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Learning in school, in the days that he is referring to, moved glacially and almost imperceptibly. One did not add to knowledge by leaps and bounds, but incrementally. Moving up from a class to a higher one brought changes in books but the subjects remained the same, with only some additional information provided. It was as if too much care was taken not to burden the students with new knowledge all on a sudden. Following this method a subject like history or geography continued for five years till the matric examination. One did not feel educated enough when the school syllabus was completed. Even communications and analytical skills through use of Bengali, not to speak of English, were not given any premium. Unless one opted for additional mathematics, knowledge of the subject remained at a nominal level. Science subjects, all rolled into one paper, were made optional after class nine, leaving the students inadequately grounded in the subject. Whoever devised the syllabus for high school in Bengali medium school, was very genius to the students, it must be said. Pressure of learning was very light and home work was almost conspicuous by absence. Being a high school student was more fun than hard work. Compared to the students in schools now-a days, students in Fifties and Sixties and even Seventies had plenty of leisure to indulge in hobbies. The load of studies was so light that schools provided summer holiday for over one month to enable students to go to villages to relish the sweet summer fruits like mango, leechis, jackfruit and many others.
   Being moderately serious and attentive was enough to acquit oneself well in half yearly and annual examinations. There being no examination in between, one could afford to lag behind in studies and catch up just before the examination. It was a rare event to keep private teachers to keep up with school studies. The custom was to have a teacher for two months just before, the matric examination to brush up with arithmetic, geometry and algebra. All other subjects were taken care of by DlY – do it yourself efforts.
   Standard of teaching of different subjects in the classes depended on the teachers. Some did their job effortlessly and in a style that captivated the minds of students like wizards. Some taught their subjects mechanically, going through the texts which sent the minds adrift and often day dreaming. But whether the teachers were awe inspiring or boring, students in the class maintained discipline, at least physically .
   Their Head master, Mr. Mujibul Huq, taught them English and it was quite a treat. The students looked forward to his class. His bearing was aristocratic and his temperament calm and serious. He was a short man but when he spoke his voice rumbled in the class. He pronounced words carefully in cadences that were appropriate to the rhetoric and the mood. They resonated within the, four walls, weaving a pattern of aural magic. When he recited ‘Tiger, Tiger burning bright’ from the eponymous poem by Blake, one felt as if a tiger was being addressed reverentially from close proximity. Not only the poem, the way it was read by Mr. Huq, made tiger a mythical figure, to be adored and wistfully remembered. When he started reading ‘Full many a gems of purest ray serene’ from Gray’s Elegy Written on a Country Churchyard,’ the students listened with pin drop silence and with bated breath. The suspense and pathos conveyed by each line were made poignant by the melancholy tinge in the voice. One could visualize the peasant “plodding their weary way” and the graves of villagers lying in eternal sleep. It was a maudlin and naive sort of a poem but to the students the sentiment of the poet appeared touching and even profound. Perhaps they were too young and innocent to be left unmoved by such sugary sentiments. Few poems, almost none, stirred such emotions of grief and loss as Gray’s Elegy did. Many years later, in mid-Eighties, he visited the country churchyard made famous by Gray, about seventy miles from Oxford. There is a picturesque pub near the church, off the highway. It was while having lunch that his companion casually mentioned the name Thomas Gray and the poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and told him that the poet himself was buried in the graveyard of the church nearby. With perked ears, he looked with disbelief and stopped eating. Years rolled back as if in a time machine and he could hear the staccato voice of Mr. Mujibul Huq reading the poem in their class. After lunch he went out with his companion and visited the grave of Thomas Grey. It is much bigger and higher than the other graves. The prominence given to the grave compensated for the lack of name and fame of the ordinary mortals buried there. Both in life and death, Gray redeemed their anonymity.
   In Bengali class the poem that enthralled him most was Tagore’s ‘Soner Tori’ (Golden Boat). Read in the sharp and plaintive voice of Joyotish sir, the desolation of the empty char (island) where the alter ago of the poet stood looking at the disappearance of his harvest in the Golden boat, became stark and moving. As all those, who have read the poem, know, the boat and the island where the narrator stands alone after his labour’s fruit has been taken away, is a metaphor of life in twilight. The interpretation was simple and made with tender feelings by Jyotish sir. A more sad poem was Kumud Ranjon Mallik’s ‘Kazla Didi’ (sister Kajal) where a child asks his (her) mother about the whereabout of sister Kazla who was dead and gone. The child’s bereaved voice seeped through the words, rending the heart of the listeners Diametrically opposite to the subjects and tone of these poems was the prose work of Nazrul Islam named “Verdun Trench.” It is a firework of words describing the fire and brimstone of the First Word War in Europe. Nazrul’s recklessly raucous and undaunted character comes out from the pages of the article vigorously, as do the sights and sounds of the War Few prose works in Bengali gave him as much thrill and pleasure as “Verdun Trench” did. Jyotish sir did adequate justice to the article, reading first slowly and quickening the pace at times, to synchronise with the mood of the writer.
   In history class the episode that left a deep imprint on his mind was the battle of Plassey. He had already heard the play “Sirajuddula” in 78 RPM in Narail. In Habibur Rahman’s (their history teacher) narration the part of Seraj became alive, evoking sadness and rage, the first for the defeat, the second for the betrayal. Compared to history, geography appeared more interesting to him. It brought the whole world with names of oceans, mountains, deserts, rivers and countries with their capital cities within his four walls, allowing him to wander off to distant lands and across oceans. He does not remember the name of their geography teacher, most probably because he did not distinguish himself much, teaching in the class. But this was more than compensated by the exotic names covering the vast wide world.
   Moulana Velayet Hossain, whom they called Hujur (the venerable) taught them Urdu. Along with prose, he read poems by Hali, Momen and Ghalib. He remebers one poem by Momen even now, which begins with the words, ‘Uo jo hamse tumse karar tha, Uo Tume Yad hai ki nahi hai, lekin mujhe yad hai’ (you may not remember the promise we made to each other but I do). Yes, he remembers. No promises were made that he would but it could not be otherwise. That is what memory is about.

George Galloway, the British Member of Parliament, unleashed a blistering counterattack on the US senate subcommittee at the well-attended hearing in Washington DC on May 18. George Galloway is a maverick to some; to others he was grandstanding lapping up the media attention by his performance. Even if he was self-congratulating at times, he did not fail to make his case with considerable gusto and flair. Nothing diminished the veracity of the essential message he delivered with passion; nothing diminished the truth at the core of the cause he espoused.
   Without a remote claim to Galloway’s eloquence, the writer can recall first hand what the now under scrutiny ‘Oil for Food’ programme (OFF) did to the people of Iraq during the six long years of its existence. To begin, the OFF programme was conceptually (to use a harsh yet true phrase) a perfidious and perverse idea. It mixed up what its authors in the UN Security Council (the US and the UK were the prime movers) claimed to be for humanitarian assistance with the pursuit of a disarmament (of Iraq) agenda.
   The outcome could not have been anything other than evil though a civil façade was painted on the programme. By the time the OFF started, the Iraqi people had already been reeling under one of the harshest sanctions regime ever. The much publicised OFF programme did not bring the supposed humanitarian relief. Why?
   Because the programme though on the surface administered under the UN umbrella was controlled by the all-powerful UN Sanctions Committee (of the Security Council) without whose permit nothing could be purchased and delivered. Numerous essential civilian goods contracts at any given time were kept in suspense (on hold) or were rejected outright. Many were the cases where mere suspicion of ‘dual use’ (namely both civilian and possible military use) kept essential civilian goods out of reach. Many of those contracts were for medicines and medical equipment; others were for urgent reconstruction of damaged (by war) civilian infrastructure like water, sewerage, agriculture, hospitals, schools and housing. Is there another case of past UN sanctions imposed on a country that was so strictly and forcefully implemented? None for sure.
   The UN secretariat was a mere convenient cover to deliver a humanitarian programme severely constrained by a negative agenda far removed from relief and rehabilitation.
   The OFF was unique in that for the first time the UN was ‘running’ a programme like this financed entirely by the money obtained by sale of Iraqi oil; the Iraq government responsible for the public services had no access to its own funds or had autonomy over its own programme. That was unique in the UN history.
   Does it surprise anyone why some adventurers were too quick and able to step in and use the loopholes to swindle money? Being the first of unique OFF the UN secretariat had been entirely unfailingly up to the task. But while the UN is under a barrage of attack (among others by the US Congress) no one in the Security Council especially the US and UK who masterminded and pulled all the strings are not ready to share their responsibility. Yet one more confirmation that the UN was used as convenient cover to ‘sanitize’ an otherwise ill conceived programme.
   The OFF was exceptional too. On paper the OFF upheld the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq while it violated those at every step by dictating the price of Iraqi oil, the custody of oil revenues, approval of oil sales, and even how the oil revenues were allocated. Billed as a temporary programme, the OFF became quasi permanent with all its attendant consequences for over six years. Food and medicines were never restored to pre-sanctions (before 1990) levels; electricity and water were not restored causing crippling disruption of civil life; hospitals and schools once the envy of Iraq’s neighbours, were now under performing badly.
   The OFF was launched as a temporary programme holding some hope that the sanctions will be lifted shortly. Those hopes proved built on falsehood; the sanctions were not lifted till well after the invasion and occupation when those became redundant (as full control was established never mind no Weapons of Mass Destruction were found).
   The cumulative impact of the economic and trade sanctions imposed since August 1990 followed by the OFF programme in 1996 (while the sanctions remained intact) could not have been other than hugely negative. And it was hugely negative. By one UNICEF estimate in 2001, at least one million Iraqis mostly young children under five years age were killed directly due to sanctions; for millions the quality of life and living standards declined rapidly; an entire generation of children grew up physically stunted and failed to achieve the intellectual potential. What would you call that?
   All of the above is a great crime against humanity, by far the most outstanding one in recent times. That qualifies it to be genocide because by its design and delivery, the sanctions regime, whatever the avowed intentions, turned out in practice to be directed against a particular people (in this case the Iraqi people) and punished with death and deprivation of civilian population for no crime of their own. And please note, we are not even mentioning the environmental damage by the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq by the US military, something that was known to be severely damaging to human health. The radioactive fallout, the contamination of soil and water, the unusual or unexplained rise of incidence of cancerous illness have not been estimated or explained by international investigation.
   Yet, no account has ever been taken; no enquiries proposed or held; no quarter has been named or indicted. Only the harrowing accounts are ceaselessly broadcast and chronicled of mass graves and brutalities of the Iraqi regime. And now the barrage of accusations, serial enquiries, hearings and testimonies into the so-called Oil for Food scandal. The Galloway hearing, without being uncharitable, looked more a witch-hunt a la McCarthy than a serious enquiry.
   Why the US senate cannot or will not launch an enquiry into many scandals stacked in secret cupboards? Why not start with the conduct of the UN Sanctions Committee? Why not post war (2003) scandals of plunder without accounting of several (eight?) billion dollars of Iraqi oil revenues under the watch of US appointed Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)? Why the Congress is silent or mildly critical of Halliburton or KBR or many other US based contractors who jumped in the frenzy of plunder and ripped off huge funds from the Iraq Reconstruction Programme under the (watchful) charge of the US Pentagon? The OFF was a minor makeshift instrument to perpetuate the misery of Iraqi people to start with; it became a monster as it grew with its own perversities, contradictions, and inadequacies. The now sanctimoniously launched investigations into corruption and wrong doings associated with the OFF does not convince those who know better. Are these done to raise that proverbial smokescreen?
   The real scandal (the mother of all scandals if you like around the Iraq saga starting from 1990) lies much deeper and is shockingly unsavory. Still it is yet to surface. It is high time it is exhumed for all to examine and judge.
   George Galloway made no secret of his strong anti-war stand and carried out a high profile campaign in the UK and in Iraq itself even before the US invasion of Iraq. By unleashing stinging incriminations, by expressing his outrage, and by giving vent to utter contempt, he seemed to have exercised his right to respond, albeit with unusual zest and uncharacteristic candour before a sedate committee. In fact, Galloway did not speak merely for himself, not certainly to seek cheap publicity. He also said what millions of people in Britain and rest of the world would have said and with anguish and derision if they were asked.
   By echoing the sentiments of millions across the continents, George Galloway might have caused discomfiture to the sub committee members who had taken the liberty to castigate him in absentia and enjoyed the privilege to question him in public. But privileges also come with a price though not always paid. And the small price paid might have been the lack of reverence shown to the sub committee members by a witness not ready to oblige.

An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into its engine.
   The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty. “We should end the immunity of US soldiers here,” says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits, however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.
   Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq.
   A member of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi’s party, was passing through an American checkpoint last year when a single shot rang out from a sniper. No US soldier was hit, but the troops at the checkpoint hosed down the area with fire, wounding the INC member and killing his driver.
   The rector of Al-Nahrain University in south Baghdad was travelling to a degree ceremony on the other side of the city when white men in a four-wheel drive suddenly opened fire, hitting him in the stomach. Presumably they thought he was on a suicide mission. It was obvious to many American officers from an early stage in the conflict that the Pentagon’s claim that it did not count civilian casualties was seen by many Iraqis as proof that the US did not care about how many of them were killed. The failure to take Iraqi civilian dead into account was particularly foolish in a culture where relatives of the slain are obligated by custom to seek revenge.
   The secrecy surrounding the numbers of civilians killed reveals another important facet of the war. The White House was always more interested in the impact of events in Iraq on the American voter than it was in the effect on Iraqis. From the beginning of the conflict the US and British armies had difficulty in working out who in Iraq really was a civilian. Marla Ruzicka, the American humanitarian worker who was buried yesterday in California, had established in her last weeks in Iraq that figures were kept based on after-action reports. Officially, she found, 29 civilians were killed in fire fights between US forces and insurgents between 28 February and 5 April. But these figures are likely to be gross underestimates. US soldiers are notorious in Iraq for departing immediately after a skirmish, taking their own casualties but sometimes leaving damaged vehicles. They would not have time to find out how many Iraqis were killed or injured.
   The Health Ministry in Baghdad did produce figures and then stopped doing so, saying they had not been properly collated. Iraqi Body Count, a group monitoring casualties by looking at media sources, puts the total at 17,384. But most Iraqis die obscurely; it is dangerous for reporters, Iraqi or foreign, to try to find out who is being killed. Much of Iraq is a bandit-ridden no-man’s land.
   Even in Baghdad it is evident from the hundreds of bodies arriving at the mortuary that this has become one of the most violent societies on earth. The Iraqi Body Count figure is probably much too low, because US military tactics ensure high civilian losses a bizarre aspect of the war is that US commanders often do not understand the damage done by their weapons in Iraq’s close-packed cities.
   US firepower, designed to combat the Soviet army, cannot be used in built up areas without killing or injuring civilians. Nevertheless, a study published in the Lancet saying that 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq appears to be too high. But the lack of definitive figures continues to dehumanise the uncounted Iraqi dead. As Dr Richard Garfield, a professor of nursing at Columbia University and an author of the Lancet report, wrote: “We are still fighting to record the Armenian genocide. Until people have names and are counted they don’t exist in a policy sense.”
   The immunity of US troops means that there is nothing to inhibit them opening fire in what for them is a terrifying situation. For all their modern armament they are vulnerable to suicide bombers and roadside bombs. In the first case the attacker is already dead and in the second the man who detonates the bomb is probably several hundred yards away and in cover. With nobody else to shoot at it is the civilians who pay the price.
   —The Independent (UK)