WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ What do the cables mean?  bdnews24.com Editor Emeritus aladin on the leaked US embassy cables The cables portray a one-sided relationship between a perpetually vigilant America preoccupied with geo-strategic self interest and a Bangladesh unappetisingly at odds with wider society. Whatever embarrassments for Bangladesh's political cadres the cables could have contained, their contents in the first instance reveal authors' leaden pre-occupation with what is best described as American geo-strategic self interest. The US diplomatic cables, replete with their accounts of vigilance against putative threats, build up an unappetising profile of Bangladeshi civil society. From a wider perspective it seems almost risible the thought of a superpower secretly collecting data about the expatriate population of a small developing nation and also keeping tabs on its peacekeeping presence in Africa which it feels is propelled by less than humanitarian objectives. The sheer monotony of focus on containing challenges to American interests does not so much paint a picture of Real Politik as it depicts a punctilious, micro-managing diplomacy which does not appear to leave much room for empathy with the indigenous context it operates in. It feels a one-dimensional narrative. I found the cumulative effect of these cables to be dirge-like and unsettling – conveying the sense of a Bangladesh and its diaspora perpetually at odds with the mores of wider civil society. It is however important to add the caveat that 'good' news rarely get classified as 'secret'; conversely it is the complex ('bad' news) that often pre-occupies the diplomats. We should also bear in mind that Wikileaks' disclosures for other parts of the world similarly seem to paint unrelentingly unflattering pictures. As well, these cables cover a very brief period of two months towards the end of 2008 – perhaps other cables covering other periods would express a very different picture. |
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