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‘In 1925, an early settler had been hungry, thirsty, cold and lost in London. He was desperately looking for his own people. He asked a policeman for help. The policeman replied: ‘I don’t know. You better go on until you smell curry.’
   This quotation is from Adams Caroline’s book, titled ‘Across Seven Seas and Thirteen Rivers,’ on the sub-continental settlers in the UK. I am not quite sure how long the gentleman had to walk before meeting his own people as at that time there were not many sub-continental restaurants around.
   But in time, especially after the Second World War, the scenario has changed dramatically. Nowadays, if you pass through almost any city or town in the UK—whether on foot or by car—and if your sense of smell is moderately sharp then the exotic scent of sub-continental food is almost certain to tickle your nostrils.
   In fact, during the last three decades, the food habits of the British people have changed too. Some years ago, a survey carried out by the Daily Mirror found that chicken tikka had driven out fish and chips, replacing what was for a long time the most popular dish in the UK. This popular food in Britain, chicken tikka, is of course cooked in so-called ‘Indian’ restaurants.
   Chicken tikka, chicken korma, vindaloo, madras are by now so popular that even the most prestigious dictionaries include these names as English words in their latest edition. Day by day the number of curry-hackers is increasing. To go out at weekends is in most cases synonymous with going for ‘an Indian’ at some point in the evening.
   The UK without curry houses? Many people would rather die than face that horrible reality. One industry survey shows that each week three million people eat at Indian restaurants, spending around GBP 5 billion a year. The earnings from this industry are around GBP 3.5 billion annually.
   The question is what, or who, lies behind the chicken tikka? What is the reality behind the facade of the chintzy Indian restaurants? Where have they come from? Amazingly, most native British people do not know the answers. A survey, conducted by the author of this article on the customers of the ‘Indian’ restaurants in Swansea, UK, suggests that even now more than 60 per cent people eating curries and chicken tikkas have no real idea.
   Among the interviewees of this survey, 27per cent believed that Swansea’s curry houses are run by Indians, 10per cent thought Pakistanis, and 17per cent admitted they were confused. Less than half, 46per cent, gave the right answer. Out of the estimated 8,500 so-called Indian restaurants in the UK about 90per cent are owned and run by Bangladeshis. Most of the workers, even those in restaurants run and owned by Indians or Pakistanis, are Bangladeshis.
   Why is it that so many people are still not aware of the massive involvement of Bangladeshis in the UK curry business? Part of the reason is historical. Pioneer Bangladeshi restauranteurs first opened their restaurants when Bangladesh was still a part of British India and, therefore, called them ‘Indian.’ The end of British rule in the Indian sub-continent in 1947 saw the emergence and formation of two independent states, India and Pakistan. Pakistan was divided into East and West wings. For obvious reasons, at that time, the people of this region (i.e. East Pakistan) were known as Pakistanis. Perhaps, the identity transformation of Bangladeshi community (from Indians to Pakistanis and then to Bangladeshis) has made the common British people confused.
   Bangladeshi chefs in the UK continue to show their inventiveness as before by creating new dishes. Most of the new recipes are adopted from different parts of the Indian sub-continent and altered to suit the taste of native British people. The use of sub-continental menus, and the naming of the restaurants after historical Indian celebrities and famous Indian places (e.g. Lal Qila, Shahjahan), sometime mislead customers.
   But it is high time that Bangladeshi restaurants in the UK are identified as Bangladeshi restaurants. Bangladesh is no longer a part of India or Pakistan. In fact, these restaurants should be treated as unofficial embassies of Bangladesh as they can play a vital role in representing Bangladesh to Western Europe.
   In the UK, among the ethnic minorities, the Bengali-speaking people are the fourth largest group, and among the immigrant South Asian groups, the Bangladeshi community is ranked third (after the Indian and Pakistani communities). According to the 2001 census, the number of UK Bangladeshis is about 300,000. However, based on this census and the influx of new immigrants, the number of Bangladeshis at present in the UK can be estimated to be 400,000.
   UK Bangladeshis are a relatively homogeneous ethnic group and the vast majority of these settlers (probably about 90 per cent) came from one particular region of Bangladesh. Most of them are Muslims of the Sunni persuasion. Coming mainly from Sylhet division, these Bangladeshis are also known as Sylheti.
   Like the Mirpuri settlers from Pakistan, the kinship among the Sylheti people is very strong, and even in the UK they have preserved their own Sylheti dialect. About the Sylheti dialect, ethnic minority researcher R Chalmers has pointed out: ‘The Sylheti dialect is very rich and distinctive and reflects various influences, such as Assamese, Arabic, Turkish, Nagri, Parsi etc. This exclusiveness of their (i.e. Sylheti people’s) dialect has given them a regional identity which continues in their efforts to keep marital relationships within the same cultural background.’
   Understanding the importance of the Sylheti language among the UK Bangladeshi community, the various organisations translate their official documents into both standard Bangla and Sylheti languages.
   The Sylheti people also have a significantly different culture from the other parts of Bangladeshis for historical reasons. In the past, they had more affinity with the Assamese than the Bengalis, as Sylhet had a long history as part of Assam (a province of India).
   Before the 14th century, Sylhet was a Hindu-dominated area and most of the people followed the Hindu religion and were influenced by the Assamese, Bengali, and Hindu culture. But in the second half of the 14th century, when the Arabian Muslim saint Hazrat Shah Jalal and his 360 companions (known as Awolias) migrated to Sylhet through Delhi with a view to promoting Islam and protecting the local Muslim minority from the oppression of the Hindu King Gour Govinda, the cultural practice of the Sylheti people started to change.
   Because of the influence of these saints, most of the people started converting to Islam. Eventually this shaped a hybrid Sylheti culture (a mixture of Islamic, Arabic, Assamese, and indigenous Hindu culture.) In fact, the fellow feeling due to Sylheti culture and dialect among the Sylheti people prompted the chain migration process of Bangladeshis to the UK and this is why the majority of the Bangladeshis there are from Sylhet.
   Pioneer Bangladeshis started to cross ‘kalapani’ (black water or sea) and entered the UK as seamen (known as Jahazi or Lascar) at the end of the 18th century. Most of the Indian seamen (about 70-75 per cent) at that time were from Sylhet. However, these pioneers did not settle in the UK and their main objective was to accumulate enough money to lead better lives in their home villages. Some of these pioneers, in later phases, though unintentionally, were bound to settle in the UK for various reasons. However, these settlers were not significant in number.
   Research conducted by Gwynor Hughes has revealed that throughout and after the First World War some Sylheti seamen settled in Britain— approximately 200 in major port cities such as London, Cardiff, and Liverpool. During the Second World War, as Hughes has reported, thousands of Sylheti seamen died at sea, fighting for the British and allied forces. After the war, hundreds of injured Sylheti seamen settled in the UK (mainly in Brick Lane, London). Eventually, they sponsored their relatives to join them as the UK, at that time, required more workers to rebuild its war-torn economy.
   A large number of Bangladeshis, along with other South Asians, started to immigrate to the UK to fill the labour shortage which opened up during the post-war industrial boom of the UK economy. Most of them worked in different industries, mainly in garment factories in the big cities like London, Birmingham, and Manchester.
   Yousuf Chowdhury, historian of the Bangladeshi community in the UK in his book, ‘The Roots and Tales of the Bangladeshi Settlers,’ has pointed out that though Bangladeshis started to enter into the catering business as early as 1938, the large-scale involvement of Bangladeshis in catering only began in the early 1970s and gained momentum during the economic recession and de-industrialisation of the UK that started from 1980 and onwards. Now, the majority of Bangladeshis in the UK are either directly or indirectly dependent on the catering business.
   Slowly and steadily, the Bangladeshi community in the UK as a whole is progressing towards a promising future. The second generation of this community are the children of British soil and are coming forward to lead the society. However, many members of the second generation are not taking interest in the catering business as they are joining the mainstream job market in various capacities. But some of them will still carry the flag, and with their enthusiasm and innovation, will add a new dimension to the Bangladeshi restaurants.
   The author is an assistant professor of Computer Science, AIUB

From anti-Iraq war mom Cindy Sheehan in Cuba to protesters in a Washington, DC, courthouse, demonstrators fanned out across the globe Thursday [January 11] to protest America’s five-year-old experiment in offshore incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
   The protests came as a top Democrat said Congress would scrutinise the Bush administration’s handling of the Guantanamo prison camps with an eye toward closing the facility.
   ‘The new Democratic majority has every intention of conducting vigorous oversight on these issues and getting answers on the administration’s detention practices,’ said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. ‘The administration has said it hopes to close the facility at Guantanamo, an objective that I share.’
   About 100 protesters were arrested in a Washington courthouse, and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon used his first news conference to likewise call for closure of the remote US prison in southeast Cuba.
   ‘Gitmo prison is a source of shame. No more torture in our name,’ chanted protesters in Cuba-controlled Guantanamo, where Sheehan marched with a dozen or so international protesters on the other side of a minefield from the US Navy base.
   Amnesty International and other human rights groups choreographed the daylong protests from Europe to Australia to the Americas on five years to the day when the Pentagon opened the detention and interrogation centre for international captives airlifted from Afghanistan.
   The protests achieved their desired results.
   News photographs of orange jumpsuit-clad protesters –– on the march, on their knees or in chains –– splashed across the Internet from such far-flung cities as Melbourne, Australia, Budapest, Hungary, and Thessaloniki, Greece.
   The Pentagon argues that the prison camps are a war-on-terror necessity. About 395 men and teens are held there, some of whom could soon face war-crimes trials, once the Defence Department unveils its new design for military commissions.
   At the US-controlled corner of Guantanamo, the day passed peacefully and without notice, although 14 captives were listed as hunger strikers. Five were being fed through tubes in their noses under military medical protocols for forced feedings.
   A minefield and no-man’s land separated the chants of Sheehan and her fellow protesters from the 45-square-mile US Navy base.
   ‘It’s a normal work day here,’ reported US Army Col Lora Tucker by e-mail. It passed with ‘nothing special going on to mark the anniversary,’ she added. ‘We are just continuing our mission of safe, humane care of the detainees.’
   Not so in downtown Washington, not far from Congress, where about 100 demonstrators were arrested in a federal courthouse for waving signs and wearing T-shirts that said ‘Stop Torture’ and ‘Shut Down Guantanamo.’
   They were led away in plastic handcuffs.
   Earlier, hundreds of foes of US detention policy fanned out on the steps of the Supreme Court, some in detainee-style jumpsuits and black hoods, others in mock military garb, and staged some political theatre of their own in the frigid winter weather.
   ‘Guantanamo has brought shame to our nation,’ Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International, told the crowd from a lectern entwined with barbed wire.
   Behind him stood dozens of protesters, some with black tape across their mouths, others bearing the names of detainees.
   ‘There’s no evidence that we have been made safer,’ said Cox, ‘but there is growing evidence that the moral authority of the United States has been severely diminished.’
   McClatchy Newspapers/US, January 12, 2007. Rosenberg reported from Miami, Clark from Washington.

WASHINGTON: When are the American people and their representatives in Congress and the military going to wake up and realise that the US has an insane war criminal in the White House who is destroying all chances for peace in the world and establishing a police state in the US?
   Americans don’t have much time to realise this and to act before it is too late. Bush’s ‘surge’ speech last Wednesday [January 10] night makes it completely clear that his real purpose is to start wars with Iran and Syria before failure in Iraq brings an end to the neoconservative/ Israeli plan to establish hegemony over the Middle East.
   The ‘surge’ gives Congress, the media, and the foreign policy establishment something to debate and oppose, while Bush sets his plans in motion to orchestrate a war with Iran. Suddenly, we are hearing Bush regime propaganda that there are Iranian networks operating within Iraq that are working with the Iraqi insurgency and killing US troops.
   This assertion is a lie and preposterous on its face. Iranian Shi’ites are not going to arm Iraqi Sunnis, who are more focused on killing Iraqi Shi’ites allied with Iran than on killing US troops. If the Iranians wanted to cause the US trouble in Iraq, they would encourage Iraqi Shi’ites to join the insurgency against US forces. An insurgency drawn from 80 per cent of the Iraqi population would overwhelm the US forces.
   CBS reports that the news organisation has been told by US officials ‘that American forces have begun an aggressive and mostly secret ground campaign against networks of Iranians that had been operating with virtual impunity inside Iraq.’ To manufacture evidence in behalf of this lie to feed to the gullible American public, US forces invaded an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and kidnapped five consulate officials, claiming the Iranians were part of plans ‘to kill Americans.’ In typical Orwellian fashion, secretary of state Condi Rice described Bush’s aggression against Iran as designed to confront Tehran’s aggression.
   Iraqi government officials in the Kurdish province and the Iraqi foreign minister have refused to go along with Bush’s propaganda ploy. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced that the Iranian officials were no threat and were working in a liaison office that had Iraqi government approval and was in the process of being elevated into a consulate.
   The Iraqi foreign minister said that US troops tried to seize more innocent people at the Irbil airport but were prevented by Kurdish troops.
   The Kurds, of course, have been allies of the US forces, but Bush is willing to alienate the Kurds in the interest of provoking a war with Iran.
   If Bush is unable to orchestrate war with Iran directly, he will orchestrate war indirectly by having US troops attack Iraqi Shi’ite militias. Bush has already given orders for US troops to attack the Iraqi Shi’ite militias, who oppose the Sunnis and have not been part of the insurgency. Obviously, once Bush can get US troops in open warfare with Iraqi Shi’ites, the situation for US troops in Iraq will quickly go down hill. Bush will be able to blame Iranian Shi’ites for arming Iraqi Shi’ites that he can say are killing US troops.
   Bush has also ordered the Persian Gulf to be congested with TWO US aircraft carrier attack groups. There is no military or diplomatic reason for even one attack group to be in the Persian Gulf. If Bush fails to orchestrate a war with Iran by kidnapping its officials or by attacking Shi’ite militias, he can orchestrate an event like the Tonkin Gulf incident or have the Israelis pull another USS Liberty incident and blame the Iranians.
   The Tonkin Gulf incident was used by the Johnson administration to deceive Congress and to involve the US in the Vietnam War. Johnson alleged a North Vietnamese attack on US warships.
   In 1967 Israel attacked and destroyed the US intelligence ship Liberty, because Liberty’s crew had picked up proof that Israel had initiated the war with Egypt and intended to attack Syria the next day. Some have speculated that Israelis hoped their attack on the Liberty could be blamed on Egypt and used to draw the US into the war against Egypt.
   In 2003 the Moorer Commission, headed by Admiral Tom Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, concluded:
   ‘That in attacking the USS Liberty, Israel committed acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States.’
   ‘That fearing conflict with Israel, the White House deliberately prevented the US Navy from coming to the defence of USS Liberty.’
   ‘The Captain and surviving crew members were later threatened with court-martial, imprisonment or worse if they exposed the truth; and were abandoned by their own government.’
   ‘That due to the influence of Israel’s powerful supporters in the United States, the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people.’
   ‘That a danger to our national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation, and specifically are unwilling to challenge Israel’s interests when they conflict with American interests.’
   On the 30th anniversary of Israel’s destruction of the Liberty, Admiral Moorer said that Israel attacked the Liberty because Israel knew that the intelligence ship could intercept Israel’s plans to seize the Golan Heights from Syria, an act of Israeli aggression to which the US government was opposed. Admiral Moorer said, ‘I believe Moshe Dayan concluded that he could prevent Washington from becoming aware of what Israel was up to by destroying the primary source of acquiring that information––the US Liberty. Moorer reports that after a 25-minute air attack ‘that pounded the Liberty with bombs, rockets, napalm and machine gun fire . . . three Israeli torpedo boats closed in for the kill . . . the torpedo boats’ machine guns also were turned on life rafts that were deployed into the Mediterranean as well as those few on deck that had escaped damage.’
   Admiral Moorer says, ‘What is so chilling and cold-blooded, of course, is that they [Israel] could kill as many Americans as they did in confidence that Washington would cooperate in quelling any public outcry.’
   The US invasion of Iraq and the looming US attack on Iran are proof that Israel has even more power over the White House today.
   Bush has many ways to widen his war in the Middle East. His brutal aggression against Somalia has largely escaped criticism for the war crime that it is. On January 11 the US National Intelligence Director told Congress that Hezbollah in Lebanon may be the next US threat. Just as he lied to the entire world about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, Bush is lying about Iran. Bush and the neoconservatives are frantic for war with Iran to get underway before the US Congress forces a US withdrawal from the failed adventure in Iraq.
   Bush’s entire ‘war on terror’ is based on lies. The Bush Regime, desperate to keep its lies covered up, is now trying to prevent American law firms from defending the Guantanamo detainees. The Bush Regime is fearful that Americans will learn that the detainees are not terrorists but props in the regime’s orchestrated ‘terror war.’
   On January 13 a New York Times (editorial) said that ‘Cully Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affairs, tried to rally American corporations to stop doing business with law firms that represent inmates of the Guantanamo internment camp.’ Stimson alleged that it was ‘shocking’ that American law firms were ‘representing detainees down there.’ He suggested that when corporate America got word of if, ‘those CEO’s are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms. We want to watch that play out.’
   The only reason for the Bush Regime’s policy of indefinite detention without charges is that it has no charges to bring. The detainees are not terrorists. They are the Bush Regime’s props in a fake war that serves as cover for the Regime’s hegemonic policy in the Middle East.
   The only action that can stop Bush is for both the Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and Senate to call on the White House, tell Bush they know what he is up to and that they will not fall for it a second time. The congressional leadership must tell Bush that if he does not immediately desist, he will be impeached and convicted before the week is out. Can a congressional leadership that lives in fear of the Israel Lobby perform this task?
   All the rest is penny-ante. Revoking the Iraqi War Resolution as Rep Sam Farr has proposed or requiring Bush to obtain congressional authorisation prior to any US attack on Iran simply lets Bush and his Federalist Society apologists for executive dictatorship claim he has commander-in-chief powers and proceed with his planned aggression. Cutting off funding is not itself enough as Bush can raid other budgets. Non-binding resolutions of disapproval are meaningless to a president who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.
   Nothing can stop the criminal Bush from instituting wider war in the Middle East that could become a catastrophic world war except an unequivocal statement from Congress that he will be impeached.
   Bush has made the US into a colony of Israel. The US is incurring massive debt and loss of both life and reputation in order to silence Muslim opposition to Israel’s theft of Palestine and the Golan Heights. That is what the ‘war on terror’ is about.
   CounterPunch, January 15, 2007. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Law enforcers must not be indiscriminate

The inevitable was to come, and the president did take the right move declaring state of emergency, no matter himself by choice or under compulsion from some quarters. Now he would do well to remember that any move taken by the administration will be his sole responsibility; if things go well that will go to his credit; if those be a cause of peoples’ embarrassment or hassle, he will be held accountable.
   Events in the past have on records when martial law or dictatorship was there the law enforcing agencies worked indiscriminately and were found to be ruthless mainly on the petty offenders but the godfathers managed to escape the law enforcers’ dragnets only to reappear later in full fury. We only hope the president’s decisions this time will create conditions where all will breathe freely and enjoy social justice.
   Moni Khan
   Dhaka

At this stage of our country, army should work to maintain the law and order situation and people should cooperate with the army to restore peace and rule of law.
   Shuvo
   Khulna University

Condoleezza Rice visiting the Middle East will serve no purpose unless it is accompanied by a complete and instant cessation of the United States’ funding and arming of Israel. If not, Bush has no right to ask Iran or anyone else to stop interfering in Iraq as the interference by the United States is at the root of all the trouble.
   Jamilur Rahman
   Dhaka
   

Next on Quick Comments

a. CG decides to introduce voters’ ID card, transparent ballot box: reviews law and order, economy (New Age, Front Page, January 15). b. Saddam Hussein’s top aides hanged: Two of Saddam Hussein’s key aides have been hanged in Baghdad, two weeks after the chaotic execution of the former Iraqi president (http ://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ middle_east/6261965.stm)