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Sunday, April 20, 2008

[ALOCHONA] Re: Has anyone examined where the stories are being cooked?

Has anyone examined where the stories are being cooked?

No so long ago, for about 30 years in fact, every story about Bangladesh had Jewish refugee Kissinger racist  insulting quote. It stopped when some of us pointed out to US media that it was a deliberate insult like quoting Nazi Germans racist cliche about Jews in every report to do with Jews. And then every Bangladesh report quoted the population figures and percentage of impoverishment. In recent reports, a phenomenon started in India, they talk about a "largely destitute population"- as quoted by Barbara Elk in the Washington Post not so long ago. And then reports about global  warming has  given  Indians to  whisper  and shout that the destitute are flooding into India as India is now the new America ( except that India has half the poorest people, and amongst the most destitute, in the world!). No reporter  sees propaganda, racism or irony or cheek in the Indian fabrications. The fact remains India suffers massive and brutal internal instability, and needs to build wire barriers with her all neighbours to keep its  rebellious nationalities  under effective  control.

Bangladesh image is so bad that even nations with hardly a leg  to stand regard themselves lucky. Even Afghanistan regards Bangladesh as destitute, even though its people are at the mercy of America and Europe for every thing, including nearly free mobile phones. Afghanistan  has hardly any industry, food, hospitals or even education. Afghan life expectancy is less than 40. Bangladesh life expectancy is 64 and rising.

What of the people of Bangladesh themselves? They regard themselves- correction: every other Bangladesh person, bar themselves and their immediate family, as destitute, disaster prone, corrupt, illiterate, diseased. Unbelievably, Bangladesh writers even today give out pseudo- anthropological description of Bengali people as: "short, blackish, of Dravidian origin". We all seem to have very low opinion of ourselves and freely communicate such beliefs to foreigners. One has to ask who has planted such a seed of inferiority complex on a whole nation of 160 million.

Such is the leper-like colony image of Bangladesh that hardly anyone, in any part of the world, has any respect for our talent as lovers, artists, managers, chefs, journalists, doctors, poets, designers or workers. How did we allow this to happen to us when we have some many diplomatic missions round the world and we have a 8 million strong probash? How did it happen to a Bengali nation so seemingly proud of its 3,500 history and all the greatness it has produced in the last hundred years, in cinema, music, literature, medicine, science....?

Sri Lanka has been in a brutal bloody civil war for over 30 years, between Buddhist Sinhalese themselves- an issue largely hidden today ; and then between Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese. Despite the extreme violence and suicide attacks (Hindus still hold the world record for the most suicide attacks) the investors have kept coming, aid has kept flowing in,... and no one has been allowed to caricature Sri Lanka or the Sinhalese as violent or anything else. In fact Sri Lankans  and their diplomats have been the most proactive in crushing every story in the international media (including stories about sexual exploitation of little boys for tourist dollars) which they dislike by actively putting out their own viewpoint and bombarding the international media with corrections or smooth talk. With the result that international media, and the BBC, ensure that civil war is reported with great care. There has been no adverse effect on the international image of the nation or the Sinhalese ethnic group. In fact the Muslim Gulf Arab even helped to found a an airline  and hotels to help tourism!

Nepal's brutal ethnic and class war has been spared adverse news coverage, especially in British dominated media, because Britain employs Gurkha mercenaries in its army.

Afghanistan is spared all the cliche in use for Bangladesh. Almost every Bangladesh  story filed by Reuters, AFP, AP carries the same insulting/ demeaning sentence/s. Remarkably, such stories are republished verbatim without any rewrite! This is the simpleminded and naive Bangladesh elite we have in control of our destiny.

India, with all the tragedies and brutalities its numerous ethnic, caste and religious groups suffer daily is the lucky country. It's the darling  of international media, including Arab run media.

Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Republic of Pakistan ended in 1971 when 3 million Bengali people were killed in retaliation for electing a Bengali leadership to run the state, long run for the Punjabi Army) has been the luckiest country of all. It is a state which exists for an Army and an ethnic group. The state has been both the installer of fanatical talibans using Saudi aid and then become an active killer of the very same Pathan talibans  by the thousands when it was politic.... It's dominant population can play the Islamics and the moderate  or even atheist depending on the who has come forward with the latest tranche of Dollars. One remarkable feature is the active manner its  advocates at home and abroad have close ties with the the military families.

Today, as on so many other occasions, the Sheikh of Qatar's Al Jazeera has been running disparaging reports on Bangladesh. Hana G?, the reporter, showed the world viewers very distressing pictures of people suffering in hospitals, Dhaka as a bleak place, repeated that Dhaka was the 2nd most polluted, that Dhaka is going to be a dead place....

One has to ask why is no one objecting to the demeaning pictures of people of Bangladesh and the place called Bangladesh in most of Sheikh of Qatar's news channel? How is it possible for a foreign news channel to just walk into a hospital or a bustee in Dhaka. How often have you seen pictures of bustees in Karachi?

I know some of my Bengali people will say to me it does not matter. Sadly it matters. And it matters even if your nation has three Nobel Prizes: Tagore, Sen, Yunus. A Gujarati or a Tamil may not have a Nobel Prize winner but they will claim Bengali Sen and Tagore; and shine in the glory. What does it matter that an Arab or a African can't tell one "Indian" from another. BUT THEY ALL CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIA AND BANGLADESH. Get it? No!

One last point. Transparency International labeling is a libel and a lie against our nation. Bangladesh is not even the 40th on the list but unbelievably the cheeky Turkish media keeps telling  Turks that Bangladesh is the 3rd poorest (Turkey is the first to jump at any slight to its image). And Dhaka is not the 2nd most polluted but someone has cooked it any way at the unreliable Forbes Magazine. Let's now get Bangladesh critics, academics, diplomats and media to analyse the spread of falsehood against an entire nation. Let them research all the names of people who are cooking Bangladesh. Let Bangladesh internet and Bangladesh media publish their names and origins.




Isha Khan <bd_mailer@yahoo.com> wrote:

Has anyone examined where the stories are being cooked?

No so long ago, for about 30 years in fact, every story about Bangladesh had Jewish refugee Kissinger racist  insulting quote. It stopped when some of us pointed out to US media that it was a deliberate insult like quoting Nazi Germans racist cliche about Jews in every report to do with Jews. And then every Bangladesh report quoted the population figures and percentage of impoverishment. In recent reports, a phenomenon started in India, they talk about a "largely destitute population"- as quoted by Barbara Elk in the Washington Post not so long ago. And then reports about global  warming has  given  Indians to  whisper  and shout that the destitute are flooding into India as India is now the new America ( except that India has half the poorest people, and amongst the most destitute, in the world!). No reporter  sees propaganda, racism or irony or cheek in the Indian fabrications. The fact remains India suffers massive and brutal internal instability, and needs to build wire barriers with her all neighbours to keep its  rebellious nationalities  under effective  control.

Bangladesh image is so bad that even nations with hardly a leg  to stand regard themselves lucky. Even Afghanistan regards Bangladesh as destitute, even though its people are at the mercy of America and Europe for every thing, including nearly free mobile phones. Afghanistan  has hardly any industry, food, hospitals or even education. Afghan life expectancy is less than 40. Bangladesh life expectancy is 64 and rising.

What of the people of Bangladesh themselves? They regard themselves- correction: every other Bangladesh person, bar themselves and their immediate family, as destitute, disaster prone, corrupt, illiterate, diseased. Unbelievably, Bangladesh writers even today give out pseudo- anthropological description of Bengali people as: "short, blackish, of Dravidian origin". We all seem to have very low opinion of ourselves and freely communicate such beliefs to foreigners. One has to ask who has planted such a seed of inferiority complex on a whole nation of 160 million.

Such is the leper-like colony image of Bangladesh that hardly anyone, in any part of the world, has any respect for our talent as lovers, artists, managers, chefs, journalists, doctors, poets, designers or workers. How did we allow this to happen to us when we have some many diplomatic missions round the world and we have a 8 million strong probash? How did it happen to a Bengali nation so seemingly proud of its 3,500 history and all the greatness it has produced in the last hundred years, in cinema, music, literature, medicine, science....?

Sri Lanka has been in a brutal bloody civil war for over 30 years, between Buddhist Sinhalese themselves- an issue largely hidden today ; and then between Hindu Tamils and Buddhist Sinhalese. Despite the extreme violence and suicide attacks (Hindus still hold the world record for the most suicide attacks) the investors have kept coming, aid has kept flowing in,... and no one has been allowed to caricature Sri Lanka or the Sinhalese as violent or anything else. In fact Sri Lankans  and their diplomats have been the most proactive in crushing every story in the international media (including stories about sexual exploitation of little boys for tourist dollars) which they dislike by actively putting out their own viewpoint and bombarding the international media with corrections or smooth talk. With the result that international media, and the BBC, ensure that civil war is reported with great care. There has been no adverse effect on the international image of the nation or the Sinhalese ethnic group. In fact the Muslim Gulf Arab even helped to found a an airline  and hotels to help tourism!

Nepal's brutal ethnic and class war has been spared adverse news coverage, especially in British dominated media, because Britain employs Gurkha mercenaries in its army.

Afghanistan is spared all the cliche in use for Bangladesh. Almost every Bangladesh  story filed by Reuters, AFP, AP carries the same insulting/ demeaning sentence/s. Remarkably, such stories are republished verbatim without any rewrite! This is the simpleminded and naive Bangladesh elite we have in control of our destiny.

India, with all the tragedies and brutalities its numerous ethnic, caste and religious groups suffer daily is the lucky country. It's the darling  of international media, including Arab run media.

Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Republic of Pakistan ended in 1971 when 3 million Bengali people were killed in retaliation for electing a Bengali leadership to run the state, long run for the Punjabi Army) has been the luckiest country of all. It is a state which exists for an Army and an ethnic group. The state has been both the installer of fanatical talibans using Saudi aid and then become an active killer of the very same Pathan talibans  by the thousands when it was politic.... It's dominant population can play the Islamics and the moderate  or even atheist depending on the who has come forward with the latest tranche of Dollars. One remarkable feature is the active manner its  advocates at home and abroad have close ties with the the military families.

Today, as on so many other occasions, the Sheikh of Qatar's Al Jazeera has been running disparaging reports on Bangladesh. Hana G?, the reporter, showed the world viewers very distressing pictures of people suffering in hospitals, Dhaka as a bleak place, repeated that Dhaka was the 2nd most polluted, that Dhaka is going to be a dead place....

One has to ask why is no one objecting to the demeaning pictures of people of Bangladesh and the place called Bangladesh in most of Sheikh of Qatar's news channel? How is it possible for a foreign news channel to just walk into a hospital or a bustee in Dhaka. How often have you seen pictures of bustees in Karachi?

I know some of my Bengali people will say to me it does not matter. Sadly it matters. And it matters even if your nation has three Nobel Prizes: Tagore, Sen, Yunus. A Gujarati or a Tamil may not have Nobel Prize winner but they will claim Sen and Tagore; and shine in the glory. What does it matter an Arab or a German can tell one Indian from another. BUT THEY ALL CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIA AND BANGLADESH. Get it? No!

One last point. Transparency International labeling is a libel and a lie against our nation. Bangladesh is not even the 40th poorest. And Dhaka is not the 2nd most polluted. Let's now get Bangladesh critics, academics, diplomats and media to analyse the spread of falsehood against an entire nation.

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