time. That being the case, thepublic therefore has a duty, and needs to fine tune its eyes and ears to thedepositions of Golam Azam in Court.

Let us notforget that in forty years this ninety year old demon in disguise has neverbeen heard in public. He has convincing capacities and the intellectto kick up a storm with our blatantly corporatized Media, game to anything andeverything that sway public opinion and sells - even if it’s momentarily. Letus not, ever underestimate the enemy. That would be suicidal. Rather, let ourtimes be well spent and not get ensnared in running to and fro historical booksor records.

Way too manydiffering and dithering versions on 1971 have come and gone and keep comingonly to humiliate us as a nation. The latest version is that of Sarmila Boseand it comes as a shock as she happens to be none other than a granddaughter ofNetaiji Subhas Chandra Bose - apparently? And all that our aggrandizing andpatronizing friends in Poshim Bangla who we have unnecessarily looked up for'cultural inspiration' since 1971 have done so far – is to smirk!

We as a nationshould be prepared to learn more about Court proceedings and get ready withrebuttals and documents to assist the Prosecution. Jamaat has been professionallyand academically preparing for this day for forty years. And all that we havedone in the period was dig our own graves with self defeating rhetoric's and Mukti Juddher Chetona talks which havefurther divided society as much as it has polity. The spectacle is horrifying.Unlike 1971, in 2012 there are far too many players in the domain. JeI owns orcontrols as many as half a dozen newspapers and at least four private TVstations in Bangladeshand several more who are soft on them. Jamaat we should all know is much morepowerful in 2012 then it was in 1971.

The counteroffensives will be deadly and repetitive. Jamaat’s 'International Connections'are solidly financed and backed by interest with all shades of opinions - leastof which have any real love or mercy for the people of Bangladesh. No folks onthis one....we have no friends……we have got to go it alone. This may be acomforting thought, but although we are alone, let us bear in mind that we havegot us, and this proud nation has had a chequered tradition of thinking outsidethe box, and excelling in fights whenever the chips were down. 01/11/2007 periodof infamy, and how we fought back, should give a pointed yet recent reminder.The role of this publication and specially that of the Editor who paid a hugepersonal price during fighting the powerful military, with weapons as such asexercise of free speech, opinion and courage were decisive factors. And all ofthat happened peacefully.

A fewcaveats though ...let us make sure that the trials of the War Criminals do notdegenerate into an implied 'Trial against Islam'. That is an angle the Wahabi,Shariati Islam pasand bigotsin Bangladeshwill be playing up to. It is only natural for them as over the years and thanksto our ignorance, Jamaat has catapulted itself to become the 'sole-agents forIslam' - no different from their Saudi Arabian masters who have laid claims as 'custodians of the two Holy Mosques in Makkah andMadinah' .

Therefore in asmuch as we need to know the workings of the Criminal Justice system we alsohave to arm and enrich ourselves in the egalitarian principals of Islam and theplurality of the Quran. And please donot be swayed by so-called 'International opinion' about the War Crimes Trial.They would as much try to protect a killer like Golam Azam as they would the ‘blood-sucker of the poor’ - Dr.Yunus.When push comes to shove - history reminds us that politics and politiciansmake strange bedfellows. Add to that the millennium components - ouruncivilized 'civil society' - none should be trusted - and all must bejettisoned from our collective National psyche if we are to achieve salvation.

Simply put, ourhands have been tied firmly behind our backs and so have our legs. We have beenthrown into a swirling sea and we have to do our own swimming. There are no short-cutsto success here, but swim we will because more than a calling of history - 1971is a calling of our conscience. Conscience is after all the highest court knownto humanity.

Sure enough - as we screamed for justice -we also demanded that the War Criminals be punished no less, that they behanged by the neck until DEATH. That has always been our 'National wish list'if we may. Nothing should dissuade us, least that a Court in Dhaka on the 9thof January 2012 gave a jailing verdict to a distraught Bangladeshi academic in Australia who'wished' likewise for our Prime Minister after our dear friend Tareq Masud diedin a car crash on 13th August 2011. Tareq’s death like 1971 was no ‘accident’,for as long as the perpetrators are alive, as long as incompetent Governmentofficials do not own up to their failures, it is only proper and justified todemand justice.

Signing off- do not forget that if we fail to hang Golam Azam and the War Criminalsthis time......be prepared for the noose to come down on our precious neck'ssooner than later!

New Age Xtra, Friday 20th January, 2012

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Shock and Awe Talk: Culture, Shons-Krishi and my Gumcha story

2012-01-03T15:39:00.001+06:00

By Maqsoodul Haque - Mac

"জেনে শুনে মুরাউ মাথা জাত এ উঠবি, মানুষ ভজলে সোনার মানুষ হবি" ফকির লালন শাহ

"Wrap your head consciously, and you will rise above the prejudices of class" Fakir Lalon Shah

No discussion on culture is ever complete as they have a tendency to get seriously bogged down over definitions. The simplistic notion that our cultural cognisantis will put forward is one that is riddled with generalized reference to rituals. Songs, dance, books, poetry, play and the fine arts etc are apparently culture! However cultural awakening simply cannot come about by making statements, but by taking a firm stand, and no matter how difficult, idiosyncratic or insane it may seem, unless the prevailing status quo is not challenged, no conceivable change to our fate or destiny is as such possible.

Shonskriti or culture as we know it in Bangladesh is a product and extension of British colonialism, and formulated on the very same premise as krishi or 'agriculture'. It basically meant that individuals or groups selected by the Raj were empowered with sufficient wealth and know how, as also sobriquets such as Zamindars (landlords) and Khan Bahadur's (tax and levy payers) and unbridled control over land. These local lackeys would then go on to determine the course of our ancestor's life and our existence.

Their 'job' was to control or manipulate Mother Nature for purpose of producing cash crops which was then sold to a majority for profit. 'Control and manipulation' were buzzwords introduced as tools for wanton oppression by an obscene minority upon a sufferable majority. Tragically the minority as such were not born into poverty.

The same principals continues to be applied in what we identify as 'culture' today, and the overriding intent is 'control' – however with a slight variation. The times over two centuries ago were thought ripe to 'control and manipulate' the thought process and aspirations of the majority – 'lowly and wild humans' who like animals had to be leashed in and branded. They were after all the chotoloke, read - subordinate culture, low life, and poor riff raffs.

Brit pampered minority views, ideas and representations of thought processes that were alien and unheard of, were effectively bulldozed-in and made standard parameters of behavioral judgment. In today's context we may look at it as a devastating 18th Century 'mind control' experiment which met with unimaginable success. Things like what is or not aesthetically sound, and or of 'pure taste and refinement' etc were of supreme interest.

It laid a pseudo socio-political-philosophical base to justify political exploitation. Acceptance to these domination theories, masquerading as 'culture' came easy as they were left unchallenged. Conveniently overlooked then as even now, is these heavy duty impositions from a different culture were never thought as 'oposhonskriti' or even alien counter-culture?

Consequently what we have today with our so-called 'progressive forces upholding culture' in Bangladesh in their zilch understanding, is propounding a mindset which remains totally alien and obscure to the majority, and its not as if its unknown to them. It is a puritanical trap and one we have not been able to do away with and perhaps will never do away anytime soon. What we are left with by default is a 'forceful shons-krishi' or the fusion of two words 'agriculture and culture', passing off as holier than thou 'shonskriti'.

Our date with fate has thereafter been marked only with pitfalls. Our cultural confusions continue to precipitate into a maze of myriad and damaging dimensions, none of which the sufferable can either control or complain about. Clearly while the Brits and the Pakistanis may have been kicked out from our 'sacred land' - what they have left behind is a legacy that has been firmly implanted into our genes. We have a mindset which while reveling on the wondrous conduits that culture has to offer, is yet one that is deluded and leads us to oppress without our even been conscious about it. Cultural cohesion is as yet an unknown domain for us.

My Gumcha story starts here.

In 1970 I traveled to my ancestral home in Borholla, Jorhat, Assam to attend the wedding of a favorite uncle. What amused initially but later fascinated me were the gifts of 'gamusa' (literally meaning body cleaner or sweat dryer) he received - and there were over a hundred – with a broad range of motifs, design and shape, offered by his students, fellow teachers and other villagers. Little did I realize in my adolescent curiosity that the gamusa would be my first practical initiation to culture – and love, obsession and importantly faith for its Bangladesh counterpart, the Gumcha?

The lessons I learnt were important. In Assam there is no class or community called tati or 'weavers'. Almost all homes have their own handloom and each gamusa therefore bears the unique signature of a family, clan or household. Spun in pure cotton, the base is traditionally white or off-white color and unlike its Bangladesh counterpart the Gumcha, has beautifully embroidered side borders with indigenous motifs that date back centuries.

The Assamese Gamusa

That being a physical description, the socio-cultural angle to the gamusa is profound. It is used in Assam for more than the purpose of a body cleaner or sweat dryer per se. When a guest arrives for the very first time or after protracted absence, the rituals of adoroni or 'welcome to the loving fold' is done with betel nuts and leaves and a new gamusa is adorned around the neck or shoulder of the visitor. The ritual has been handed down to each generation from times of the reformist Sage Shankardeva or even earlier. It is not uncommon for a visitor to reciprocate with a similar offering. Gift of a gamusa is thought to pay recognition and homage for a persons wisdom and talents.

In Assam almost everybody sports a gamusa irrespective of the fact that they may or may not be wearing traditional dresses. The significance and the ritual offering of gamusa are noticeable even in Government functions and/or Cultural celebration like the three national cultural festivals, the Bihu. During agnostic rituals in Shankardeva inspired mufti-faith-denominational Naam ghar or prayer halls, gamusa are used for varied purpose, such as wrapping ancient manuscripts, prayer books or even as offerings to the priest or headman.

In Bangladesh it is entirely a different story, for none have been able to convince me about the history of the Gumcha (made from pure cotton, are bright and multi-colored) or about it's a socio-political-cultural significance, which it obviously has.

All we know and all that our city bred citizens have been led to believe is, the Gumcha is synonymous with chotoloke. In reality, the multi-utility Gumcha, other than drying sweat off, it is a rag that can be used to clean almost anything, as dusters for table, chairs, even toilets! Village folks use it for catching fish fries or carrying dry provisions such as rice, salt etc from markets.

It can also be used to keep dust off ones face and considered more convenient and hygienic than a towel, as it takes less than ten minutes to dry in summer. Farm and day laborers use it as a head cover to keep off the scorching sun, as well as base to protect their cranium when they carry heavy bricks or mortar. The finest demonstration of how a Gumcha can be wrapped around the head is noticeable among rickshaw pullers in Dhaka and elsewhere.

In the early 90's when I started wearing the Gumcha seriously I was taken aback by the mighty sounds of disapproval. This was not only limited to people who did not know me personally, but very many well meaning friends and relatives, and many who I may say were educated and 'culturally progressive'. At least they all knew a song or two of Tagore by heart!

The questions were baffling. 'Why on earth are you wearing a Gumcha?' and that by the way, not borne out of curiosity but SHOCK. My retorts revolved around a bewildered, 'but why not', to 'tell me what's so wrong about it' would be met with deafening silence or spiteful indifference.

The whisper campaign behind my back was, 'Mac has taken on a rickshaw puller, day laborer mentality' or even worse that a transformation has set in, whereby I wasn't being 'rational' in my dress and attitude, and was becoming 'khyat' meaning unrefined, unsophisticated, peasant like, straight off the paddy field? It wasn't long before the word Pagla Maqsood or 'insane' was being underscored with double strokes below my name! My association with the Baul fraternity didn't make things any easier.

Even though my intentions were never so; wearing a Gumcha tied as a bandana on my head was not to be a 'fashion statement' as quite simply anything worn by the majority can be anything, but 'fashion'? Head gears are worn in almost all cultures, from the Arab Kaffiyeh, to the Mullah's tupi, to Jewish skullcaps, to the English hat; to American baseball cap etc and are all passé in Bangladesh. But what beat me completely in those early days, was how a simple piece of clothe used by almost eighty-five percent of the population of Bangladesh DAILY, when worn by a city-bred musician such and me, could be the butt of ridicules, jokes in poor taste and rancor?

I realized over time that the hostility was not ideally directed to me, but as a culmination of our genetic hatred for the poor. This is the implied 'children of a lesser God' doing overtime in the minds and mentality of those living a sheltered and prosperous life, in our hypocritical society. I prepared to challenge each and every scumbag notion against the Gumcha and defend those who wear it. I couldn't care less. My revolt became more focused, and instead of being dissuaded, I persisted and wanted to see how far I can go. I stepped up the attack and ended up making more enemies than friends.

Bibi Russell

In 1995 I met the International fashion icon of Bangladesh Bibi Russell for the first time at the house of my friend Rubana Huq. Seeing the Gumcha I was wearing, she gave me a bemused but over all look of pride, and asked me over to her office in Motijheel the following day. When I reached her Rahman Mansion office and display center I was in for a huge shock myself.

Bibi had an entire range of Gumcha shirts, pants, ladies wear, baseball caps, dining and bedroom accessories! All of 1995 and 1996 I collaborated with Bibi whenever there was any fashion show, and all of them had aggressive Gumcha promotion. In summer of 1996, Bibi and her troupe went to Paris for an exclusive haute couture event where a track from my first Baul fusion with FeedBack and Abdur Rahman Boyati was played during catwalk passes. The interest for Gumcha in the West was unbelievable.

That being a more positive early incident in my ongoing story of the Gumcha, I remember the particularly sad events as well.

In 1997 I was barred from entering a functions at the Sonargaon Hotel because, while my jeans, T shirt and dinner jacket was okay, the security guard wanted me to take my Gumcha off as it was 'inappropriate'. I complied, folded it into my pocket, stepped in, went to the Gents and promptly put it on. For the rest of the evening I proceeded to shock and harass the genteel and their many pretensions.

Around the same time, I read about our 'progressive cultural elite' scoring a victory of sort by entering the Dhaka Club with their 'national dresses'? How on earth the 'Punjabi' as the word suggests, and the attire of our Pakistani colonizers went on to become the Bengalee 'national dress' is yet unknown to me!

And there was this talk show in 1999 on 'culture' in ATN TV and in a long time I was face-to-face with our pompous Culture Vultures. As expected they wanted my Gumcha off before the cameras started whirring. I stood my ground and questioned etymologically whether their Punjabi was at all Bengalee?

In disgust I reminded them, 'if there is anything 'cultural' or Bengalee about this evening, it's my Gumcha which I wear with pride on my head. If you can't accept that, I might as well leave'. Good sense prevailed and I carried on, but when the program was aired, most of what I had to say was predictably, edited out.

Finally it was left for my Baul fraternity to explain the Gumcha in its symbolic socio-cultural-philosophical significance.

Much as an ox carries the yoke as its burden of keeping man alive (as in agriculture), the Gumcha is worn symbolically by those that have taken on the yoke of the poor consciously. However, for those wearing them on their head, it is to symbolize that at no times does our thoughts drift away from the poorest of the poor, the farmers, the day laborers, and the riff-raffs in Bangladesh. Ultimately it is them and how they formulate our thought process, is what will make us a NATION, and not the other way around.

On my part, I could be whoever I am, and even though I may be just be one among millions, I am a citizen of Bangladesh and do have a right to think and act the way I do. I only wish I had more on my side. Can it be that those reading this piece will make a New Year resolution to buy, wear or use a Gumcha?

If not anything, please remember that the few Taka (no higher that 150) you spend buying an individual Gumcha will perhaps keep a poor farmer family alive somewhere in Bangladesh for a full day? This is not only your chance to be of service to the marginalized that are too proud to extend a begging bowl for sustenance, but a chance for you to contribute to your culture – directly?

Let's look at 'accessorizing' Bangladesh all of 2012 by demanding that the Gumcha be declared a 'national headdress', as we do not have one. Nothing could be more secular, generic, genetic or democratic!

New Age Xtra

Friday, 30th December 2011

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Culture, Shons-Krishi and my Gumcha story

2011-12-31T02:44:00.003+06:00

by Mac Haque

"জেনে শুনে মুরাউ মাথা জাত এ উঠবি, মানুষ ভজলে সোনার মানুষ হবি" ফকির লালন শাহ

"Wrap your head consciously, and you will rise above the prejudices of class" Fakir Lalon Shah

My Gumcha story starts here.

The Assamese Gamusa

Bibi Russell

That being a more positive early incident in my ongoing story of the Gumcha, I remember the particularly sad events as well.

Finally it was left for my Baul fraternity to explain the Gumcha in its symbolic socio-cultural-philosophical significance.

Bibi's model

New Age Xtra, Friday, 30th December 2011

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Bangladesh 2011- Forty years of ease, deceit, anarchy and the Rahman’s

2011-12-16T15:07:00.002+06:00

by Mac Haque

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Maya Angelou

Bangladesh turns forty on Friday the 16th December 2011, yet we have not heard about any special celebrations. Wherever I have asked, I have been dismayed, for the Government probably doesn't look at forty years as too long a time to celebrate anything. Maybe fifty is more like it – ahhh…. ten years of further window dressings, a half century well spent, and we will have so much to say, as if in the last forty we didn't!

When we look back at history, the reasons we seem not to cheer on, do not celebrate, is because we believe in a round about way, that our Independence was no more than a donated moment from the past. The past in turn reminds us that everything that we hold sacred or of core value have come without us having to work too hard for it.

If we just look at the duration of our hard fought Liberation War – nine months to be precise, it wasn't until end-May or early-June 1971 that our national resistance, the Mukti Bahini started to retaliate. It means the actual fighting was no more that six or seven months? I wonder if any other nation anywhere in the world has been this fortunate.

That said, none can deny that the genocide perpetrated by Pakistan Army took a huge toll on human lives, but fate would leave us to live with a controversy surrounding numbers. Whether it was three million or three hundred thousand is really immaterial here. The fact that so many died for the benefit of so few is hard reality to digest. Number games have been played and will continue to be played, only to recompense for a failure to take stock of the malignancies that continue to bedevil us forty years later.

What changed in 1971 was no more than changing of honor guards and incorporating new regalia denoting a State, a flag, a map maybe. What did not happen were the promised emancipation, liberation, freedom and Independence, for those who needed it the most – the poorest of the poor. In forty years Bangladesh despite its forward looking indicators remains a 'developing country', the euphemism for a 'poor country', meaning the majority of our people go hungry, are stricken with diseases, have no roof on their head and are ripe for the dole.

We are therefore left with only two classes in society, the have-nots and the have-plenty's. The pretentious middle class worrying and spitting venoms about economic indicators and the get-rich-quick scam called the share market, is fast becoming a rare species and doomed to extinction – i.e. if it has not been already.

Quite savagely natural disasters such as storms, typhoons, cyclones and tidal bores are looked upon as opportunities, a prime time for the have-plenty's to loot dole coming in as foreign aid meant for the destitute. Much like vultures who feasted on the corpses of the hundreds of thousands that were killed in such disasters in forty years, humans resembling hyena scavenged the land, pouncing upon whatever money came our way.

It was Henry Kissinger's infamous take in the seventies of Bangladesh being an 'International Basket case', which led to foreign aid trickling to a near halt. The creed of greed thereafter got more institutionalized. In place we had the NGOs some who ended up siphoning money under 'acceptable limits' yet were left with more money and clouts than the Bangladesh Government.

Possibilities for change in Bangladesh were immense. What did not change is the mindset of our ruling class and I am not at all game to the repeated roulette played out as to who did or did not support the Liberation War. To accept that a shadowy 'anti-Liberation' force is active forty years down the line and wants an imminent destruction of our nation, is co-opting to the notion that real Independence, yet eludes us.

That in effect would be reducing us to a mentality of blasé servility, a defeatist trap, the juggled artistry of political masters who want to enslave us into their vulgar partisan thinking. Bangladesh's ruling class is happy living in a time warp of the 60's but two questions for them : Will our woes be truly over if the 'anti-Liberation' forces were eliminated? If so, why hasn't it happened in forty years?

And why is their pauperized mentality so entrenched in our national psyche? Simply because power brokers are slaves to an irreversible status quo – one that harps on the past, making mincemeat out of the present – only to placate their sheer inadequacy, not to forget their fragile vulnerability. The continuity of slavery is their foremost agenda. The practice of freedom in its entirety is unknown to them - for good reasons.

Like 1971 everything else that came later our way was really too easy. Importantly quick-fix, get rich mantras' playing on the pathos of the poor was all that was needed to get whatever one wanted, with an unsuspecting majority perpetually prepared to gulp the bait. I am talking about power, and those in power get so drunk, they do not realize that they also stayed drunk and unreasoning in their pursuit to achieve the same.

Let's take a look at the first Military Coup that led to the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was just a 'handful' of disgruntled Army officers stirred up passion in a 'handful' of men, move Tanks without ammunitions from the Cantonment and go in with blazing machineguns, kill the President and his family, capture the nations Television and Radio station – and one has captured state power. Piece of cake?

While all of this was happening, the Army Chief (who in forty years survives unscathed while the actual killers have already been hanged) failed to wake up from deep slumber? When he did he was unable to go for a counter offensive against the renegades although they were just a 'handful'?

So the first Coup and capture of State power was, really too easy and not much hard work had to be expended, or am I to be imminently proved wrong?

The succession of Coup and counter-Coup leading to capture of state power by the ambitious were more or less fashioned on the same initial formula. The strategy; capture the Television and Radio station, kill a few soldiers…and all else falls into place. What else did we have?

Khaled Musharraf during his short-lived stay in power took theatrics to a new height and had the Air force and Naval Chief pin more ribbons into his lapel (and this was photographed and televised), 'promoting' him to a General. In less than forty eight hours he was dead. Ziaur Rahman was swept to power riding on a crest of 'popularity' after a succession of intrigues and counter intrigues inside the Dhaka Cantonment.

Zia the man had the requisite qualification of being a War Hero of 1971 - yet once in power he espoused a new 'identity' for us: 'Bangladeshis', which on surface perhaps made sense. This was to ensure that the world does not confuse us from the rest of our Indian Bengalee cousins from West Bengal. Ironically our identity crisis commenced at this point.

In sinister moves after other, he firmly entrenched the idea of 'Bengalee Muslims' or even 'Pukkah Muslim' and promoted himself to General and went on further to rub in the doctrine of 'Bangladeshi Nationalism'. It was time for half educated Army Officers to teach us 'bloody civilians' a thing or two about patriotism which was all okay, but reeked strongly of a pro-Pakistani bias.

Zia's heavily Urdu-accented Bengalee speeches made us wonder if we have resurrected a neo-Yahya Khan in a Bengalee body!

A new chapter was ushered into our history. The era of half-baked intellectuals, with cronyism becoming institutionalized and we were then forced to go back to the drawing boards. Bismillahs, Khosh Amded, Allah Hafez, Shukriaz and other Cantonment-ized words and expressions entered the popular vocabulary. We were being Muslim-ized and Islamization wasn't too far away.

And there were clear reasons for all of this happening so soon after our Independence.

While Western secularism was certainly not one of the 'pillars of state' we fought for in 1971, the post-Liberation 'secular Khalifa's' (read Awami intellectuals) made a mess interpreting the same in our formative years. Weird ideas and philosophies which were totally alien to our people were 'bull-dozed in' making a sordid mess of our belief system. Secular possibilities within Sufi Islam that was naturally and firmly ingrained in our populace for centuries were never explored – rather were succinctly shunned. We were left initially to whispers that progressively grew to shouts; all our post-Liberation political masters wanted were to 'Hindu-ize' us…huh?

Making things easier for Zia was the Saudi Wahabi assistance that wasn't forthcoming when Mujib was alive, and import of cheap labour from Bangladesh, a country then just reeling out of a man-made famine in 1975-76. Medieval Sharia Islam was clearly making a strong comeback. Zia the cunning fox upped the ante and quickly drove quite a few sharp wedges.

On the one hand he rehabilitated the Jamaat-E-Islami, permitting the Nemesis of 1971 Ghulam Azam to return, as also installing a far right Islamist zealot as Prime Minister. On the flip side he took pain to welcome back to the country from India, Sheikh Hasina – the daughter of the assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Also, as a mean to appease the West, he lured the far-left Maoist and Communist thriving on the underground since 1971 to resurface, and as quickly continued the zero-tolerance pogrom started by Sheikh Mujib in 1972 – a legacy which quite bizarrely is still in place forty years later.

In the intervening hungama there were possibly a dozen Coup attempts against Zia and it is estimated that several thousand military officers, mostly innocent were brutally executed after camera trials. Done to death were the remnants of the Mukti Bahini who fought and ushered in an Independent Bangladesh, a force that ironically, Sheikh Mujib, Zia or the rest in our history ever displayed the magnanimity to share power with.

In a couple of months while attempts were on to begrudgingly 'usher in Democracy' of sort, Zia too was killed in a Coup in Chittagong in 1981. But that didn't change the era of retired men in khakis masquerading with Islamic skull caps. It was time for the gestating right-of-center Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to be born, with a profound sectarian/communal overtone.

What set in next was a continuation of the easy road to power, albeit with a slight difference. Within a year another General, Hussain Muhammad Ershad (repatriated from Pakistan post-1971) would chart the course of our history. He did so after penning in several articles in newspapers on the dangerous trend the country has entered into and how important it was for the Army to intervene. In 1982, with promises of Democracy and the rule of law he 'assumed power via a bloodless Coup' - albeit with the same easy formula of his predecessors.

Nonetheless what would stand out as important in Ershad's stay in power is the abdication of 'secularism' and declaration of Islam as a 'state religion' of Bangladesh in the late eighties. In effect Ershad managed to circumcise Bangladesh and sort of seal its confused Islamic identity, allowing a walkover of myopic Mullahs who plague us to this day. However as President of a country that recently incorporated Islam as 'state religion' his personal philandering was legendary!

The other significant parameter of his stay in power was its sheer length. Ershad hung on to power for two years as the Army supremo and a staggering seven years as President despite repetitive efforts by Awami League, BNP as also the Jamaat-E-Islami (strangely all three party's united in a joint Opposition from 1987 to 1990) to oust him. In the cumulative nine years he proceeded to institutionalize corruption.

Giving the devil his due, he did manage to 'make politics difficult' - a promise made to his former boss man Zia, and ensured that the Army doesn't make further misadventure into power. He managed the very difficult job of reigning in the Army by converting it to a Mercenary force – one the United Nations would use for peace-keeping operations anywhere in the world, less Bangladesh. The status quo for the Army remains unchanged as of 16th December 2011.

By the time Ershad was ousted in a popular revolt led by students of Dhaka University (not political parties) in December 1990, the BNP had emerged strong, with its popularity higher than ever before. The reasons were quite simple. The Awami League in its lust for power had connived with Ershad prolonging his stay. In the aborted 1987 agitations against Ershad, the Awami League shamelessly stabbed the movement in the back and moved away from the Opposition unity.

This enhanced Zia's widow Khaleda's reputation as an 'uncompromising leader' only to be voted to Government when elections eventually came in 1991. In from 1991 to 1996 when she made way for a political experiment masterminded by the Jamaat-E-Islami called the 'Caretaker Government', Bangladesh entered an insane phase in its political life that was perfected to a fine art during the anti-Ershad agitations.

The trend would go on to be the mainstay of yet another easy formula to capture State power under a Democratic charade.

Planned chaos and mayhem, killing of demonstrators and law enforcers, arrest of politicians (safe refuge?), days upon days of Hartal (general strikes), and arson and bomb attacks, meant whoever came to power would be subjected to same stratagem by whoever was in Opposition. The word Utkhat or 'overthrow' of a democratically elected Government entered common usage among politicians, yet none of them ever got killed in the process!

The new formula: create anarchy of the worst kind, let Bangladesh hang on a thread in its day-to-day existence and ensure the common people who are prepared to die and kill rule the roost. In the mean time allow partisan intellectuals to write their fiery columns that no one reads in exercise of free speech, let black money backing the political parties finance 'historical gathering of people' (read assembly of the innocent, poor and vulnerable) and that's not all. The Army would be more than obliged to step 'to aid the Civil administration' at the very last moment for a show of brinkmanship and ensure order – and then all is hunky dory, and you have captured state power?

The overriding attribute for capturing state power got more focused in that the sole ownership of Bangladesh by now was in the hand of two 'Rahman families' – that of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman. By the nineties they had made Bangladesh a fiefdom to be fought over – a Zamindari that lives on even to this new millennium.

There was hardly anything creative in how the two families jockeyed for power before the 1996, 2001 or the 2008 elections. The same formula, the same ease; use the commonest of people as live fodder, bring life to standstill by anarchy and murder mayhems and don't talk about economy or wellbeing of the people when all of it happens. If there was at all any 'fear' left in us, it was for the Army and what they may or may not do. What does seem a bit out of place is how the Army too is used by politicians to rally favor incognito onto warring sides.

In 1996, even though the Awami League was all poised to win the election and did so eventually, it nonetheless attempted to back a botched Coup by an errant General Nasim. As a natural corollary to that, and when things went completely out of control towards the end of 2006, Bangladesh was blessed with something new.

It was to be a 'world's first'. When a 'Caretaker Government' failed to take shape due to bickering among 'respectable citizens' representing either sides of Rahman's, the President in a surprise move, called in the Army. It was a Coup backed by foreign missions in Bangladesh, with the support of the United Nation and what we then had was two years of total chaos with the common citizens paying a very steep price. The Army kicked in for a long stay, initially reined in corrupt businessmen and their political cahoots.

Both Rahman women were arrested as well as thousands of their cronies.

The nation initially applauded as it seemed the days of the Rahman's were on the verge of being history, or to be rendered obsolete. Those of us on the dumb apolitical fringe hoped, but like everything else in Bangladesh things would prove short lived.

Before long, the Army too was left corrupted from its rank-and-file up to its Generals. It eventually shimmied up to one of the Rahman's to have a clear bail-out from the mess it jumped into. Therefore if conspiracy theories and the grapevines are to be believed, the real beneficiary in the shenanigan, the ultimate victor of the UN backed Army Coup in Bangladesh was the Rahman family – that of Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League.

End line, the next ten years leading up to our fiftieth Independence Day 2021 is crucial. The people of Bangladesh have lived long enough under the yoke, whims and caprices of this two warring and diabolically deceptive family. Their personal gripes and resentment towards each other, their propelling of their siblings and relatives as future rulers of Bangladesh will simply not work. It is time that the patriotic people of Bangladesh, took stock and plan on a forceful Utkhat of the Rahman's and their stooges.

Short of that, the lessons we learn from history will always run short, and we will continue to be short charged.

New Age Xtra, Friday, 16th December 2011

Link

An aborted Diplomatic Coup, and Cultural Transit as a priority

2011-09-16T11:22:00.002+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque - Mac

"There is no rule which prevents the broadcast of Bangladeshi channels in India. I hope that commercial arrangements can be worked out so that Indian viewers have the opportunity to listen to the great contemporary exponents of Rabindra Sangeet and Baul in Bangladesh or see the films of the late Tareque Masud." Indian Premier Manmohan Singh at Dhaka University, 7th September 2011

The much awaited and hyped trip of the Indian Premier came and went, yet predictably degenerated into a farce. Predictable, because like it or not, citizens in general were keenly watching the ebb and flow of the tide and it didn't necessarily have to be the Teesta that created a wash out.

The near pathological distrust of India by the people of Bangladesh went unevaluated, and this time around one didn't have to be a BNP-Jamaat bigot if you opposed. When push came to shove, it was the pro-India Awami League that said no-deal, and it's not as if it was NOT a big-deal!

What wasn't bargained for was the stab to our proverbial back. In her volte face Mamata Banerjee may have ended up appearing a pariah to New Delhi, but history and Paschim Banga will surely treat her fairly. When the talks fell apart, everybody heaved an apolitical sigh of relief and one wondered if we should give a huge medal for Bangladeshi patriotism to Mamata for doing us a favor.

Not just Bangladesh, more so the two ladies squandering our Nations destiny ought to take lessons from the rabidly quarrelsome Mamata. If our Bengalee kin within an Indian state can show an index finger to New Delhi when coerced, cheated, forced or extorted - surely we should have the courage to emulate the same.

In forty years as a Nation, we have never conducted ourselves with India as equals or with dignity, and never cared to look at the cultural components gone missing that is essential for respectable relations and trust to develop in the first place.

However, newer skeletons spilling out of cupboards suggest that the Teesta and Transit issue was outsourced to two Advisers of the Bangladesh Premier and as New Age front paged on 10th September "It was an open secret that the foreign ministry had been kept almost on the sidelines for two years and a half, especially on dealing with issues with India."

The report goes on, "[Sheikh Hasina] expressed her annoyance as the advisers had given their contacts in New Delhi an impression that the Bangladesh side was ready to sign all the agreements, protocols and memorandums of understanding even if India 'does not sign the Teesta agreement.' ".

All of the above reeks of millennium Mir Jafar-ism torpedoed by intervention of fate at the very last moment. For sure this was an aborted diplomatic coup and time will say that the list of conspirators may have been longer than Plassey. The Prime Ministers annoyance notwithstanding, Mashiur Rahman and Gowher Rizvi should not ONLY be fired, but arrested and put on trial for operating outside the chain of command. Questions should also be raised why the Prime Minister chose two Advisers to handle issues of such sensitivity, bypassing the Foreign Ministry, and if this is/was a violation of the sacred oath of office?

What if the Teesta Treaty and Transit were signed? What would we have been debating today? Would the nation led by the Opposition BNP-Jamaat axis go on an anti-India rampage and lock us indoor with unending hartals as promised?

We really don't know. But we do know that India would have fast tracked Transit, making havoc of our totally anarchic communications networks that is tethering at the seams. And Teesta would have ominously played second fiddle, because treaty or no treaty, Mamata has the capacity and temperament to conveniently agree to disagree. Call it Bengalee brink-womanship!

The outcry following Tareque Masud's death in a road accident on 13th August doesn't mean that our roads have gotten any safer. Quick fix pre-Eid brickbat jobs onto potholed roads were no more than first-aid sealants, and the Communication Minister Abul Hossain declared, roads may not be fixed before 2013.

Meanwhile Jahangir Kabir Nanak, MP's only son was killed in a car crash near Chittagong on 6th September, and WikiLeaks reveals US Embassy's damning indictment of Hossain being less than honest and his being Beijing's man in Dhaka. That he still hasn't resigned means the Government or other outsourced actors probably need him for reasons we cannot reason with.

Hypothetically if Transit were accorded to India the thousands of trucks and other vehicles going to and fro between road borders to riverine and sea ports, on to railway landings etc – would have locked out the entire country in a traffic tailback and bring life to a grinding standstill.

I wonder if planners even looked if our critically stressed natural gas resources have the capacity to handle that many Indian vehicles filling up on our side of the border. The fallback would mean our relationship with India will have further deteriorated consequent to the cherished transit treaty.

Post the diplomatic debacle, on the cultural front - we should take the cue from Premier Singh's speech at the Dhaka University. Cultural transit is fundamentally more important than one based on mere commodity trading. Even before India starts having newer wet-dreams the first order of business is to guarantee Transit for our airwaves, for our thoughts, ideas and aspirations, which are in many ways more vibrant and powerful than that of India?

And it surely makes sense when we go back to our track records. We have been magnanimous in permitting India's air waves 24/7/365 bombardment and invasions since 1992 without signing any commercial agreement and without asking for anything in return. And we foam at our mouth about friendly relations?

It is rather perplexing that wherever in the world there are Bengalees, people get to watch our excellent TV channels. Yet, just across the border in India we have been shamelessly denied access and no Government of Bangladesh has never even made it an issue in that many years.

Blocking of airwaves is usually done to thwart hostile enemy propaganda. What was a pre-Liberation War phenomenon of the Indian Republic on Radio airwaves (when we were East Pakistan and the enemy) is still been extended forty years later.

In the mind-set of politicians sitting in South Block in terms of our TV Channels or dissemination of our culture, Bangladesh remains India's enemy in the Cultural context. India talks about friendly relations but has done nothing to placate the ire of the people of Bangladesh on this count. The resultant distrust of India is therefore neither unexpected nor unnatural.

That the visit of Manmohan Singh was scuttled because of India's ingrained cultural inadequacy or insensitivity is evident in his earlier misplaced premonition about twenty-five percent Bangladeshi's swearing by the Jamaat and ISI as also indicator of overriding ignorance about our culture.

Loud talks of people-to-people contact have largely been limited to NGO initiatives and on Internet e-forums. Confidence Building Measures (CBM) and a clear understanding of Bangladesh's new and emerging ground realities have never been New Delhi's agenda.

While time will decide whether or not India will permit entry of our TV channels on a reciprocal basis, suffice to say that it is missing out so much of the dynamism that Bangladesh's culture is all about today.

It is also a sad day when we as a nation mourn the death of Tareq Masud, in India nobody is even curious or aware that what has passed by was the Bengalee equivalent of Ray and Kiorastani all rolled in one.

If we trust only market forces to lead the bull charge on Culture we can jointly thwart a global cultural swamp-out as much as Teesta was for India this time. True, there will be no end to crass culture beaming out of Bollywood, but the quiet resistance and huge cultural leaps and bounds made by Bangladesh cannot and should not go unnoticed.

When I discuss these with many friends in Poschim Banga, I am surprised how little they know and if they do their knowledge go no further than Taslima Nasreen or Honuman Ahmed or worse case scenario - Beder Meye Jotsna. Yet try talking to an average Bangladeshi and he/she will quote you verbatim from Tagore, Bankim and who else have you at the drop of a hat, right down to the last episode of the latest serial beaming out of Kolkata, not to forget sing and dance you a line or two of Sheela Ka Jawani!

Just a thought; imagine if a movie is made by Dhaka and Kolkata - the investment together and fact that this will cater to a world wide audience of over 250 million Bengalee speakers - the market so to speak would be stupendous. This is precisely New Delhi's worry. We have to come out of the cocoon of our own creation and importantly reclaim our lost pride i.e. what Bangladesh thinks today - India will think the day after!

Poschim Banga has been colonized by outsiders leaving it so vulnerable that its own people refuse to speak Bengalee. While we make God out of Rabindranath, his Santiniketan bears witness to derelict buildings on display for tourist.

Bangladesh is the last outer-spoke in the South Asia hub. We may as well look East and try singing Chinese songs as clearly Bollywood has nothing in common with our Culture. And pray if true, that the Chinese can help us get rid of the other chink…..Abul Hossain?

New Age XTRA/Print Version, Friday, 16th September 2011

A politically incorrect letter to Tareque Masud

2011-08-26T09:08:00.004+06:00

by Mac Haque

"I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well, I only wish my words could just convince myself,that it just wasn't real. But that's not the way it feels" – Jim Croce

Status: Open/Unrestricted

Mood: Meditative/Gloomy/Angry

Music in Background: Do it Again – Steely Dan

Date/Time- Line: From Then, Now to Never

My Dear Tareque,

Something went awfully wrong on Saturday the 13th of August 2011, and they tell me that you will remain incommunicado forever. Fair deal pal…that appreciated if not understood; I hope you will take time out to read this letter. I have deliberately marked it open and unrestricted, so that somewhere down the line somehow, maybe through a gap in the ether, it will be delivered to you unblemished.

You are the savviest of communicators for our generation indeed in the history of Bangladesh. I know for certain that you will continue with your job beyond the 24/07/365 spectral dimension, a rather limited sphere for a genius like you.

It's this delusion we call life the Baul in both of us recognizes that stops me from mentioning you in the past tense. It would be an insult to the living and illuminated spirit that has broken free from a clay tomb. Death is a celebration as much as life an unending cycle; the entrapped Clay Bird is now free to hover.

As early as 1983 when you were working like an obsessive maniac on Adam Surat featuring living footages of Lal Miah, you charted your road map in life. You chose an iconoclast, a living legend as your subject. A subject who on the quiet had gone International, and his paintings hung side-by-side with masters like Matisse and Dali, was yet, little known to his own people then, as even today.

Quite characteristically you explained with unending patience, about technological advancements and why your 16 mm celluloid print of Adam Surat can't be sent to a festival as the mandatory requirement was U-Matic, NTSC BVU format etc. Very few people in Bangladesh understood what the heck you and I were talking about.

Worse was to follow. Despite my reluctance you bull headedly went ahead and talked to the illiterate proprietor of the Travel Agency I was working - for sponsorship. You were shown the door and the same month I quit. In retrospect, not many doors were open to us anyway friend. We had a notorious reputation for speaking our minds and there wasn't a huge appetite for our brutal to a fault honesty.

Communications between us were never regular or irregular, but I find it comforting to think that whenever there was a crisis we always met and spent quality time. In winter of 1987 after a Whiskey wasted night when we talked only about financial solvency I had no way of knowing what was really doing overtime in your mind.

So it was more of an embarrassment than a shock that the same morning after waving me goodbye, you tried a hop-skip-and-jump in front of a public bus? Man that was weird. If your ambition was to bag an athletic gold for Bangladesh in the Olympics, you chose a real lousy turf for a practice run…...phew!

Your personal turbulence's were officially over in 1988 when you walked in to my office arm-in-arm with Catherine Shapiere. Before long fate conspired and she was being hounded by people in absolute power who were not quite able to understand the economics or politics of a visiting American student with a perpetually broke Bangladeshi boyfriend! Love perhaps was an obsolete word back then.

Our last ditch plea to get the US Embassy to help was met by a stern official on the phone. To our horror we learnt that he will ensure Catherine's passport is returned, but could do nothing about the deportation order. The three of us hugged and cried but our gloom was short lived.

I remember Catherine promising she would return which she did much earlier than expected. And that poem on her adopted motherland written at the Departure lounge of Dhaka Airport after a humiliating interrogation by Immigration Police was bitterly poignant. The two of you were destined to serve the Nation, and do so with the greatest honor and highest of admiration. No power on earth could dare stop that.

I came to know about your nuptials courtesy the grapevine. Months later you enjoyed my quip when I pointed to the framed portrait of the two of you in a wall. Prem er porey frame – aha!

Then most annoyingly you vanished without a trace not to return until the early nineties. When you did, you excitedly summoned me to talk about a treasure trove that you had discovered in New York and NO, you assured me you haven't robbed a Bank! Nevertheless I rushed to see you and Catherine with a hope that..…ahem….I may end up being an important side-kick for a soon to be billionaire in Bangladesh.

An hour into the meeting at your Kalabagan hangout with all that hush-hush secrecy, I realized what you have in hand was indeed priceless, but fraught with risk higher than a Bank vault. It was a people's statement that no political party would be able to stomach. Never spoken but never denied - our lives were at stake.

Reading between the lines, I am sure had it not been on Catherine's insistence, you wouldn't have budged to call up Lear Levin. This was based on an emotive flashback by a much inebriated Tareq Ali in New York. And sure enough Lear Levin was on the phone directory. And sure enough so was the cache, preserved in mint condition in his temperature controlled basement. Hours of raw celluloid footage of the Liberation War, not blood or gore but front line cultural activists in action, entertaining guerrillas and common people.

And there was Tareq Bhai, Benu Da, Naila and Shahin Apa, Shopon Da and so many more. From reel, real to surreal, it was as if 1971 had returned, courtesy you - to tell its own tale in 1995.

The two of us have tormented for years whenever the Liberation War came up for discussions. Here we were faced with a new generation and our reminiscences as teenagers growing up in 1971 were rubbished. "Were we dreaming back then, or are we lying today?" You finally had the answer to my question. We NOW HAVE THE PROOF Dosto! The next challenge was how to get this across to the people of Bangladesh, the ultimate beneficiary of the treasure.

Muktir Gaan was then an unfolding history of a history in changed times, when we had all but given up on the bloodiest phase in our history. From handling the Censor Board without editing out a single frame, to organizing screening and alternative out-of-the box distribution without sponsors or patron you masterminded the movie reaching furthest corners of Bangladesh without dithering on your resolve.

Ironically while you received a lot of pats on your back, when it came to real help, you had next to none. Try as you may to hide this my friend, I know for a fact that with all of that happening around you, there were days you went without food. The prohibitive cost of the movie burnt a huge hole in your pocket which was never very deep in the first place.

It was my sheer fortune and destiny to be a tiny piece in a gigantic jig-saw puzzle that was to be the Muktir Gaan project. I am honored together with other volunteers and friends, to be a roadie and lift and lug the very expensive projector equipments and precious celluloid prints during the initial screenings at Public Library Auditorium.

I am equally honored that you ordered our friend Shampa Reza and me to be the MC's for the first screening of Muktir Gaan to diplomats, bureaucrats and others at the Dhaka Museum Auditorium. The shows at Manikganj, Faridpur and Bhanga where I accompanied you and Catherine in those tumultuous days will forever be etched in my memory.

But then, we had our differences sometimes very heated. While you agreed with me most times, you never accepted my pathological rejection of the status quo or contempt for Culture Vultures and Media Mafia who were hanging around our motley crew for all the wrong reasons.

To quote Bob Marley, I was merely "Oba, ob-serving the hypocrites, as they would mingle with the good people we meet", so all I could do was watch dejectedly from the periphery and take another toke of Sinsemilia! You are the superior being. You could hear history calling, you could hear the peoples cry when defeat after defeat, our senses had gone numb.

And then it was Matir Moyna (Clay Bird) and Cannes in 2002. You firmly placed Bangladesh in the International Cinema map. Everything was to change, except you my dear friend. Your dynamism was infectious as usual, but you remained the forever approachable Tareque Masud.

I thank God for that. Your head didn't outgrow your shoulders. You had no pretensions to be a Ray or Kiarostani or stoop to the perverted commercial decadence of a Farooki……..who?

Last if not the least Dosto…Runway was awesome and I don't know if I thanked you enough for the peek preview at your house last year.

Catch up with you soon.

Salutes - my comrade in thoughts.

Cheers!

Mac

PS. I have not been able to go see Catherine and Nishad. I don't know what to tell them about your disappearance when enough has already been said.

New Age XTRA

Print Version

Friday, 26th August 2011

Of graffiti galore, weird boards and weirder laws

2011-08-12T10:02:00.003+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque - Mac

"Tying garbage bags around your head and hands is overkill." April Winchell

All we have to do is take a serious look around every time we step outside our homes and into the horrid realities of street, main roads and the so-called VIP roads. At eye length there is simply not an inch of public space that has not been usurped by advertisers, political parties and other do-gooders. From paan and Cigarettes shops, roadside eateries, Malls, under flyovers, walls and buildings, indeed any free area that attracts people are game to occupation and it would seem a sin if it was any other way.

The city consequently is acquiring the look of a massive garbage can. Graffiti's, posters, decals and stickers keep jarring our sensibilities. From walls, to footpaths, sides of footpaths, pedestrian crossing over bridges, trees, road dividers it's someone or the other selling or trading anything and everything from Telco offers, to tutorials to fizzy drinks, to IELTS courses, Property developers, prophylactics, awareness campaigns, political and fashion statements to sexual stimulants!

Competing in maniacal obsession are political parties, who these days beautify their posters with digital plastic printouts, and mount them on Stainless Steel (SS) frames. Their pathetic provinciality notwithstanding other than the photographs of their great leaders, these monstrosities also have images not only of the local MP or Ward Commissioner, they also emblazon idiotic mug shots of the sponsor i.e. showjonyye so-and-so and just in case one misses the point, rubbed in conveniently is fact the individual is also a Bir Mukti Joddha…hah.

If there is a historic meeting or histrionic convention and not to forget historical dates, the competition for sheer ugliness hits an all time zenith. Black clothes are emblazoned with blurbs like Kando Bangali Kando or cry Bengali cry – leaving me wondering, why? Do we really need a date to remind us to cry? Does it not mean that if not reminded we won't cry? Truth is the trial and tribulation, the sheer pain in the you know where of our daily existence doesn't make us cry but literally weep and these daily rituals in survival are ones that our obtuse, obese and very well fed politicos preaching eat-less morals do not have to suffer!

The cult of sponsorship does not only reveal pathetic cultural inadequacies of our politicos, they display unabashed arrogance and alienation from the masses, together with a high degree of sycophancy. In most cases, the ugly posters are branded by party headquarters, and it appears mandatory that they must contain not only the images of leader/s, but also their offspring's and offspring's of offspring's and so forth. In a kilometer stretch of road – one may end up seeing more than fifty such visual morbidities. Unknown to our politicos, such repetitive messages do no excite or leave any imprint in our minds worth remembering. All it does is remind us of the state of annoying filth we live in and how filthier we can get. The public level of irritation at this apathetic disregard for decency will soon explode into HATE if it has not already.

Look up at the sky line, the assault to our vision is overwhelming to say the least. Huge, ugly signages do add some color to our life, but its profusion and newer hoardings erected almost every other day means that sooner than not, we will be unable to have glimpses of the blue sky. Occasionally either through freak winds or freakier accidents, these billboards falls off, killing people on the street. A lot of hullabaloo is made by the press, and the victims and the issue as quickly buried. Before we know it, hundreds more crops up and there seems to be no respite.

I wonder if there is a law in place to restrain advertising and marketing companies. It's apparently a maybe situation and the maybe depends entirely on what part of the city you live, regardless of whether or not you are a tax payer. Regardless or not, if you have any rights to question the MNC money Gods and even if you do, are there other citizens in the capital who are better off and do not have to endure the noisy visual attacks on their sensibilities? The equation is bizarre.

Example: from the Zero Point in Motijheel all the way to Uttara, Gazipur and beyond, each and every lamp post and tree for the last eight months or so is adorned with very ugly red plastic posters advertising a cell phone company. As if that isn't enough, the company also has over a hundred billboards in place. As if that is also not enough, each and every TV and FM channels have their jingles going every fifteen minutes. As if that IS ALSO NOT ENOUGH each and every newspaper has their blurbs every day of the week. The question is when do we call enough, ENOUGH?

These MNC's are behaving no less vulgarly then our politicos and little do they realize that bombarding people with their messages may help them rake in cash, however the long term implications will not be conducive. There is surely a law against public nuisance and for all practical purpose citizens will wake up and go for litigation suits. The crux of the legal posturing will depend on how serious our citizens are and how long they will continue to endure this rape and intrusion on the limited public space that we pay our taxes for. Somehow somewhere there is a precognitive strain in our people. They have the patience to wait before they pound, and when they do it is destined to be brutal.

How long will constriction and looter like rampaging be tolerated when in the end, justifiable questions can be raised since it looks like some citizens in pockets of the capital, are exempt from this menace while others are not? How is it that there are certain areas where advertisers cannot or do not advertise and in others, they do so with impunity bordering on criminal?

Example: the stretch of road opposite the Prime Ministers office all the way to the Air force Officers Mess is spick and span clean. No graffiti's, no billboards, no posters, no political messages, NOTHING! What does it mean? There is either a law that prohibits such visual assaults, or plainly the advertisers and their criminal nexus do not want to mess about with the Prime Minister or the Air force.

What makes the Prime Minister who was voted into office by our mandate to be free of a scourge that we citizens have per force been afflicted and infected with? And the Air force, men and women who are supposed to be defending us, are state employees, and live and thrive on tax payer's money – what circumstances and/or prerogative makes them any more superior to us? And that's not all.

When was the last time any one of us have either visited or driven through the stretch of heaven we call the Dhaka Cantonment or even the old DOHS? Why is it that in this less than 10 sq kms pocket life and living seems to be at perfect ease and tranquil? There are no traffic jams, no garbage or litter, no jay walking, no killer trucks, no rickshaws slowing down life. Add to that perfect footpaths and pedestrian crossings, road dividers with seasonal flowers not restrained or protected by ugly barbed wire fences, aromatic hibiscus, no garbage can, and no litter – in fact anything and everything that one can expect of a civilized nation or a city is up for showcase. And NO there are no billboards, graffiti's or other menaces that we see elsewhere in the city!

That should leave us contemplating two serious questions. But first, an axiom: it is after all possible to keep our city clean, manageable and decent contributing to our overall psychological well being. And the questions 1. What are the laws in place inside the Cantonments that is NOT in the rest of the city and leads to anarchy? 2. In a democratic state is it constitutionally valid to have two sets of discriminatory laws for two different set of citizens within the same city?

What then are the options available? The one that my left-of-center colleagues in New Age will frown upon is the suggestion that we enforce Cantonment laws all across Dhaka. The other that will not be taken lightly or even with a sense of humor is unleashing the jungle laws of consumerist overkill that we civilians have to live with in our Cantonments as well? Quite simply, what and to whom are we showcasing our Cantonments as opposed to the nation's capital? Is our military being pampered into an elitism to appease them?

What are our genuine worries on this one – any answers?

New Age Xtra

Print Version – Friday 12th August 2011

Timeless Tales in Making of the Unforgettable 'Melay Jai Re' - 1989 by Feedback

2011-08-02T23:43:00.001+06:00

by Sajeda Tamanna Hossain,

Pix: Shahid Ahmed Irad & Collections

Song Title: Melay Jai Re

Album Title: Mela

Date of Release: 1990

Lyrics: Maqsoodul Haque

Composition: Maqsoodul Haque and Fuad Naser Babu

Musical Arrangements: Feedback

Down Memory Lane: Floating along with the tide of time, we continue to stroll through the hall of fame. The cool sway of the summer breeze, mild sting of humidity and searing waves of sudden heat come as reminder to us, of the new calendar, new season and renewed celebrations. As the mind lies engulfed by the thoughts of 'Boishakh', as if in silent agreement, unknowingly, the footsteps were walked to the threshold of, 'Melay Jai Re' by 'Feedback'

The Making:

Maqsoodul Haque: Bangla Noboborsho meant a lot for me, when I was very young. At the time, the residence of my family used to be at Narayanganj. Every Pohela boishakh, alongside my family, I travelled to Dhaka for a daylong visit to the Ramna Park. The occasion was celebrated with all of the Chhayanaut family. In those days, Chhayanaut was relatively small and closely knit, and somehow or the other, everyone knew my parents and were connected to them. I am speaking of a time even before the independance, say during the mid or late 60s.

Even in those days, Borsho Boron began at dawn break but the occasion was carried out at a much smaller scale with about 300-400 people. It used to be like a picnic at Ramna, with neither as many people, nor as many cars. A child of my age then, I understood nothing of the songs that greeted Noboborsho, and therefore, spent much of the day playing with other children. Such was our remembrance of Boishakh and had become a regular practice over the years.

As I began maturing, during the days following independance, I realised that Pohela Boishakh had become a serious, conservative ordeal, met with a solemn approach. There were a set of unspoken rules and guidelines, that silently dictated, what were to be followed as, the norms of culture; as for example, dawn till mid-day, must oversee orchestrated performances of Tagore songs, conventional recitations of Nazrul's poems etc. Consequently a boredom materialized within me.

Impositions as such have been witnessed even once before, as citizens of East Pakistan! Even then, it was the rationing of the commoner's freedom of cultural expression. It was a massive issue and only grew bigger, as more people started understanding the communal attitude of the Pakistani administration prior to liberation- placing ideas such as, that Bengalis weren't Muslims and that our culture was influenced by the ideas and rituals of Hinduism! The only body of people, that resisted such notions was that which we know as, Chhayanaut!

Our elders spoke of these matters with grave concern; we overheard their conversations as children but absorbed the depth and gravity of their concerns much later as adults. And so, the seeds of rebellion, the winds of change, the freedom of expression- these were the significant catalysts for everything that subsequently wound into a new way. But as time journeyed on, the successors of the new way, developed into an obsessive cult of culture vultures! Pohela Boishakh- an occasion that once marked every Bengali's pride in his identity and symbolized cultural union through congregations at 'Boishakhi Mela'-s; a time had come that the 14th of April was yet another 'must not deviate from tradition'! Thus, all that I witnessed of Noboborsho were contradictions- proclamations were made of festivity and freedom, but no smiles or laughters on the lips that pronounced!

This repeated repulsive routine was boring the patience out of me and my generation. One Noboborsho, it agitated me so much so, that it involuntarily escaped my mouth, 'Ai chol eikhan theke jai toh! Ramnay ar bhalo lagtese na! Chol melay jai!', I told my friends. And so in mid '87, the matter, as I perceived it, finally formed a proper and organized string of ideas, settling down as words!

With reference to my the then observation, to the common man, the whole essence of Boishakh lies in the 'Mela'- indulging in the utmost of rustic rural flavors of Bengal. The Boishakhi Mela reminds us of our roots- Pohela Boishakh is not merely the first day of a new calendar; it signifies a new season of harvest, new tallies of accounts and thus brings hopes of a new year bearing newer possibilities.

In disapproval and criticism of the manipulation of cultural definitions, such were the thoughts expressed through my lyrics. On the occasion of Noboborsho, people wait for Ramna's boring session- making a display of predefined traditions- to be over and look forward to the festivities afterwards, encompassing Boishakhi Mela-s.

In an effort to draw attention to the visible changes in season, I made references to the flowers 'polash' and 'shimul'. However, at the time, I really didn't know much about flowers and their blooming seasons. And hence, contrary to the facts of botany, the floral bloom was referred to in the song- 'polash' and 'shimul', I later learned, are not blossoms of Boishakh.

My basic idea in crafting the lyrics of the song, was to be able to incorporate four main elements in relation to Noboborsho- the composition and instrumental sounds that harmoniously synchronise and appeal with a recollection of a Boishakhi mood to whoever, listening to the song; vivid and appropriate color references in the lyric to trigger visual memories of Boishakh; nostalgia jogged with references to fragrances and aromas, characteristic of the common attributes and familiar experiences of a Boishakhi Mela; provoking use of words in reference of and recalling the sensations of touch, felt only when in contact with the gifts of Boishakh. Altogether, the four elements making references to the four sensory stimuli, must appeal to the listener, having wholly engulfed him in memories building real experiences and individualized association with Boishakh.

The song also makes very subtle and sarcastic remarks encompassing the hypocrisies of society as a whole and the contradictory practices of people as individuals, such as- celebrating a Bengali festival while adorned in foreign perfumes; the congregation of Bengalis at mela-s is held to symbolize union and comradeship, and yet, the Bengali woman is still subject to harassment by their male counterparts, even on an occasion as such.

I did try to indicate that it is dynamism in culture that we have to look for; we must learn to draw a differentiating line between the former, and tradition. People need to widen their acceptance of change in perspective so that at no point in time, we face something called a 'cultural shock'; after all, what is culture today, might not be so tomorrow.

And all these ideas, thoughts and expressions gradually came together, placing themselves carefully next to each other and 'Melay Jai Re' finally came to life. It's been 20 years; when I look back, I feel no regrets!

A Memory: A very special memory attached to this song is of this woman, who regularly telephoned my residence asking for me. One day, Dio's mother, my late wife Nazreen Haque, informed me of her frequent calls, having mentioned that the lady wanted to speak to me about a special something regarding the song and that Nazreen had asked her to call back the following weekend afternoon. The lady called accordingly and I answered. The special something that she wished to speak of was regarding her 3 year old child! She said, 'Bhaiya, I really admire and respect you. This song is absolutely amazing but there is someone else in my family, who is crazier about it than myself- it's my baby! I can't possibly breast feed him on even a single occasion without the song playing in the background. You actually have to see it to believe it.'
PLAYLIST MAGAZINE, DHAKA, BANGLADESH, JULY 2011

Of Generational Revolt and the Sins in our Eyes, Filth in our Soul

2011-07-29T09:05:00.003+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque - Mac

"No one reads if the headlines don't bleed" – Sharon Chadha

The last weeks have been traumatic for those who have had the time and/or luxury to flip through daily newspapers or watch TV. Rapes, murders, assault, Madrasa children sodomized by Mullahs, and road accidents leading to death of school children. Ganja smoking students out on Shab-e-Berat night lynched by villagers apparently mistaking them for robbers as police stood watching in Gladiator sports like glee…….it goes on.

Female students of the premier Viqarunnissa Noon School are on a hell hath no fury campaign to bring a rapist teacher to justice. While the accused is behind bars, the defiant girls in the process have not been spared. Labeled with hackneyed Awami-BNP-Jamaati political shade they neither understand nor have any interest, the Governments subsequent menacing tactics in positioning the death squad RAB outside schools is the final seal to the coffin. 'Will we be on the cross-fire list?' wonders a sixteen year old on Facebook.

The list of our national woes gets ever longer and knuckles are bare. Is our next punch-up going to be with our children? After all they have legitimate grievances. Their teachers, the guardian angels who we thought were defacto parents in schools have defiled them. Rape is too simplistic and generic a word. What we have in hand is institutionalized INCEST and while the Nation remains mute spectator, the Government and Education Minister complicit in their impunity and arrogance have not come out looking any prettier. The wrath of God hangs heavy on our shoulders. We will be judged for the Sins in our eyes, the filth in our Soul.

The public mood at the moment cannot be gauged as quite characteristically the Bengali race has a unique quality: resilience. That said, the worry really is our psyche and sensibility too have gone wayward and is de-sensitizing us. We are shutting ourselves from reality, compartmentalizing our thoughts. Like it or not, our mentality has taken on the facade that all injustice is condemnable as long as it is not happening to me personally.

Condemn and hold photo-op human chain demonstrations and you have done your job and its over..…wah? Core values that our parents generation held holy and worthy of respect and taught us to emulate, have all been blown to smithereens. The Nation has been bludgeoned into numb disbelief and despair. On surface no one seems to care, so who could be the real beneficiaries in the chaos? Your guesstimate is as guessable as mine!

On Facebook we have an entirely different story and set of rules – i.e. no stories, no rules just stark naked reality! Its worthwhile reading angry status updates on friend's walls and groups, and then the unending Punch and Jody comments that follow sometime in jest, others dead serious. But surely these reactions have more insight than the boring, predictably boxed-in and politicized space of our newspapers, or time in TV or Radio cumulatively.

The caustic hatred is not limited to the Government or political parties. By looks of things it is the status quo per se that is on a trial of the conscience, the accusation spree are unrelenting and unforgiving. On the flip side, for a fossilized, myopic and impotent generation warped by sheer poverty of fresh thoughts and not prepared to believe the unbelievable, from seeing the un-seeable the truth is a hard swallow. Warning - the first shots have been fired; the howitzer salvos are on the way.

Targeted are public, private and tutorial institutions, teachers, policemen, press, Principals and Ministers as also parents, indeed anyone who by pretension or default has decided to be somebody in authority is in bull's eye. Verbal non-lethal brick batting has become the order of the day, yet no one in or out of Government seems to be pushed. Worse, we have already made up our mind that these are things that have happened in the past, lot of noise made and as quickly brushed under the carpet. We couldn't me more wrong.

If Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda Zia or Ershad had genuine Facebook profiles, they would have needed entire Ministries to save themselves from the onslaught! The President himself has been made mincemeat after his pardon of a death-row killer. Ahommok (nincompoop) be a man and free the killers of your wife Ivy Rahman and we will applaud are among the better swear comments used in condemning him and his actions. Referring to the Prime Minister another comment screamed only killers of my father cannot be pardoned. Our diabolical deceit has not gone unnoticed, unmarked or unchallenged. Are we prepared to see or listen?

If we are talking about Democracy and freedom of expression, the onus is on the Media to play the all important role of a catalyst for a mass upsurge. Amplifying voices that are saying important things out there but do not have the space or platform to be heard in the mainstream, the real world as such should be the first order of business. If we are serious about foreseeable changes to our fate on global terms, the only available option out from our dizzy-taal morol-ocracy is to make peace with our young citizenry.

Sadly whenever there are issues with the 'now' generation, insinuations are first made about their age….Shob Polaa Paan, ki bojhey – or 'these underage imbeciles, what do they really understand?' Then there are snide remarks of how scantily they dress, hug or hold hands in public, drug addicts, loose morals and the forever vilest of abuse – Beyadob or Impertinent! It is this bestiality in our mindset, the vulgarities of our thought and vision, the sins of our eyes, the filth in our soul, the incessant domineering and pulverizing of our young's aspirations, which leads to the creations of monsters like Porimol. Who knows how many more are lurking in the shadows ready to pounce?

We are guiltier than those rapists, for we have over generations, never listened to our young, never given a thought to their opinions. Mother of all crimes, we never discuss sexuality with our children because our culture even in this enlightened millennium considers it inappropriate, nongra or filthy? We love our children but do not respect them. They in turn respect us, but do they trust us? Never discussing things of crucial importance because of so-called social stigma or taboo means we not only lie to them, but teach them how to lie. In turn lying has become our national pastime with politicians doing it every time they open their mouth, and we expect change?

We have a 'youth' Ministry that is alien to our youth. We have an Education Ministry who decide policies for educational institutes, without ever seeking student's consent, without taking cognizance of their views that will ultimately affect their lives. In a round about way, while we may pat our own backs and pay glowing tributes to our vibrant Democracy, in our dealing with the young who constitute nearly 60 percent of our population, we are murderous and patently Hitler-istic. A Generational revolt is therefore not only inevitable, I will be more astute and say it has become OBLIGATORY.

And as we merrily sin with our eyes we also have premeditated eyewashes with the Media an overt accomplice. For instance the week long hartal (general strike) holidays had nothing to do with Constitutional amendments or whether or not the words of Allah preceded the preamble to our soiled national doctrine. The assault of a BNP lawmaker half stripped by police outside Parliament was not denounced by the silent citizenry. They understand well that this was a charade to divert attention from the ongoing loot and plunder of our national resource, gas - by corrupt Government officials and the US Company ConocoPhillips.

Not surprisingly on this one, there is a quiet alliance. I am sure the bribe-line pipeline is all encompassing, lining pockets of Ministers to politicians from position and Opposition, from corporatized criminals to street thugs, not to forget NGO's and newspaper Editors. The only voices of reason and patriotism seen and heard were committed left leaning parties and individuals. Yet street protests have met unimagined brutality. An article by Rahnuma Ahmed in New Age on 11th July carried a photo of a female demonstrator being kicked in her groin by a male policeman! No, despite the graphic evidence the policeman has not been arrested. And no, our uncivil Civil Society hasn't made a BIG Noise. Why?

Clearly as far as the establishment is concerned, leftist live in a utopian paradise and best they could do was to make a foreign agent (read spy) with an agenda out of Professor Anu Muhammad. With the Government and the establishment out-and-out bartering their orifices to ConocoPhillips and the US, no one under pain of arrest, torture or even crossfire dare tilt the ante, dare question the usurpation of our national wealth. Therefore if there is one issue that will determine the fate and future of Bangladesh, lead to violent revolt and conflict, it is GAS.

Problem is when they erupt as I am sure it will, our eyes will not only be targeting the Government or establishment, indeed all our known and sworn enemies and many friends will be collateral casualty. A cauldron of a magnitude unimaginable will envelop us. Our restless and agitated young will no longer be on Facebook talking about revolution. A New Year (or years), new days and new Martyrs will be etched into our His-story, Her-story, making it finally OUR STORY. From Surreal, Reel to REAL the Revolution will be LIVE!

New Age Xtra – Print Edition

Friday 29th July 201

Of Turbans and legitimacy of pro-Indian Bangladeshis

2011-07-08T07:44:00.003+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

"Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match" Karl Kraus

No one could quite give me a sure fix on timing of the recent take by Indian Premier Mahmohan Singh and his remarkable xenophobia that at least 25 per cent of the population of Bangladesh swears by the [Jamaat-e-Islami] and they are very anti-Indian, and they are in the clutches, many times, of the ISI. When I say 'timing' what I really want to know is precisely when during the 24 hours cycle we call a day, were the above words uttered?
My intention here is to give Mr.Singh a benefit of the doubt. Was it just past 12 in the afternoon? A time of the day that some very distasteful puns from the past infer, is really not the best for any Sardarji worth his turban? Apparently the heat that builds up inside the Sikh headgear of faith is so intense at mid-day that it makes them err on side of caution. Their sight, hearing and overall mental bearing become a trifle traumatized!

The let down felt by Bangladesh is understandable. The Awami League, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Ministry will have to burn a lot of midnight oil to enforce damage control, especially when the Opposition will chuckle…..ahaa isn't it what we have always said about India, the behemoth, the hegemony? For now it seems all good work done by the pro-India Awami League at appeasing India after it was installed in power by a brute majority - is just not working or just not good enough.

The real fear and fault line is exposed in the second part of Singh's statement. [The] political landscape in Bangladesh can change at any time. We do not know what these terrorist elements, who have a hold on the [Jamaat-e-Islami] elements in Bangladesh, can be up to'. No one from India could placate us as of now, whether the personal fear psychosis of the Indian Premier is likely to turn infectious and cascade down to common Indians in pandemic proportions……..

More salt to wound, the words terrorist elements and in this particular case Islamic, is exactly the sort of thing that the terrorist leaders of the US-led War on Terror would like to hear! One may easily conclude that it is India in its own overheated imagination that is hell bent upon pursuing an enemy with ISI links in Bangladesh territory, when the reality is, they do not exist. Brings us to the question: is Delhi looking at doing a Baghdad on Dhaka?

The Awami League meanwhile has opened up one too many fronts in the domestic political scenario and doing a fantastically bad job of it! To imagine that it will also embrace India's narco-fantasia and take on imagined Hezbollah like armed Islamic elements embedded within 25 percent of our population is a mirage that will lead to collective political hara-kiri. For Jamaat e Islami this must be the glorious moment they were waiting for. Finally no less than the Indian Premier thinks we are a worthy enemy – Subhanallah!

These are ominous signals, because unknown to Mr.Singh the Jamaat e Islami has been successfully defanged not by the Government or any political party worth its name, but by the people of Bangladesh. His statement is therefore seen as an insult to the very same people, who in recent years have withstood religious extremism, confronted and marginalized the bigots.

True the Awami League check list of goodies delivered to India is impressive! It has arrested and handed over North Eastern insurgent leaders, but they were never terrorists as no weapons were ever recovered. Quite simply these were anti-India elements who with their families had sought shelter in Bangladesh territory for fears that they may be killed back home.

Also, not even one of the hundreds of terrorist camps pin-pointed hysterically by Indian Intelligence RAW and bad mouthed by its media were ever discovered! On the flip side many Bangladeshi nationals with criminal records (and they include real terrorist, Mafia dons and murderers) are being harbored across the border as I write. We haven't seen India do us the great honor of a good neighbor by arresting and deporting them back to Bangladesh. Why?

While everything is up for conjecture, as things stand, the clarification on 2nd July, 2011, that the remarks made by Mr.Singh were off the record and not meant to be judgmental, may appear on surface to be one of those things that happens occasionally between neighbors. However on deeper introspection one cannot help overlook the atypical mentality of the Indian ruling class that views Bangladesh with contempt, hostility and unwanted suspicion. These seemingly koochie-koo innocent non-judgmental aspersions are barbs and ones that India will have to pay heavily in the days to come.

The 25 percent population equation is only a continuation of the old run-of-the- mill Indian RAW propaganda, and it is not as if Bangladesh doesn't know why it is happening. Disturbing is the fact that all of the above occurred in a meeting between Mr.Singh and supremos of India's fourth estate which for long has been a centripetal receptor for all open source intelligence, intrusive espionage and propaganda that guides and drives the Republics foreign/defense policy.

Add to that the common knowledge that India's fourth estate is communal, rabidly anti-Bangladesh and that too because of a situational imbalance. The majority of Bangladeshi's are unfortunately Muslims and it matters little whether it is a pro or anti-India Government in power. Therefore it is not at all surprising that Mr.Singh could specifically identify 25 percent of our anti-India population who swear by the Jamaat e Islami, making it legit perhaps in a round about way that they also swear by the Quran? The equations go awry in these changed times.

Calling apples apples and oranges oranges, it is insinuation such as the above that has done the greatest damage to Bangladesh-India relation in the past 40 years. All Mr.Singh has done is to pour fresh combustibles thereby giving communal elements across the border a head-start to trigger a new round of demonization of Bangladesh. This isn't about any miscalculation or a faux pas. This is willful and deliberate.

Drumming up support for its proxy war with Pakistan and imaginary ISI cohorts in Bangladesh territory is in essence India, opening up a new and a most undesirable front. But is it equipped or even capable of handling the onslaught that will surely follow? Press report quoting an aide to the Bangladesh Prime Minister on 4th July 2011 that the Indian premier would communicate with Sheikh Hasina to explain his remarks on Bangladesh, doesn't quite sound like sweet music to anybody's ear either. Bangladesh – not India stands to be the loser and we haven't heard the last word yet.

If we are not to lump in too many issues and look for a common one glove fits all solution, the question of enormous significance: assuming that Mr.Singh's contention that 25 percent of the population is anti-Indian is true, does it imply that the rest 75 percent of the population of Bangladesh are PRO-INDIAN ? Let's take a digressive break.

What is the real percentage of the population of India who are patently pro-Indian? Seventy percent of the country's geographical territory has low to medium intensity guerrilla warfare, insurgencies and national liberation/self determination movements at any given time. From the vast swath of North East India, despite Bangladesh's initiatives in handing over rebel leaders, anti-India elements still rule the roost and the problems are enormous.

Peace remains elusive and there is no end to systematic oppression and genocide in Kashmir. The (Naxalite) Maoist guerrilla movement covering territories from Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal is considered India's largest internal security threat. The participants are up in arms against India – and they also happen to be non-Islamic terrorist movements. Clearly religion is just NOT the sole issue that makes more Indian's than Bangladeshi - ANTI-Indian.

India despite its facade of a regional superpower has more poor per capita living within its territory than any other country in the world. Add to that the misery of the have not's and the unending resistance to Delhi that continue to dog its existence and is a grave drain on its resources and military? With almost 70 percent of his own population, his own people up in armed resistance, Mr.Singh should best concentrate on how to deal with the rats in his own kitchen. There is no reason for him to kill a few chickens just to scare off the monkeys!

And that brings in the concluding take. Do we Bangladeshis per force or through compulsion have to be pro-Indian to survive? I mean isn't it a travesty that as an independent nation state we have to sit back and take such predetermined nonsense from no less than the Prime Minister of India?

Why then did this nation go to war in 1971? Why is it that 40 years later we either have to be pro-Indian, pro-Pakistani, pro-US, pro-this and pro-that and NOT pro-Bangladesh? Something is tragically amiss about our identity.

Was our birth in 1971 a forced abortion or a premeditated and perfected case of illegitimacy?

New Age XTRA Print Version

Friday, 8th July 2011

The Legacy of Azam Khan - Part IV

2011-06-28T06:46:00.005+06:00

Seventeen Years Later: A new beginning not to be

In 1992, Azam Khan summoned me for a fight.

It was to be the reunion after 17 years of the five Khalifahs, the post-Liberation Rock-Pop legends. Ferdous Waheed, Feroze Shai, Fakir Alamgir, Pilu Mumtaz and of course Azam Khan. The timing couldn't be worse as my mother was stricken with paralysis and in death bed. The organizers had no prior experience but they made that up with their enthusiasm. The show was a week later and Azam Khan wanted me to guarantee that I would take charge of everything from Management of venue (Engineers Institute) stage, light and sound.

17 Years Later Circa 1992: LTR: Ferdous Waheed, Late Pilu Mumtaz (d.2011), Fakir Alamgir, Late Azam Khan (d.2011) and Late Feroze Shai (d.1995)

When I met him, he was dead serious and spoke in crisp guerilla leader style diction. 'This is not a request; it is an order so give it all the fight you have got. There should be no let ups, no slips and the show must be a grand success. We have got to re-live those glorious moments 17 years ago when we stood like a rock and rocked'. Then he rose from his chair and dismissed me 'tui geli'(shoo). 'Yes Boss' and it was the only time in my life I stood erect and saluted him in parting. 'Good, very good'- he replied in English.

The organizers of the 1992 concert branded the show 'Shotero Bochor Por' or 'Seventeen years later'. It was meant to re-showcase the post liberation pop-rock legends on one platform for a new generation of fans who hadn't seen them LIVE due to their absence of seventeen years.

By the end of the 80's, rock in Bangladesh made a robust re-entry into our culture. The Bangladesh Musical Bands Association (BAMBA) held the Nations first ever Open Air Concert at the Dhaka University Campus on 16th December in 1990, a milestone that would give rock a much needed shot in the arm.

Bands like Souls, Chime, Obscure, FeedBack and Renaissance filled in the cultural space left vacant in the turmoil's between 1975 -1985. By 1991 MILES had launched its first Bengalee album. Bengalee Rock was back with a bang and audience size had grown manifold, with professionalism of the highest order in display. State of art sound and lighting equipments replaced the entire paradigm of showbiz and the new resurgence gave rock a degree of respect and credibility that continues to this day.

The organizers of the 'Seventeen Years later' Concert seized the opportunity of the changed times and sincerely wished the event to catapult the legends of post-liberation pop-rock to the national stage and sink the petty differences on legacy issues that was ailing the aging rockers.

To that end Ashikuzzaman Tulu the band leader of Chime (and later Ark) was given the responsibility of sourcing the best session musicians in town to have a common line-up for all five of the legends. Rehearsals began in earnest and with less than ten days to show time – it was frenetic. The excitement and fever peaked three days before the show after a press conference and all 1200 tickets for the concert at Engineers Institute were sold out in less than 24 hours!

Azam Khan never showed up for the rehearsals and no one could figure out why? Tulu called to request me so that I should go and find out directly from him what the problem was. When I met up with Azam Khan, he was cheerfully ebullient and looking forward to the show. However he will perform in the Concert with his own line-up, the band Uccharon and not with the professionals the organizers wanted him to.

It became quite clear that he did not want to let down the very young, inexperienced and unheard of musicians in what was going to be a once in a lifetime show for them too. I respected his sentiments and informed the organizers. Azam Khan always had his way with things and this time around, there was to be no exception. He wanted to end the show and everybody readily agreed to slot him as the last act.

The show was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. I reached the venue at 4 p.m. with the audience queuing up outside, the doors were still closed. Once inside, I was in for a huge surprise. There was just one solitary figure in the green room; it was Azam Khan and he had reached the venue by 2:30 p.m. ahead of everybody else!

A huge bear hug to me followed and he said that he had a good look all around the stage as well as from the wings as also checked the equipments– 'nothing can go wrong tonight'. Later from his pocket he pulled out a paper bag of jhaal moori and commanded me – 'now be seated and eat this. After that, have a cold drink and cigarette with me before you get busy again'.

That was his simplistic way of thanking me for my untiring efforts of over 10 days.

Obsession with death

Between sips of Cola, we made uncharacteristically small talks, but he was merely trying to read my mind. My mother was in death bed, suffering from paralysis and an operation did not make things any better. She could die any moment I told him. I was depressed and disturbed. He shocked me back to my senses.

'What if she dies tonight, or within the next hour? Will you leave all of us when we are in the midst of a fight?' I was stunned. Shaking my head I said no. Come what may, I will see the fight, the show right until the end. He was compassionate to my plight, but made me focus on the larger objective of the night.

He tolerated no weakness in spirit and pointed to the shirt he was wearing. His favorite guerilla green fatigue, the one he wore during the entire duration of the war.

'Mentally prepare for the worst' he admonished me, 'even for your mother's death, and make it a habit at all times. You will only come out stronger. No bonding, bindings in life is forever. Fight your weaknesses first before you can even think of fighting the enemy.'

Here was a soldier talking to me, not a rock legend or even an elder brother.

Referring to many of the song in which the subject matter was death, including his first hit 'Hey Allah Rey', as well as 'Hariye gechey khujey pabona', 'Jiboney moron keno ashey', 'Ei gaan e shesh gaan', etc the end emphasis has always been ; birth is an accident but death a reality. Impermanence is the only truth.

He found it below his dignity to use death as a means of gaining sympathy or making a huge issue. 'In 1971 we buried our dearest comrades and just moved on, there was no time to waste as the next fight was not hours but sometime minutes away'.

Back to the show, it was suave and sophistication of the 90's at its peak. The music was re-arranged, light and sound par excellence, even the outfits for the performers were custom designed by the fashion house Catseye. VHS video footage of the night, if they have not been destroyed would be a treasure trove in the history of Bangladesh rock, nearly 20 years to date.

The crowd swelled and was probably around 3000 plus by the time it was Azam Khan's slot. There was commotion at the gates and no seats were available. Getting more people in would be a security and fire risk. Azam Khan summoned me with a request.

'Go and quickly tell the organizers that they have made enough money already. Open all the doors and let the audience in. I will ask them to behave. There is nothing to fear'.

Left with no choice the doors were all opened and the crowd flooded in. Not even an inch of space was left inside the venue. Nearly 500 people were sitting right on the stage itself, with enough circular space in the middle for Azam Khan and Uccharon to perform. All on a sudden Azam Khan jumped in…and electrified the screaming audience.

His bands sound was raw; the inexperienced musicians while getting the chords of the songs right, had badly tuned guitars. It didn't really matter. The sound was rock and took us all back to the 70's. That was more important and it didn't have to be sophisticated as long as Azam Khan was on vocals. Everything else miraculously fell into place. Cacophony notwithstanding, he was in his elements.

When the show ended his fans went wild in celebration. Several encores later I was witness to one of the greatest spectacle in my life. As Azam Khan ended, all the fans on stage gave him a memorable salute. Everybody prostrated in Sijda to the great man himself. There was no way of denying than Azam Khan was much larger than life.

Without anybody even realizing it, his spirituality had peaked to the supreme. For his fans he was no longer a rock-legend. For those who knew and understood the phenomenon, he was indeed, and beyond dispute an Avatar of our times. Time in the near future will speak for the times that Azam Khan walked on planet earth.

'Shotoro Bochor Por' was a massive success but bad vibes between the pop-rock legends of the 70s were totally unexpected and embarrassing. Weeks after the mega event, bickering in press by Fakir Alamgir over some very petty episodes during the show, marred all possibilities of future reunion concert of the greats.

On 16th December 1995 Feroze Shai passed away. Pilu Mumtaz and Azam Khan a month from each other, this year

New Controversies: Did Azam Khan die of poverty or Cancer?

Azam Khan in Singapore

Azam Khan was diagnosed with cancer below his tongue as early as April of 2010. The news at his insistence was kept secret, unfortunately by June of the same year it leaked out and got him embroiled in a most unwanted controversy. Enough has been written and said about the topic over the last year and since his death. Therefore in deference to his dignity and the man that he truly was, the points below are meant for clarity.

First of all, let this go loud and clear that Azam Khan was for all practical purpose middle class, with that is not meant that he rolled in money. Material wealth meant nothing to him and he was a giver, not a taker at any rate. 'Prem' or pure love as he called it was his offer to Bangladesh and millions of his fans. Yet what we have from apologists today is an effort to drive down his legacy, make it appear as if he was helpless and that everybody jumped in at the last moment to bail him out – both his financial miseries, as well as cancer. Nothing is further from the truth.

When cancer was diagnosed, he had enough money to pay for the initial treatment, but when outsiders got to know about it, the first mistakes were made. One group that knew the inside story of his financial hardship (not poverty) was keen on his treatment at the Singapore General Hospital which has a record of treating Ministers, very rich businessmen and politicians even the late husband of our Prime Minister.

The costs were affordable and being no spent-thrift, Azam Khan had enough saved over the years to handle his own affairs without anybody's assistance. The 25% extra cost required could be sourced from his family, who were affluent and would certainly help. Trouble began when a duo of musician and a TV compere insisted on Mount Elizabeth Hospital, among the 5 most expensive hospitals in the world, and one he could ill afford.

However the second group had their way in convincing Azam Khan that it was only Mount Elizabeth that could save his life. His self confidence shattered, in time, he too spoke of treatment in no other hospital. It is for the first time he capitulated to others opinion.

Enough money was raised through private appeals and in less that 48 hours was remitted to Singapore. His operation of nearly 10 hours was a complete success. He was advised 30 temotherapy (modern radiotherapy) courses but his health suffered after 21 and he returned back home.

What followed later was a shift in his priorities. When visiting Doctors from Mount Elizabeth Hospital saw him in Dhaka, they were pleased to see that there were no further cancerous growth and he had healed much better than expectation. They however insisted on his pending chemotherapy course in Singapore and/or Dhaka if money was his concern. The simple man he was, he misread the warning and went around informing everybody that the Doctors have given him a clean bill of health!

His second trip to Singapore with none other than his only son Hridoi for company would prove traumatic. The first of four recommended aggressive chemotherapy caused immense sufferings to him and his body could no longer take any more. He literally fled from hospital and upon his return home, insisted that neither money nor treatments could save him. He had resigned himself to fate

By January of this year pain in his body grew intense. A local check-up revealed two sores, one on his right shoulder and the other near his backbone. The cancer had metastasized and spread to his bones. There was to be no answers, and time was no longer on his side.

The rapidity of the cancer spreading further debilitated him and by the time he was admitted to Square Hospital on 22nd May, he had suffered a cardiac arrest. In no time he was on life support and the cancer reached his lung. Given the very frail condition of his health, his cancer could no longer be treated. Everything moved in quick succession and after being shifted to the Combined Military Hospital, the end came on Sunday the 5th June 2011.

Honor to the Honorary: His death and the last FIGHT

When I reached the graveyard for Intellectuals and Freedom Fighters in Mirpur on Monday the 6th June, the huge crowd and screams did not make it look like a burial but the boisterous concerts that Azam Khan was legendary for. I could not immediately understand the issue at hand and the slogan 'Azam Khan VIP' rang the air.

It turned out, while the Government had given him a Police Guard of Honor for a national hero earlier at his Kamlapur residence and assigned his internment in Mirpur, his grave was allocated for those with common people, where new graves would follow on top of his in three months. There would be no permanent tombstone of the legendary freedom fighter and rock legend!

He was not to be buried next to the rest of his comrades and other valiant freedom fighters over a technicality. Azam Khan had officially never received a gallantry award for his participation in the Liberation War. He could therefore not be buried next to Bir Shrestha's and Bir Uttam's?

Defiance by his fans over the injustice grew louder by the minute and all hell was breaking loose. Police on duty were powerless. In shock, I put my head down in shame. The only thought and words in my ears were Azam Khan's – FIGHT, FIGHT!

In about 90 minutes words came from the Mukti Jodda Command Council. Capitulating to wishes of the masses, the Government has assigned him a place with the rest of his comrades. Cheers went up. Azam Khan has won his last FIGHT.

As I conclude, it is with deep respect I remember my hero, with a life spent fighting for the oppressed and the many tragedies that he endured, with just a few of which I have penned. His fight was for the right to free expression and that heralded great changes in the socio-political cultural landscape of Bangladesh.

If there is any befitting honor we as a nation can pay Azam Khan is to guarantee that his immortal works are preserved as national treasure and that his children are not denied, what has been pilfered from him in life even as he lay dying? Money alone cannot ensure the continuation of his legacy. It is only when his due is guaranteed and steps taken to right all wrongs will the soul of Azam Khan ever be at peace.

Bangladesh is still a long way away from achieving emancipation for its have not's. The lessons learnt from Azam Khan must be passed on. The FIGHT must go on.

That is his enduring legacy.

Concluded

New Age Op-Ed

28th June 2011

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The Legacy of Azam Khan – Part III

2011-06-27T09:23:00.002+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

A Big-Brother for life

It was winter of 1976 and I had made plans to hang out with my friend Popsy the-then drummer for FeedBack. He called me in the afternoon to postpone our plans as there was an out of town concert. He was playing back-up for Azam Khan and knowing of my obsession for the man, asked if I was interested to come over to see the rehearsal instead? How could I ever refuse this God sent opportunity! I begged Popsy to introduce me to the great man. 'That's no big deal Mac; Azam bhai has no star pretensions. He is very simple, straightforward and down to earth. Don't worry about a thing – just come right over' – Popsy retorted before hanging up.

By the time I reached the practice pad at 181 Bara Maghbazar at Foad Nasser Babu's place, the sound of music told me the rehearsals were already under way. Carefully opening the half shut door at the entrance I tip-toed in and sat on the floor. I felt my eyes getting moist with pent up emotions. Whoaaaaaa…..finally face-to-face with Azam Khan? I pinched myself for a reassurance that I wasn't dreaming!

In the room was Popsy on drums and other members of FeedBack. Murad Rahman on Bass, Dr.Zakiur Rahman on Rhythm guitars (he was my predecessors as lead vocals for FeedBack) and Foad Nasser Babu who had by then switched to Keyboards. Ishtiaque from the old Uccharon I was told would meet up with the band directly at venue of the show to play Lead Guitar. I sat back and watched the maestro at work. It was a spell binding experience and an education as how to be a pro-active band leader.

Despite fact that there wasn't any PA system to support his voice clashing with all the electronics, he was in control. Asking the band to tone down and reduce volume, he quickly went through the ten song repertoire and I was amazed at his professionalism. His eye contact and hand signals were a class in itself. He didn't tire himself or the band by going through the songs over and over again; instead focused on the areas where there were confusions or if things needed further polishing. He insisted that by playing very loud nothing could be perfected and noise would mar their hard efforts. 'Rock is not noise; it's a circularity of punches. Make sure you get to hear the punch you deliver' were his polite words to the band, and one I would take heed for the rest of my life.

In about an hour the rehearsals were over. Popsy and Murad introduced me to him saying I was an English language vocalist. He cursorily wanted to know the songs I was covering and the name of the bands. I babbled off a long list and he in turn gave me an amused look! 'That's a lot of songs, but how about Bengalee?' Nah - I shook my head. 'Do give it a shot, after all it is your mother language' he said in the passing. After a few short words by way of briefing abut the timing and venue of the show to the band, he ambled out, took a rickshaw and was gone. His simplicity and humility were worth taking lessons. I was on a learning kerb.

Rock on the retreat

By 1977 several military coups and counter coups later, General Ziaur Rahman was in power. A former Sector Commander in the Liberation War, his men were out on the streets in aggravated moral policing. Long hair was banned and those foolish enough to sport them without knowing, (including the author of this piece) had to face humiliation of locks being sheared off in public. Azam Khan's concerts and public appearances declined. By the end of 1976 his new band the second generation Uccharon on whom he pinned so much of hope, folded up.

Guitarist Noyon Munshi would leave for Canada the same year never to return. He died in a car crash in 1981. Windy Sides of Care broke up in 1976 as well with its prolific drummer Idu leaving for the US. Its Bassist Musa Rahman tried to reform the band but never succeeded. Foad Nasser Babu and Murad Rahman moved ahead and formed FeedBack to fill the gap caused by Windy Sides of Care's departure. They were soon to become the resident band at the Chambeeli Room in Hotel Intercontinental.

With all that happening, Bengalee rock all but evaporated by the year 1978.

Survival meant to be able to perform LIVE or have a regular presence in the BTV. Azam Khan's notoriety as a 'couldn't give a damn' rocker led to his growing unpopularity with the Military dictatorship. Both avenues of expression were barred. Police permissions would not be granted for his LIVE performance added to that the sycophancy, co-opting and active collaboration with the Government of the day by his contemporaries in the Music scene, led to vulgarities and dirty politics.

Azam Khan would have none of that and although he was broke, money and fame for him was secondary, the mission more important. But victory was to prove elusive so he went on a tactical retreat, became a recluse and sulked. Although he said he was 'resting but not retired' the tragedy was true to rock traditions; he had embarked upon a self-destruct trajectory. Fond of good Whiskey, the dark times led him to hit the bottle a trifle more than he usually did. A rumor circulated about him turning alcoholic – and this time around there was some truth.

Quite understandably a financially strapped Azam Khan would not refuse any shows that came his way. He never held a job or a second profession. Music was his bread and butter – so the young guitarist Rocket, would play an important role at the time to source musicians for him and schedule rehearsals.

Incidentally for as long as he lived, he had no dearth of talented musicians all eager and waiting in the wings to back him. Even with all that reassurance, concert organizers, music distributors and several so-called 'stars' masquerading as well wishers cheated him. He knew exactly what was going on behind his back; but never complained publicly. He accepted it as his fate.

A depressed, angry and vulnerable Azam Khan would sometimes appear on stage tired and totally inebriated and in no shape to perform. His musicians started filling and would sing his song when exhaustion overcame him on stage. A delusional 'Guru worshiping' cult emerged around the time and made things worse.

These were cronies and hanger-on's overcome by the aura of Azam Khan but had no idea either about his music or his contribution in the Liberation War. Sadly they were a bunch of hooligans whose aim was to create chaos in the few and in-between Concerts he was invited to perform. They demanded free entrance and provoked violent incidents in Concerts. Further compromising and eroding his popularity, credibility and thereby reputation were most of these elements would light up Marijuana joints openly in his concerts. The Military in power was not amused.

To many it would seem that Azam Khan had created new enemies and he was powerless in correcting the situation. As far as the establishment was concerted – he was trouble. Good fortune continued to elude him despite his best intentions.

Concerts by Azam Khan were few and in-between and held in district towns whenever opportunities availed, but only under strict surveillance of Intelligence agencies. To make things easier in getting permissions, organizers would invite heads of District Administrations to 'grace the occasion' as Chief Guest! It was in Noakhali that one such Chief Guest; the Deputy Commissioner put a stop to his show and ordered the curtain pulled. In desperation Azam Khan jumped up and held on to the moving curtain – Tarzan style – and with his shrill plea of 'No, no please no' he was ejected off stage.

In 1982 General Hossain Muhammad Ershad seized power and rock was set for further destruct, degeneration and decline. He continued with the policy of his predecessor General Zia by pampering a handful of corrupt artists from the post-war generation of celebrities. Handing out largesse in form of money grants to create 'Music Academies' to taking them along on foreign jaunts – as well as offering them jobs in the Government was in vogue. Azam Khan while offered similar dole and jobs, chose not to sell his soul or betray the trust reposed on him by the people. BTV became a hallmark for all kind of crass music and Azam Khan slipped into near total oblivion.

With all of that happening around him – a see-saw with his health started. Concerned, I went to see him many times during the period, but other than complaints of fever or cold, he usually brushed aside all of that as rumors. He was brave enough never to admit what was ailing him, instead with his great sense of humor drew anecdotes of his daily trials and tribulations. I sensed correctly that more than ill-health he was depressed.

In between 1987 to 1990 a few albums were released, but one could make out that the great Azam Khan Touch was amiss. He was merely singing other peoples song and had no control over music direction. Financial difficulties meant he wouldn't refuse any offer that came either from TV or music distributors. There was nothing new on offer from Azam Khan and his popularity waned.

My indoctrination to Bengalee Rock

Although I joined FeedBack in winter of 1976, I wasn't present in the bands 1985 debut and self titled album 'FeedBack – Volume I'. Azam Khan thought it was due to a misunderstanding within the band and so sometimes in 1986 he asked me over and wanted to know why I wasn't doing anything in Bengalee. Typically I said that I find the language 'khyat and Bengalee music not my cup of tea' and he flew into his legendary and notoriously fearful rage. Before I knew it bam,bam,bam he had slapped me resoundingly and squarely across the face!

'You snobbish imbecile' – he roared to my red hot ears, 'if you think singing in front of few rich and drunk people at a hotel makes you a musician – boy you are dead wrong, you are only a musical prostitute'.

Rubbing salt to wound, no greater shame overwhelmed me more in life, because what he said next was prophetic, 'if educated guys like you with so many years of musical experience can rock in Bengalee, the Liberation War I fought for would lead us on to real Independence, the independence from narrowness of our vision, of our mentalities, and there is not much more time that can be wasted – now you got that?'

He was always affectionate, but on this occasion was stern and meant business, and I recall softly asking him to pray for me. A big brother hug followed and 'chesta kor chesta kor, Allah bhorsha' (keep trying, may God be with you) later – I drove home that rainy evening deep in thoughts. I had no way of knowing that my life was about to take a 360 degree turn.

A year later in 1987 when Ullash by FeedBack was released I contributed six songs in the album. The first thing I did was go over to Azam Khan, hand him over the cassette tape, and with his pleading 'shon, shon, tham, tham' (stop, stop, listen, listen) make a run for it!

A few days later I received a phone call. It was Azam Khan, and he mockingly complimented me – 'ki rey Englishman, shesh mesh Bangla gaan tui gaili?' (Hey Englishman, so at long last you are singing in Bengalee?). I broke down into uncontrolled sobs……… and it is the only time in my life I recall talking to Azam Khan on the phone. Among his many eccentricities his allergy for the device was legendary!

Although my association with Azam Khan was since 1976, we rarely met unless it was for very urgent issues. If the occasion required, he had his way of summoning me to his house through Tinku or Ejaz who would remain his trusted lieutenants till the end.

Other than that we would meet at various concerts, social occasions and/or award ceremonies. However I have always felt a deep reverential bonding towards him. He was not only a rock icon, he was also a well meaning elder brother not only me to me, but many of us in the rock fraternity. He did keep a track of what I was up to and would send in his advice or admonishments as the case would be.

He never made small talks and usually after giving me a patient listening, and with a lot of respect for my political views his last words would be 'fight ta chalaiyya jaitey hoibo – we have got to keep the fight going. Later it would be just one word whenever we parted company, fist clenched – FIGHT!

To be continued...............

New Age Op:Ed

27th June 2011

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The Legacy of Azam Khan – Part II

2011-06-26T17:35:00.002+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

The Making of an Icon

By mid-1973 words spread like wildfire in the youthful underground about the emergence of Azam Khan and how he has taken on the establishment of the day. As has been the case with many legends, the messages were mixed and some in mythical proportions. Most of it was disapproval and personal attacks on his lifestyle statement; unkempt long hair and beard, the symbols of revolt and defiance to parental authority. Others were guarded whispers that grew louder and scarier. The two words that our parents feared the most – 'drug addict' would haunt and malign Azam Khan quite unnecessarily.

Over all the words were about his mesmerizing presence on stage and the spirituality attached with his first big hit, 'Hey Allah Hey Allah Rey'. While he tackled the demons within him, he took pain to spread the word of Love and Peace as well as a firm belief in one God. In 'Char Kolema Shakkhi Debey Hazrat er Ummot' he was shedding off hate in his heart that the nine months long war had accumulated as a debilitating residue. He was expiating. He exposed the cult of fake Fakirs and frailties of fake lovers, in his song 'High Court er Mazar' and the refrain 'ei je duniyai - manush chara kichui nai' (nothing greater on earth than Man) - reaffirmed his spiritual connection to the ancient Bauls of Bangladesh.

Azam Khan's secretive nature notwithstanding, his covert connections to the Maizbhandari Sufi order of Chittagong could never be confirmed. It is possible that he did have an informal orientation. His closest friend at the time was Feroz Shai and in many concerts they jointly performed the scintillating hymn 'Gausal Azam baba Noor e Alam, tumi Ismey Azam baba, taran e wala'. Azam Khan confirmed to me that it was he that added the word 'Shai' (the wise one) to A.K.M Feroz Alam's name. Feroze Shai would go on to propagate the Maizbhandari lip-to-ear school of Sufi thoughts in his first hit 'Gausal Azam Maizbhandari school khuilyacchey'.

Despite all the positive razzmatazz and deeply absorbing spirituality discourses of the day, there was no denying the Marijuana (THC Delta 2, cannabis, Ganja, Shiddhi, weed etc) epidemic overpowering the Nation that led to endless and senseless debates and controversies. It was also a double edged debate. Marijuana was officially a 'Government approved controlled substance', freely available and no one could be criminalized for either its possession or use!

Reminiscing the times, I wrote an academic piece "Substance Abuse Marijuana: When Honesty is the only crime" in the weekly HOLIDAY (a sister publication of New Age) in July, 2001:

"All grade of narcotics from Marijuana, Alcohol to Heroin had imbibed the fighting spirit in mans history, and to deny that, would be denying history. Fifteen hundred years ago before prohibitions on Alcohol came in the Quran, the earliest participants in Islamic wars such as Badr, fought infidels and embraced martyrdom, high on Alcohol.

Marijuana was inducted to our young in the historic 1971, because it was also for the first time that large number of city-bred young left the confines and security of their homes for rural village communities. They lived, trained and fought for independence in villages where Marijuana was to a large degree socially acceptable. Its contribution to our Liberation War therefore must be acknowledged, because I personally know of at least a dozen past Mukti Bahini guerrillas who went into battle 'stoned out of their mind' to beat back fear and pain.

Our drug epidemic started from a generational divide, the lack of understanding and empathy, as also abject illiteracy of our pretentious literate, and its failure to address a growing social and emotional crisis that was affecting the young. The trauma of the War of Liberation in 1971 and the return of our war weary young men and women back home saw the induction of Marijuana - a natural drug, into our society at large.

To this day in the US; Korean and Vietnam War veterans regularly seek and receive psychological counseling. Conversely there were many cases of suicide among our glorious fighters who were unable to do anything to counter flashbacks of their bitter experiences in war. Yet none of our guerilla warriors were ever provided any counseling for the immense mental trauma and agony that this devastating war entailed on their psyche. Marijuana was for them the only escape to heal, or so they thought.

Therefore when the rock icon and former Mukti Bahini guerilla commander Azam Khan sang, his epic song 'Frustration' in 1973-74: 'jaala jaala jaala shudhu monay ree, jaala jaala jaala shudhu pranayree' (Burn, burn, burn my mind burns, burn, burn, burn, my Soul burns) we exactly knew what was on fire and what was 'burning'.

Not acknowledged then; Azam Khan was indeed rendering a unique social service through music. He was sending desperate signals of the young that were pleading for help. The establishment of the day or our parents in general, retorted that what has been set into motion by the 'notorious rocker' is only an effort to make a 'great fashion' out of frustration. Azam Khan's known Marijuana abuse did not help the situation."

It was summer of 1973 while preparing for my Matriculation exam that I first went to see Azam Khan LIVE in a Concert. Most musicians backing Azam Khan were members of the famed Windy Sides of Care. They were the best in the business in those days, and played heady live cover versions from Santana to Deep Purple and even Chick Corea at the Chambeeli Room, a 100 seater chic restaurant and dining facility with a band stand, at the then Hotel Intercontinental, later Dhaka Sheraton and now Hotel Ruposhi Bangla.

The musicians were – Idu on Drums, Ishtiaque on Lead guitar and my friend the late Larry Barnaby on Bass, Nilu on Rhythm Guitar, Gabriel on the Keyboards and the unforgettable Babu on Tambourine and vocal harmonies. If anybody knew anything about rock in Bangladesh back then, it was them and with Azam Khan they blended perfectly, creating an entirely new genre. Bengalee Rock as a LIVE phenomenon had arrived.

I wrote in "Transitions: Notes from Dhaka's Historical Underground" in New Age in 2005:

"In independent Bangladesh the global concept of freedom couldn't have had a better time. Marijuana smoke hung like a 'thick cloud' from the floor to the roof of the Engineers Institute auditorium in 1973. With audience chanting 'Gausal Azam hoo hah' in the psychedelic haze, on stage would appear a Christ like figure, bearded and hair flowing past his shoulder. He was a former Mukti Bahini guerrilla Commander. His name; Azam Khan, and he proceeded to blow our minds with music from his band Uccharon and shape our fearless attitude much to the consternation of our parents."

From Audio to Video

What followed next was a two single 33 rpm record. 'Orey Saleka, Orey Maleka, Orey Ful Banu parli na bachatey' and 'High Court er Mazarey' went on to establish Azam Khan as a household name. His Concerts nationwide were packed to capacity and often tethering dangerously at the seams. His fan following was wild and enthusiastic and it wasn't uncommon for fights to break out as they attempted to gain entry into Cinema halls and auditoriums to see the legend. Worse was to follow.

A gunfight outside the Jonaki Cinema Hall in Dhaka while his concert was ongoing led to one death and several injuries. The Police Force in those days were ill equipped and in no way trained to deal with music fans. Bad press further eroded Azam Khan's reputation but indomitable Bengalee Rock nonetheless moved on to newer heights.

It was sometimes in 1974 that Professor Abdullah Abu Sayeed a charismatic teacher of Dhaka College would host a show for entertainment starved Bangladesh in the only TV station available then. The state run BTV was conservative and feudal to a fault. So it was a welcome surprise and filled us with great pride when an announcement was made that the show next week would feature Azam Khan and his band Uccharon!

We waited with bated breath in front of our Black and White TV screens. When Azam Khan came on, he was at his elements. Head banging in raptures he opened with 'Orey Saleka, Orey maleka' followed by (my all time favorite) 'Ashi ashi boley tumi ar eley na'. As he came in for the last of his three song set, he made an elliptic announcement. 'This is a brand new song dedicated to the dead or dying' – WHAT? We were zapped and electrified with what came next.

The heart rendering cry in his voice and refrain - 'Rail line er oi bostitey jonmechilo ekti cheley, maa tar kandey, cheleyti morey gachey, hai re hai Bangladesh' – made our blood curdle. The song 'Bangladesh' was a monster hit and went right through the roof. But that was not all. The Government of the day had underestimated Azam Khan's fan following. Millions were tuned in to watch the performance.

As BTV didn't have VTR (Video Tape Recording) facilities, it meant programs were uncensored, real-time LIVE! By evening of the next day the song was on everybody's lip and even our parents and elders were moved by the fact that somebody focused attention to the sad events surrounding our lives. It was an epochal man-made disaster and one Azam Khan had predicted would be erased from our history, the great famine of 1974 in which an estimated 1.5 million people died of hunger. His song would relive and commemorate that period of infamy; and the only song to date about the famine.

The poignant lyrics for 'Bangladesh' was written in the backdrop of Azam Khan's being eye witness to hundreds upon thousands of starving people arriving in Kamlapur Railway Station from all over the country and then dying. He lived a walking distance from the station and the helplessness of it all paralyzed him. He gave away all the money he earned from music to the destitute, but the underlying tragedy of the 1974 famine was; money could no longer save lives. The Taka because of devaluation was a worthless currency.

The poor, dispossessed, marginalized and distressed would ONLY beg for food and all hell broke loose. The unending cry for food and little children and elderly dropping dead was happening in unison. It was maddening and the sight of a mother wailing over the body of her toddler, a common phenomenon in those times, moved and overwhelmed the sensitive Azam Khan.

Compounding to his woes, the song led to an unofficial ban being served on his performances by the Government run BTV. His strained relationship with the Late Sheikh Kamal (a freedom fighter and eldest son of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman), were to be severed forever. Further Marijuana abuse and his distraught condition made a nervous breakdown inevitable. He was interned for weeks at the Holy Family Hospital.

Regaining his health took a long time and in the subsequent days of 1974 until 1975 would see Azam Khan in dire straits. He had lost his back-up band during the time he was interned and political and societal pressures were intense. Alienation and rejection was complete. There were no concerts and a rumor circulating much to our dismay was he was suffering from oral cancer. It proved not to be true as a few months after the assassination of Bangabandhu on 15th August 1975; Azam Khan took upon a new challenge.

He gave a press statement about reforming Uccharon and that was not all, he was looking for and has found fresh young musicians; but NOT from his own generation. It wasn't an easy decision. His back-up band and musicians from Windy Sides of Care were thought by many to be irreplaceable. Most had earlier either by choice or compulsion joined the Sheikh Kamal backed and inspired band Spondon.

Others moved to regular employment in performances that the Hotel Intercontinental offered. Studios hired many as session musicians. Ego conflicts, jealously and petty disputes led to some of his closest musical allies abandoning him. In a round about way, money, interference and political machinations managed to split Bengalee rock right through the middle.

Although dejected, Azam Khan was undaunted. He threw in his lot with an emerging new generation of rockers and was confident about their talent and abilities. Through the legendary rock-guitarist the late Noyon Munshi he sent words to the house band playing cover music at Dimple Restaurant (near where Arong is located in Mohammadpur today) about his plans.

Foad Nasser Babu on Bass and Pearo Khan on Drums (now in FeedBack), together with Dulal on Rhythm guitar readily agreed. It was an umpteenth honor to play with an icon and they pulled their lot behind Azam Khan. He didn't want any keyboard player so that's how things were. Three guitars, drums and vocals were good enough to kick up a storm. Rehearsals started quietly by the October of 1975. Given the political crisis and wind of change sweeping the country, Azam Khan readied himself for a new role, that of a modern day minstrel of rock.

By early 1976 he was back with a bang and once again stole the limelight in a five song special for BTV. This was a clear signal that his bruising psychological duel with the establishment was all but over. They had to capitulate given the sheer enormity of his fan following and the power and appeal of the extra-ordinary new songs that he had recorded at Ipsha Studios with his new line-up.

When he came on screen, we were however in for a rude shock. He had cropped his long hair short and his clean shaven look made him unrecognizable! No, he wasn't cut out at all to be a rock and roll renegade so what we were seeing was only visual noise and one we had to get used to. The 'new look' incidentally stayed with him till he died.

Markedly different were the new songs: 'Alal o Dulal, 'Je meye chokhey dekhe na', 'Prem chiro din durey durey ek hoye thak na', and the only semi-classical experiment in his career, 'Amar bodhua ki gaitey janey gaan'. The revolutionary rock hero had simmered down considerably. None of the anti-establishment rhetoric's or spirituality in his early music was noticeable any more, but it wasn't the case that he discarded his earlier songs altogether. The new line-up made further improvisations on the old songs which led to larger outreach to his fan base.

Over all he concentrated on melody and what we were in for was a huge dosage of unrequited love songs that would firmly place his music amongst the greatest Bengalee romantic songs of our times. A new era for Azam Khan and music in general had dawned.

It would be short lived.

To be continued.................

New Age Op-Ed

26th June 2011

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The Legacy of Azam Khan – Part I

2011-06-25T01:29:00.003+06:00

Dear All,
New Age is serializing a slightly abridged version of my 4 part essay on Azam Khan beginning today - Saturday the 25th July until Tuesday the 28th July.

This is all about my impression of a man who charted the course of our history as well as Rock. I hope all of you will find it interesting and informative.
Regards
Mac

The Legacy of Azam Khan – Part I
Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

Baptism in Fire: From Guerrilla to Rock Hero

It was a rain drenched night in June, 1971. A three man squad of fierce Mukti Bahini guerrillas has been crawling head down for well over an hour. A well fortified Pakistan Army forward bunker in Saldah, Comilla, is their target. Earlier they had walked nonstop from their secret camp within liberated Bangladesh for 4 hours. Exhaustion, blood sucking leeches, mosquitoes, insects, and slimy mud covering their bodies, made progress slow and tortuous. Pain numbed their senses and snakes were everywhere.

Worse, the only homing element to target the enemy was beacons coming off several Petromax lamps (hejag batti in Bengalee) visible only as a blur in the distance. The orders from the Sector Commander were precise. Crawl till the enemy is sighted and in line of fire before executing the ambush. Optical illusions made figuring distances exacting. The element of surprise could not be betrayed. This was to be the young warrior's baptism in fire.

Yet it was the guerrillas who were in for a bigger surprise, almost to points of bewilderment. Before they could figure out and gather their bearings, they realized that they were less than half a meter away from target! From their vantage point, on the top of the bunker and about three meters below, they saw the dreaded enemy. Six burly Pakistani soldiers huddled together for dinner under a tarpaulin cover.

The rain was bearing down hard - and no, there wasn't any sentry on duty. The guerrilla's, heart thudding with excitement waited. They had to be doubly sure. Those were early days of the war, and weapons were few. The leader, a Section Commander of this special ops squad clutched a vintage World War II 9 mm Sten gun with an extra magazine of bullets. The others had a pistol and 4 grenades between them. In awe they eyed the enemy's assortment of weapons.

They soon realized this was no ordinary bunker. It was a heavy machine gun nest! They had to go for a precision kill, so the leader signaled his comrades to lie perfectly still until he opens fire. Rising stealthily from crawl to a crouch and then standing upright he readied his weapon. The enemy had only to look up and they would have seen him, but they were in midst of a happy pre-meal chit chat.

Wafting in the air was the aroma of beef, rice, lentils and generous amounts of salad and vegetables. The guerrillas felt a stomach cramp. They hadn't eaten proper food in months since the war began. They were hungry and it was distracting. With seconds to go, the leader was overcome by sense of remorse and pity. It was after all going to be the last meal for the Pakistani soldiers, so he let the enemy gulp a few morsels of food. The other members of the squad were getting anxious by the seconds because of the delay.

The leader steeled himself for the kill and with his great sense of wry humor, thought quickly; 'How about singing them a song, in a language the enemy understands before they die, a befitting goodbye'? He chose a 60's Hindi film song popular in East Pakistan and India.

And so it was with his shrill voice and the song - 'eisa mouka phir kaha mileyga' (when will I ever get a chance like this again) a staccato of rat,tat,tat,tat,tat …….Sten gun fire pierced the silence of the night. The first magazine was emptied. The enemy had no chance and as they lay moaning, the second magazine of 28 bullets was swiftly brush-fired in a final coup de grace.

The operation was over in less then five minutes. Before they retreated to base, the final count was six Pakistani soldiers shot dead, several weapons captured and the bunker blown up.

The 21 year old guerrilla leader and a Section Commander of Sector 2, on the secret mission was none other than Azam Khan a.k.a. Mahbubul Haque Khan who passed away in Dhaka on Sunday the 5th June 2011 aged 61.

Successive Governments post-1971 made a sordid mess of our history. Each new version had to be colored to accommodate requisite post-Independence political expediencies. Although Azam Khan participated in no less than 30 frontal fights and innumerable hit-and-run operations during the war, not much is known or documented about his valor and heroism during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation.

It is thought that his pre-war leftist orientation was the reason why he never received a gallantry award. After the war, barring a handful, he maintained a discreet distance from the rest of his former comrades. Whenever he spoke of the Liberation war his words were limited only to details of how he left home and his return. At most he would describe his training in Melaghar, Agartala. That was all.

It therefore took me years of persuasion for him to come up with the first person account above. Sadly it's the only one he ever divulged to me and that too because of my insatiable curiosity. There were other reasons why he chose to maintain his stoic silence.

He explained to me in 1992: while the Mukti Bahini was a guerilla force it nonetheless fought under a formal and structured military chain of command divided into sectors, sub-sectors and sections. True, they were a rag-tag group of irregulars and volunteers; however the call of war meant the participants had to undertake an oath of secrecy. They were soldiers for the Nation. It was an oath he chose not to renege upon for as long as he could.

During my intense probing on the subject, there were times he would give me an anguished look and much to my frustration, slip back into deafening silence.

Since official war citations were rarely if ever recorded, he loathed the emerging hero worshipping cult of 'Bir Mukti Joddhas' (heroic freedom fighters). He found it shocking and reprehensible that some of his former comrades were game to megalomania. Many were going about dishing stories of their exploits in the War, with some exaggerating way out of proportions in breach of the oath of secrecy.

In 1992 in sheer despair he told me:

'When your mother and sisters are raped in front of your eyes, your father and brothers mercilessly tortured and killed; you do what you have to do. Fighting for the motherland is no obligation – it's a duty. In fighting the war, I did no 'favor' to my Nation – neither do I expect any favors for what I did in return'

Bangladesh – Post 1971: Emergence of the Rock Hero

To understand Azam Khan and his music one has got to look at the way the World was shaped in 1971 and the tumultuous events that followed in the years thereafter. It was nearing times for the Vietnam War of 21 bloody years to come to an eventual conclusion (1975). In the US, a new movement evolved to address the consciousness of the young. Disparagingly they were termed 'hippies' – in other words social outcasts, riff raffs, good for nothings.

War and senseless brutalities was no longer fashionable. When millions thronged The Woodstock Concert - 3 Days of Peace and Music in 1969 – all our rock heroes from Santana, Rolling Stones, Sly & The Family Stones, The Who, Crosby Still Nash & Young (CSNY), Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), Jimi Hendrix, even Ravi Shankar participated. With screams of FREEDOM, the mass assembly was a peace missive fired by citizens of America, aimed at the Soul and Conscience of all Mankind. The White House turned a deaf ear to it all. Music meant nothing – or so it thought.

Never officially acknowledged by the Bangladesh Government were efforts by likes of Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan and George Harrison in 1971 to garner support for our Liberation War and the plight of millions of refugees then in India. On 1st of August 1971 over 40,000 people thronged Madison Square Garden in New York and George Harrison's epic rock rallying anthem 'Bangladesh' would instantly propel him to the center stage of world history. The triple album on the concert went gold in days after its release.

It was a 'worlds first'. A concert to raise awareness is tough call when the issue is political. Holding the concert in US soil with its Government opposed and hostile to the just cause of our people was an even more daunting challenge. In today's context it would be equal to rock musicians raising funds in a 'Concert for the Talibans in Afghanistan' – in Los Angeles!

Had there been no Concert for Bangladesh, the war mongers in Washington would surely have intervened to assist the Pakistan Army in days ahead of our liberation. Victory for us just didn't mean the surrender of the Pakistan Army in Dhaka on the 16th December 1971, a flag and a map. Largely erased from our history and public memory is the humiliating withdrawal of the US Navy's 7th Fleet armada stationed in the Bay of Bengal.

The Concert for Bangladesh changed music globally. World Music became what it is really meant to be – bullets hitting the Soul of conscious people and thereby forcing changes in lifestyle and attitude among the masses, as also policies of Governments.

Cultural Renaissance: A generations fight for freedom of expression

It was precisely the time for the US, Europe and rest of the West, to lap up Indian Classical Music which has gone on to establish its firm grip thereafter. Ravi Shankar, Ustad Alauddin Khan, and Allah Rakkha popularized the Sitar, Sarod and Tabla. Similarly, Indian Guru's and Sufi preachers were the rage and gave comfort and counseling to those in spiritual ill health in the troubled times.

Azam Khan had an earlier fascination for The Beatles and George Harrison in particular. It was only natural for him as a freedom fighter to acknowledge wholeheartedly his (Harrison's) huge contribution to our cause as also, his pure spirituality.

Rock until the late sixties was unheard of in our part of the world in its native language. 1971 is significant. We had entered a truly happening global cross-cultural exchange phase in the history of the world. The fall-out in Bangladesh was marked in the persona of Azam Khan. Guitar, drums and keyboards made its bold entry into our cultural domain.

Accusations of cultural revisionism were in the air. Our elders and the teeming middle class in general, not familiar with the emerging new soundscape gave it a sinister label 'Oposhongskriti' or counter-culture. The parochial and stagnant notion of mainstream Bengalee culture from our grandparent's times was set to be literally brutalized into much needed reforms. This was going to be no win-win situation for rockers, therefore politicized and abusive culture vultures were deployed by the establishment to confront the disquiet.

However the shape, definition and course of culture would change for the better in the years to come, and something our puritanical patronizing cultural cognisanti could ever imagine - not even in their wildest dreams. Never in history did Bengal ever have a renaissance of such a magnitude.

It is therefore absurd to even suggest that anybody other than Azam Khan could have risen up to the occasion and taken on Rock's mantle on his lean shoulders for yet - another fight. He bore all insults and ignominy heaped on him with fortitude, resilience and humor. He was the penultimate hero. Neither his credibility as a front line freedom fighter nor his patriotism could ever be questioned. The simplistic yet powerful messages emerging from his songs could not be rubbished. The son of the Muses in Bengal had arrived and he was destined to change our attitude and importantly the music scene of our country forever.

Nothing in the world stood between him and his mission. This was to be no guerrilla theater; it was far more arduous and hazardous than bargained for. The Government of the day as much as our parents was uneasy with this errant yet mercurial former freedom fighter.

What unfolded would change the course of our cultural history forever.

The Jhanki Philosophy : Azam Khan's meteoric rise

People without a basic education in Western Music or culture term Azam Khan's music as pop. Some have gone further than that, and have branded him either a 'Pop Guru' or 'Pop Shamrat' (Emperor). Nothing could be more ridiculous and for records, he despised both terms.

Pop as a word may mean 'popular' yet as a genre it has an altogether different and negative connotation; 'crass' - as in 'unrefined as to be lacking in discrimination and sensibility'. To explain it further, Pop music is wall paper music. It is neither painting nor sculptor i.e. it has no permanence. Shelf life or public memory for pop does not go beyond 3 to 5 years. In today's Bangladesh it is not unsurprising that pop music attracts huge public following. A 'one-time-use product', media overkill and corporate packaging guarantee skyrocketing sale and that too for a very limited time frame. Pop projects and propels less than mediocre idiots to 'superstardom'!

Azam Khan's music is all about what pop is NOT. It has lasted for over 38 years and it will last for centuries. Yes Azam Khan was 'popular' – but so were Nazrul and Tagore but can anyone dare use the term pop before their musical genre? Also do we ever hear about our 'pop Prime Minister'!

Rock on the contrary, is just not a Western musical genre. It is a comprehensive philosophy and lifestyle statement, which at its finest rejects status quo, establishment i.e. any form of exploitation or subjugation of fellow man. It is a derivative of the words 'Rock and Roll' or to shake and rattle listeners to act, free their spirit, wake up and rise up in revolt against all scum's of the earth.

On the flipside it is also a self-destruct philosophy and it isn't as if Azam Khan was unaware of it. He had volunteered for several hazardous near-death encounters during the Liberation War and survived. Our Liberation, as far as he was concerned, meant just the culmination of many skirmishes – the final battles were never fought, the war as such never ended? Independence means freeing the Nation ensnared in mental slavery and as in War and so in peace; he chose to take sides with the toiling masses. His weapon would be Music.

It is only appropriate that Azam Khan gave the philosophy an amusing Bengalee coinage – 'Jhanki o Dola' – later settling for just 'Jhanki' or Rock. His favorite quip whenever he saw me was – 'jhanki ditey hoibo' (we gottta rock it)! How more 'Western' can you get to describe Rock in Bengalee than just that one punch word – 'Jhanki'?

In retrospect I think it was simply brilliant! \m/

To be continued..........

New Age OP-ED

25th June 2011

Link

Of Dead Heroes, Culture Vultures, Hyenas and Kosher Patriotism

2011-06-24T09:36:00.004+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

"Patriotism is the last vestige of scoundrels" Samuel Johnson

Azam Khan, February 28, 1950 - June 5, 2011 R.I.P

On 5th June the rock icon and former freedom fighter Azam Khan died after a year-long battle with cancer. In our history one cannot recall any other public figure receiving the number of tributes filling media space and is ongoing as I write. A colleague from New Age sent me an SMS to say that Azam Khan has outstripped Sheikh Mujib, General Zia even Moulana Bhashani in the outpouring of grief and media coverage, in print, TV as well as in Internet social medias. It is the truth.

That said, post his death the Government of the day seemed to be at a loss as how to handle honors due to him. There were conflicting and confusing signals, whether he should be treated as a former freedom fighter or a rock legend? In the end politicians and partisan activists with no knowledge of either culture or rock, were bent upon highlighting only his role in the Liberation War. Fair enough, but there was a glaring loophole. Despite his bravery and heroism in the nine month long war as a front line guerrilla leader, no post-Independence Government as such ever awarded him a medal for gallantry!

Azam Khan's known pre-war leftist leanings and commitment to the people as opposed to petty partisan interest meant; he was never a blue-eyed boy of the establishment. Further, his 38 years of unflinching dedication and devotion to rock saw him identifying with aspirations of the masses and his faith in a new generation of musicians. He spent most of his adult life and quality time with them. For as long as he lived, his graying and fossilized contemporaries found his musical activism repulsive, infantile and not worthy a contribution to our culture. Forgotten was fact that by default he was also a youth leader par excellence.

His cancer led to unauthorized fund raising initiatives by opportunist as well as sincere well-wishers both at home and abroad. Ironically much of it was pilfered and never reached the ailing hero. The Government, particularly the Prime Ministers contribution of Taka 5 lakhs was a pittance at best, covering less that 1 percent of the total cost of the treatment. Yet one couldn't help overlook that each and every newspaper and media report never failed to rub-in her 'great contribution'! Is Taka 5 lakh all that the Government could cough up to absolve itself? Why couldn't the Prime Minister or the Government takeover full responsibility for the treatment of Azam Khan, when much lesser mortals of repute (or disrepute) have been afforded so?

Part of the problem is in our ingrained attitude whenever an artist is reported ill or dying; we start to criminally degrade them. Dushtho Shilpi or destitute artist is the coinage. Poverty apparently is 'crime' in a nation where most citizens live well below levels of basic subsistence? However the brunt is faced only by artists who are deliberately pauperized, their hard earned respect, honor and dignity shamelessly brutalized. In Azam Khan's death it was no different, only that it carried a shocking due entendre. Together with Dushtho Shilpi he was also a Dushtho Mukti Joddha ?

Now come on, there cannot be any such thing. We after all have a Freedom Fighters Welfare Ministry and are led to believe that 'the greatest sons of the soil are all being looked after'. Deleted from cumulative memory are 90 percent of our unheard and unknown heroes of the War were from villages. Forget also that those who participated in the war from urban areas are without a doubt its greatest beneficiary today. The thonga of Mukti Juddho is 'hot commodity' in cities, enough money is on offer and has been made and much more is yet to be. There are no end to salivating elements out there fine tuning their act to fine art. Azam Khan chose not to be party to such chicanery.

The Liberation War hero, the only half-hearted Guard of Honor offered by the Government was a hastily arranged Police detail near his residence before his body was moved for funeral prayers and burial. Partisan politics which Azam Khan hated in his lifetime came in next to hijack opportunities that presented itself in the planned chaos.

The pro-Government Sammilito Sangskrtik Jote (SSJ) of which Azam Khan was never a member, quickly seized his corpse and put it up for public display at the Central Shaheed Minar under its ghastly banner. A fascist organization, the SSJ has no representation from Bangladesh's teeming rock fraternity and given its reactionary character, especially its post 90's co-opting to MNC's exploitative interest, makes it a sworn enemy for all rockers and conscious people of Bangladesh.

That done, what came on next was a huge media circus, with music 'celebrities' and TV personalities jockeying for space to expose their unwanted faces. On TV cameras they talked endlessly about the great man without inkling as to what he really stood for. Gone amiss from the circus was an issue Azam Khan held in the deepest of contempt; the corporatization of our culture and Media exploitation which had also befallen his fate.

Alas as his corpse lay in the CMH morgue Azam Khan's worst nightmares were coming alive. TV and radio channels in deference to pretentious 'respect, tribute and adoration for the Guru and Pop Shamrat' Azam Khan kept up non-stop relay of his songs, Music Videos and LIVE TV performances. There would have been no complaints had it not been, that added to the shenanigan, all the programs were sponsored by cell phones, soap and toiletries makers and even kitchen masala companies!

No one asked how much money has already been made by the TV and radio stations in their maya kanna post Azam Khan's death? As of now, there are no records to confirm that the media volunteered to share any revenue it earned since his death with members of his family, the ultimate and rightful beneficiary to his immortal works. Crores of Takas has already been pocketed.

The unnecessary controversy and degrading of his dignity over money raised for his treatment could well have been addressed, if Azam Khan's final request to the media was heeded and/or serious steps taken to demand what was due to him. His immortal works is invaluable and in a simplistic message before he went to Singapore, he pleaded :

'I don't want pity, largesse, contribution or financial help from anyone. If the TV and Radio channels just pay the royalties due to me, I should have more than enough to cover my treatment with my own money'. No one in the media took heed. All they wanted was to project a 'destitute artist' and they got away with it unchallenged. That didn't stop even after he died.

Post death, his family (a daughter and two sons) continues to be hounded by culture vultures and media hyenas. However, the scenario has changed slightly. Everybody now wants to hand out tokenistic dole to them, with a catch. 'How about signing this legal paper, authorizing so and so to come up with a tribute album, concert or TV show?' Add to that the horror and humiliation they felt when Channel I went ahead with a LIVE sponsored TV show on 19th June featuring Asif Akbar murderously singing Azam Khan's song and the Producer on request and plea from the family, arrogantly not giving a hoot?

Or how do we explain a statement by the notorious plagiarist Ayub Bacchu 'if we do not perform Azam Khan's song, they will simply die'? When will this two bit megalomaniac ever realize that an Ayub Bacchu as such is not required to save Azam Khan's songs? The original audio and video recordings of Azam Khan that are available in the public domain are more than enough to perform that yeomen service.

We pride ourselves with the number of TV and Radio Channels that have mushroomed over the years and yes they do have permissions from all Government bodies and even the BTRA. On papers they may be legit, but as far as their dealing with artists, repertoire and broadcast of music and video are concerned; they are COMPLETELY ILLEGAL. For all practical purpose these entities are nothing more than pirate Radio and TV stations as they do no comply with the Copyright laws of Bangladesh which is in effect from 2005, and do not offer royalties on the original software's of the CREATOR, the artist!

At the end of the equation it is greed and a lack of transparency that will derail this nation if it has not been already. On 16th of June the Government conceded to US pressure and signed off our gas resources to ConocoPhillips. With pressure building up from activists groups opposed to the move the flippant and obtuse Finance Minister in presence of his 'future masters' could only come up with his oft repeated abuse 'utter nonsense'. With a secret deal aimed at usurping our national wealth only one-upped patriotism could come into play.

And so it was left to none but our Prime Minister to copyright patriotism in her name only, leaving rest of us scoundrels that dare resists 'unpatriotic'? Be it, but wasn't it Edward Abbey that said, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government"?

Azam Khan R.I.P - dream on my Hero. There will be no copyright to the 'utter rubbish and nonsensical cans' of history. Time and tide will wait for none. This Nation of braves will surely rise and revolt.

New Age XTRA

Print Version, Friday 24th June 2011

On ‘Protecting the Quran’, Religion and Amini’s wet pajamas

2011-06-03T09:29:00.006+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

“Pointless reading Verse Quran if the Quran within our Soul is not understood” Fakir Lalon Shah

History reminds us that the 1971 War of Independence was fought primarily due to ceaseless insinuations of the Pakistani ruling class whenever we demanded freedom that Islam is in Danger, with more despicable salt rubbed-in; Bengalis are lesser Muslims led to the calls of arms and the bloody birth of Bangladesh. The fault line drawn by Pakistani experts and Bengali cohorts in those ill-fated times institutionalized a fear psychosis that neighboring India would gulp us and haram of all harams – convert Muslims to Hindus?

A covert design was also in place. Because the 1947 partition of India was precipitated by tragic carnages engineered by the Brits and triggered by Muslim and Hindu elements on the lunatic fringe, Pakistan conjured the sealant of Islamic Ummah (Brotherhood), that would apparently keep intact the geographical absurdity of an Islamic Republic located in ‘two wings’ over 1000 miles apart, as also drive a wedge right through the heart of its enemy - ‘Hindu’ India.

Conveniently forgotten was there were cumulatively more Muslims living in India in 1947 than in the-then Pakistan, and that reality remains undiminished to this day! The wedge also served as a leveraged barb to introduce and firmly implant the puritanical Wahabi/Shariati brand of Islam that never ever had an iota of acceptability in Bengal. Its toiling masses were then as even today, are genetically inclined to Ma’arefati Islam with its lofty ideals of Ijtehad with options i.e. debate, logic, rationale, enquiry, examination etc open at all times.

Pakistan turned a blind eye to the rich and vibrant Bengalee culture which prides itself in syncretism of all faith and belief systems in the region, from Buddhism, Vaishnavism, Christianity together with Tasauf (commonly Sufi or Sufism) traditions of which Ma’arefat is a composite, the core reason inhabitants of Bengal converted to Islam in large numbers.

Islam’s acceptance in South Asia other than in its plural and egalitarian characteristics was its ability to cohesively assimilate with cultures it made inroads into. Contrary to popular misconceptions Islam arrived in the region neither by coercion or the sword wielding Mughal barbarians – but centuries earlier through Music wielding Sufi Saints ranging from Khwaja Mainuddhin Chisti in Ajmer to Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, to Shah Ali Baghdadi in Dhaka.

In Bangladesh the earliest Sufi Saint Shah Sultan Mohammed Qamrudddin reached Madanpur, in Netrokona from Turkey about 1000 years ago. Legacies of our spiritual lineage extend to later day patron Saints - Fakir Miran Azaan Shah in Assam down to Fakir Lalon Shah in Kushtia, among others, with agnostic monotheism embraced as a way of life by millions.

That brings me to the most difficult post-Independence issue. For one, while we fought the communal and murderous ethnic cleansing Pakistani mindset, Western Secularism per se was NEVER our agenda or the reason why our people went to war. One doesn’t need any more affirmation than the 7th March 1971 speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his clarion call for a last ditch stand.

Please check back to the number of times he referred to Allah and/or Muslims in his speech – and the famous line, if blood is the price to pay, we shall over pay, but we shall free the people of our country Inshallah. There were absolutely no indications of either communalism or secularism in his prophetic words.

Therefore when Secularism was introduced as a pillar of the State in 1972, the diction of neo Secular Khalifahs were completely alien and left us confused, shocked and divided. Disaster struck when fossilized Awami League backed intellectuals joined the bandwagon and started ‘preaching’ without the faintest clue that Secularism had been existent in our culture for centuries! Secular possibilities within Sufi Islam also went unexplored.

Finally when debates in the public domains erupted with a damming indictment; does Secularism mean a rejection of Islam - we realized way too late that a very delicate bridge has been burnt. It is precisely the time Mullahs from the Deobandi order closed in for the kill.

Rest was easy. Wahabi/Shariati Islam with heavy infusion of cash from Saudi Arabia was cemented, Ijtehad condemned to obscurity and a new generation of ‘born-again Muslims’ emerged. Their little understood slogan of Jihad – the lowest form of ‘struggle’ in Islam and one God abhors, made our identity crisis critical.

In my column of 13th May I mentioned how our politicians have been sermonizing on subjects they have absolutely no knowledge about. The frequencies have magnified alarmingly in recent weeks and the vexed issue is the proposed women’s policy of the Government. What I find bizarre is why this unnecessary debate and why now, when clearly equal rights to women is already guaranteed and enshrined in our Constitution?

The buzz word to the controversy is ‘awareness building’ making it obvious that there is surely a donor angle to it all, with deception and flaks inevitable. Awareness is not measurable nor can anyone assign a number value to the same. While corrupt NGO’s maybe counting American greens, the Government instead of choosing a face-to-face democratic dialogue with women, opted to the whims of just one woman, the Prime Minister, who unfortunately is as myopic as the Mullahs.

Resultantly what we are now witnessing in the fogs of chaos is only the tip of the iceberg. The Mullahs are on a gloves-off counter sermon offensive and the Government has failed to display any maturity in handling them thus far. Mufti Amini and his brigands in recent days launched a movement to protect the Quran and the State Minister for Home Affairs Shamsul Islam was quoted saying - religion is safe in Hasina’s hands?

What I find disconcerting is why hasn’t anybody in Bangladesh challenged the vulgarity of either statements or filed public litigation suits as they tantamount to hurting religious sentiments of citizens; punishable under the laws of the land? Neither party has apparently any doubts that it is only them i.e. humans who have the mandate to protect both Quran and religion. But what does the book state?

Being no theologian or even knowledgeable on the subject, I sent a mail to my friend Edip Yuksel an Islamic scholar and professor of philosophy of Turkish origin and co-author of the ‘Quran: A Reformist Translation’ in the US. In reply, Edip drew attention to the frequency of references to God in Verse 15:9 that promises full protection and breaks the record in the Quran by referring to God four or five times in just seven words!

He then reminded us the implication of such an emphasis: "It is not you or your holy ancestors who are protectors of the Quran; it is the author of the Quran that will protect it." Edip also had a terse one liner in his mail: “Anyone who assumes the task of protecting the Quran is an imposter and lying tyrant.”

Where does that leave us folks? How long are we going to sit back and create near perfect opportunities for more murder mayhems all in the name of God or religion? Importantly what mechanisms do we have in place to counter bigots who pathologically refer to spurious and misogynist Hadith and Sharia to further add to the division of faith?

Like it or not, religion will no longer remain private or personal in the days ahead. Clearly the Prime Ministers ‘sermons’ or even those of sycophants in the Awami Ulema League have been rendered irrelevant. To confront the likes of Amini and gang the need of the hour is to demand a LIVE and televised Public Ijtehad.

Trust me; we won’t need knowledgeable theologians to bail us out when we take on these murderers. All we have to do is mobilize ‘unlettered and illiterate’ Baul, Boyati, Shadhu and Fakirs from rural Bangladesh. Men and women who I can vouch will sing and dance, all in praise of the Quran and God and with their rustic and grounded logics compel the likes of Amini and Sayeedi to piss in their pajamas publicly!

The resultant effluents of 20,000 Madrasas from which Amini apparently draws strength may cause water in the Bay of Bengal to rise a few centimeters; but that’s a minor aberration really, compared to the benefits we stand to accrue in the long run!

New Age XTRA Print version

Friday 3^rd June 2011

Of Dead Sam, Uncle Sam, Islam and troubles closer to home

2011-05-14T12:12:00.002+06:00

Mac Haque

"Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" Adolf Hitler

I have often wondered who embedded LIE into the word BE-LIE-VE so call me a 'conspiracy theorist' or a crackpot, I don't buy the story that Sam Bin Laden was gunned down by Uncle Sam's 'brave SEAL commandos' in Abbottabad, Pakistan on 1^st May! Taking it beyond 'what's the proof or where are the pictures of the corpse' hungama, I am among millions worldwide who have no doubts that Sam either died in Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 or immediately thereafter due to natural causes. Thus, close to a decade the grainy videos that we had seen of Sam were created by the CIA, and were forgeries.

So who was that idiot holed-up for years in Abbottabad? Quite possibly one of the many Sam look-a-likes used for all elaborate hoaxes leading up to Uncle Sam finally 'delivering justice' on a monster it helped create in the first place, propped up for years for a global audience, demonized - and who – applause – 'will never walk on the face of the earth'! A huge hi5 therefore to 'Operation Neptune Spear – Geronimo EKIA' (enemy killed in action) a bewildering 'success story' of how Uncle Sam always comes in to 'save the world' at the very last minute – Hollyweird!

Conceivably this is the 'end of a new end', the script writers and spin doctors for the Black Man in the White House (no racist slur intended) worryingly faced with an infotainment hungry world, that sees colors beyond black and white in the ever elusive kaleidoscope of deceit at the expense of the expendable – is what we have as a consequence.

If Prez Bam says Sam's dead picture are 'graphic' and 'we don't trot out this stuff as trophies' – for all I care, Uncle Sam's 'brave actions' in the killing of innocent men, women as also injuries and psychological scars to over a dozen children in the Abbottabad compound were 'actions' taken to perhaps preempt Wikileaks on Sam's preserved body; apparently on ice for that many years at a Pakistani base in Tarbela ?

Key point – it all began in New York on 09/11/01 and we were led to 'believe' that this isn't a 'war on Muslims or Islam but the mass murderer Sam' and ended with 'justice delivered' to avenge the death of over 2500 victims of the Twin Tower attacks. A small matter that it has been proved beyond reasonable doubts that 09/11 was a ruse and an insult to the imagination of the world.

Today there are enough evidence available in public domains that Uncle Sam's 09/11 'story' defies laws of Physics and Avionics. Specifically the speed and height at which the commercial aircrafts hit the Towers, it was impossible to bring them razing to the ground - they would have actually disintegrated minutes from take off. The timing and magnitude of the 'implosions' therefore confirms the Towers with living, breathing humans inside, were brought down by 'controlled demolitions' with explosives ON GROUND? More bizarre, no one has been able to produce the passenger manifest of the three aircrafts or even name the pilots – not to forget, many of the 'attackers' turned up elsewhere in the world – incredibly more 'alive' then dead!

Therefore who will or wont 'walk on the face of the earth' is for now a conjecture that will be put to the test of time in this new theater of the absurd. The only thing 'killed' succinctly for the time being is Uncle Sam's credibility, which has been historically suspect as much as it's botched up credentials to 'rule over the world'.

For now the heat is on Pakistan – a well deserved fate if we may, for a nation whose corrupt and murderous Prez Zardari, his cronies and his predecessors have already digested over 20 billion Uncle Sam dollars to keep the myth of the WOT (war on terror) alive. If they let them Drones bomb and kill imagined 'militants' (and it really doesn't matter if innocent civilians are the ultimate victims) more greens are on the way hopefully.

Perhaps worried about 'Delhi doing an Abbottabad' – Pakistan's tall talks of reprisals against future incursions in its territory falls way short of seriousness, and like it or not the inevitability of Uncle Sam's 'boots on the ground' in Pakistan is more a matter of fixing a calendar date. 'Time' is already up.

India is also likely to fall into Uncle Sam's bait given its 'regional superpower' ambitions and in the process will waste much of its resources. With turmoil's in Pakistan definitely spilling over to India and cascading down to Bangladesh, we are not talking of yet another dishum-dishum war 'sponsored' by CNN or Al-Jazeera – but an Armageddon that will seal our collective fate as there will be no 'winners'.

That brings us to issues closer to home. Of late has anybody taken a serious notice of Mullahs hawking hate on the streets or the debates on 'Islam' that have taken center stage? Turns out that our politicians have become 'theologians' overnight and speeches these days are sounding more like sermons ! Dabbling in their 're-born' Islamism of the 'moderate' variety, these jokers have no inkling about the dangerous turf they have already stepped into; also does anyone have even the faintest idea as to what 'Islam' are they really talking about?

From the misogynist Mufti Amini and Zakir Naik on TV to our Prime Minister, the 'pious' Sheikh Hasina, the version of Islam shamelessly propounded by the Media as 'mainstream' is the Post-Prophet Wahabi Islam of the Arabian Desert, that Bengalee Muslims have instinctively rejected for centuries as this insane zero-centricity has no commonalities with our culture or our traditions.

Uncle Sam's agenda therefore is to let our fate hang at the mercy of Mollah elements, in effect permit so-called 'Muslims' in and outside of Government to push Bangladesh back to pre-Islamic 'Jahiliyyah' (ignorance, darkness) period of infamy – a perfect pretext then to 'bomb us back to the stone age' – its unfinished job of 1971 if we may?

Meanwhile none of our 'brave' freedom fighters will dare question Uncle Sam on how we ought to try the War Criminals of 1971 – remember those recent raps by Stephen Rapp, 'transparency, accountability, fairness, rule of law, Human Rights'? Why can't we simply 'do an Abbottabad', form an assassination squad and go 'get em Mollah mass murderers of 1971'? We can always say we took Sabaks (lessons) from Uncle Sam's SEALs – can we not?

And on to the recent khutba (sermon) of our Prime Minister about Madrasa students wielding sticks in one hand and the Koran on the other, and how sacrilegious and 'contemptuous of the Holy Book' these actions are? If she had visited the Supreme Court building in Washington in many of her PhD receiving trips to Uncle Sam, I wonder how she missed the statue of Prophet Muhammad with a sword in one hand and a Koran on the other.

In all fairness therefore, Madrasa students in Bangladesh are well within Uncle Sam's approved code of what is 'right or wrong', and the sooner we understand it - the better! More funds for the Imam Training Program ?

New Age Xtra

Friday, 13^th May 2011

Our Collapsing Cultural Canopy, Conflicts and attack on Bauls

2011-04-29T08:28:00.004+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

”Whatever is Sin for a Nation, could be salvation for another” Fakir Lalon Shah

The choice by default of people with a cultural bent of mind prior to any national elections is to vote for the ruling Awami League, for no other reason than its ‘commitment to secular pluralism’ which on surface and devoid of deceits - translates to tolerance of minority views, ideas, beliefs and lifestyles. Yes, we have managed to drive out the BNP-Jamaat nexus of Islam pasand bigots as also a Military backed ‘Caretaker Government’ – but is our new found spirit of Freedom and Democracy any indicator that we have been able to wrestle control, or enlarge the very constricted liberal space that overrides our collapsing cultural canopy?

For instance, there have been absolutely no ‘big noise’ from our so-called ‘Cultural Activists’ when it concerns recent spate of looting, theft and ransacking of deities in Shonaton Temples all across the country, nor has there been any ‘protest’ to decry the forceful eviction, usurping of their land housing religious sites, or the intermittent violence against the community. The reasons are understandable: all of these are happening during apparently ‘secular’ times when we bask in complacency of having been able to marginalize the Mollahs at long last. Our ‘Cultural Activists’ therefore do not want to embarrass the Government of the day – and in our Bangaliana have even turned a blind eye to continued racist oppression of other communities including Adivasis – our Indigenous Peoples.

In focus: the incident in Pangsha, Rajbari on 5th April where 28 members of the Baul fraternity were attacked, their long hair and beard shorn by a local Imam and other cohorts, later forcing them to a nearby Mosque to utter ‘Tawba’ (repentance). Their crime? They were holding a yearly ‘Shadhu Shongo’ (Conclave of the Wise) which the fanatics branded ‘un-Islamic’ – are deeply disturbing signals. The incident went unreported until about the 8th of April and was limited to the vernacular press. Other newspaper joined in begrudgingly, and had it not been for Mohammad Fakir (the Shadhu who called the Conclave) lodging a case in the nearby police station – it would have been brushed under the carpet. The attempted suppression of this news became all the more obvious when the facts went public. Surprise of all surprise - it wasn’t our ‘known and sworn’ enemies – the ‘fun-da-mental-ist’ who launched the attacks. Turns out, the attackers including the Imam were either Awami League leaders or/are involved with the ruling party politics in the area.

Belatedly exposed to the faux pas the local Awami League MP Zillul Hakim was seen expressing his ‘regrets’ on TV and that the issue has been ‘mutually and peacefully resolved’– with the Bauls apparently ‘agreeing to a solution’. End of the story? No, there were no apologies offered to the Bauls, the Court case was bypassed and it only confirmed that our ‘secular, plural and progressive forces’ were the real perpetrators, possibly even the instigators of the attack. Later reports suggest the Bauls were coerced into the ‘agreement’ prior to the meeting with the MP. Asked why an agreement was arrived on an issue of such seriousness especially when it is in Court, private video footages quoted the MP as saying –“even murder cases are resolved in my constituency in like manner”!

Bauls and their music are not only our national wealth they are listed in the UNESCO declaration of 2005 as ‘Masterpieces of Oral Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ and while two Baul Saints, the Late Khoda Buksh Shah of Chuadanga and Late Karim Shah of Sunamganj, Sylhet were awarded Bangladesh’s highest Civilian Honor Ekushey Padak, members of the agnostic fraternity continue to eke out an existence in the periphery and are largely ostracized. It is nonetheless heartening that the Baul Movement has built up enormous urban followings since the mid 90’s and on Facebook there was an outcry – with some aficionados calling for a ‘counter Shadhu Shongo’ at Pangsha later in the month. My immediate reaction was to point out that a Shadhu Shongo is not meant for tit-for-tat reprisals or a forum for protest or expression of irate sentiments.

These conclaves are essentially limited to discourses into the music, life and teaching of the many Saints who sought to illumine the majority of our people. Further, a Shadhu Shongo is called by a Baul Shadhu (practitioner) and those sending out the Facebook invites – did not necessarily fit into the category – nor did anybody have a clue that Shadhu Shongo’s are not held in the month of Boishakh! Why? Again it is best left for the Shadhu’s to explain – however from my very limited knowledge on the subject; one has to study esoteric Indian Cosmology to get the drift. Same reason, the month of Boishakh is not thought to be auspicious even for marriages.

In any event – good sense prevailed and it was left to Mohammad Fakir of Pangsha to send out a new invite – asking people to ‘assist him complete the incomplete Shadhu Shongo’. With hundreds of eager enthusiast with no knowledge of either the Baul way of life, or the regimes associated with the belief system imminently set to descend upon Pangsha to ‘right the wrong’, one hopes this does not degenerate into a photo-op cultural picnic! Any escalation and/or law and order situation will lead to more outrages on the Bauls and result in unwanted intrusion and curiosity on their belief – which while acknowledging the ‘omniscient Maker’, rejects all religions, temples, mosques, rituals and symbolism – a belief and life style of our people for over two thousand years.

I also find it very hard to accept the blasé synonymity drawn between Bauls and Fakir Lalon Shah, which has been much the case in the Media this time around as in the past. Lalon never claimed to be a Baul, and the Baul movement indeed predates him by centuries. Therefore not all Bauls are ‘Lalon devotees’ – or vice versa. One may hold Fakir Lalon Shah In the highest of reverence, be inspired by his message – but it goes contrary to Baul belief if we are to propel any man to a pedestal for worship. Lalon in his lifetime abhorred and resisted such inclinations.

While shearing off long hair and beards of a Baul is condemnable – it is not a ‘sacrilegious’ act at any rate, rather a criminal attack, humiliation of the worst kind and a violation of an individual’s sovereignty. Sporting long hair or beard does not necessarily make one a Baul, as much as skull caps, beards and dresses denoting the so-called ‘Islamic identity’ of the Mollah any affirmation of a pukkah Muslim either!

It is time that we move forward than get bogged down by trivialities which border on the tokenistic. Cultural cohesion can only be achieved by thorough knowledge and understanding of our inherent strength – our folk philosophies and philosophers – and without a doubt Lalon stands out as the greatest Master we as a Nation have been blessed with.

To end, a Baul greeting – Joi Guru – ‘Long Live the Great God in Man’.

NEW AGE Xtra - Print Version

Friday, Dhaka 29th April 2011

Of Road Rage, Rickshaw drivers and our Cult of ‘Morol VIP’

2011-04-16T10:05:00.002+06:00

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.” Anon

Its not the first time we have seen such an event neither will it be the last, yet I wonder what leads people to launch road rage that we witness on a near daily basis which other than loss of life and property, leads on to traumatic situation for those caught up in the violence? The background to the incidents of 28th March was predictable – the authorities decided to ban access of rickshaws to the so-called ‘VIP Roads’ in the city without any prior notification. As of final count, 21 roads in Dhaka are listed as ‘VIP’ – which basically means pedal pushed Rickshaws and vans are off limit.

The justification advanced by authorities in upholding the ‘VIPs’ at the expense of the poorest of the poor Rickshaw drivers: it would apparently ‘ease traffic congestion's’ in the city. However these unwanted, highly degrading and prejudicial orders are flagrant violations of a citizens basic right to work – and is directly linked to a right to food and sustenance which the State ‘will not’ guarantee.

Ironically we go about showcasing the Rickshaw in World events – like the ICC World Cup as a ‘transport of choice’, put the three wheelers up on pe
destals for ‘foreigners’ to see how much we ‘deify’ them, sell rich traditional heritage motifs that adorn Rickshaw body’s at insane prices in chic Boutiques across town as ‘Rickshaw art’ – our treatment of Rickshaw drivers nonetheless borders on sheer brutality demeaning their life, living and very existence to those of ‘creations of a lesser God’ – reducing them to scum’s of the earth, albeit revealing our grotesquely obscene mindset.

I am talking about an estimated 1.2 million Rickshaw drivers in the City, perhaps 5 million nationwide – add to that the number of families and indirect beneficiaries to their hard work, thus in the schemes of our ‘spiritual demography’, us ‘creations of a Superior God’ are indeed a microscopical minority!

Conversely, when we mull over the word ‘VIP’ one wonders – who the hell are these vulgar ‘gentries’ and why on earth do we have to block off 21 major roads for their privy use? How much more ‘I’ (read Important) can they be, compared to ‘others’ in this wretched Nation? Read on…..

On surface, those of us who do not use the public transportation system, or suffer ignominy of endless hours of waiting to board a Bus, or hassle fares with drivers of half broken bashed-up and highly unsafe contraptions we call ‘Taxis’ or ‘CNG’ three wheelers – bottom line – those of us that own or have access to the use of a private car or limousine are ‘VIPs’……wow isn’t that kewl!

But how much more parochial and feudal can we get? Wake up folks – 11 years into a new Millennium – much as we would like to trick ourselves into believing that we live in a device savvy, ‘dizzy-tally’ (digitally!) thrush-ed Bangladesh, truth is this Nation was and is still by default ‘owned’, run and ruled by a ‘morol’ (village headman mindset) elite – who will battle it out with BATONS? And that’s what really happened, greatly cheesing-off us, ‘privileged creations’ – for we were not prepared for the consequence of our arrogance.

Rickshaw drivers launched an attack initially on ‘their kind’ and then proceeded to vandalize over a 100 cars. In the 3 hours of rage, policemen stood by and did what they do best – ‘lovingly’ scratch their testicles! With no help forthcoming, some gentrified victims made a feeble attempt to protect vehicles and families by resisting the outrage – they were beaten black and blue with sticks, batons ,iron roads and ooof those embarrassing bamboos!

Sum total – all of Dhaka city was locked in a grinding traffic jam that lasted almost half a day – and the soul searching and Media post mortem commenced with the ‘Mother of all Insults’ – wails of ‘chi chi chi rickshaw wala ra bhodroloke der pitiyechey’ filled the headlines, airwaves and TV talk shows. Beats me : if the Rickshaw driver’s actions were ‘unprovoked, spontaneous’ – how is it that over 2 dozen newspaper lens person and Television crew were present on-scene ‘at the opportune moment’ to capture footages – yet missed the policemen who were…………….well :)

There is a very fine line to be delineated whenever we use the word ‘VIP’ for while we pay road taxes, those that do not or are tax exempt are the worst offenders. No one makes an issue whenever our Prime Minister on her jaunts - official or otherwise - holds up traffic for hours together. Our worst nightmare comes when she makes trips ‘abroad’. Not only her entourage of hundreds of cars owned by party apparatchik and sycophants, but Ministers and their security details too jam traffic as they head for the Airport to ‘bid her farewell’.

Add to that the Diplomatic Corps who are ‘compelled’ to indulge in the ritualistic al-vida which is repeated by khosh-amded upon the ‘VIPs’ return! These idiosyncrasies in no way exonerate the Leader of the Opposition, for we have exact same repeat performances, whenever she travels abroad and there are host of petty issues that crops up to add spice to daily news. Things like ‘why was so and so important leader forbidden from entering the VIP lounge ‘…….w.t.fish for?

In a nutshell can anyone please explain why this feudal culture of doing a great hungama of our VIPs ‘historic trip abroad and triumphant return’ has to be done by squandering public money and at great harassments to the tax payers? Why can’t they simply board an aircraft and leave and return like everybody else?

Back to Road rage and destruction of public property – can we really blame the Rickshaw drivers? Despite all the tall talks of Maglev trains, flyovers and other ‘constructions and innovative ideas’ to ease traffic congestion, I know as much as everybody else, that realities revolves around how much cuts and commissions can be made from the ‘massive’ deals. Since corruption has no political boundaries, color or affiliations, politicians salivate for the spoils, never get enough - and nothing significant has happened or is likely to happen anytime soon.

40 years have gone by for us as a Nation – but the scenarios have been the same – in fact repeated over and over again. Condescending and patronizing may be our take on the Rickshaw driver; these are by the way the same citizens that our shameless political elite use to fatten their vote banks come national elections.

Look up our history book and read ‘strategies to overthrow a Government’ please and what do we have? The convenient weapon of choice for politicians have been to mastermind Road rage, arson, killing, mayhems and destruction of public property – as also holding us cowards, hostage at home through Hartals. Try looking up headlines of the past three month and check how many times politicians have threatened each other – ‘we will confront you on the roads and streets’.

Road rage and street violence do not cost our politicians money – for the ultimate fodder to their perverted lust for power are none else than the Rickshaw drivers. Politicians are arrested and the Media in turn makes them heroes. The Rickshaw drivers are with crocodile tears irreverently remembered as ‘poor Shaheed’ – Martyrs – and just as quickly forgotten.

We only have to come up with a Law that makes Road rage, destruction of public property, road blockage a CRIME meriting capital punishment – and much of our woes would be over – with our politicians heaped into historical trashcans – ta ta.

New Age Xtra

Print Version

16th April 2011

Maqsood O' dHAKA's Resignation from Bangladesh Musical Bands Association - BAMBA

2011-04-15T22:46:00.002+06:00

15th April 2011

To:

Hamin Ahmed

President

Bangladesh Musical Bands Association (BAMBA)

Niketon, Dhaka,

My Dear Hamin,

Subject: Resignation from BAMBA and its Executive Committee.

Further to my SMS to you earlier on, this is to inform you of Maqsood O’ dHAKA’s decision to resign from the Bangladesh Musical Bands Association (BAMBA) with immediate effect – as well as my personal decision to resign from the esteemed Executive Committee.

I would like to state in parting that BAMBA has greatly deviated from its lofty ideals of standing to uphold the greater interest of all 37 member bands, and of late, it has become obvious that its fine earned reputation of over 24 years is being abused for the personal and petty interest of a handful of so-called ‘Star’ bands at the expense of the majority.

It is a sad day that among these bands – we have notably elements that have time and again worked against the best interest of BAMBA, yet today they seem to be the ones determining the fate of the Association and its members and doing so with arrogance by bending over backwards in sycophancy to please various Corporate Sponsors interest and a Media syndicate/s.

I am not at all opposed to Corporate Sponsorship, however if Sponsors on the prodding and dirty politics of these unwanted elements decide to influence and derail a National institution such as BAMBA, it is not only an insult to its members, but indeed to Bangladesh – a country that has given us so much. Since the inception of BAMBA in 1987, you as much as I have been well aware of these elements (not to mention the many personal harms they have done to both of us), yet I cannot help point out that today - they have a larger and domineering role in derailing all possibilities that BAMBA holds.

It is well known, that I have always maintained a consistent and principled position against any form of exploitation or oppression both in my public and musical life, however I am afraid the prevailing situation which I see has no way of correcting itself, makes it well nigh impossible for me to continue. It is not a matter of one individual by the name of Maqsoodul Haque – Mac - but essentially a conscientious decision – and my conscience has never ever betrayed me or vice versa.

I do not want a new generation of bands inspired by us, which has joined us over the years to ever question or blame me about our failures. In resigning I know for a fact that I am absolving myself of any blame – that you as President and members of the Executive Committee have to answer for- if not today – but surely in the days to come.

I wish you all success and prosperity.

With regrets and kind regards

Maqsoodul Haque – Mac

Band Leader

Maqsood O’ dHAKA

Founder President: Bangladesh Musical Bands Association (BAMBA) – 1987 - 1990

Of Have-Not, Have-Plenty’s and Dangerous Alliances

2011-03-25T09:33:00.008+06:00

Mac Haque

“Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” Sophocles

Just hours short of our 40th V-Day, 26th March 2011, I am not keen on a Soul searching exercise for this Nation has inexplicably lost its capacity to reason. The shadows that enveloped us on 26th March 1971 are now replaced by ominously blackened skies that have stripped us off core values that millions aspired and died for. The stench of rotting morals is far more overpowering than any perfume worth its name will dissipate. Each passing moment leaves us to the specter of old Vultures flying up above, waiting for someone below to die - ‘Cause every mother's son has got a date, a date with Fate?’

Moral policing is not my objective, this exercise is to talk about ‘accrued values’ of the vilest kind, with recent events ever more suggestive that we are slip sliding into a torrent of big lies perpetrated on the ‘people’ (hey is there any such word in this ‘Peoples Republic’?) by those who are neither with the people – nor with the Government. What we have today is a fight for turf and spoils among the have-plenty’s.

In retrospect, it all started on 17th December 1971, a day that was to be the dawn of a new beginning. Before long we realized that we may have well overthrown the blood sucking 21 Pakistani families and ousted its brutal Army from our sacred land, what we were not prepared for – was the 21000 families that emerged from our kind, and who would go on to tread on our fate in the years to come.

Bloody coups and Military dictatorships later – crystallized in 1990 after the overthrow of Hossain Mohammad Ershad, was the birth of an oligarchy with demon-ocratic pretensions, whose mentor and provider is the great money God himself. With a Corporatised Media being the immediate by-product and beneficiary, other than politicians/ex-Military and ‘die-nasties’ who rule the roost, this Nation has also to contend with NGO supremos who while pilfering donors alms meant for the poor – are truly Zamindars replete with feudal mentalities and arrogance – their fiefdom extends all across Bangladesh. They and their sycophants in no time formed a unique recreation Club for the have-plenty’s – the Civil Society – ah – reducing us Monkeys living in the uncivil jungles - only to chuckle!

That said, the events of 01/11/07 is evidentially the world’s first Civil Society backed UN sponsored Coup – with the teeming million of hungry have-nots hardly having the time or placid interest to grasp the flow of the shifting tides. What we have today thanks to Dr.Yunus and the Grameen Bank imbroglio have the trappings and symptoms of a Nation being defrauded and it is only those who have the requisite ‘qualification’ to chummy-up to Editors of ‘National dailies’ or TV stations and live in sanitized sanctum of our society - are the ones calling the shots – not the ‘people’ at any rate.

If one says the Government represents the people - in the Yunus case they are dead wrong. It really wasn’t legalities surrounding the age of Yunus that is the issue here, but an obstinate Prime Minister opening her verbal diatribe (legendary if we may!) on real or imagined involvement of Yunus in the 01/11/07 episode, that appears to have got the ball rolling. Her big (English) talking Finance Minister added more fuel to the fire – and not to take a back seat – the bidesh shikkhito Prince Wannabe Joy Wazed also opened up with his ‘politically Yunus is a non-entity’ comment.

To that we could well ask- ‘politically - who the hell are you Joy? If it wasn’t for your Mother, would anybody care for your opinion or give it a huge spin in the Media?’ The leadership by default culture spelt disaster for the BNP with Prince Wannabe Tareq, and I think it is time Joy takes heed and shut up – for good.

Gravely disturbing is the amount of ammo being pulverized by both pro and anti-Yunus camps and one would be foolish not to watch from the sidelines the powers that are teaming up – in a dangerous alliance. It is no surprise that BNP is backing Yunus – (as surely the AL would have, had it been in BNP shoes), what raises eyebrows is how former critics and columnist who had spent a lot of precious midnight oil to write reams upon reams against Yunus - are now shamelessly gunning for him? Remember ‘a plastic nation with a plastic spine’?

Add to that the Jamaat-e-Islami. Forgotten conveniently is the jasbah it displayed against Yunus and Grameen being a Free Masonic enterprise of ‘blood sucking usury mongers that has emboldened women and have made them immoral’ – the screams of haram, haram now replaced by whimpers of halal, halal and all is fine and gung-ho about Yunus and his Empire? What travesty - and to think of it, it is none other than our so-called ‘educated elite, decent folks in the Civil Society’ who are in collusion with the murderers of 1971?

Without mouthing the now over-sold hysteria of Muktijuddher Chetona – will it not be appropriate to serve a reminder from history? Who propped up the Pakistani murder machine and Jamaat in 1971? Spot on: Uncle Sam may have changed its war and conflict strategy – but the grim reality is not unknown to our toiling masses
…..Chor re kou churi koro –grihostey re kou dhoro dhoro – ‘go tell the thieves to steal, go tell the peasants – catch those thieves.’

Admitted that the Government has been ‘vindictive/petty’ - whatever – but when assessed at the core one needs to find out whether or not Yunus broke the law? If he did - should he be punished any differently than any other citizen of this country? The way I see it - if there is a law that says you gotta quit when you are 60 - too bad - that’s how it is. There is no such thing as a good law or a bad law - but the habit of respecting the law is of course a good habit - and a Nobel Prize may or may not guarantee exemption/exoneration. It should NOT - period

GB's position and the Media hoopla that ‘livelihood of 20 million women’ would be imperiled if Yunus is sacked – is loaded with heavy duty male chauvinist bias and patronization - as also exposing the fragility and vulnerability of the ‘prized institution’. What if Yunus were to drop dead - will the ‘millions of women beneficiary’ also meet the same fate?

Also is surprises me- that among the '20 million' women out there in the boondocks - we haven't seen any ‘revolt’ thus far. Even if a million moved on Dhaka – a tsunami would have hit the Government and shamed Fukushima by now! Since that hasn’t happened or is unlikely to happen – this is a case of ‘daal mey kuch kaala hai’ !

Other than a bunch of dim witted Yanks visiting town and seeking an out of Court ‘win, win’ compromise’- has any one heard protests from other Nobel Laureates? Hello…… Dr.Amartya Sen – where are you?

PS: Signed sealed and delivered – BEWARE folks - this is all there is to the have-plenty’s ‘quarrel’ on Yunus – stay out and keep out.

New Age Xtra - Print Edition

25th March 2011

Facebook Comments:

David Bergman: Hi you make some interesting points about Yunus. As a journalist who was present throughout the High Court hearing and the very short appellate hearing (perhaps one of the few that was), I think it is important for you to recognise that it ...is highly debated/contested whether there is a law 'that says you gotta quit when you are 60'. That is the government's argument, and if certainly if you want to repeat and believe that that is fine, but it is a highly contested position. According to the government, the staff regulations which applies to 'kormi' also applies to Yunus. The Yunus lawyers argue that this does not apply, as there is a clear seperate definition of 'managing director' and if it applied to 'managing director it would state that clearly. There are a host of other arguments on either side as well - which I wont get into. The point I am trying to make here is that it is highly contested point - I am not saying my view on which is right. Moreover, assuming the govt lawyers are right, I think there is a still an interesting question why Bangladesh Bank took no action on this for 11 years after a Board resolution which stated that there would not be age limit for the MD, and which came to BB's attention at that time and was discussed at a meeting between Grameen Bank and BB then. In court it was not entirely clear what the government's response to this was - other than the bank never consented to it all those years ago. Anyway, just trying to set out the complexities here - arguments on both sides. Not straightforward at all. You should come to the court and hear the arguments on both sides..

Mac Haque David - thanks for your input and insight into the case - but as of now on both camps 'contested' or otherwise, Yunus' age seems to be the only sore focal point in the whole controversy. The point about a resolution stating that the MD...'s age could be waived is fresh and interesting but - I wonder if it will hold water even in a Court of law. You mention that this was 'discussed' but was it put to paper? If not - the Court could well trash it as ' verbal agreement is not worth the paper it is signed on' :) Also I am curious to know if the GB 'resolution' as such means that the MD can continue for life?

On your earlier point, as why the BB said nothing in 11 years – I countered that in my piece 2 weeks ago to ask – why didn’t Yunus have the grace to quit when his time was up, assuming that the Govt position on this is accurate?

Disturbing is the amount of ‘external pressure’ being borne on the people at large over the controversy. From the recent ‘get Yunus off the hook or …else’ - comments by US officials in Dhaka, it would seem that if Yunus loses the case our relations with ‘Great God’ itself would be forever snapped! If those threats are really carried forward - just about anything could happen – including deaths to a lot of innocent people – I wonder how much ‘peace’ would have been achieved from the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate really?

David Bergman: Thanks for this. The point about the resolution is nothing new. It is really the whole argument of the Yunus lawyers (whether right or wrong). The argument goes like this, as far as I understand from listening in court: Just before Yunus be...came 60, there was a Board meeting (including 3 directors who were govt nominated) during the AL first term in office. At this meeting there was a discussion about the age. At this meeting it was agreed that the earlier 1993 staff regulations did not apply to the managing director. It then referred, I think, to the Grameen Bank ordinance which states that terms and conditions of the MD are decided by teh Board. It then decided that the MD should stay in that position until they thought otherwise. This resolution was put on paper and the minutes were very much part of the HC hearing. The government position was that (a) they did apply as the 1993 staff regulations applied, and (b) in any case the BB never agreed to them. The Yunus lawyers position was that the 1993 regulations did not apply to the MD (for the reason set out in my earlier comment), and this resolution applied. It argues that the although the BB did at the time question the resolution, there was a meeting and then it was resolved, and the BB never raised it again in any further audit.

David Bergman: I did not mean to post that - I was going to continue in the following way. In relation to the period of time, the Yunus lawyers argue the principle of estoppel operated. Effectively this means that the BB are 'estopped' from now arguing th...eir position, as for ten years they have by conductaccepted the position as lawful. The government lawyers view is that this principle does not apply in this way, and that if it was unlawful then, it is unlawful now. I think the point about explaining the arguments like this - and there are many more ones on both sides - is that there is a difference of opinion. And it is far from starightforward. Yunus, I assume, did not feel a need to step aside as you put it as the law did not require him to. The High Court in its order sided with the government side - but, as far as I could hear the judgment (it was not spoken out loudly so that the court could hear it properly) he did not explain why he rejected the Yunus arguments. I hope that is helpful - and that I have explained it in an even handed manner.

Lamia Karim: Hey Mac,Our govt. now wants to really enjoy the NGO microfiannce gravy train. None of this help then poor women borrowers. They only appear as statistics to help bolster Grameen and other institutions, and the West so affectively in invested third world poverty and poor women, will pour their dollars in!

Lamia Karim : I looked at New Age today, and all the "Dear Yunus" letters are from diasporic Bangladeshis:)

Faisal N. Nabi : Mac Vai, a nice piece of writing, indeed. Well, I do not understand legal issue much. To me, if the effect of micro financing had been counterproductive for us, then our govt. has got a real issue.But I am very skeptical for the influence of the 'Great God'.

Patrick Ghose: Hi Mac. Wasn't sure if I should comment here as I'm not from your country. Since you've tagged me and I am your neighbour, I've taken the liberty. You put forward a very valid argument even if a little emotional, but that's fine since it is... about your country. After reading all the other comments here I realise how much more significant your piece is. Two things are obvious from this: the media in your country is biased and/or muzzled leading to pretty vague and perhaps vacuous ideas about what's happening there. Two, a foreign journalist is seemingly more informed and opinionated about the situation than the citizens. That's scary. It's good to know there is a sane and true voice like yours unafraid to say what's what. All I can say Mac is that you need to keep this debate alive among Bangla citizens, resident or not. All power to you bhai!

Mac Haque: ‎@David – thanks a million for your noteworthy insight into the case which is enlightening! However I think the catch in the ‘resolution’ issue is in your point ‘(b) in any case the BB never agreed to them.’ I detect a glaring loophole in y...our secondary statement by Yunus’ defence - ‘It argues that the although the BB did at the time question the resolution, there was a meeting and then it was resolved, and the BB never raised it again in any further audit’ – this ‘meeting’ and the word ‘resolved’ means it was possibly not documented – and whether or not BB raised it in further audits, the onus really was on GB and not BB when the documented resolution had a catch - ‘It then decided that the MD should stay in that position until they thought otherwise’ – meaning the Govt for expediency has not given a ‘firm’ ruling on the same and left it deliberately vague. The time to ‘think otherwise’ maybe 10 years too late – but precisely the time now!

The principals of estoppel is unlikely to be enforced/admitted as neither the prosecution nor defence are stating the truth accurately – with the Govt making more of case in its documented ‘until it thought otherwise’ statement. Yunus may not have stepped down because the law didn’t say so – but then it would also raise questions whether then the term of the MD of GB is for life? Also the US pressure (post my piece) and subtle arm twisting at this stage – especially when it was initiated by Yunus’ and not the Govt - is certainly a blatant interference in our internal affairs – and one I feel has far reaching consequences in the days ahead. One could well argue that Yunus knowing all too well that he will lose the case has decided to shame not only the Govt – but the people of Bangladesh. Before long this will be a case of 1 man versus the interest of 120 million people. While I hope to be proved wrong - I don’t think the going will get any easier for Yunus or the Govt. Thanks. Mac

Mac Haque: ‎@Lamia – since you have done an academic thesis on GB – please can you shed some light into the ’20 million poor women are beneficiary’ hype? I have always been sceptical about this for quite specifically GB’s cannot peg itself to those nu...mbers – rather it would and SHOULD be much more. Conservatively if we take a minimum of 3 more individuals (gender regardless) also as ‘indirect beneficiaries’– meaning 20 million (x) times 3 – we are talking here of 60 million people – HALF THE POPULATION of Bangladesh? If that is true – do we really need a Govt?:) PS. Do take time out to go to this link http://tinyurl.com/4smuauw - which rates academic studies on Micro Credit

Mac Haque @Patrick Ghose- thanks for your chin up - my credo - 'a life without a fight is a life not worth the living' \m/

Lamia Karim Mac@ GB has close to 9 million borrowers. Bangladeshi NGOs, at present some 2,000 NGOs work directly with microfinance loans. If you include 5 people per household, then MF benefits 100 million in Bangladesh. Very important to realize that the Microcredit Summit, World Bank, IMF largely draw their conclusions about the benefits of MF from a small sample of studies conducted in Bangladesh. A lot of it is GB/NGO sponsored research. So, think about that for a moment.

To go on. Yes, there are 20 million microfinance borrowers. What that means is that there is a dire need for money. In the absence of jobs, people will take loans. They don't do it because they are stupid but because they desperately need t...he money to pay for necessities. One could draw an analogy with poor parents who marry their daughters to families that demand high dowries, but they know that they will not be able to come up with the money. They think that once the girl is married perhaps the families will not demand as much or abuse her. We all know what happens to the young women.

OK, the majority of these borrowers borrow from multiple MFIs. In my research I found that women borrowed from 5-8 NGOs. So, the idea to call anyone a Grameen borrower is quite meaningless because they ...are indebted to multiple sources. The solution to poverty is not microloans biut job creation, esp. in poor countries like Bangladesh. The government has to invest in the public sector. Otherwise, the poor are going to to get poorer. When I did my research in 98-99, I knew that microfinannce could not continue on. It is built on a lot of myths that the West buys into because it is a good story. Well, it has come full circle now.

Prachya Deb Mukherjee: Mac... a bold and an informative piece as to ground realities in Bangladesh.... and hope people keep on voicing their opinions... keep on keeping on... JoyGurudev

Mac Haque ‎@ Lamia - thanks for your updates which is really useful and informative.

Mac Haque ‎@PB - was it Kazi Nazrul who said "Oshhotyer kachey nahi noto hoi shir, bhoi e kapey kapurush lorey jai Bir" ?

Mac Haque ‎@Faisal - neither do I - but on Great God himself, I am not in agreement with you :)

Of Insta-Democracy, ‘Revolution’ and doing a Cairo in Dhaka

2011-03-11T10:27:00.001+06:00

“The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal, the revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised Brother, the revolution will be live.” Gil Scott-Heron

Whoever cooked up recipes for ‘revolutions’ in Tunisia and Egypt leading to the domino effect now sweeping the Arab world was surely ‘high’ on either instant-coffee, instant noodle or the variety of instant gratification applications, food and lifestyle devices that have become global icons! A reality check on strategies employed would infer, the only ‘weapons’ you need for a ‘revolution’ is a Facebook or Twitter account - (preferably both) a user friendly cell phone and human skills to mobilize thousands of people into a main square of your city.

That done, make sure that no one budges from their ‘sit-ins’, get slogans going 24/7 and besiege your President till he decides to quit. Additionally you would be a fool not to woe a few world class TV Channels to beam LIVE your insta-party inclusive of sloganeering, insta-sleep-in, insta-colorful tents et al protest. The US and ‘rest of the free world’ will call the shots for you and if that’s not happening, Bro…. you are doing something terribly wrong! Not to worry- sooner than not, ‘world leaders’ will recognize the ‘merits’ of your ‘democratic protest’ and send in words of ‘solidarity’ denouncing the ‘dictator’ who you are trying to oust. Bah……

So, if you and your co-protestors have the temerity to hang in there for a wee bit longer (all the better if some if you get killed – corpses makes your case stronger) be rest assured that Hillary Clinton will back you, and if the ‘brute’ on her reprimand doesn’t leave – prepare for Barack Obama
to issue a QUIT NOW firman – and Walla – you have a case of insta-democracy and insta-freedom instantaneously.....clap clap clap.....Long Live the Revolution. All of the above in about three weeks...piece of cake dude?

Truly so…however while all of the above gets going, erase forcibly from memory that it was the ‘free-world’ who in the first place propelled the guy to power – (the one you are now trying to ‘overthrow’), and let him rule unashamedly over your destiny for decades – not to forget the rivers of blood that flowed in the decades gone by.

Simplistic as these ‘revolutions’ may seem, there are ominous signs that the insta-recipes are flawed. After Hosni Mubarak quit, not bargained for was the dexterity of an emerging youthful ‘apolitical’ leadership in Cairo who may have had every ambition, but NOT one to aspire for political power, neither are these chic revolutionary romanticist of a kind the world had seen in the sixties and seventies.

What they perfectly identified: Mubarak may have left, but his brutal regime still exists and has put a firm down payment on the fate of Egypt! That understood, they have the will and resolve to confront the Military by not leaving the streets as the days wears on - demanding men in uniform do not get an edge in formation of the Government – are indicators that must be viewed seriously.

Ironic in the Egyptian drama as it continues to unfold: is while the world stood by and supported the protestors when everything was going right, they have for now been abandoned and the military is closing in menacingly. The reports of a Christian Church being set ablaze in Sol near Cairo on the 5th March indicates worse nightmares – sectarianism and rise of Islamic extremism – perhaps making the Muslim Brotherhood the real beneficiary of recent strife’s? Time will speak for itself and this is certainly music for neighboring Israel’s ears!

On the flip side the Libyan ‘salad’ was badly tossed – the author perhaps relied too much on online open source intelligence, with knowledge of ground realities grossly screwed-up. The protestors didn’t quite get into the besiege mode in Tripoli with any degree of successala Cairo, the uprisings in Benghazi an unwanted spoke into a seemingly well greased wheel.

While the free world openly supports an armed ‘uprising’ for the moment, the going will be tough and slow. Gaddafi for all practical purpose may not cave in as was predicted, instead over time he will gain foothold and use his power base – letting Benghazi bleed in the process. All reminiscent of the US betrayal of Kurds in Iraq in 1975 – the same scenario of support for ‘uprisings’, and when it got going – pulling the carpet from under it to placate exigencies – in the case of Libya read 60% of its OIL, 1.6 million barrels per day?

Gaddafi – International pariah par excellence, a ‘madman’ who believes his people love him enough to die for him, his records to appease the ‘free world’ is nonetheless exemplary. He managed to exonerate himself in recent years, and post 09/11 when the Bushonian War on Terror commenced, despite his bad past records he was left undisturbed. No Al-Qaeda-ish‘Islamic threats’ could be monitored in his moves.

And it was only ‘fair’. He paid blood money in millions for mostly American victims of the 1988 Pan Am aircraft bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland and promised a further US$10 million to each family if full diplomatic relations with the US were to be restored. In 2006 after a wait of 26 years the cherished relations between the US and Libya was restored ….what is yet unknown is whether rest of the promised blood money were eventually paid!

Closer to home, some of our politicians imbued by the ‘success’ of protest in the Middle East have been talking loud about doing a ‘Cairo in Dhaka’. Clearly they are far off the mark. For one, one too many uprisings and insurrections in our history have had the same recipe – besieging the power of the day, endless and senseless violence – the end results have been predictable.

Either the Army has stepped in or our politicians have gone behind our back and shook hands with them on promise that either of the two mainstream parties be propelled to power. Add to that the citizen’s at large being per force taken hostage by hartals - that interestingly is not the sort of things we are viewing in the Middle East today.

'"When rulers become traders, the subjects become paupers” is a famous Gujrati proverb and that is exactly the fate of Bangladesh. Our politicians with the explicitly boot licking Media in combi, are nothing more than poor traders who live off the fortune of even poorer people, so ‘doing a Cairo in Dhaka’ is highly unfeasible.

What needs to be seen is how our forever sufferable jonogon (masses) will before long – en-masse throw out the traders. More than likely we are set for a Benghazi in Bangladesh – armed to the teeth, masses completely cut off from the ruler/trader/media nexus will move upon Dhaka, with a nameless faceless leader tilting the ante of fate and our destiny? To that – Long live Revolution – and being someone with chronic middle-class Utopian sensibilities – will it be incorrect to say that no other word titillates our senses more than…..Biplob…tai na?

PS. Two wrongs doesn’t quite make a right – and while I think its patently idiotic of the Government to ‘dare’ ask the US asset Dr.Younus to resign on premise that he ‘cheated’ 10 years more than his term in office, isn’t it rather strange that the Nobel Laureate did not volunteer nor display the sagacity expected of him and resign in that many years?

New Age Extra

Print Edition 11th March 2011

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Shock & Awe Talk: Welcome to my neighborhood and the ‘worlds longest Cricket Bat’!

2011-02-26T16:41:00.000+06:00

I am talking about Mirpur folks, a place I have lived since 1968 and had it not been for the World Cup Cricket 2011, it wouldn’t even have found itself on the National map – forget the Global Map that fate has placed it today. It nonetheless fills me with pride to see hundreds upon thousands of people ‘from Dhaka’ thronging in every evening to my neighborhood to witness firsthand the ‘beautification’ that has come our way.

Mirpur always boasted quite a few world class facilities even before the WCC dawned. From the National Indoor Stadium (the only one of its kind in the country which remains in dire neglect), to the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium where most of the matches will be played, and on to the worlds Flora and Fauna map - the Zoological and Botanical Garden, sanctuaries to hundreds upon thousands of migratory birds, Mirpur surely is a mixed marvel.

Between Section 1 and 10, there are many beautiful high rise buildings owned by national and international NGO’s and the Government, with the prestigious Bangladesh-German Technical Institute still considered one of the finest in the country. That aside – between Section 10 and 12 – in the long line of shops on both sides of the road, one can see a proliferation of trendy fashion houses, haute couture chains, fast food franchises, restaurants, Banks and several posh super markets etc.

On the 5 kms stretch of road from the Meteorological Office in Agargaon to the Section 10 roundabout, are world class furniture shops – where some of the best wood ware in the country are produced and sold. East of the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium is the Jamdani Palli (village) – a 1 square kilometers area where the dying saree tradition is kept alive by craftsmen and sold both retail and wholesale to ladies ‘from Dhaka’. If that’s not enough – the mouth-watering Bihari kebab stores found everywhere in Mirpur, has a steady gourmet clientele round the year.

Mirpur’s history dates back to the Mughal era; with the earliest inhabitants apparently Shonaton Zamindars and add with it families and disciples of the Sufi Saint Shah Ali Baghdadi who died in 1480 – its beleaguered existence makes it an unenviable time warp story that stood neglected – and probably still is.

In the early fifties, the Pakistan Government allocated the area for Bihari refugees affected by communal riots in India before partition in 1947. Over years it gained a reputation as a non-Bengali area, but that changed by mid sixties when the Late Zahurul Islam founded the Pallabi Residential Area (between Section 11.5 and Section 12) – the first commercially built real estate enterprise in the then East Pakistan.

For Bengalis who were ‘brave enough’ to risk living in a Bihari dominated area, the catch really was property price. The ready made house on 5 kathas of land that our family moved into was purchased for Rupees 60,000! With Rupees 5,000 as a ‘down payment’ we could take ‘immediate possession’- and that was the least of the catch. Paying installment of Rupees 750 per month – the house became ‘our own’ in 1978! Ours by the way was a tenement of the middle order – some houses were priced even as low as Rupees 25,000.

There were problems. Mirpur had an ill-earned dacoity reputation and if ever our relatives or friends bucked up courage to visit us – they would leave before dusk. The other was believe it or not – wildlife! Even after the liberation of the country, it wasn’t unusual to see packs of fierce looking Jackals go about screaming ‘hooka hoowa’ – as also Civets which many thought were Tigers. In those politically incorrect times – weekends would see loads of shotgun wielding ‘shikaris’ out hunting ‘kosher’ Hare and wild ducks!

The much trumpeted Bengali-Bihari bhai-bhai edifice crumbled during events of 1971 forcing our family to move out of Mirpur and we did not return until early 1973. Brutality of an unimaginable magnitude was unleashed by Bihari’s in collaboration with the Pakistan Army and the disappearance of filmmaker Zaheer Raihan after the end of the War weighed heavily on the National psyche, but things were set to change.

The biggest of changes came in 1985 when the connecting road between Agargaon and Section 10 roundabout was built, cutting commuting time to less than half to rest of Dhaka and increasing its population manifold. Previously there was only one road to Mirpur and back - via Bangla College, Darus Salam, Mohammadpur and onwards. However even in the worst of times, Mirpur boasted a reliable public transport system. One could get to Motijheel through the circuitous route in about 45 minutes. Today its any ones guess how long it may take you to reach there. Be mentally prepared for up to 2 hours of traffic hold-up from Dhaka to get you across 20 kms to the games.

Mirpur has the highest population density in Dhaka, together with a large number of Garments factories that have cropped up over the years, with its shantytowns making it the city’s worst ‘crime zone’ and imperative to have two police stations, Mirpur and Pallabi to handle affairs.

Inexcusable is the fact that Mirpur as of today has no automatic traffic signal, no Zebra crossings, no traffic policemen (if you see one – he is really there to collect baksheesh) and to think of it, as an area it was far better planned and executed way before Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara or Uttara were even conceived. The only residential area that predates Mirpur is Azimpur and Dhanmondi.

That being the case – the cosmetic ‘beautification’ campaign for WCC means there are no hawkers on pavements, no rickshaws blocking your path, also all the residents living in and around the Stadium - on pain of being arrested – have been compelled to apply fresh coat of paints to their houses, shops and businesses etc. If you visit Mirpur at night to see the ‘illumination’ tamasha, the place looks more like a massive wedding ceremony in progress …….nothing more to it.

Parting Shot: Has anybody chanced upon the 110 feet ‘longest cricket bat in the world’‘installation art’? I saw its construction – and it is no more than a few boards hashed up over a ‘cricket bat like frame’ where I see idiots in thousands queuing up to post graffiti’s! near the Radisson Hotel adjacent to the monstrosities passing off as

Is that really a ‘cricket bat’ – and why is it that we still have to harbor this ‘one of its kinds in the world’ parochial complex at every given opportunity? WCC or no WCC – a hoax is a hoax and the sooner we put a stop to it – the better – else we will be ‘caught off the back foot’– and it’s not just the Tigers, but us as a NATION that stands to become a laughing stock i.e. if we are not one already.

While we showcase Mirpur and Bangladesh to the world, the exercise is no more than a subtle effort to sweep the dust under our carpets disabling our ‘honored guest’ to see the filth that we otherwise live with, and are accustomed to.

In any case a very warm welcome to Mirpur and I hope against hope that it stays this way in the days to come. Sticky Wickets?

New Age XTRA - Print Version, 25th February 2011

Shock & Awe Talk: Of RAB, Rub-Out and Creations of a Superior God

2011-02-12T00:10:00.002+06:00

“The eye witness was unfortunately blind”- Arabic proverb

There is something eerie in the way we address the issue of violent deaths. Subconsciously as there is a paper thin chance of the ugly reality hitting us we thank God for his Mercy – that is one half, the other half comes from a near Pharaohnic arrogance of our politicians, that death ‘the ultimate reality’ may never meet their fate!

Power inebriated murder merchants backed by trigger-happy uniformed goons (a post-liberation legacy) all protected by the law, also display an enduring ‘talent’ to stay above the law. That talent is nothing more than an ability to lie with a straight face, knowing all to well that murderous regimes that have trampled in and out of power, live with lies and will probably die by the same. Justice therefore is a misnomer in Bangladesh as it was none else, but us that ‘democratically’ voted these ‘legal criminals’ to power, overawed by the promises they make every five years or so. We really have no choice….or do we?

The term ‘crossfire’ is losing currency and our Media ought to start replicating the Filipino expression – RUB-OUT. These phenomenon’s are not unique to Bangladesh alone, but the real problem is in the ‘stories’ the Government weaves to justify murders. Sample: usually the victim is arrested on ‘suspicion’ or was challenged by RAB an ‘elite force’ or the Police, who are ‘fired upon by accomplices’ of the victim during weapon recovery operations…….end of the story.

More sinister is one where RAB is fired upon and in the ensuing ‘gun battle the criminal is shot dead’ while others flee - never to be found! The real danger in this version is the authors do not know a thing about covenants governing rules of engagement i.e. when non-state actors attack state-actors with lethal weapons, it is not a simple crime or ‘terrorism’ – it is an ACT OF WAR! Never followed up is what happens to the ones that get away? So it looks like for every Rub-Out victim, we have dozens of armed and dangerous ‘living criminals’ lurking……………

Meanwhile as the ‘war’ escalates, we use fancy terms like ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminal Godfathers’ without questioning why banned Jihadi groups such as the JMB or HUJI never lose a single member in Rub-Outs (all arrested, photographed, sent to jails – and in most cases released…..Al-Hamudulillah!), while it is perfectly legit to shoot dead real or imagined Maoist extremist in the country.

It is also a ‘trifling matter’ that innocent citizens are gunned down as they were foolish enough to be in the ‘line of fire’. Now after all that ‘clarification’ if we so much as dare dissent the ‘official’ verbal diarrhea…………the diagnosis is pretty straight forward……sorry folks - you have chronic mental dysentery :)

The problem in my reckoning is as much with us as with the State. We have been pitted into a thought process whereby we abjectly believe that some of us ‘lucky ones’ are creations of a ‘Superior God’ – while others are not! It’s this duplicity of our demeanor, our double standards that too often is exemplified in our pathological quadruplespeak’s that leads us bang-on to the hard reality: None of us are safe from extrajudicial killings…….shocked?

Our Home Minister recently defended Rub-Outs, and in a salvo on the Media and Human Rights Organizations commented, ‘these people actually protect the HR of Criminals’. Visibly enraged she went on to ask – ‘why do they remain silent when members of our Security Forces are killed by criminals?’

Excuse me Your Excellency…….unless as a nation we have not slipped into collective amnesia, wasn’t it your predecessor the ‘Looking for Shotruuz’ – Lutfuzzaman Babar that said similar things in defense of Rub-Outs in recent past, when all the HR organizations were indeed the AL’s best friends? Is this a case of what goes around – comes around? Darn….gulp….gulp……

:( The quixotic equation: Members of Security Forces and Citizens clubbed into the same bracket? It is for Security Forces to guarantee our safety, and if they die - it is not as if they have gone beyond the call of duty, nor have they done us a huge ‘favor’. Men in uniform are on taxpayers employ to do their jobs – and death most regrettably is an occupational hazard they willingly volunteer when they sign-up and swear by the Flag. The State in turn ensures Guard of Honor, Floral Wreathes and many financial packages to compensate their ‘martyrdom’….Salutes…….

To be more direct – do we or HR Organizations have anything to say about the death of men in uniform who die almost every day anywhere in the world? On our Home Ministers side, have we ever heard a word of regret or has she visited members of families of Rub-Out victim/s who her charges murdered in cold blood, either to express sympathy or promise JUSTICE? Excuse me folks…….we are talking here about 281 people rubbed-out in two years – and does anybody remember how many ‘elite’ RAB or Policeman have bit the dust since?

Smarting perhaps from Wikileaks on RAB, in London the Prime Minister admitted incidents of extrajudicial killings, (not making the Home Minister look any prettier!) however what beats me is the hoo-haa that went around after it was revealed that the UK trained RAB ‘a death squad’ – and how much the Brit’s abhor such ‘wanton defilement of Human Rights’….ah! Are we not being plain naive? Are there no instances of extra-judicial murders in the UK?

There has been one too many actually……….from the Iraq War whistleblower Dr.David Kellyin 2003 to the deranged Raoul Moat who went on a killing spree in 2010 – the answer, remedy and propah English variant is – ‘suicide’….a silencer pistol to the head or a lethal injection shot?

Then I think about Abir, a perfectly decent, clean-cut college going kid in my neighborhood rubbed-out two weeks ago. I wonder if he fell on the feet of his uniformed assassins to beg Mercy. Did he cry out ‘mother’ when he was mercilessly tortured, or at the penultimate moment, when bullets pierced his fragile body – did he call out the name of Allah………or did he curse……………………did he?

History reminds us that when tyrants Sins adds up, nature intervenes ruthlessly and course of justice summons a merciless Court. Rubbishing the RAB or Police is no solution. Time has come to think out alternatives to our power salivating politicians. As I close, Egypt burns and 60% of its Police stations are in ashes. At home, from small pushes to mighty shoves Arial Beel faithfully documented the people’s apolitical natural wrath.

Is a Citizens Revolt in the offing……are we ready?

New Age XTRA Print Version

Friday, 11th February 2011

Shock & Awe Talk : Of Rebels, War Criminals and rephrased Chetona speak

2011-01-28T14:32:00.004+06:00

The week gone by was all about the Municipal elections and I really don’t care whether BNP outflanked Awami League or vice versa. What is heartening is most of the candidates were described in media reports as ‘rebels’ and reading cursorily between the lines, it seems the coinage had all to do with young Councilors and Mayors refusing to toe their respective ‘party lines’. Plainly stated the ‘rebels’ chose to respect overpowering ground realties; the people in general are fast losing their ‘appetite’ for the two mainstream parties.

Not surprisingly, many of the ‘rebels’ were expelled but what it possibly indicates for the future is that a new brand of young and alternative leadership appears to be emerging. By looks of things, this is a power base that clearly will not accept diktats of their fossilized hierarchy. Could this be the catalysis for a major change in Bangladesh politics? Unless we are being deluded again, there is subtle hope in the horizon……and like the saying goes….’if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’……my two noya shikiz to that …join ‘em and beat ‘em hollow……

Greed and political ambitions notwithstanding (it doesn’t make sense for any party to field four candidates for the same post) but what I am elated about is the outcome. Admittedly, there was violence but what about the peaceful images of conciliation and tolerance? Sadly very few newspapers ran photographs of the five smiling candidates, locked arm-in-arm parading the streets of Rangamati on way to the polling office to accept the verdict of the people. I ended this column on 14^th January 2011, with a hope and prayer that the post-liberation generation be propelled to power. Municipal Polls 2011 – indicates that my prayers may have been answered………Amen……

Now, whenever this ‘old leadership’ talks about new or emerging young leaders, the onus is really to foster the possible entry of their ‘blood relatives’, or rub-in raw the culture of ‘leadership by default’. This has resulted in the mentality that unless we take cognizance of a persons blood line to either dead or living Presidents, Prime Ministers or Generals i.e. anybody other than the offspring’s of ‘dynasties’ by implication are unfit to rule. But how long will our wretched nation tolerate these unending ‘die-nastic’ quick-fixes?

The offspring’s in turn are glorified by party cohorts and a subservient media as ‘Prince and Princess Wannabes’ and for all we know, the ‘best’ among them may have a ‘degree’ from a US University with smattering of snobbish ‘digital knowledge’ which again, could be no more efficiency foretold than savvy access by Blackberry, Iphone devices to Facebook or Twitter! Anybody for a Facebook Status Update or Tweet? Try – “Hey Prince – tell thy mothers – we subjects are unhappy”…….

What then is the ‘qualification’ needed to rule a nation of 120 million people? Have we looked at the possibility that even a ‘lowly’ peasant’s son can aspire to and become a future leader of this country? ‘Times they are a changing’ and its time we optimize on the options we have, or else the changes that are inevitable will find us wont to a situation we are not prepared for – not even in our worst nightmares.

Shock and Surprises about the War Crime Trials: there seems to be not one political party in Bangladesh that is opposed to the same, and that includes the Jamaat-e-Islami – the nemesis of 1971! The Awami League having raised the issue in its election manifesto, and as popular opinion would infer, was the one singular factor that swept the party to ‘absolute’ power……that of course is recent history.

However the posters and graffiti’s all across Bangladesh have the same loud and robust message – HANG THE WAR CRIMINALS, It seems nothing short of putting the villains to death would please us, a ‘fair demand’ on surface. The realities of the Yo-Yo that indeed is our politics – leaves me to wonder - does the ruling party realise, that if they are unable to ‘hang them’ in this tenure, that they should mentally prepare to ‘hang’ if they fail? My gut feeling is this threat is not so much from the War Criminals – but from the people, specially the young and impressionable who voted them to power in the first place.

The US War Crimes Ambassador Stephen Rapp’s recent visit Dhaka in perspective and his suggestion ‘that key provisions in the statutes that set up UN-approved international tribunals should be introduced into the rules of procedure that govern the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh’. The Government reaction being unknown – his ‘generous’ handover of ‘hundreds of declassified papers’ on 1971 to the Prosecution raises the question: how many thousand similar ‘papers’ has he passed on to the Defence on the sly? I wonder if he is somehow preempting a possible Wikileak on events of 1971…..only time will say.

As an active collaborator of the Pakistani murder machine of 1971, the US has absolutely no moral right to offer any ‘suggestions’ on how the War Crimes Trials are conducted, and the Government of Bangladesh should instead stay on course and conclude the task it has undertaken – a promise made to its the citizens.

Knowing all too well that in our political culture, promises are made never to be kept – what would then transpire? Surely subtle pressures from the US about the War Crime Trials are mounting and since beggars cannot be choosers will we as a nation sit back and co-opt to this shenanigan? Hello……does anybody have an answer………………

Its no secret that the US was and still is ‘comfortable’ with the Jamaat-e- Islami – and that’s not for any love of Muslims or Islam, but to afford its Military Industrial Complex the opportunity to bomb us back to Stone Age – like it did in Afghanistan.

What happens if the War Crime Trials are scuttled and how would the Muktijudddher Chetona traders foaming at the mouth interpret it? Sample rants – ‘we the brave nation decided to forgive and forget and adopted the South African Truth and Reconciliation model’ will fill the air waves……………hah…..Shocked……I am not…….

Epilogue for a Soap sponsored serial ‘natok’: ‘Back in 1974 if the Father of the Nation could forgive Pakistan – why can’t we?’………end of the sorry story……………National Anthem…… switch off your TV folks…….and while you dream, try explaining the above to souls of the Martyrs of 1971.

A nightmare? Do give it a think…...

New Age Xtra, Print Edition

Friday, 28th January 2011

Shock & Awe Talk: Of Vested Quarters and Political Atheism

2011-01-18T15:58:00.003+06:00

For those who do not know me, I am a scribe of small repute who wrote ‘irregularly regularly’ for this publication since its inception. I then went on a hiatus for over five years which in retrospect and in all truthfulness had to do with my articles either not being published or being harrowingly edited – making them incoherent not only to readers , but also to myself! Nonetheless, there being no ‘burying old hatchets’ issue at stake, I can only say New Age this time around appears reasonably optimistic in handling the ‘shock and awe’ columns I intend to write every other week. Fate ironically reduced me to a ‘restricted writer’ with only semblance of a presence on the Internet, this re-entry into the ‘real hardcopy world’ – print, photograph and all…ah… feels like a deep breath of freshly polluted air which in reality is what we breathe in Dhaka! Welcome all….

Why Shock? Well……why not? Electrical shocks are used to resuscitate dying patients, however in Bangladesh today we have taken on the retinue of being ‘constantly shocked’ to events surrounding our day to day existence. It has come a time when we have been rendered (to use the cliché expression) ‘shock proof’ which on the flip side again means we have decided to be in denial of realities around us. Exception being, until some realities come up close and bruise our comfort zones we ‘care not to care’, or play plain disinterested. Take for example the print version of New Age of 9th January 2011. On the front page itself there are 6 reports of deaths, murders shooting, slaughters (throats being slit…eeeee), and mayhems – the word ‘kill, killed’ appears 3 times and the reports are gruesome, grisly and sufficiently capable to incapacitate a ‘fresh mind’ that has just woken up from comforts of a wintry slumber.

Not being your average Bengalee citizen who by inclination and perceived genetic disposition is expected to be ‘very brave’, such shocks can cause distress and disequilibrium which in turn can mar a perfectly productive day. That being a wake up ritual – back home the same evening if one makes the mistake of switching on the TV or worse tune-in to watch the ever growing numbers of reasonably pretty faces who read news in piercing high decibels (obviously a replication of Indian TV presenters) the exercise could cause more havoc than bargained for.

On the 9th January evening (i.e. after this newspapers kill, killed front-page) – all TV Channels ran footages of a female ruling party MP who lives in Pallabi, Mirpur, reporting that masked bandit had robbed her and a nearby apartment residents of all their valuables – in a precision operation that lasted well over ninety minutes. The Home Minister was also seen at the crime scene mouthing her oft repeated phrase of ‘how appreciably the law and order situation has improved’ and how some ‘vested quarters are out to discredit the Government’s accomplishments’! That aside – she promised to get to the root of these crimes and ‘nab the Godfathers within 24 hours’. Shocked?

Not at all. Scared? Just a wee bit. Why? a) its armed banditry in my own neighborhood which is a little too close for comfort b) a MP has been robbed and she is no ordinary citizen c) and as the evening wore on TV news also beamed gruesome blood drenched footage of a slaughtered mother and child, (clear acts of defilement by the Media, denying victims the dignity of their death) a Shonaton Temple in the city being robbed off the gold jewelry adorned on the principal deity and more. Cumulatively a,b and c sadly doesn’t quite add up with the Ministers ‘improved law and order situation’ statement. Shocked? I dunno…..

Point for rumination – the citizenry at large are held ransom to whims and caprices and serious low life attitude of our political leadership with barbs such as ‘vested quarters’, tongue in cheek obviously meaning the Opposition. What has become taxingly dreadful is this political culture of appropriating blame on real or imagined foes is a legacy that we have not been able to shrug off in the 40 years of our existence. This divisive culture whereby if you speak out against the Government you are a ‘demon on the payroll of the BNP/Jamaat axis of Islam pasand bigots’ or member of the hard to define ‘anti-liberation force’…. and if nothing works to humiliate you into silence, in that case ‘mmmmmmm…..most definitely you are an active post-Liberation Razakar hindering the War Crimes Trial process’ option is always open, which clearly demonstrates closed mindset veering on lunacy of a shock and awe kind!

The constant reminder about War Criminals despite the ruling parties ‘brute majority’ does not speak about its confidence but its fragile vulnerability. We tend to complain and never unleash solutions and when we do – we make them appear as ballistic science understandable only if we ‘agree to agree’ with the ever growing number of Government backed see-no-evil faithful sycophants who appear on nightly TV talk shows. To square peg a round hole, one is rendered a political pariah – with the exit door open, sometimes with threats or even pain of death if you don’t rush it………..scared? Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – not saying!

When it comes to my personal belief system, I am a believer but also an agnostic – a strange twist! However when it comes to our politics, I am a disbeliever and a vowed atheist – in that I have come around believing that anybody that believes our politicians simply cannot believe God! Thus as a pronounced ‘political atheist’ I do not vote, have no time for partisan politics – and if I could have things my way – I would outlaw this state of ‘Demon-ocracy’ masquerading as Democracy altogether – for in 40 years we have proved to ourselves that we simply do not deserve it or are fit to practice it.

What other options do we have? None as far as I am concerned – other than slapping a life ban on all existing politicians and demanding that new leadership emerge from the post-Liberation generation, removed from the taints and stigma of our historical travesties of fate. The nation turns 40 in March – and as a Political Atheist I would rather trust the new forty something generation – and God!

God help me………………..

Mac Haque
New Age XTRA Print Version
Friday, 14th January 2011