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‘EVERY man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind,’ wrote John Donne, the 17th-century English metaphysical poet. Bangladesh is no stranger to death and destruction – be it natural and man-made. There have been so many deaths and so much destruction that one may well expect us to have become inured to loss of life and property. No, we have not become inured. Every death still diminishes us and we remain as sensitive and compassionate as have always been. Our collective compassion and camaraderie has once again come into play after the devastating cyclone Sidr hit the southern coasts on November 15, leaving nearly 4,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. The nation suffered a trauma just as the direct victims of the cyclone did. However, the people of Bangladesh are known worldwide for their resilience and they have turned around. After the initial shock, the people swung into action.
   As the extent of death and destruction started to unfold, thanks to relentless coverage by local and international media, print and electronic, the international community lent a helping hand. According to New Age, the United Nations has already ‘called on the governments to immediately work out plans for road and infrastructure reconstruction in Sidr-hit areas before the monsoon in addition to safety net support and income generation schemes. The UN finds 26 lakh worst-affected in cyclone Sidr.’
   The Bangla daily Jugantor wrote: ‘The government has decided to extend food support for four months to 26 lakh families in 12 districts. The operation will begin on December 1. For this the government will need an additional foodgrain of one and a half lakh tonnes.’
   In an interview with the Bangla daily Prothom Alo, Fazle Hasan Abed, chairman of BRAC, the largest non-governmental organisation in the world, said: ‘According to our own assessment, three lakh people in the affected areas have become penniless and destitute. Now they have no capacity to engage themselves in any economic activities. They have even lost the capacity to repay any loan that can be provided to them now.’
   It seems that because of the state of emergency in the country there is an apparent lack of spontaneity. It was essential for the government to declare the affected areas as a ‘calamity zone.’ Many countries of the world have expressed intentions to provide relief. But the government initially showed some hesitation. The government eventually came out with a statement that if any nation comes forward, the government will welcome it.
   According to another report, ‘The government has told donors that it needs at least two lakh metric tonnes of food grains in assistance since the cyclone and floods have caused extensive damage to crops leading to a shortfall of 10 lakh tonnes. It wants the grains to be procured from the international market as aid since there is already a supply shortage in the local markets.’
   India has recently imported 20 lakh tonnes of food grains to build a buffer stock in the eventuality of emergency. It also banned export of food grains to any country. It has withdrawn the ban on export of rice to Bangladesh on humanitarian considerations. As a token of goodwill, India has decided to provide 40,000 thousand tonnes of rice as relief to Bangladesh. The first instalment of 9,300 tonnes has already reached Bangladesh.
   When there is death and destruction of such calamitous proportions and so many people have become pauper overnight, some NGOs are reportedly putting pressure on their clients in the cyclone-hit areas to make their instalments of loan payment. In its editorial comment, titled NGOs need not act like loan shark,’ New Age wrote: ‘The toll from cyclone Sidr in several coastal districts keeps mounting and human misery is intensifying… some NGOs have chosen the very moment to press the poor recipients of micro-credit to pay back their instalments.’
   The Asian Development Bank country director, Hua Du, said Bangladesh’s economy was going through the most critical and challenging period since independence because of the extensive damage caused by natural calamities and the price rise of food grains on the international market and oil price hike.
   Hua also said, ‘If the arrested businessmen are released, it would create a favourable impact on the economy. Campaign against corruption has created a negative response from businessmen.’
   All eyes are now glued to the Sidr-hit areas. Different organisations have come forward to help Sidr survivors. There is no dearth of relief materials now. It is coming in abundance. But the people complain that some union council chairman and members are indulging in nepotism and favouritism vis-à-vis relief material distribution.
   There is also the complaint that relief goods are mainly reaching accessible areas and are also being sold even to the affected people but in the remote areas there is a scarcity of relief materials. To better coordinate the relief operation, the government has set up a coordination cell.
   Moreover, there are allegations that in providing succour to the survivors the civil administration is being bypassed which forced the chief adviser, Fakhruddin Ahmed, to declare that civil organisations should coordinate their relief work with the local civil administration.
   Meanwhile, a section of people in Bangladesh questioned the relief work by the US Marines. In an effort to dispel any misgivings, the US Pacific areas commander, Admiral Timothe Ketting, told the New York Times that the US marines would not do any work which might be considered as unwelcome and that the US troops would work in coordination with the local armed forces. The communications adviser to the government, MA Matin said the US Marines would not stay even for a day after their mission was completed.
   The property loss caused by cyclone Sidr is so far estimated at Tk 6,500 crore by prominent economists.
   The New Age reports: ‘Nearly 69 lakh people of 10 lakh families have been affected and crops on about 1.62 lakh acres completely damaged in 30 districts pounded by the cyclone Sidr on the night of November 15.’
   The report quotes an official of the food and disaster management ministry as saying it would take a few more days to make an assessment of the losses in terms of money. ‘It may be around twenty thousand crore taka,’ he said.
   In normal situation Bangladesh had a shortfall of 33 lakh tonnes this year. It was set for import. But the international price of rice and wheat has shot up. Currently, one tonne of rice at the international market is $365-375 and wheat $450-480 dollar including freight. Simply put, the price of rice will be Tk 26-27 per kilogram and that of wheat Tk 31-34. The private sector is reluctant to import rice and wheat at such an exorbitant price. So the government and food aid are only two avenues to salvage the situation. Even before Sidr hit Bangladesh businessmen asked the government to import essential items on an emergency basis. So the situation is really grim. The crisis situation may come in March-April. Even by paying money many items cannot be procured from international market.
   The chairman of the Regulatory Reform Commission, Akbar Ali Khan, says, ‘Now foodgrain is more important than cash money. So without any further delay the government should appeal to the donor countries and agencies for emergency food aid.’ He also said, ‘…to import food grains, we have not much fund. That is why it is all the more necessary to ask for donors’ aid.’
   The New Age on Tuesday wrote, ‘A great many people in remote areas of the cyclone-ravaged districts are still fighting a grim battle for survival although the private and public effort for reaching relief supplies to the survival have been intensified.
   ‘People who are passing their days half-fed or without food in the remotest areas, are largely been ignored as most of the activists are distributing food, warm clothes and utensils among the people of their choices or at places convenient to them.’
   Sundarban, the largest mangrove forest in the world, has been hit hard by the storm. According to a newspaper report, it will take 40 years to bring Sundarban to its pre-Sidr position.
   Meanwhile, the finance ministry has asked all banks to reach loan to the farmers in the forthcoming boro season. If necessary, they should distribute funds through NGOs.
   The government has meanwhile asked the NGOs not to pressure cyclone victims to repay instalment of loans right now.
   Post-script: The government on November 27 called upon donors and foreign agencies to donate five lakh tonnes of food grains to Bangladesh as relief.
   Achintya Sen is a freelance writer

Care Bangladesh has been involved in the relief operation since cyclone Sidr made landfall in the southern coasts on November 15. Its country director, Nick Southern, talked about the local, national and international response in the aftermath of the cyclone, which killed more than 3,000 people and made hundreds of thousands homeless, in an interview with New Age recently. Faheem Khan, team leader of Shouhardo, one of the Care initiatives in Bangladesh, also took part in the conversation. Excerpts:
   
   What is the overall situation of aid in Bangladesh after the cyclone?
   Nick Southern: I think the response has been incredible. Bangladesh has had many disasters and natural calamities. The death toll this time around has been much lower than what it used to be previously. Also, we now see an international commitment towards Bangladesh. Many countries are pouring in aid for Bangladesh as it goes through such a difficult time.
   I would say this is a good opportunity for Bangladesh to address issues that need to be resolved. Moreover, internationally, an issue such as global warming is also going to become more prominent, especially because Bangladesh is one of the worst-affected countries even though it has no contribution to the issue of climate change.
   
   How was the response at the local level? Is there sufficient information available?
   NS: I think the response was commendable – both before the cyclone hit the regions and in the aftermath. We can say this because the government efforts to ensure that people are aware was much better than before. There were volunteers on the road till the last minute warning people of the cyclone. However, there was also the issue of a significant number of people not being aware, but then again, we must understand that many anticipated it would be a storm surge rather than cyclone. Moreover, the cyclone went the opposite direction and it took a while to react to it.
   The death toll has been much less this time and the rescue operation has been very prominent. I would say there is more information available at the moment. The estimates of death tolls are also closer among various bodies. Although the communication lines were cut off immediately after the cyclone hit, steps were taken to ensure to make the operation faster. There is also much more development work going on and more concrete steps being taken.
   
   Care is one of the organisations participating in the relief work. What are the things that you are doing?
   Faheem Khan: We anticipated that the cyclone would hit and sent a team on Wednesday (November 14) midnight to Khulna. We sent out two trucks of non-food items such as candles, plastic sheets and others. We also provided for a mobile water purifying plant. Initially, we had about 13 volunteers, but at this moment it has expanded to some 40 people who are working in Barguna and Sarankhola in Bagerhat.
   
   NS: One of the challenges was that usually such disasters hit the south-eastern region, where the community is more prepared and aware. In the southern belt, it’s the first time that such a cyclone has hit and hence the awareness of people was very low. Hence, we have had to ensure that we can cater to them and also provide information.
   Until now, we have distributed 1,100 tonnes of food. Around half a million dollars’ budget is being processed to reach out to more people. We already have $2 million in the pipeline as well.
   The USAID has been one of the major donors in this case. Apart from many other donors, we have funding from the Canadian and Australian governments, Microsoft Bangladesh and others. We are also working through four major partners – RIC, Prodipan, Coast and SAP Bangladesh.
   
   In terms of taking immediate as well as long-term steps for disaster management, what do you think could be done?
   FK: We do have a central coordination body, Disaster Emergency Response, which works with different agencies in order to take immediate steps when such a situation arises.
   
   NS: I think the important thing is to set out priorities. There are about 5 million people who have been affected by the cyclone. There are a significant number of people who have lost almost everything – so we need to reach out to these people who need it more than perhaps the rest. Being able to identify such priorities and also have immediate decision makers in those areas.
   In case of disaster management, CARE has been working with ADPC based in Bangkok and planning on issues of earthquake preparedness and flood forecasting.
   We are in fact developing software that can forecast a cyclone 10 days in advance and determine its level and intensity, and also chart the probable regions it may hit. We are hoping to pilot it this season. This early flood forecasting software is in the analysis stage. We are now looking to make others aware as to how to interpret it and how they will be able to react to it.

IT IS not really difficult to discern what the United States hopes to achieve by hosting the conference in Annapolis, Maryland, now scheduled (after much uncertainty over the date) for November 27, 2007. In the same way it is rather easy to figure out what Israel will gain from the fact of this meeting and its own attendance. In a sentence: both Americans and Israelis want this conference to take place for its own sake, without any agreements or declarations having to emerge from it.
   In their eyes, simply to hold the meeting is the objective and counts as a success – one that serves several agendas, but not the one that really counts: resolving the historical conflict between the Palestinians and Israel’s Zionist project. The key to understanding Annapolis, as so many comparable events in the Middle East, can be expressed in Henry Kissinger’s ‘classical’ (and ingenuous) formulation: a ‘peace process’ is a substitute for peace itself, and it could take for ever. Annapolis is part of this ‘process.’
   In this light, it is really difficult to understand why the Palestinian side is prepared to participate in this surreal event. After all, there is next to total agreement before the event not only among the two main contending sides, but among almost every interested party – that the conference will fail to promote peace. It is a moment for black humour when organisers as well as participants are at pains to curb ambitions, lower expectations and warn against excessive optimism regarding Annapolis – as if anybody who is following events on the ground were to raise ambitions or express any optimism. The misjudgement here seems total. Still, the preparations are underway – for the conference, once declared, cannot be undone. In times like these, traditional criteria of success and failure no longer apply.
   
   A visual triumph
   Annapolis thus represents – consciously or unconsciously – one of the great surreal signatures of postmodern politics: a world where images, language and symbols take preference over meaning, content and results. It is an example of how powerful modern states, in their presumptuous handling of the political issues of ‘others,’ abandon real politics and adopt what may be described as postmodern (non-)politics.
   Most manifestations of postmodernity – be they political, cultural, literary or social – are impelled by a temptation to escape from the strictures of sequence and logic that are foundational of modern thought. ‘If A follows B and then arrives at C’ – all this can appear very tedious, restrictive of a human creativity which may want to arrive at C without having to pass through B, or may want to set out from A with no intention of even going to Z, ever.
   This desire to break out of the prison of rigid logic into a wide open space of expression, a realm of floating meaning no longer concerned with ends and objectives, has catapulted human creativity to dazzling results – in the arts, in literature, in culture.
   Not so in politics. Carried away by language and form, and with no regard to content and political realities, such political postmodernism leads to a constant and transparent denial of reality. Thus it becomes possible – in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of observers, who still apply the standards of ‘conventional’ modern politics – to declare Annapolis a success already, even before it has happened.
   The reason such an astonishing act of intellectual legerdemain is possible is that Annapolis is emphatically not about making peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Annapolis is about the image and the representation of the United States in a Middle East that is ablaze, locked in a downward spiral of destruction of which Washington is a central agent.
   Annapolis is about peddling the image of an American diplomacy committed to addressing the root cause of all the troubles in the middle east – the Palestinian issue – even as the US’s political, military and economic efforts are focused on completely different issues (Iraq, Iran, oil, Sudan...). Annapolis convenes ‘negotiating’ parties, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, who have nothing to negotiate about but who are capable of maintaining a smile and handshake for the cameras, and holding meetings to no ends and no results – which the media then reports as, in and by itself, a ‘creative effort.’
   These individuals differ on every substantial political matter and are unable even to agree on a common statement of the problem; but in their domestic weakness, their inability to deliver anything, they resemble each other. On this foundation, Annapolis will build an extravagant visual media performance whose profusion of hollow imagery disguises its evasion of and indifference to a myriad of issues on the ground.
   
   A political choice
   The postmodern absurdity of Annapolis would be incomplete without enlisting the Palestinians, who are being led along (and goaded) like a herd of cattle. The sheer magnitude of the event and its setup has a cumulative psychological effect: it makes the Palestinians feel they would carry another great global and ‘historical’ responsibility if they were to say what they really think – that they will not go to a conference which is a failure even before it starts, and which anyway is more concerned with regional objectives than with the Palestinian cause.
   In the eyes of the world, any attempt to escape from this scenario will be turned into another ‘historical irresponsibility’: once more, the Palestinians are the reason for the failure of peace in the Middle East! But aside from any desire to deflect such accusations, what is the logic of the Palestinians’ presence? After all:
   Israel declares openly that it will not discuss any of the essential issues at the conference; and yet the Palestinians are going
   Israel declares that it wants the conference to confirm that its security is more important than a Palestinian state (and of course than the Palestinian people); and yet the Palestinians are going
   Israel wants all Arab countries to be present in the conference, in a new bid to ‘normalise’ relations with them and create the impression that what happens ‘over there’ in the Middle East is but a small diversion on a long and laborious regional agenda; and yet the Palestinians are going.
   Ehud Olmert has said a lot over recent weeks to confirm the image of the conference projected to the world: that it will restart the negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, though reaching a comprehensive solution of the conflict may take a long time, perhaps thirty to forty years; and that the conflict is complicated and should not be expected to be resolved in one conference or within a definite timeframe. The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, launched into more extreme, rightwing litanies, in hope to curry populist favour in future elections.
   All of this is in striking harmony with the postmodern signature of Annapolis, its lack of any content. Even more amazing, all of it has come in the form of statements geared to ‘clarify’ Israel’s position towards the conference. But why do Israelis and Palestinians need a global conference to restart negotiations, if that is what Olmert wants? Why are Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas meeting in Jerusalem, on a regular (and televised) basis, if not to keep the ‘peace process’ going?
   There is only one way out of this postmodern daze: a clear Palestinian refusal to attend a conference devoid of any substance. The Palestinians need a courageous decision from their leadership that sets the record straight. The Palestinians cannot afford to lose time and effort in conferences that are just for show, while their situation deteriorates, their rights are lost, and their blood is spilled on a daily basis.
   OpenDemocracy, November 26. Khaled Hroub is director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project in association with the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000), and Hamas: a Beginner’s Guide (Pluto Press, 2006).

Mahakhali flyover

Every time I pass the flyover at Mahakhali, I feel scared whether an accident will take place as it remains jam packed most of the time. Such mishaps did occur in some other countries.
   I am sure when the designing of the flyover was being done, the engineers considered the load factor. But I am sure they never thought that vehicles will remain bumper to bumper most of the time.
   Hridoy Rahman
   On e-mail

The adviser with the responsibility of religious affairs promised a different Hajj this year. Unfortunately, the ‘different’ has turned out to be a ‘deadly’ Hajj for at least one hajji. The utter mismanagement of the authorities concerned and the Biman have resulted in unending harassment for the pilgrims. The harassment became so intense that they resorted to demonstration.
   Saif
   Dhaka

The Hijbut Tahiri activists are living in a virtual reality which has no link with the real world. They have an ancient imaginary world in their heads and they float around in that virtual world like detached foreign elements. We would have loved to see those well fed, strong and clean dressed men in the devastated costal areas. We would have loved to see them helping the helpless people, feeding and nursing the injured. But it is true that these things are not in the dictionaries of those elements. You will never see these people running missionary hospitals for the sick, managing orphanages for orphans or doing anything which is constructive and useful to the society. To the contrary, they are renowned for their involvements in destructive works and causing obstructions to good works, because they do not belong to our world.
   MH Khan
   On e-mail

Public opinion on relief operations was strained 11 days after cyclone Sidr slammed the coast. If the relief operation would be operated by a political government, there should be lapses and gaps. While the military backed government runs operations having international aid and other amenities, why so much mess in relief operations and lack of coordination in comforting the distressed?
   Gopal Sengupta
   Canada

Finally, the Australian people have ousted the president who got them involved in Iraq. As an American, I wish we could do likewise with our incompetent, warmonger president.
   Sarah Chowdhury
   Los Angeles, USA
   

Next on Quick Comments

a. Economy facing most critical phase since ’71: Says ADB chief; GDP may fall 0.5 percentage point (The Daily Star, November 27) b. Relief supplies pile up while many survivors go hungry (New Age, November 27) November 22) c. Govt to import grains to avert looming food deficit (New Age, November 27) d. Better Business Forum formed (New Age, November 27) e. Foreign forces won’t stay a single day more than required: Matin (New Age, November 27) f. Hajj pilgrims demonstrate against flight delays (New Age, November 27) g. Worst riots since 2005 in France (New Age, November 27)