Tributes to Enayetullah Khan
I have learned with deep sorrow that Enayetullah Khan, an icon of Bangladeshi journalism, has passed away. He has been someone I admired for as long as I can remember. I remember how he expressed himself until he physically couldn’t any longer, how writing didn’t stop him from dying, but helped keep him alive until he died.
I was on my way to get closer, when Enayetullah Khan left. After thirty years I had an opportunity to meet my most respected journalist at Toronto, Canada. To me it is an incredible instance in my life, meeting Khan, a journalist, newspaper editor, former ambassador and minister, and a democratic activist who was awarded the Ekushey Padak for excellence in journalism.
Words cannot express my sadness over the loss of a great man. He is gone but not forgotten. He lives on through his deeds. Let’s remember him in all our prayers
and may his memory never fade. God
bless his family and strengthen them in their loss.
Momtaz Ahmed
Toronto, Canada
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We are saddened by the news of Enayatullah Khan’s demise. May Allah offer him a place in heaven.
Our sincere condolence go out to the members of his bereaved family and his friends and colleagues.
He demonstrated tremendous courage in the 1970s when because of his courage and political conviction he was imprisoned. May Allah help the bereaved members of his family to accept Allah’s verdict with calmness and patience because all of us came from Allah, and unto Him will we return.
Muhammad Abul Hayat Jalal-Abadi,
Editor, Al-Hilal, London
SAARC, India, China
It is good to know that the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is going to be expanded. I hail the SAARC foreign ministers’ decision to incorporate Afghanistan in the summit being held in Dhaka. However, India has expressed its reservations about the inclusion of China in SAARC.
I have reasons to believe that the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial to be held in mid-December is doomed to fail. The developed world hardly understands what development means for low-income developing countries. Through reading media reports during the last three weeks, I am convinced that trade leaders of the developed world have not realized the true connection between trade and development. Their attitude has not also changed following the Cancun debacle. Unless LDC and ACP leaders can be bribed, there is no reason why Hong Kong will not be a repetition of Cancun. This will be a fatal blow to the WTO-centred multilateral trading system, and regionalism will gain a heavy momentum as an inevitable result. In my view, the new wave of regionalism will come in the form of new economic unions around promising hubs like China, India and Brazil.
In this scenario, there is no reason why SAARC should not be seen as a common platform for China as well as India. In fact, I am tempted to foresee a strong Asian economic union through SAARC plus ASEAN plus China in the next five years. I appeal to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider India’s position and allow China to be included in SAARC. I am sure if China is excluded, some other platform will be developed by South Asian countries to have a partnership with China.
Asif Chowdhury
Brussels
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