[ALOCHONA] Re: The sky, the mind, the ban culture

Dear Alochok Haque

His reply is a teasing appetizer scoffed down without the need to chew at all. More like a single nut at the end of a long day of fasting.

The trouble with the Bangladeshi partisan animal is that he is completely partisan in absolutely everything. Such partisanship cannot be controlled or concealed. In fact such partisans resent that they live in an era, or function in area, where their partisanship should require any moderation all.

He patronizingly asks us to read history. He apparently knows something we don't. Apparently there are sound historical reasons for the condition of our nation today.

Of course he doesn't want us to be obsessed with AL and BNP. That's what they do – dilute the importance of politics when their own party is in power. We wouldn't be obsessed with AL and BNP if AL and BNP weren't obsessed with power. In Bangladesh politics is the cause and effect of everything because AL and BNP have made sure that politics is involved in everything.

An article is a self contained and complete piece unless of course it is stated that the piece is part one of three. Or as in his case, an entire education is required before his article can be understood.

In the face of provocation he defines the Daily Star, in the first instance, relative to the values of 1971 and Pakistan. Is that what the paper is – a revolutionary paper? Well then, it does not seem so revolutionary today eh? And if he then seeks to reflect his partisanship onto the whole paper I suggest the paper come clean and market itself more honestly. I have no problems with the principles of 1971 but I have problems with people who get all self righteous about 1971 and use it as a battering ram to justify our present actions and conditions.

Mujib did make history and is great, but I am not, unlike this journalist, defined by that man. The point is that I am disagreeing with Mujib banning papers and this journalist has no problem with Mujib banning papers. That's why in an article about the banning of newspapers he finds it possible, as a journalist, to bring in the banning of Mujib while ignoring Mujib's own banning of papers.

When supporting your party every little drop in the ocean helps.

And it is the refuge of them all – please be polite. But it is the very contempt and disregard for them that catches their attention in the first place. They pretend they are interested in dialogue, that they are not predetermined, that they are neutral, that they are free to call murder – murder. But they are not. The language I use is hard earned by them and the respect they demand is but a ruse to be trapped in their deceits. Politeness will get you high minded lectures about what happened in 1971 with scant regard for the condition of our nation or our government today.

Let me illustrate brazenly.

This journalist will praise the President for his role in creating a human rights commission. But he would never dare to condemn an AL Home Minister about the beating of children by police with sticks during the recent hartal. Let alone a Home Minister and a President who are correctly informed about 1971.

Decent conversation implies a basic decency. Basic decency cannot be determined by decent conversation alone. What you secretly do, what you deliberately ignore, what you cunningly manipulate is more important than how nicely you converse.

In Bangladesh, the wiliest foxes are those who speak in the nicest way. It gets you very far, often unchallenged, in a nation which only 40 years ago was renowned for its poverty and illiteracy.

Our nation is best served not by those who invoke 1971 day and night for political gain. Our nation will be best served when those who do so are dead and a new generation reengages with its past more honestly, without self interest, blind partisanship and crass sentimentality.

It's why this journalist privately thinks Chatra League's agenda is a necessary evil. It's why he will feign decency in the written word but condone murder, extortion and violence committed by people, who like him, think loving Mujib necessarily makes you a complete man.

We don't need lectures on heritage by those who translate heritage into the politics of Bangladesh and blind support for a Nethri. This journalist is a closet Nethrist. He has a platform. But his intellectualism is not the same intellectualism of 1971. It is the intellectualism that is roundly rejected by many Bangladeshis who know that we are nowhere near where we should be – and why.

Decent conversation. About what? Banning the sky?

It's far more useful for them to learn that they too can be held in despicable contempt by people who can read and write English.

Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "Mohd. Haque" <haquetm83@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Mr. B Ahsan,
>  
> Thanks for your quick reflection and parting knowledge. As far as I am concern in this thread of postings, educating myself is the main objective as my profession is something has no link with what I say or do here (in this blog) or elsewhere in contrary to your position in this connection.
> Therefore my reading habit or writing a post, only to develop and make my opinion for the greater interest of our people I do not have AL or BNP in my background. What you as a political editor of daily star, as a prolific writer, take your position or taken your position already in the mind of thousands of DS readers or your own readers it is entirely their judgement, asking them to educate further to understand your writing is sheer arrogance.
>  
> I used to read all your writings even when you wrote on 'lau er doga ebong alur vhorta', I did say in my last posting - 'distinctive' way of writing. But as I said, I will say again you do form the group what readers like me do not want to align, you have already become part of a media that has already raised many concern. Values of 71' that is your selling point nothing beyond that, nation's well being and greater intersts impaccably made a curved distant. You may take it or leave it.
>  
> If you have a grain of respect to your readers, you endeavor to educate them not lecture them. Well, that is the remnant of our political players and their greatest marketeer's characteristics. 
> You support AL, love Bango Bandhu I have no problem, but your reply did establish what I did not utter out of respect.
> Any way keep writing. Hope I did not write any thing disrespectful to you personally.       
>  
> Haque
>
> --- On Sat, 10/7/10, B Ahsan <bahsantareq@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: B Ahsan <bahsantareq@...>
> Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: The sky, the mind, the ban culture
> To: "Mohd. Haque" <haquetm83@...>
> Date: Saturday, 10 July, 2010, 1:10 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Read history, understand it, go into the details of what this nation has gone through. Don't be obsessed with the AL or BNP.
>
> Where my writings are concerned, you seem to have very little knowledge of them. Or you read selectively. Read, I say again. Educate yourself. Don't just read newspaper articles. There are books, loads of them.
>
> As for the Daily Star, it happens to be a defender of the principles for which we fought against Pakistan in 1971. You have any problems with that? Objectivity? Drop the idea. Go for the truth. Respect your heritage. Disagree with people like Mujib, but do not delude yourselves into thinking that they do not matter in Bangladesh's history. They are men who made history.
>
> The language you use about people you disagree with is appalling. Is that a result of education? Or is bigotry there? You want to have a decent conversation? Then use decent language. If you can't, drop the whole idea.
>
> Syed Badrul Ahsan
>
> --- On Sat, 10/7/10, Mohd. Haque <haquetm83@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: Mohd. Haque <haquetm83@...>
> Subject: Re: [ALOCHONA] Re: The sky, the mind, the ban culture
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: "B Ahsan" <bahsantareq@...>
> Date: Saturday, 10 July, 2010, 11:34
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Ezajur,
>  
> As I have mentioned earlier about SBA there is no way you can expect any thing objective from him, he can criticise the whole world and in a very distictive literary forms but nothing against Awami League.
> Today our biggest tragedy is we do not have any writers who you can read with an objective mind, if you want to read them either you need to put yourself in AL or BNP's mind set.
> How much you try to bring it to their attention, no use. Otherwise, same columnist or writer could have benefit the country in a great way.
> Amader pora kopal. 
>
> --- On Wed, 7/7/10, ezajur <Ezajur@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: ezajur <Ezajur@...>
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Re: The sky, the mind, the ban culture
> To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, 7 July, 2010, 3:28 PM
>
>
>  
>
>
>
> Syed Badrul Ahsan does everything possible to divert the reader from where blame lies - if blame lies with Awami League. Here he talks about everything under the sun in a crafty, roundabout way. He thinks he is very manipulative but for those who care enough to look twice his blind partisanship is very plain to see.
>
> Which is why he will talk about Pakistan banning Mujib but never mention Mujib banning political parties, the press etc. Whatever the situation, these people will find a way of twisting things in favour of their party and their their nethri.
>
> So he brings in Mujib, Tagore, Pakistan and even banning the sky.
>
> But what he should be doing is writing about who is responsible for the current banning fad in Dhaka. But what can you expect? Under no circumstances will people like him attack those who are doing the banning if those who are doing the banning belong to their party.
>
> And people like him are lead writers in the Daily Star.
>
> It is a horrific situation.
>
> Hey Badrul - talk about everything but don't talk about AL leaders who are behind the banning. Bloody rubbish Nethri system turns men into mice.
>
> And Badrul is a mouse. Just like every other man who swears blind loyalty to his Nethri and doesn't have the basic morals to protest injustice within his party.
>
> We are a nation of mice.
>
> --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, "ezajur" <Ezajur@> wrote:
> >
> > Syed Badrul Ahsan is the Head of Awami League Current Affairs at the Daily Star. This piece is one of the best examples of what is wrong with intellectualism in Bangladesh today. This piece is deliberately diversionary and misleads the reader to a place far away from where the reader should be. It is political trickery posing as non partisan intellectualism.
> >
> > It is appalling that he is in such an important position and it is appalling that he is getting away with this kind of journalism - a kind of yellow journalism that hides both its real origins and its real motives.
> >
> > This is about as irrelevant and nonsensical a piece that you will find.
> >
> > Just what the politicians love to see in our papers.
> >
> > Instead of holding authorities to account Syed Badrul Ahsan has us reaching for our dictionary.
> >
> > Hey Badrul! Nowka! Nowka!
> >
> >
> >
> > --- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, Ezajur Rahman <Ezajur@> wrote:
> > >
> > > The sky, the mind, the ban culture
> > > Sadat Uddin Ahmed AmilSyed Badrul Ahsan
> > > THE ban on Facebook could be lifted within days. Or perhaps by the time you read this in print, it might already have been withdrawn. But that is not what exercises our minds at this point. What we are upset about is the brusqueness with which the attack on Facebook was made. Of course, if there is anything obscene that has appeared on it, if the reputations of citizens, powerful or meek, have been ridiculed, all that the authorities needed to do was to go after those who indulged in such nefarious deeds. But to assume that an entire system can be done away with or simply run out of town only rekindles in us all the old thoughts of bygone rulers trying to govern us through control mechanisms that eventually did not amount to much. Control led to chaos. The mechanisms broke down.
> > > The trouble with the post-modern era is that you cannot have all your wishes come true. All this technology around you is really daunting. More importantly, there is the matter of citizens' increasingly powerful sensibilities coming into play. Think back on the Tagore centenary celebrations in 1961 here in this land. Much effort was put into the job of trying to disrupt the proceedings by the Ayub Khan regime because it and its toadies believed Bengalis were actually celebrating the genius of a Hindu bard. Nothing worked for the regime, though. The presence of Justice Syed Mahbub Murshed at the head of the Tagore programme warded off the sinister shadow of the regime. The wolves then lay low, until the time came a few years later when Khwaja Shahabuddin, Ayub's information minister, finally clamped a ban on Tagore music in East Pakistan. That victory proved pyrrhic, though. By the late 1960s, Tagore was back and with him, with Bangabandhu Sheikh
> Mujibur
> > > Rahman in the forefront, Bengali nationalism was in the ascendant.
> > > Banning has never been a solution to a problem. It has been a problem on its own. Look at the record. Military regimes in Bangladesh and Pakistan, having shot their way into power, have gone for imposing a ban on or a suspension of the constitution. That act was speedily complemented by restrictions on the way women would move around. It is rather curious that one of the first things coup-makers do is push civilised laws under the carpet and go for an inspection of female anatomy, in the latter instance, eventually deciding what women should be wearing or not wearing. Well, as history informs us so gleefully, constitutions have always come back and women have certainly refused to have their couture chosen by soldiers propping up illegitimate governments. Usurper regimes have gone for a ban on politicians and political parties. Yahya Khan thought banning the Awami League in 1971 would resuscitate a dying Pakistan in our lives. In the event, the Awami
> > > League only made sure that Pakistan was banned in Bangladesh for all time in December 1971.
> > > There is something about the mind that rebels, always. When you ban a book, you are not only stifling intellectual freedom but also you are, at the same time, provoking people into wanting to read it. It is then that clandestine ways are discovered for the book to be distributed to as wide a circle as possible. You can threaten a writer with beheading; you can force a writer into exile. But do not forget that such ham-fisted measures only make the writer that much more appealing and readers that much more demanding. You can come up with all the excuses you can muster about the absence of moral dimensions in a movie and then clamp a ban on it. Once you do that, you are helping in the creation of an insular world for yourself. Insularity, you will of course remember, was what brought down apartheid South Africa and white minority-ruled Rhodesia.
> > > There is a certain degree of arrogance which comes with banning. Turkey's generals, for all their appreciable role in upholding the country's secular traditions, made the mistake of arguing that women could not wear headscarves. The consequence was defiance. Watch the wife of President Abdullah Gul. She never lets go of her headscarf. And like her, other Turkish women have taken to ignoring the scowl of the army. Just as the state cannot decree what raiment people can get into, individuals or groups of individuals cannot and must not insist that a particular sect of believers be proscribed as a faith. You can observe your religion in all its totality, but you cannot turn it into a weapon to intimidate adherents of other beliefs. In much the same way, you cannot be self-righteous about your politics and then use it to hunt down people and destroy their reputations on spurious charges of treason. If you do, you will find the guillotine waiting for you.
> Do
> > > not forget America's Joe McCarthy.
> > > The mind is certainly wider than the sky. You cannot outlaw the sky, can you? Why must you then try putting the mind in fetters? Why not ban the ban culture itself?
> > > Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
> > > Email: bahsantareq@
> > >
> >
>

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