by Saydia Gulrukh

FOR the past few months, I have been preparing for an almost meaningless exam, one which graduate students in the US have to take, called ‘comps’ (short for comprehensive/PhD candidacy exam). During moments of sarcasm, we also call it the intellectual boot camp. While preparing for the exams, I have created a bubble around me, a self-imposed isolation, as if the Atlantic Ocean between me and Dhaka is not vast enough. Inside this carefully constructed bubble, I allow myself to read Bangladeshi newspapers or reply to emails only during periods of protracted procrastination. Friends’ requests to read their pieces pile up. The news of a launch capsizing on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha, news headlines of RMG workers’ awful plight remotely catches my eyes – shamefully so. I rapidly read emails, I quick-read news from home and elsewhere, whether good or bad, I don’t have moments to react and reflect. It is in this privileged insulated life of mine, that I get an email from Rahnuma that Jashim Uddin Manik, the ‘alleged’ rapist, has died of cardiac arrest in Italy.
   In the next few days, I get many emails, all from old friends from the anti-rape movement. In 1998 the students of Jahangirnagar University took to the streets for two months protesting against campus rape, and demanding punishment of the rapists, many of whom were Bangladesh Chhatra League activists. These emails bore witness to those nights when we sat in front of the university’s administrative building shouting, ‘Amar boner apoman shojjho kora hobe na, dhorshonkari jei hok bichar take petei hobe’ (We will not tolerate our sister’s dishonor, the rapist must be punished, whoever he may be). I would not read the letter but only its subject heading, and flag it to read later. An email from Jashim Uddin Manik’s friend incidentally landed in my mail box, forwarded by a friend. It expressed shock and grief at the untimely death of a close friend. It contained routine details which follow such news. Jashim Uddin Manik died in Padova, Milano at around 10:30pm local time (which I guess, on the basis of email exchanges, would be January 5). His body lies in a morgue while his Italian friends are making arrangements to send his body back to Bangladesh. Manik’s wife took the news very badly, she’s still not herself. In the email, Manik’s friend writes how hard it is for him to stop his tears, he urges everyone (the recipients of his email) to pray for the departed soul. In a way, there’s nothing striking about this email. A grief-stricken friend is breaking to others the news of the death of a close friend. Yet, the ordinariness of the news sends a chill down my spine.
   In 1998, during the anti-rape movement in Jahangirnagar University, Manik had been identified by the disciplinary committee (fact-finding committee) as having been one of the rapists. We knew of him as the Chhatra League cadre who was said to have distributed sweets to ‘celebrate’ his 100th rape. I re-read the last line of his friend’s email – please pray for the departed soul. I stumble at each word, did the man who committed many rapes, if not a hundred, one who had the heart to celebrate it, have a soul? But it’s for a few seconds only, and I close my email window.
   I try to thicken the bubble around me. I must pass this exam.
   My indifference towards Manik’s death makes me start thinking about death. Any news of death is supposedly saddening. But here I am, sitting in front of my laptop, recollecting the details of his sexual offences, and flinching. His crime had been proven in front of the university administration. He had been punished for what they had termed ‘misconduct’; his studentship had been cancelled. However, no legal case had been filed against him. I remembered those days when many of us, those for whom the anti-rape movement in Jahangirnagar University had been a political turning point, had shared hours of rage as we had read news of Manik fleeing/flying to Italy. In those shared moments of rage and despair, we had learned to recognise the gendered nature of the university, and of our legal system. Since the movement ended, in the decade that has gone, the rage which we had felt has presumably turned into indifference.
   I mean no disrespect toward his grieving family and friends. I am sure it is an irreplaceable loss for them. His death matters to me only in the larger historical context of Bangladesh. What does this particular fate of the alleged serial rapist tells us about the legal system? How does it write the history of violence against woman? If I remember correctly, many national dailies printed headlines during the movement that the incidents of rape on Jahangirnagar University campus are for us a matter of ‘national shame’ (jatir kolonko). I cannot help but wonder what is the state of national shame when known rapists are never brought to justice? When the sexual harassment policy on Jahangirnagar University campus still remains not enacted, officially?
   The clock ticks away… my exam is only a few months away. I try harder to thicken the bubble. I succeed but only for two and a half weeks.
   On January 28, the convicted murderers of Bangabandhu, five former army men, were hanged at Dhaka Central Jail, after midnight. They were proven guilty of killing the country’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and all but two members of his family, on August 15, 1975. And yet again, emails overflowed my mailbox. A friend called a number of times, finally, leaving a Facebook message: ‘I see that they executed Sheikh Mujib’s killers. It must be a good thing? It was weird going to his house and seeing the blood stains and thinking they were still about.’
   Her question leaves me perplexed. More than a week after the event, I visit the online archives of daily newspapers to retrieve the issue of January 28. I watch ATN news clips posted on the Daily Star website. Most of the reports try to walk us through the execution night, covering each moment of waiting at the jail gate between 11:00pm to 3:00am. As I read along, I feel uneasy at news of the celebratory chants, and the flashing of V-signs. Members of the public had gathered at the jail gate, they had chanted slogans as the serial executions had been completed. I think, what would have been an acceptable response to the execution of the death penalty of Sheikh Mujib’s killers? Amnesty International has condemned the executions for being ‘hasty’ while a European Union delegation to Bangladesh has found the trial ‘respectable’ (New Age, January 29), but it added a twist. The EU statement said, it was, in principle, opposed ‘to all death penalty in all cases and all circumstances’ (New Age, January 29). Their principled opposition to death penalty, interestingly enough, excludes cases like Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali. In the final months and days of this trial, a debate on death penalty had surfaced, but I don’t want to engage with that debate today.
   Colonel Jamil’s widowed wife’s narrative of August 15 reminded me that at issue was not only the healing of the surviving daughters of Bangabandhu, but that there are others too, who had faced similar losses, had equally waited for the execution (Daily Star, November 19, 2009). For a split second, I thought about the emotional wound and the healing of the family members of Siraj Sikdar. Is it time to talk of other extrajudicial killings? To talk about Cholesh Richil? But, maybe, I am moving too fast, in both directions, past and future. Let me dwell on the present – on the night of the execution, the chants and the flashing of V-signs.
   I go to blogs which I have not dared to visit the last couple of weeks or more, may be months. Activist bloggers and Facebook friends express similar discomfort at the celebration, the flashing of V-signs. Involved debates trace the missing pieces to reconstruct the political context which had led to the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. A friend who had gone to the jail gate had posted a video clip on Facebook. I watch it a few times to see what people had chanted – ‘ajker ai dine mujib tomay mone pore’ (On this day, today, we are thinking of you Mujib). A comment on the video-post caught my eyes, ‘Shouldn’t Henry Kissinger have been somewhere in there?’ Implicit in this question is the alleged ‘foreign involvement’ in the coup. I remember reading in Willem Van Schendel’s History of Bangladesh (2009) that ‘by the spring of 1975 the Indians knew about the possible coup and warned Mujib about it’ (p 182). I believe, by ‘Indians’, he had meant the Indian intelligence, the government. The fact that a neighbouring state knew suggests that the coup of 1975 had involved far more political stakeholders than those who had been convicted, and hanged. The execution of Mujib’s killers may have healed the trauma of his family and followers but the ‘national wound’ is far from being healed. Imperial links with the assassination of Sheikh Mujib remains undisclosed. It remains outside the circle of our political concerns.
   We have been witnesses to two kinds of death, one was natural, the other unnatural. The wounds to the nation in both cases remain open. Unattended.
   Saydia Gulrukh is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), USA

What gives individual senators this kind of power? Much of the Senate’s business relies on unanimous consent: it’s difficult to get anything done unless everyone agrees on procedure. And a tradition has grown up under which senators, in return for not gumming up everything, get the right to block nominees they don’t like, writes Paul Krugman

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.
   What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralysed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.
   A brief history lesson: in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting ‘I do not allow!’ This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighbouring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
   Today, the US Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.
   Last week, after nine months, the Senate finally approved Martha Johnson to head the General Services Administration, which runs government buildings and purchases supplies. It’s an essentially non-political position, and nobody questioned Ms Johnson’s qualifications: she was approved by a vote of 94 to 2. But Senator Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, had put a ‘hold’ on her appointment to pressure the government into approving a building project in Kansas City.
   This dubious achievement may have inspired Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama. In any case, Mr Shelby has now placed a hold on all outstanding Obama administration nominations — about 70 high-level government positions — until his state gets a tanker contract and a counterterrorism centre.
   What gives individual senators this kind of power? Much of the Senate’s business relies on unanimous consent: it’s difficult to get anything done unless everyone agrees on procedure. And a tradition has grown up under which senators, in return for not gumming up everything, get the right to block nominees they don’t like.
   In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by ‘traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.’ But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.
   How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.
   Readers may recall that in 1995 Mr Gingrich, then speaker of the House, cut off the federal government’s funding and forced a temporary government shutdown. It was ugly and extreme, but at least Mr Gingrich had specific demands: he wanted Bill Clinton to agree to sharp cuts in Medicare.
   Today, by contrast, the Republican leaders refuse to offer any specific proposals. They inveigh against the deficit — and last month their senators voted in lockstep against any increase in the federal debt limit, a move that would have precipitated another government shutdown if Democrats hadn’t had 60 votes. But they also denounce anything that might actually reduce the deficit, including, ironically, any effort to spend Medicare funds more wisely.
   And with the national GOP having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.
   The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognise this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session.
   Don’t hold your breath. As it is, Democrats don’t even seem able to score political points by highlighting their opponents’ obstructionism.
   It should be a simple message (and it should have been the central message in Massachusetts): a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis. But by now, we know how the Obama administration deals with those who would destroy it: it goes straight for the capillaries. Sure enough, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, accused Mr Shelby of ‘silliness.’ Yep, that will really resonate with voters.
   After the dissolution of Poland, a Polish officer serving under Napoleon penned a song that eventually — after the country’s post-World War I resurrection — became the country’s national anthem. It begins, ‘Poland is not yet lost.’
   Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.
   Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Zinn explained himself in his autobiography You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. His two greatest disappointments in the past two years were the loss of his wife Roslyn and the performance of Barack Obama. In his last article on the Obama White House, he wrote, ‘I’ve been searching hard for a highlight’, writes Ralph Nader

There are several memorial services and events being planned for Howard Zinn whom The New York Times called a ‘historian, shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, when he passed away at age 87 late last month.’
   His legion of friends, students, admirers and colleagues will be out in force reminding the country about his impact as a civic leader, motivational teacher, author of the ever more popular book A People’s History of the United States, and all around fine, compassionate, and level-headed human being.
   Judging by similar gatherings for remembering other progressive activists and writers, the encomiums for Professor Zinn, who taught at Spelman College in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s (two of his students were Marian Wright Edelman and Alice Walker) and at Boston University until 1988, will be heartfelt, wide-ranging and inspiringly anecdotal.
   Receptions will follow and those in attendance will return to their homes, hoping that what Howard Zinn spoke and wrote and how he acted will serve as an example for those who follow his public philosophy of being and doing.
   Mr Zinn’s legacy, however, needs more than sweet memories that carry forward the spirit of people. His impact needs more than the adult and youth book version (now in a television miniseries via the History Channel) to continue inspiring what the Times described as ‘a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history.’
   How about drawing on the large, national constituency whose lives he has informed honestly and helped improve to support the establishment of the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice? Thought and action in a seamless flow toward returning the definition of ‘freedom’ back to the words of Marcus Cicero as ‘participation in power.’
   When Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife, Sheila, died in a plane crash in 2002, his children started ‘Wellstone Action!’ with contributions from all over the country, to train citizen organisers to help empower underrepresented communities to engage in civic life. As a result, Senator Wellstone’s progressive work to deepen our democracy continues in action year after year.
   The life of Howard Zinn did not follow the usual pathways. His experience as a manual labourer and organiser in New York City gave depth to his college and graduate years. He entered New York University at the age of 27 and completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in his thirties.
   Consider the origins of his views on war summarised in his own words:
   War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. Think about means and ends, and apply it to war. The means are horrible, certainly. The ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate....We are smart in so many ways. Surely we should be able to understand that between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.
   Back in World War II, Mr Zinn was a bombardier in planes that dropped napalm including during a raid over a town in France called Royan. After the war, his sensitivities horrified, Zinn returned to Royan on the ground and interviewed survivors, which included French civilians.
   For sixty years, this Army veteran spoke out against all wars, from Vietnam to Iraq, and others, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Indonesian, African and Chinese assaults.
   Howard Zinn did not choose his injustices. No matter where they came from, he was in opposition. In a poignant tribute of ‘thank yous’ to his regular columnist, Matthew Rothschild, editor of the Progressive Magazine, wrote ‘Thank you, Howard Zinn, for being a Jew who dared to criticise Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, early on.’
   MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, a long-time friend of Zinn, commented on his ‘amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,’ noting his ‘powerful role in helping...the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement.’
   His two friends from Hollywood, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, took Zinn’s history of the downtrodden, the workers, farmers, women, slaves and other minorities, into popular culture, culminating in a television version of the book, The People Speak.
   Perhaps, Boston Globe columnist James Carroll touched most personally on Zinn’s magnetic persona to so many people. ‘He had a genius,’ Carroll wrote, ‘for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful.’
   Zinn explained himself in his autobiography You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. His two greatest disappointments in the past two years were the loss of his wife Roslyn and the performance of Barack Obama. In his last article on the Obama White House, he wrote, ‘I’ve been searching hard for a highlight.’
   Roslyn and Howard Zinn left two children, Myla and Jeff, and five grandchildren. Together with his publisher, Dan Simon of 7 Stories Press, his editor, Matthew Rothschild, his interviewer, Amy Goodman, his associate, Anthony Arnove, and his innumerable writers and fighters for justice, for the principle that the truth is revolutionary, why not a well-funded and staffed Institute, organising from the neighbourhoods on up, as he urged so often, with horizons for all seasons, as befits his vision?
   Although the desire to remember is now intense, it is the willpower that implements the thought.
   Jean Monnet, the great postwar French civic leader, put the legacy course on track when he asserted that ‘without people, nothing is possible, but without institutions, nothing is enduring.’
   Ralph Nader is the author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, a novel.

Road accident and reckless driving

Unless untrained drivers with fake or ‘managed’ driving licence are put behind the bars, the accidents and killings will go on. It remains to be seens if the government cares.
   Manzoor Choudhury
   Via e-mail
   

* * *
   It might be a joke. One day while journeying by a ship three men- Japnese, American and Bangladeshi- were talking about the available stuffs of their respective countries. First, the Japanese threw out his wristwatch into the sea saying they were easily found in Japan, and then the American hurled his laptop since they were very cheap in the USA. When it came to the Bangladeshi, he out of nothing immediately dropped the American into the water and assured the Japanese that he would meet more than 800 people living in per square kilometre of Bangladesh. The satiric connotation of the joke can be related to the reality when we now and then see people being run over and crushed by reckless driving. Indeed, life has no value in this country.
   Ala Uddin
   Azimpur, Dhaka