Lack of consciousness!
New Age reporter Shahidul Islam Choudhury suggested that our government better take some active interest quickly to make sure that Kuala Lumpur, in its latest drive to solve the acute shortage of labour in its export oriented industries, takes recruits from Dhaka. At present our KL labour counsellor’s office is headed by someone who happens to be only a Second Secretary ranked officer and is a very close relative of our Principal Secretary. It won’t simply be fair without mentioning here that only over a year earlier, our Labour Counsellor was very much unceremoniously removed from his post.
Raheed Aziz’s assesment is: people with scant knowledge of diplomacy set the crucial agenda, and the foreign ministry, where people are skilled in the art of survival, is too happy to listen to these people ignorant in diplomacy but close to the PM, and keep their other cushy jobs intact. He mentions that the foreign ministry is rather a post office!
With reference to Syed Badrul Ahsan’s ‘Dynasties, democracies and stagnant pools’, I would just like to add the following: Cyril Dean Darlington, a British geneticist, in his book, ‘The Evolution of Man and Society’, takes the extreme view that the evolution of human society is the product of genes. According to him, civilisations flourish and decay in obedience to genetic decrees. He pointed out that once a ruling class fixed itself in power, it sought to conserve that power by in-breeding, thus denying the infusion of fresh stock.
Andalusian Sufi Ibn Arabi says: a person is conscious of one thing or another, then he is conscious that he is conscious of this thing or the other, then he is generally conscious of his consciousness, which is a prelude to pure consciousness.
So, what is the state of our consciousness in general?
Sheikh Monirul Islam Opee
Kuala Lumpur
Bird flu strikes again
The old demon of last year is resurfacing in the New Year. Thai scientists found the H5N1 strain of bird flu that can be deadly to humans, in 20 fighting cocks in the eastern province of Rayong. Thailand is fully aware of the situation and is on high alert to prevent any outbreak. Bangladesh, a widely used corridor for its geological and strategic position, mainly by the illegal traders runs a high risk of feeling the heat of bird flu. The government should take necessary steps to keep an eye on the imported fowls both legally and illegally to avert something which can become a catastrophe.
Saif
Dhaka
A corrosive life
In the year 1976 the first acid attack was reported and since then it has been on the rise in Bangladesh. Naripokkho, a Dhaka-based women’s activist organisation founded in 1983, began in 1996 to track acid violence reported in the local papers. Acid throwing has been called the most barbaric crime of the century. The number—47 that year—surged to 130 two years later. In April 1997, Naripokkho sponsored a workshop for acid survivors where it was found that most of the victims were burned in incidents involving rejected suitors—the most common scenario and for not obtaining larger dowries. Experts say three to five women a week are being burned with acid in our country, and the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate. ‘In 1996 there were perhaps 50 cases. There were 100 cases a year after. And 200 cases last year. So it appears to be doubling… And therefore there’s a need for urgent action,’ says John Morrison, executive director of the newly formed Acid Survivors’ Foundation. Mainly teenagers from very poor families are the victims. They are often attacked because they discard a young man’s advances or decline a marriage proposal.
Typically acid-attack victims see their lives all but ruined. Many are forced to give up school and work, and the recovery is expensive and long. Bangladesh is a poor and conservative Islamic country, marriage (usually arranged) means economic survival for many women.
Her own family will often reject a burned girl, considered unmarriageable. Many Bangladeshi women are often tortured by their husbands when they fail to come up with a dowry, by men who have been refused love and by influential people seeking to settle scores with the victims’ families, foundation officials said. Different organization and activists called for protection for other women and their own families, who are often threatened by the offenders to prevent them, taking legal action. Acid victims usually dependents on their poor families and rarely move out of their homes out of shame.
Bangladesh introduced a law last year making death the maximum penalty for throwing acid on a woman. The law has had little visible impact so far, victims and rights groups say. Foundation officials linked the rise in attacks to what they called a general breakdown of law and order in the country.
I have heard and read about barbaric acts of violence against women in the third world, and that hundreds of young women in Bangladesh were being attacked with sulfuric acid simply because they dared to say “NO” to men. We have to challenge all these expectations & fight back against the so-called norms of our typically men-controlled society. I urge every woman to raise their voices, take off her veil; don’t be ashamed to show your faces. Because that is not your face, it’s the face of those evils. Don’t hide behind closed doors and curtained windows; step out of the cursed shadows. We must all unite; speak out, protest & demand justice. We have to be an indomitable force.
We hope for a day when our girls will no longer be defaced...we hope for a day when those evils no longer dare to practise their evil deeds.
Ms Shazia Ahmed Siddique
Environmental Analyst, Eastern Housing, Dhaka
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