The audacious cop
I was simply astounded and shocked reading a news item in a vernacular daily concerning the SP of Tangail. The item, along with a photograph, reported that this senior police officer mercilessly beat up a truck driver who had shown the ‘audacity’ of delaying to let his car pass on a public road. The act of the beating is not what I would like to comment upon, high-handed and illegal as it was. It is the attitude of the police officer when confronted by newsmen that made me wonder whether we are really living in a civilised country. He showed no remorse for acting in that reprehensible manner, rather he boasted that it was the public money with which the stick he used to beat up the truck driver was purchased. The cop said he cared very little if his action was reported.
I am now waiting eagerly to follow over the next few days to see what the relevant authorities have to say about this police officer and his action, now that it has come out into the open.
Rashed Ahmed
On e-mail
Barack Obama will fail
Millions of people must be ready for a great shock in November this year when they will have to deal with another Republican president in the White House. The reasons are obvious. Despite our best efforts to be just and fair Hilary Clinton will not be favoured to become the first woman president of the United States. To many people the burden is too big and she does not fit into the picture. Barack Obama, even if he is successful in getting the Democratic nomination, will not be voted by the people to become the first black president of the United States, because they don’t feel comfortable with him. The present Obamania is a media ploy to raise him to a certain height and then drop him when the right time comes. The question of post 9/11 security is still a big concern for the general public there and Barack Obama’s very vivid Muslim ancestry and his ethnicity will become an impossible hurdle in the way to getting elected. His support among the overseas Muslims will play as a very negative role in the coming months. This support will create suspicion among the voters which will definitely jeopardise his chances to become elected. The black euphoria about his candidacy is a rare hope in the long list of their grievances. The vast majority of the white Americans are far from ready to see a black man as their president. The current upsurge in his popularity is going to give him a bitter shock when the crucial time will come.
John McCain will use this advantage and which is impossible to many now will become easy for McCain. The conservative Christian lobby, the Jewish lobby, the powerful media and, above all, the race card will give Barack Obama and his supporters at home and abroad a big huge shock. This stark reality must be accepted by those who now feel elated by his name. Truth is never a fiction, it is always a fact.
Akbar Hussain
Canada
Inquiry into the state
of our soul
The worst symptom of a disease must be when we are inured to the symptoms.
‘An unknown caller threatened him on February 21, saying that he would be killed if he does not stop his campaign to protect gas and coal,’ said the news reports. Thereafter there has been little said or done by either the authorities or civil society on this seemingly trivial news.
Professor Anu Muhammad’s crime is serious: he has been a man who has always engaged in the life of our people and who has always defended people’s interests.
In recent times he has been explaining how the particular arrangement of the sale of certain natural resources in Bangladesh is disadvantageous to us and at the same time would force many thousands out of home and livelihood. With endless patience, through discussions, seminars and writings, Anu Bhai’s efforts have contributed towards a national discussion of the issues, without which we can never hope to find what is good and what is bad.
Perhaps in our times the worst crime is to be independent: to speak out one’s thoughts, not to be bought out by the rich and powerful, indeed, to be alive, –– alive, that is to say, to actually care enough for issues and people to speak out. To be alive this way is a serious threat to the forces arrogant enough to pick up the phone and give a death threat, just like that.
Can we react? Can we protest? Do we as a society have any life left? Or have we become so used to the rot that we take this outrage as something natural?
The evil forces behind the death threat would like the entire country to be a jail cell, all of us to remain resigned, silent and in exile in our own homeland.
Have they triumphed already?
Nurul Kabir
Boston, MA, USA
Press freedom
I criticise the lack of government’s commitment to respect press freedom. Reporters Without Borders accused public officials around the world of ‘impotence, cowardice and duplicity’ in defending freedom of expression. The spinelessness of some Western countries and major international bodies is harming press freedom. The lack of determination by democratic countries in defending the values they supposedly stand for is alarming. Bangladesh press is also facing the same situation as the present government is backed by the armed forces.
Gopal Sengupta
Canada
Gas crisis
It was naive on the part of Petrobangla to bank everything only upon the Cairn’s offshore exploration in Megna block! There is nothing certain in oil and gas exploration; and it is known to be an uncertain matter.
Given the reported nine-year time frame from successful exploration to oil or gas in the pipeline, it adds pressure for a quicker solution. Is it not time for us to exploit our coal resources with urgency? Why are we wasting time over fruitless debate, mostly by amateurs, on how to mine it? For heaven’s sake leave it to the professionals and let us start the ball rolling. Even today seems to be too late! We need to utilise our coal and the time is NOW.
As the old saying goes, ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.’ We neither have the wealth nor the might like the USA which can sit over its proven fuel and energy sources while managing to import all its fuel from wherever it is available. I strongly believe that coal and safe nuclear power is the road ahead for us. Whatever renewable energy we can manage is all a bonus. Coal mining and utilisation is the need of the hour. It brooks no further delay.
SA Mansoor
Dhaka
