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Inspite of all its pitfalls, there remains to me no more enchanting a website in the world today than dear old Wikipedia. I know, its not the most reliable source for researching an article for say academic purposes, but that doesn’t stop it being the first destination I point my browser whenever I want to know about something of which I have no prior knowledge.
Few sites do greater justice to the ‘web’ part of the name in more gripping fashion. I’ve just finished reading an article on the Tokyo metro system, where I ended up having started my journey seeking the etymology of Mumbai, via the red buses plying the streets of the city where I happened upon a link to public transport in London and then a list of cities with rapid transit systems out of which Tokyo culled my interest simply because my flatmate had been mentioning a few days ago how it had done his head in trying to figure out the Tokyo ‘tube-map’ as it were, when he was there a couple of years ago(I said to him at the time that’s only because he’s an idiot, but now I feel I rather underestimated him). That is exactly why I love it so much. From nowhere, you can end up knowing quite a bit about something you have no idea you might even be interested in an hour back.
It works on the principle that knowledge should be free, and to me there can be no greater mantra to which I would lend my voice. Whoever came up with the whole thing would be my first pick(I quite like imagining I might one day be on the selection committee for one of these things) for a knighthood, or a Nobel peace prize (I’ve even got the ‘for’ part ready, its ‘for being the most revolutionary source of awareness in our age, without which peace shall forever remain an elusive concept’), maybe even a GQ Style award.
I know it can be a bit unreliable at times, but here you drift into the realm of how one defines knowledge. And for me, everything that is confirmed about a certain subject through rigorous testing or analysis is most definitely a necessary condition for knowledge, but not a sufficient one. For that, the random bits of trivia that the Wiki format often throws up, which may or may not be true(while acknowledging this possibility) makes for a more complete, accessible and interesting form of knowledge. That’s probably why since the first day I came across it, I was in love. It may have landed a few people in trouble in its time, but What I Know Is, its added a whole new dimension to the proliferation of knowledge in our society.
If you haven’t seen it already, Mohsin Hamid has an interesting op-ed in the NY Times, asking Musharraf to stop prolonging his rule. [Read it before it goes offline!]
Hamid says that the urban upper classes have been doing well under Musharraf:
My wife was an actress in “Jutt and Bond,” a popular Pakistani sitcom about a Punjabi folk hero and a debonair British agent. Her show was on one of the many private television channels that have been permitted to operate in the country, featuring everything from local rock music to a talk show whose host is a transvestite.
My sister, a journalism lecturer in Lahore, loves to tell me about the enormous growth in recent years in university financing, academic salaries and undergraduate enrollment. And my father, now retired but for much of his career a professor of economics, says he has never seen such a dynamic and exciting time in Pakistani higher education.
But there have been significant problems under General Musharraf, too. Pakistan has grown increasingly divided between the relatively urban and prosperous regions that border India and the relatively rural, conservative and violent regions that border Afghanistan. The two mainstream political parties have historically bridged that divide and vastly outperformed religious extremists in free elections, but under General Musharraf they have been marginalized in a system that looks to one man for leadership.
Hamid tells us that he had for a long time supported Musharraf, voting for him in the referendum a few years ago. But things have now turned sour:
What many of us hoped was that General Musharraf would build up the country’s neglected institutions before eventually handing over power to a democratically elected successor. Those hopes were dealt a serious blow two weeks ago, when he suspended the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
… He had blocked the showcase privatization of the national steel mill. He had, in other words, demonstrated that he would not do General Musharraf’s bidding. With elections due later this year, and challenges to irregularities like the rigging that took place in 2002 likely to end up in the Supreme Court, an independent chief justice could jeopardize General Musharraf’s continued rule.
Like many Pakistanis, I knew little about Justice Chaudhry except that he had a reputation for being honest, and that under his leadership, the Supreme Court had reduced its case backlog by 60 percent. His suspension seemed a throwback to the worst excesses of the government that General Musharraf’s coup had replaced, and it galvanized protests by the nation’s lawyers and opposition parties, including rallies of thousands in several of Pakistan’s major cities yesterday.
He ends his op-ed with a plea for democracy. The risk of militants coming to power, he says, is simply overstated.
Yes, there are militants in Pakistan. But they are a small minority in a country with a population of 165 million. Religious extremists have never done well in elections when the mainstream parties have been allowed to compete fairly. Nor does the Pakistan Army appear to be in any great danger of falling into radical hands: by all accounts the commanders below General Musharraf broadly agree with his policies.
An exaggerated fear of Pakistan’s people must not prevent America from realizing that Pakistanis are turning away from General Musharraf. By prolonging his rule, the general risks taking Pakistan backward and undermining much of the considerable good that he has been able to achieve. The time has come for him to begin thinking of a transition, and for Americans to realize that, scare stories notwithstanding, a more democratic Pakistan might be better not just for Pakistanis but for Americans as well.
As they say, read the whole thing!
A couple of quick thoughts on the op-ed (and I mean, quick. I love my readers, but it’s crunch time in law school land…)
1. What Hamid says about the economic opportunities and stability created by the Musharraf regime sounds a good bit like what they used to say about Ayub Khan back in the day. And the widening gulf between regions sounds familiar too from that period. We know how that turned out.
2. One of things I would question Hamid (or Pakistani readers who agree with him) about is why he thinks that a new run of democratic experimentization will turn out any differently than the last few. As Hamid notes, the institutions have not been strengthened. And have any new political figures emerged in this period of military rule that present a credible alternative to the old PPP/PML leadership? And if not, the danger is not that the militant groups will take over power whenever they hold elections - the danger is that when either the PPP/PML are mucking it up again, the vacuum of power and control that militant groups thrive in will only be deepened…
3. None of this is an argument against democratization. It’s important to spot what went wrong: the lack of institutional development. It wasn’t impossible in Pakistan. And it certainly isn’t impossible in Bangladesh. The rhetoric that we are seeing from the SOE government matches very closely the rhetoric of Pervez Musharraf. One hopes that they won’t try to follow him in the casual ad hoc way in which he’s approached the work of nurturing institutions.
4. So what is it going to be? A few years from now, are we going to have Tahmina Anam writing in the NYTimes (in anticipation of her second book) about being “betrayed” by the SOE government. Or will the SOE experiment have silently succeeded - perhaps the way that the Mauritania experiment is as we speak, with substance but little fanfare…
Back in school (I went to an Indian school in Kuwait till the beginning of 11th grade), the Indians would say that Bengalis were smarter because of the fish we ate. Based on this article [hat tip, marginalrevolution.com], one can now claim that it might actually have to do with how, culturally, it’s rude to look someone in the eye for too long when interacting with them. (This cultural trait probably generates some confusion (and some suspicion?) when Bengalis come to the West.)
On the other hand, shifty-eyed or not, we are a people with an extremely short historical memory. Right, Jajabor?
Shadhinota tumi
Baganer ghor, kokiler gan,
Boyeshi boter jhilimili pata,
Jemon icche lekhar amar kobitar khata.
- Shamsur Rahman
Professor Abhijit Bannerjee at MIT, who I had posted on previously, has a very accessible piece in the Boston Review about development economics, critiquing where we’ve been and drawing on some recent work (particularly in the area of education) that might show the way to the future. Choice lines:
The problem, in the end, is that we economists and development experts are still thinking in machine mode—we are looking for the right button to push. Education is one such button. Within education, there are more buttons: Economists talk of decentralization, incentives, vouchers, competition. Education experts talk about pedagogy. Government officials seem to swear by teacher training. If only we could do it right, whatever the favored “it” might be, we would be home free.
The reason we like these buttons so much, it seems to me, is that they save us the trouble of stepping into the machine. By assuming that the machine either runs on its own or does not run at all, we avoid having to go looking for where the wheels are getting caught and figuring out what small adjustments it would take to get the machine to run properly. To say that we need to move to a voucher system does not oblige us to figure out how to make it work—how to make sure that parents do not trade in the vouchers for cash (because they do not attach enough value to their children’s education) and that schools do not take parents for a ride (because parents may not know what a good education looks like). And how to get the private schools to be more effective—after all, at least in India, even children who go to private schools are nowhere near grade level. And many other messy details that every real program has to contend with.
The great virtue of the recent emphasis on randomized evaluations of social programs, it seems to me, is that they force us to venture inside the machine. To implement a proper evaluation, one has to know the exact details that define a program.
As they say, read the whole thing!
[Extra, extra! Read all about it! Here's an interesting and accessible paper on absentee doctors in the healthcare system in rural Bangladesh by Nazmul Chaudhury and Jeffrey Hammer of the World Bank. This type of work, of entering the system and trying to figure out what's working and where the gaps are, is in line with what Bannerjee talks about...]
Bangladesh has come a long way from being perceived as what Henry Kissinger infamously called a “basket case” in the 70s. The past decade has seen stunning economic growth rates of around 5 percent—this in spite of continuous political instability and economic disruptions because of it.
Accompanied by this growth has been an expansion of the urban middle class. The Bangladeshi middle class accounts for about 9 percent of the country’s population, still low compared to Pakistan’s 18 percent and India’s 30 percent, but growing.
Anyone who has recently been to Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, has come back raving about the new restaurants, coffee shops, malls representing new ways for the middle class to spend moolah.
A brand new shopping mall: Boshundhora City
About five years ago, a brand new theme park opened. ”Fantasy Kingdom” answered the prayers of urban kids with an urge to ride roller coasters and bumper cars superior to those found at “Shishu Park” where I have several baby pictures with my cousins. Some criticized the idea of a shiny new theme park when so many problems still plague a country where so many children still beg on the streets.
Yes, inequality in Bangladesh is still stark and most people still earn a bit less per day than the entry fee at Fantasy Kingdom. But the steady growth of the middle class can be a boon for Bangladesh if managed in the right way. This is if (with a capital “I” and capital “F”) governance improves, greater investment in the economy is allowed, taxes are actually collected, and the money is actually used to make smart investments to lift the poor.
But, regardless of this exhaustive list of things that the government could be doing with the golden economic egg, the chicken has already hatched. The question is which way the chicken will bolt.
Some trends have led us to hope. The growing middle class has already led to greater civil society participation. Impressively, the middle has shown itself to be increasingly vocal about political matters and brazen about challenging the government.
For the Club of the Optimistic (of which I am a member) these happenings could mean greater evolution and effectiveness of Bangladesh’s political institutions and in turn its economic institutions. A large enough middle class could also eventually mean more checks on the abuse of political power by the affluent, as well as more support for public investment in education, health and roads.
But I remind myself that in order for any of this to happen, the middle has to play fair too. First, it has to continue to stay socially and politically aware and active. Second it has put an end to inveterate practices that still continue and serve to shut out the many at the expense of a few: e.g. bribing everyone from politicians to school headmasters to healthcare institutions to company officials.
I sincerely hope that the growing middle will rise to the occassion.
I am sorry that this might come across as a little snarky, but this begged to be commented upon. Over at DP Blog, Rumi is ruminating during a visit back home. Discussing the encroachment of water bodies in the capital by developers and well-connected individuals, Rumi spends a little time reflecting the various names for water bodies in Dhaka. He writes:
…A water body, when it goes through a posh area, it is called a lake. The same thing when it enters middle class Dhaka, it renames itself as a Khal or jheel. A Gulshan resident can not tolerate a Begunbari or Meradia resident living beside a lake!!
I am sorry, Rumi. It is actually the other way round. It’s not that “the Gulshan resident cannot tolerate a Begunbari or Meradia resident living beside a lake!!” It’s that the Gulshan or Dhanmondi resident cannot tolerate living beside a khal or jheel like the middle class! (!!, if you will.) This of course speaks volumes about the mindset of the residents of the Gulshan/Banani/Baridhara (and Dhanmondi) crowd. And Rumi’s slip is revealing of the disconnect between this crowd (and many returning expats) and the rest of the population.
Moving beyond the initial class-condescension, the rest of Rumi’s post is great, and points out a bunch of interesting thing, with untempered enthusiasm and optimism. Keep writing, Rumi bhai!
Bob Woolmer may have been murdered…
A few weeks back, I posted on a WB report on doing business in South Asia. Someone had commented on the post asking for more information on bottom-of-the-pyramid markets. The World Bank has a new publication out estimating that the size of the bottom-of-the-pyramid market is around $5 trillion. It’s an interesting report, looking at various sectors, including health, ICT, water, energy, and transportation among other. Read the whole report here.
Blogging’s been relatively slow because I’ve had to finish a paper. (Jajabor on the other hand has no excuse!) I also haven’t been able to check out the rest of the Bangla-blogosphere as often as I usually do… A couple of days ago, Drishtipat blog reported the horrific killing of a brave indigenous rights (and Eco-park) activist in Modhupur, Cholesh Ritchill. In the comments section, which remained empty for some time, Asif movingly wrote:
Monta ei khobor peye bikel theke bharakranto. Kintu aro dukhkho pai eta dekhe, je eder pashe daranor moto ekti lok-o nei. Eto bhoyonkor ekta ghotona ghote gelo, othocho ei entry-te kono comment nei, nei kono outrage. Eta kono chor dakat khuni noi..ekta shthaniyo neta ke pitiye mera fela holo, othocho key kichu bolche na.
[My translation, which fails inevitably to carry the raw emotion of his comment:
My mind has been weighed down by this news since the evening. But I feel sadder seeing this that there is not one person to stand by their side. This was such a frightening event, but there is not even one comment on this entry, no outrage. This is not the death of a thief or a dacoit... A local leader has been beaten to death, but noone has said a thing.]
Asif is entirely right to call his readers (including us) out this way. Take a moment to remember Cholesh Ritchill, for
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. -
John Donne, Meditation XVII
Why not rename this to the Dhaka Central Jail and save on transportation costs?
A message forwarded by my roommate… Do sign the petition!
————————————————————————-
Dear Noah,
| We are now within striking distance of collecting over 500,000 messages to deliver to Congress and have less than 48 hours to get it done in time for the hearings.Ask any friend who wants to end the climate crisis to sign our message to Congress now by visiting: |
When I emailed you last Friday, 294,374 people had signed our message to Congress demanding immediate action to solve the climate crisis. In that email, I asked you to help meet the goal of delivering 350,000 messages when I testify at Congressional hearings on Wednesday.
Your response was amazing. By Saturday morning - because of you - we exceeded our goal! In fact, as I write this email, our total has risen to 405,758. Thank you!
What that means is that we are now within striking distance of collecting over 500,000 messages - and have less than 48 hours to get it done in time for the Congressional hearings.
Now is the time to reach out to as many people as possible. Ask any friend who wants to end the climate crisis to sign our message to Congress now by visiting:
http://www.algore.com/cards.html
By the way, maybe this goes without saying, but please reach out to Republican and Independent, as well as Democratic friends. One of our goals must be to make this issue one that transcends partisanship. While many of the solutions to the climate crisis will be found within the political system, there should be bipartisan and transpartisan agreement on the basic nature of the crisis and the sense of urgency that is appropriate for us to solve it.
That point was brought home to me again last week when I visited London and met with the leaders of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. In the UK, both major political parties are completely committed to taking real action to solve the climate crisis. They openly acknowledge this is an unprecedented moral issue and are competing vigorously to see who can propose the most creative and effective solutions to solve this crisis.
Here at home, our objective must be to create a similar sense of urgency in both political parties. That is why your activism leading up to these hearings is so important. We are so close to our new goal of 500,000 messages to Congress. You can help put us over the top.
So please reach out to everyone you know and ask them to sign our message to Congress today - or at least within the next 48 hours by visiting:
http://www.algore.com/cards.html
Thank you,
Al Gore
P.S. On Wednesday both the House and Senate will webcast the hearings live.
My testimony in the House of Representatives begins at 9:30 AM and you can watch the webcast by visiting:
My testimony in the Senate begins at 2:30 PM and you can watch the webcast by visiting:
We’re pleased to have C.M. Nabeel Sami as our first guest blogger for the next few days. Nabeel will be posting his tongue-in-cheek comments about politics and life. He will also be blogging about his experiences starting and running a joint-venture business that he operates out of New York and Dhaka. Welcome aboard!
In response to this line in a NYtimes article:
“Mr. Abssi said he derived much of his spiritual guidance from Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Bukhari, a ninth-century Islamic scholar. A recent study by the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, N.Y., listed Mr. Bukhari among the 20 Islamic scholars who had greater influence today among militant Arabs than Mr. bin Laden…”
AmalA is justfiably incensed:
Mr. Bukhari??????
It’s like calling Thomas Aquinas Mr. Aquinas!
It’s an interesting slip: comes out of lumping people together and collapsing past and present so history itself is erased: so now we have Mr. Abssi, Mr. Bin Laden, and Mr. Bukhari!
Makes perfect orientalist sense!
She could not have put it better. ”Mr. Bukhari” is like calling Thomas Aquinas Mr. Aquinas!
I’m a bit too inebriated you might say to say much now, but what a performance, what a result, what a day ! An upset yes, but the manner of the victory revealed a truth that has slowly been creeping up on the criceting world. We are no longer minnows. Weaker than most, yes, but a victory such as this is no longer a shock. Its merely a weaker team playing to its potential and overcoming a stronger team playing below par…Shabash bagher baccha ra!
No list of great speeches would be complete, of course, without Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. (Read and watch the speech here.) This arguably is the finest speech in the last 50 years of American history. Kennedy had some fine speeches - intricately crafted, beautifully delivered. But nothing in them match the kinds of rhetorical heights reached by Rev. King’s eloquence. When Rev. King dreams, you share in his dream. When he hopes, hopes inspite of a history of oppression, betrayal, discrimination and hatred, you believe in his hope.
A few weeks ago, Sen. Joe Biden killed his own nascent presidential chances when he commented upon the popularity of one of his competitors for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama. Said Joe “Foot-in-the-mouth” Biden, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” The comment, particularly the condescending “articulate” bit, rightly created a firestorm. (See for example an effective take-down here.) Less well-reported were George W. Bush’s comments about Obama which mirrored Biden’s. Said that epitome of articulateness:
“Oh, I don’t know. He, let’s — he hasn’t gotten elected yet. He hasn’t even gotten the party’s nomination either. He’s an attractive guy. He’s articulate. I’ve been impressed with him when I’ve seen him in person. But he’s got a long way to go to be president.”
All of this condescension from white politicians is surprising, given how unforgettable Rev. King’s speech is, and how it stands out as one of the most articulate invocations of the American Dream.
Bonus: The speech that brought Barack Obama to the attention of America, the “One America” speech at the DNC Convention in 2004. Watch Part1 and Part2.
Can anyone give me one good reason for having the state run an airlines?
Today my brother described Biman as the permanent startup - always running at a loss. It even flies half-empty on the Dhaka-London route (and back in the day, on the Dhaka-NY route). It escapes me how that is even possible…
[Yes, I think tagging this as a "corruption" story is apt.]
Nixon was a vile, vile man. But he was also an incredibly astute political operator. Years before the Watergate scandal - for which he became the only US President to ever resign from office - he faced his first scandal as vice-president to Eisenhower. Nixon was accused of taking illegal campaign donations. On account of the scandal, it is said that Eisenhower - never too close to Nixon - was willing to remove Nixon from his 1952 reelection ticket. It was then that Nixon gave the speech that rescued his political career, the famous Checkers speech, where he asked the public to contact the Republican National Committee. Nixon was thus able to take the decision out of the RNC and Eisenhower’s hands, as it would seem undemocratic if they didn not abide by public opinion. This was the speech that saved Nixon’s political career.
Nixon skilfully disassociated the campaign funding scandal from his own personal finances by giving a detailed description of his finances - how much he had, how much he owed (which his wife found embarassing to reveal) - and even challenging the Democrat Adlai Stevenson to account for his finances. He made a few digs at the Eisehower camp by obliquely referring to another scandal over mink coats in the administration. He recalled to his own modest background. But probably the most effective part of the speech was when he tugged at the heart-strings of America by referring to his dog, Checkers, which had been received as a gift by his little daughter from a political contributor, skilfully juxtoposing the heart-warming tale of Checkers with that old American dream that anyone can run for political office:
One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don’t they’ll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.
It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he’d sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.
It isn’t easy to come before a nation-wide audience and air your life as I’ve done. But I want to say some things before I conclude that I think most of you will agree on. Mr. Mitchell, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made the statement that if a man couldn’t afford to be in the United States Senate he shouldn’t run for the Senate.
And I just want to make my position clear. I don’t agree with Mr. Mitchell when he says that only a rich man should serve his Government in the United States Senate or in the Congress. I don’t believe that represents the thinking of the Democratic Party, and I know that it doesn’t represent the thinking of the Republican Party.
Read and listen to Checker’s speech here. Also watch an analysis of the strategy behind different parts of the speech and the aftermath here.
One of the notable things about the speech was how Nixon decided to use the new medium of television. But swords are often double-edged. In the 1960 elections, John F. Kennedy’s more effective use of the medium in the first presidential debate would result in Nixon losing the elections. [Watch a part of a documentary on that election here.]
Jajabor posted on the World Press Photo of the Year a few weeks ago. BBC has the story behind the photograph, including short interviews and backgrounds of the people in the picture. Fascinating read.
Talking to the BBC over the phone from New York, Spencer Platt said his picture was not meant to show any Lebanese in a bad light.
The person who was helping me with my work while in Lebanon, Wafa, looked like she could have stepped out of that car. But she was certainly not rich and her life had been turned upside down by the war.
The picture challenges our notion of what a victim is meant to look like. These people are not victims, they look strong, they’re full of youth.
Only in Lebanon can you find a Mini Cooper against a backdrop of bombed out buildings. Lebanese people are very hard to classify. There were many other pictures of the war, but this one started a conversation.
In Britain’s darkest hour in the height of the Second World War, it was Churchill’s oratory that put spine into the British resistance to the Nazis. A large number of his speeches from this period have entered history as classics, for the man had an incredible ear for powerful phrases: “Blood, toils, tears and sweat.” “This was their finest hour.” “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed, by so many, to so few.” And my favorite, “We shall fight on the beaches…” His rhetoric and that distinctive voice cannot but inspire. [Hear some his most famous lines here. Read the transcripts of some of his most famous speeches here.]
One of the things that bothers me about the Defend the Beaches speech is how Churchill enlists the British Colonies to the fight in the last line, right after that rousing “we shall defend the beaches …” bit:
“We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old…”
This is of course not surprising. Churchill after all was an unabashed defender of the British empire. And I think that given the choice between fighting against the Nazis and their Japanese allies, being neutral and fighting for them, the colonies would be wrong to choose anything but the last. Subhash Chandra Bose thought otherwise, but Netaji was wrong. Neutrality or fighting with the Japanese would only lead to the British being replaced by much more malignant overlords. But it bothers me that Churchill never even bothers to ask…
“…government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
That phrase, from Lincoln’s Gettysburd Address is familiar to almost any school-child in the English-speaking world, and is of course a classic definition of democracy. Lincoln packed more into 268 eloquent words than I see myself packaging into a lifetime of writing. The Address is an unmatched model of simplicity and conciseness.
Of course, recordings of the Gettysburg address do not exist; Edison only invented the phonograph in 1877. But here, you can read the whole speech (including the original drafts) and listen to four readings of the speech, by Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston (who has famously portrayed him on stage and screen), Jim Getty, and Johnny Cash .
You can watch Waterston and Gore Vidal (who has written on Lincoln) meditate on Lincoln here. Vidal reflects, “Always guilt, always blood, always remorse - that is why he is our greatest and most tragic president.” Waterston: “You can see it in his eyes, the burden that he alone carried…”
Compare Lincoln to the man who now occupies Lincoln’s chair - he who could famously remember nothing to regret about his war in Iraq in the 2004 elections. And compare Lincoln to the crop of leadership we have been blessed with in our young democracy “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Compare his inner struggles with the narrow narcissism and sordid self-righteousness of our leadership. Lincolnesque greatness is too much to ask for - but we had the right to a tiny bit of his self-reflectiveness and sense of responsibily.
On a lighter note, in the age of Powerpoint presentations, this is how the Gettysburg Address would have looked like.
Continuing with our Great Speeches week in honor of March 7, today we have Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny. Read the whole speech here.
Watch the beginning of the speech here:
You have to give credit to the man for his eloquence. In comparison, Jinnah’s August 11 speech to the Constituent Assembly is a bit of a snoozer (Note however that the speech does have some choice passages on Jinnah’s hopes for interreligious harmony and religious freedom in the new state that Pakistan has not been able to live upto. It also has some interesting passages on the role of the state vis a vis the various religious communities that are fascinating to think about…)
Growing up, Tryst with Destiny was one of my favorite passages in the English language. Lapierre and Collins in Freedom at Midnight claim that the speech was extemporaneously delivered. Even if it wasn’t, the skilful way in which Nehru strikes an balance appropriate for the moment, celebrating victory in 100-year freedom struggle, while acknowledging the trauma of Partition, claiming a future of promise and principle, while articulating the scope of the struggles that yet remain - and the sheer eloquence with which these themes are laid out - makes this one of the Great Speeches.
Well, now it has happened. For weeks there’s been speculation about why the SOE govt. hasn’t gone after Tarique Zia. An eventful night indeed: Joint Forces sent to both Khaleda Zia’s cantonment house AND to Sheikh Hasina’s Dhanmondi residence, to maintain the appearance of evenhandedness. Plenty of high-wattage leadership from all the major parties captured, the hottest catch of course being TZ himself. And the tantalizing promise of plenty more to come in short order with another top-50 list being created.
These lists are interesting in and of themselves. They have the feel of musical playlists. Who creates them? What criteria do they use? I have this funny image in my mind every time I see a list like this that there’s some John Cusack-type figure and some Jack Black-type figure out of High Fidelity discussing yet another top ten list for yet another mix-tape:
JC: Quick top fifty figures to arrest or check out the week of March 7. I need this list by 9 PM so that we can send out the joint forces at midnight.
JB: Okay. TZ. He has to be there! And Khaled Musharraf Hussein.
JC: TZ. Agree. Kh. Musharraf Hussein. Hmmm. We didn’t get him in the last top 50 list?
JB: No dude. I wanted him in, but you wanted that other guy, whatshisname Lotus.
JC: Dude, Lotus Kamal totally needed to be on the last list.
[They spend the next 6 minutes squabbling about Lotus Kamal's inclusion in the last list. And then another 13 minutes and 23 seconds speculating about the origins of the name Lotus, the place of lotus in Indian iconography and random musings about life, death and Runa Laila's mindblowing music during her second marriage.]
JC: Lotus Kamal totally needed to be on the last list.
JB: Let’s agree to disagree. Khondokar Musharraf Hossein. Works?
JC: OK (heatedly). Put KMH on. But who else. There’s not enough balance. Too much hip-hop.
JB: You’re right. How about OQC and that Chittagong mayor guy… May be Sheikh Helal?
JC: Hmmm… You’re right. Let’s put them on.
[They each spit out a series of AL and BNP names, and both agree. It's almost a love fest.]
JC: But we’re missing something I feel.
JB: That we have 124 names?
JC: That too. But it’s missing something. I think we need more fusion in the mix.
JB: Yeah. Fusion would be good I think. There’s a lot of good fusion around that deserves to be on this list. But what do you mean by fusion?
JC: How about a Jamaat guy. Abdullah Muhammad Tahir. Gazi Nazrul Islam?
JB: Who’s that last guy? I would think there are other names…
JC: Take my word on it. Great guitar riffs. We’ll get the rest in the next list - let’s say a best of gospel a capella top-20?
JB: OK. I give up. This is just bull—-. How about Anwar Hussein Manju to round it off?
JC: Orright. We’ve got to cut this list short. It’s 8:50
[Spend ten minutes randomly cutting the list short, and then reviewing it.]
JC: Good list, I think. Got to run to let the Joint Forces know who to go after tonight.
JB: OK. Wait, we put Sigma Huda on the list?!
A big question now is what will BNP, or whatever remains of it, do? A very interesting night, and very interesting times ahead of us…
If any confirmation was needed as to how far the current regime’s grasp could spread in Bangladesh, it arrived with the arrest of Tarique Rahman. Confirmation that this is an operation, the consequences of which may indeed alter the landscape ofBangladeshi politics in the most comprehensive manner. The BNP has in recent years often seemed a healthier party than the AL due to having, inspite of many a problem not entirely disassociated with Rahman, at-least a natural successor to the throne of party chief. The AL, as a party still so resonant of a Sheikh Hasina growing increasingly disconnected from the youth of a country where I believe I’ve heard around 40% of the population is under 20, on the other hand are only beginning to groom their next generation for the task. Comprised of a next generation much more familiar already with the tricky terrain that is rajniti, one could foresee a much better future for the BNP.
Then of-course, the masterplan started coming apart in a manner which would be more befitting of the British tabloids’ description of a cricket ball in the hands of the Pakistanis. And yesterday the umpire finally called for a new ball. Quite how the BNP would recover from this is hard to fathom. It is hard to see Ziaur Rahman’s eldest son mounting a credible comeback anytime soon.
The BNP’s only consolation would be that the AL is not in very good hands itself, and in no safe-house either with regards to being targeted. It looks increasingly as if the current regime is on a mission that could see the two behemoths of Bangladeshi politics crippled, down on their knees. Paving each side of a road for a third-party to emerge and finally make a mark in Bangladeshi politics. The Nagorik Shokti of Dr.Yunus? Possibly. But already entrenched in the system with the ability tofield candidates in well over the majority of constituencies, the Jamaat must not be counted out. They have possibly been the least affected by the whole drive.
Or perhaps they too will not be spared, once the criteria for these arrests are stretched beyond corruption a bit more. Bangladeshi politics without AL and BNP is a bit difficult to imagine. Will it retain the passion that is the spur behind so much from objections to marriage to eternal silence between brothers of blood. It is like the medicide we need, but can we take it as a people? In due course of time will the two see an upsurge in public sentiment towards them as did General Ershad after his party was more or less abased? Who will step up in their absence?
As with all things considered a ‘warm-up’, this victory against New Zealand too has to be seen for what it is: A means to an end, and not an end in itself. The result is irrelevant, we must remember that this game will not even count as an official one-day international, and I fear that as we have done too many times in the past, we will let a good result go to our heads and subsequently let our performances drop, happy to rest on our laurels as it were.
Therefore I feel it is imperative that rather than focus on the result itself, it is what came out of this performance that has to be held up and utilized. It is hard to judge from a game you haven’t seen (there was no coverage here at-least), but from the various reports flying around the net, this is what I have been able to gather:
Both the opening batsmen played their part, in the absence of first-choice Shahriar Nafees. Now Shahriar is of-course one of the first names on the sheet, so once the real thing starts, there can be no place for both Tamim Iqbal and Javed Omar at the top of the order. The two of them got similar scores, 46 and 45 respectively, but in different manners. While Tamim hit the Kiwi new-ball all over the park, Omar, in typical Omar fashion, grafted. So who would be the better option to partner Shahriar against India? Do you go for the more steady and experienced Omar, or the belligerent young Tamim ?There is still more cricket to decide from, but at the moment, I would back Tamim. In Shahriar we have finally found an opener we can buil an innings around. If Tamim gets in early and gets the run-rate going, this will take the pressure off Shahriar to play too many strokes early and risk getting out. I don’t see Omar fitting anywhere else in the order, so this would probably mean him being dropped.
It was also good that the middle order got some time at the crease, although they could surely have done with more. Md. Ashraful by all reports played sensibly for his 29, otherwise we might have been all out a lot earlier. In the next warm-up game, the most important objective
See the text of the full speech here.
Listen to the speech here. Or download it from here.
At 8:38, those words that cannot but give a Bangalee goosebumps: “Ar jodi ekta guli chole… prottek ghore ghore durgo gore tulo…”
At 12:00, what is effectively our declaration of independence: “Mone rakhba, rokto jokhon diyechi, rokto aro debo. E desher manush ke mukto kore chharbo, inshallah. Ebarer shongram amader muktir shongram. Ebarer shongram shadinotar shongram. Joy Bangla.”
If you haven’t heard, Bangladesh have beaten the Kiwis in a pre-World Cup warmup game.
Hopefully the team’s going to take a lot of inspiration from this…
May be Shye will comment on this as our resident expert in all things cricket
There’s been a fire in a Chittagong slum, more than 20 have died, and hundreds are now homeless. But it’s almost a certainty that the NTV-building fire from a few days ago captured the public attention in a way that this sort of slum fire never did or never will. There will be no 24-hour news coverage or running-ticker updates on the media sites, and certainly no recriminations or public outcry. Like thousands of similar fires in generations past, this one too - and its victims - will be forgotten almost as soon as the flames subside, even before the embers have stopped smoldering. Forgotten to all but those who have lost, and continue to lose.
The many-faced cruelties of this world, and those who live in it.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un.
I don’t know too much about the Faizee case (good summary and revisiting of old archives at DP blog), or about the correct procedure under the law for the appointment of High Court judges. A quick look at the constitution suggests the Supreme Court CJ is appointed by the President (and thus by the Prime Minister in normal circumstances) and there’s not much about High Court judges*. May be I missed something about High Court judges in my rushed perusal…. Perhaps readers can illumine me on this point.
But I did like what Mainul Hosein had to say about the whole matter:
But Law adviser Mainul Hosein, who met with the chief justice at the Supreme Court last afternoon, told The Daily Star, “I think there is no question of Faizee remaining a judge. I also think Chittagong University has not done the right thing by cancelling his certificate after 10years.”
This seems to me to be the right stance to take. As outrageous as Faizee’s initial appointment may have been, it’s no less outrageous that CU can go back more than a decade (!) and unilaterally cancel a certificate given in 1989 without any sort of real process… and while they are at it, cancel a few hundred others as well. (Yes, again I harp on my favorite note - process, process, process!) I mean, eto din ki korcchilo? Ghash khacchilo?
* Note however that political appointments of judges is not very strange. It happens in the US, both at the federal and state level. And there’s checks built in the system that limit all sorts of court-packing karchoopi that generally work (see the Harriet Miers appointment last year to the Supreme Court and the controversy surrounding it). But such checks were of course not thought through very well when our constitution was written - as we notice whichever angle we look at the clusterfudge that is our institutional setup from.
“[Reason] finds no refuge in this jurisprudence of confusion.”
- Justice White’s dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, responding to Justice O’Connor’s “august and sonorous” first line in the Court’s opinion in that case, “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.”
Zinger!
My brother is visiting India right now with some of his MBA Classmates, to observe some bottom-of-the-pyramid businesses and development schemes in operation. The project, inspired by Professor Pralahad’s book and by the fact that Vanderbilt is Dr. Yunus’ alma mater, is aptly title Project Pyramid, and is designed to get these business school students to think about sectors, opportunities and problems that the standard MBA-education would not expose them to otherwise. The idea is also to bring the fresh eyes of these well-trained soon-to-be consultants, I-bankers and business-managers to the operations of some of the organizations working on the groun to generate thoughts on potential improvements and opportunities. And they’re keeping a blog, an interesting travelogue mixing fascinating ruminations on development, comparisons of India with the US/Bangladesh/Trinidad/whatever-plant-that-lady-with-the-pink-hair-is-from, first timers’ schlocky culture shock and (mis)adventures, &c. Definitely an interesting read. Check it out!
If one were asked to scan the British rock scene from the last decade or so and name some of its most resonant bands, it is quite a simple conclusion to draw that Oasis and Radiohead would gain the most mentions, followed closely perhaps by lesser acts such as Blur and Coldplay. The first two are certainly musicians of prime calibre, and Blur’s demise is as much a signature of Damon Albarn’s genius as was its rise. I have less conviction about the talents of Chris Martin and his brand of mellow pop-rock. However one band that music is definitely poorer for not giving more recognition is the constellation that was The Verve.
Yes, they are the ones who sang Bittersweet Symphony, one of the anthems of our era and they will be remembered for that forever. But try to name a few more songs from their back-catalogue, and most people will struggle beyond a couple. And that is where the tragedy lies. Because their back catalogue is so very, very good, inspite of being only 3 albums and a collection of singles long, that I have little doubt in my mind that they were the greatest songwriters to have come out of these shores since The Stone Roses’ eponymous 1989 debut changed the scene here altogether. And the strange thing is, Bittersweet Symphony has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Indeed, that third and last record, Urban Hymns (1997), is probably their weakest effort. Even then, it still is probably
Someone recently shared with me some interesting maps of the world that play with the sizes of countries to depict social or economic conditions. So for instance, on the two maps that depict energy consumption and GDP, the size of the U.S. is shown to be much larger it actually is on a real map, whereas the poorest countries are mere dots. Bangladesh can barely be seen and Africa almost not there.
I thought I should share one of these stunning maps with you. This one shows child mortality rates and you can you see the prominent contours of our country on the Asian continent. Although I was aware that child mortality rates in Bangladesh are quite high, this portrayal was still quite stunning. (see below).
But consider that this is after Bangladesh has made substantial progress in reducing child mortality rates: from 1973 to 2003, child mortality fell by 40%. Quite impressive. Even then, Bangladesh appears fairly large on this map indicating that we have a ways to go. Every year 50 out of 1,000 infants are still not making it.
One surefire way to improve is to invest more in female education. Although, we still need fundamental changes in the perception of women’s role in society, which would likely lead to less child bearing in the first place. Grameen’s efforts and other grassroots initiatives have helped in this regard, but I cannot say the same for our formerly ruling governments. Helping promote women’s voices through offering them better opportunities and highlighting their rights are fundamental ways to change stubborn national perceptions. They have fallen short on this, among other things.
Needless to say, greater recognition of women’s rights and better opportunities for women could solve problems beyond infant mortality. Hopefully, Yunus will stick to his promises about women, assuming he wins (I know, big assumption. And funny we have to rely on a man to come to the rescue on this.)
As a final note, I wonder if anyone has done any cartograms of the relative powers of women in executive positions in different countries and maps depicting widely held perceptions of the extent of women’s rights in those countries. I’d be interested to look.
Four days on, we’re back at the Queen’s Park Oval for our second game against Sri Lanka. The pitch shows a bit of wear, as this is the fourth game on this square, and accordingly, Saquibul is brought in to take Rasel’s place. Sri Lanka win the toss and choose to bat as expected, and they get off to a solid start with the openers bringing up the first fifty in the 9th over. It all looks set for the Sri Lankans to post a large total, but Tapash, bowling first-change, brings the first breakthrough for Bangladesh by bowling Jayasuriya through the gate with a slower one. Bashar then pulls a masterstroke by bringing back Mashrafee from the other end for a second spell to have a go at the new batsman, and the young man doesn’t let his captain down, taking two wickets in two overs so at the end of the first fifteen overs, Sri Lanka are 73/3.
The spinners get in on the action then, and although they don’t run through the order, they do manage to keep the run-rate in check. Razzak in particular is miserly, finishing his spell with figures of 1/29. Going into the slog overs, Sangakkara is the only recognized batsman left for the Sri Lankans. He delivers some hefty blows, but Tapash and Mashrafee show admirable discipline by mixing their pace and keeping the ball up, so the ‘hit-me’ balls are about as hard to find as peace in the Middle East(ok, obviously not quite) and Sri Lanka finish with a final score of 254/8. Not much more than we chased down against those mighty Australians that memorable day in Cardiff. We have to believe its gettable. And from the way our players trot off the park, you can tell they do.
Bangladesh’s innings gets off to a steady start, as Shahriar and Javed put a premium on seeing out the new ball. Wickets in hand is going to be the key to this chase, and we are happy to take 34/0 at the end of ten overs. Then Murali enters the fray, and immediately makes an impact, bowling Javed with a doosra. Bashar as usual starts nervously, but his deputy spots the moment to ease some of the pressure by stepping up the run-rate, and at the end of the first fifteen, we are at a very respectable 62/1. The required rate has crept up a bit from the beginning of the innings, but Bashar and Shahriar keep their cool and the hundred comes up in the 24th over. We are still on course, but Read the rest of this entry »
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