This, I felt, was a deeply textured article - and much of it is beautifully written, poetic even.
It poignantly illustrates what those waiting for relief are going through:
The line could be seen even from the sea. Hundreds of men standing in a long line.
…
Among the crowd sits Ali Mia, an ageless old man who still works as a fisherman. An eye gone from an accident when his trawler sank a few years ago, he still wants to eke out a living with his stringy arms and legs. He never looked for any dole-outs.But today, Ali is here because he did not get anything to eat for the last two days. Today is the third day running, and he cannot stand it any more.
“I just need something to eat. Something to fill my tummy. Anything. There is nothing edible left on this island,” Ali says and falls silent.
Moslem had his lunch food in the morning before. He collected the rice rotten by the seawater and fried them.
But there’s more - some indications that this administration is not doing so well in coping with the disaster:
But relief is scanty to arrive, and whatever comes is carried by the navy. Had there been no navy, Dublarchar people would have perished. And the administration is slow to wake up to the reality. In fact, the administration has very scanty idea about the people and life in the islands.
Navy ships waited the whole day today at Mongla with an empty cargo hold. But the administration did not give them any goods.
Perhaps it’s unfair to hold the SOE government accountable, as even the Deputy Commissioner did not seem to know that the islands were inhabited. But it is the nature of things that those in charge will be held accountable. Are we seeing some of that already? Consider the legitimacy implications of Sumon’s uncle’s statement:
Sumon’s pale eyes look sleepy but anxious. “Will we get food today, uncle?” he asks.
“May be, son,” the dark man standing beside him replies. “Don’t get so restless. Let the MP Shab (former lawmaker) come, we will get food.”
Perhaps it’s too early to say what the political fallout will be. (Perhaps it’s inappropriate to bring politics into the picture at all given the devastation and destruction that we’ve witnessed?) Perhaps statements of the kind the Chief Advisor made to the hungry crowds - with a showing of care and competence - will be enough.
They are the brave people of the sea and sunshine, as Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed mentioned in his short speech of encouragement to the islanders.
“You are a brave people, you have faced the calamities with valor that also gives us courage,” he said.
But as Jyoti bhai mentioned, it is inevitable that prices and inflation will be impacted by the cyclone. The political fallout from the cyclone in the coming months is worth keeping an eye on.
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November 20, 2007 at 6:37 pm
citizen
The following comment was made on a the awami league blog
“….no doubt you will be spreading your negativity, and try to tell us what a botched job the CTG might be doing,and try to spread your propaganda again about what a great job AL did “when it was in power” of providing relief.. This is a time to bring the country together and forget our differences so we can heal. I do hope that you will at least keep that in mind”
I’m suprised to say that this comment is relevant here too. Your article reeks of criticism and cynicism and negativity. Seems a lot of our our ‘intelligentia’ are so used to seeing stuff through a ‘critical lens’ that they forget to do anything else but criticize.
November 20, 2007 at 9:25 pm
shamshir
Citizen, it’s a fair point you bring up - that this is a time to bring the country together and forget differences. But I think you missed the point of the post by jumping to conclusions about what I was doing. But note that I was not being critical, but asking if there are questions that people on the ground are asking. I have no way of knowing whether the SOE government is doing a good job or not, or how widespread these questions are. No doubt the SOE is doing the best they can under the circumstances - I do not envy them their burden, and the kinds of tradeoffs they are having to face as they make their decisions. For the good that they are doing - may they be rewarded in the court of public opinion, and in a Higher Court.
As I said in my post - perhaps its unfair to point at every mistake and say that they could have done better. The point of the post was not to criticize their efforts, but note that they will undoubtedly face scrutiny, and the scrutiny will inevitably lead to questions of legitimacy. It’s still to early to tell how important these issues will be - but Sumon’s uncle’s quote suggests that the thought is already there, even if at the margins.
I take issue at your suggestion that any scrutiny automatically equates negativism and criticism (though I would argue that my post does not attempt to even attempt to scrutinize, but rather forecasts issues that MAY arise without making again value judgments of whether they should). Note that they are very different things. Calls for unity and healing should not be ropes to tie our ability to scrutinize or raise potential issues. Doing that would be like a man blinding himself because he wants to have a stronger heart.
November 21, 2007 at 1:49 am
citizen
I think your response and your supposed neutral approach can be commended. But I stand by my point. I think either willfully or unwillfully (Unwilfully would imply you are controlled by the power of the north–eastern elite, ivy league, privileged to criticize everything and not resolve anything brain wash machine or the perceived Bengali mentality to criticize everything and anything that isn’t your own undertaking ) you do have a bias that is revealed in the scrutiny of your article.
A break down follows showing the article leanings.
Title: “Early notes on the political fallout. “ Even your title has a negative connotation. FALLOUT implies a negative. Like someone was to blame for something. If the article is so balanced /so neutral why not “ Early notes on the political impact “ or better yet “Early notes on the political UPSIDE”.
Then you cherry pick excerpts that only show the negative.
• “The line could be seen even from the sea. Hundreds of men standing in a long line…
• He never looked for any dole-outs….. Today is the third day running, and he cannot stand it any more.”.
Sad story yes…but what about the 100s of thousands that were evacuated and thousands that were fed. Where is the balancing counter story.
Then you actually say “this administration is not doing so well in coping with the disaster”. Following it up by a story that admin is “slow to wake up.” And had it not been for the navy all those people would have died. Well here’s a news flash…the NAVY is PART of the administration. (anyone who has read addafication has been bombared enough to know how “in-bed” the armed forces are with the administration).
And your leanings are further accentuated when you make an allusion to your percieved illegitimacy of the govt. You do this by implying the dark man who says “Let the MP Shab come, we will get food” is actually pining for our old nemesis AL/BNP ‘tran’-giving, money syphoning’ member of parliament rather than just a rep of the govt in general.
And your cynicism and satirical wit are exposed when you juxtapose a possibly? noble statement “You are a brave people, you have faced the calamities with valor that also gives us courage,” with the implication that he is oblivious to the hunger of the crowds and wants them to eat cake.
We have real problems and need real solutions. Especially after the last 16 years of demoncracy (no, that was not a typo). And if our ‘intelligentia’ cannot move the microscope a bit further back we might just crack the petrie dish and whole damn thing may go up in smoke.
November 21, 2007 at 5:55 am
shamshir
Citizen, a few points:
1. There is a difference between making a (albeit, shaky) prediction that there is the possibility of a political fallout from the cyclone, and saying that a fallout SHOULD happen. The former is an empirical claim, the latter a normative one. I might add that such an prediction that has some basis in other disasters in the past (an extreme example, see Katrina), and the fact that food prices are going to rise and 30% of the affected villages are yet to receive relief (see BBC today) . However, a prediction that the SOE will emerge out of this stronger (see for example BNP after the 1991 cyclone) would not be without grounding as well. I fail to see how making an empirical observation that there may be a political fallout implies negativity.
If I were making an empirical prediction that there would be a political upside to the cyclone, I would title the post as such. But I am putting my neck out and making a prediction of a fallout. An apple’s an apple, and a post about an apple will likely have a title that refers to that fruit somehow.
2. I never make any claims as to whether the SOE government is doing a good job or not with the relief effort. I simply have no way of knowing. No doubt they are having trouble with the effort - perhaps even the most well-prepared administration would have issues with coping with a disaster of this scale. Read my statement again about trouble with coping and see if I am playing the blame game there.
3. Rather than questioning the government’s response - which I never do in the post - what’s more relevant to the post is how the difficulty of coping with the disaster will be perceived on the ground. It can go one of three ways. (i). People on the ground hold the government accountable. (ii). People on the ground think the government is doing a good job with it’s constraints. (iii). People on the ground have mixed feelings about the government. The article seems to suggest that some of (i) is already happening. Again, this is an empirical observation. Perhaps you have data to the contrary, from other news articles? If that is the case, then present it, damnit, rather than trying to read into what I wrote what simply isn’t there. My or your WISHING the reaction on the ground towards (i), (ii) or (iii) simply won’t make it happen. If AF were the Ittefaq or Daily Star, perhaps it would… but we’re not.
4. The question of legitimacy is again one that I don’t raise, but seems to be imbedded in the statement that Sumon’s uncle makes. Why does he think that it is MP-saab is the one who would fix things? Perhaps there is a different reading of his statement than the one I make that makes sense. I am open to hearing it. Make an argument for it, instead of claiming what I do or do not imply. Is my reading of it reasonable or not? In fact, give me a reading that is more reasonable.
Making the observation that on the ground people may be imagining that things would have been better under previous administrations is different from claiming that they WOULD be better, or that the previous administrations SHOULD have been the one’s to face the present crisis.
(For the record: If you have been reading Addafication, Citizen, you would know where I stand on the question of legitimacy of this and the previous demo(n)cratic governments. I have criticized both for their mistakes and their practices, and my line has consistently been that I will measure them by their results. That, to me, is where legitimacy is derived from. One may disagree with this view, and I am willing to argue about it.)
5. I question your view that the observation that people are suffering (the first quotation from the article that I take) needs to be balanced by statements of how more people would be suffering if the administration had not done a commendable job of evacuating millions. If I were sitting around complaining about the government’s failure to provide relief- which I have not done (as noted above) - that would make sense. But that’s clearly not what I was doing. Read the beginning of my post again.
6. Besides one can claim that the government was really doing its job by evacuating the millions, just as it is doing it’s job by trying to provide relief to the millions. On can even claim that the present adminstration took uponitself these responsibilities on 1/11, with the concommitant accountability. However, I am not claiming this, and nowhere in my post can you find an indication that I do claim this. I realize that there are limitations to what the government - even the most well-prepared one - can be expected to do when faced with a disaster of this magnitude.
7. Nowhere do I “imply” that the CA thinks “let them eat cake.” My juxtaposition of his statement - which I agree with you is noble - with the hunger of the crowd implies exactly what a sensible reading of it would have it imply: i. That such statements may enough for the hungry crowds to show that the SOE government is doing whatever it can, and so they will not face a fallout and ii. Because the crowds are hungry, there are good reasons to think that this may not be enough.
I don’t see where the “cynicism and satirical wit” is coming into play here.
I am no doubt a cynical fool. I’ve tried my hand at satire. Wit is foreign to me, as you can tell from reading these pages. But making the observations that I make here require a proclivity toward neither cyncism nor satire.
8 “Real problems, real solutions needed” - this much I agree with.
November 21, 2007 at 8:26 am
citizen
Well at least we agree on point 8.
Please continue writing… without watchers and speakers like you all and checks and balances there is always the chance this will CTG will descend into the road that has been travelled so many times before …. and we will continue to watch the watchers so they don’t go overboard and submarine our collective efforts to help ourselves by descending into a quagmire of criticism and inaction.
Bon Chance. - Upstandingcitizenbrigade
November 21, 2007 at 3:21 pm
fugstar
Nazrul Islam from the NewAge wrote a line that i found expressed so much, in such little space.
“Even the lone buffalo left alive at Majher Char is so traumatised that it runs wildly whenever it sees any man.”
At present i’m most concerned about the logistics. Without much phonability or roadability, … coordination is very hard indeed. Id imagine that army engineers have a lot of mind bending technical matters to deal with.
That between 500 000 and 700 000 of our people made it to shelter is vindication of the benefit, and the baraka, of preparedness. If only the roads and transport were better *casts an evil gaze upon RHD and LGED*
There is a lot of money going it and a lot of activity going on, most no doubt unreported (its physically impossible to do so), i hope and pray its used justly and effectively, and that there’s learning going on. Most of our people live in tinsheds, they never stood a chance, how houses are rebuilt (post relief stage) in the cyclone belt is very important for the future.
We know the answers to ‘Why didnt DC shaheb know that island was populated’?. That needs resolution and it’ll take some time. (revive district gazeteering, give the DCs more time to know, stop so many meaningless susheel wannabe functions taking up their time, BCS reform).
Running around in a raging blamestorm is bad enough, but when the acusations are based on very selective viewing of the television (which a lot of the ‘why didnt he to this or that, he’s such a bananite’ is based on) and very bizzare interpretation of different hurricane scales should be taken with some salt. Extreme events bring out the absurdity in us all like no others.
November 21, 2007 at 6:16 pm
DhakaShohor
And perhaps we will watch the watchers of the watchers of the watchers
~JuvenalShohor
November 21, 2007 at 6:27 pm
DhakaShohor
On a serious note: “we will continue to watch the watchers so they don’t go overboard and submarine our collective efforts to help ourselves ”
Citizen obviously has little clue as to the difference between CITIZENS and governments.
Citizens are private entities, even when they criticise the government more stridently than Saif has done here. Their right to privacy is enshrined in our constitution. A right against which I don’t think even the honourable CTG members have much to say against.
Government officials - while acting as government officials - should expect to be subjected to scrutiny. Government officials have a right to privacy only as much as they are ordinary citizens.
I therefore find it highly ironic that while you try to sound like a citizen vigilante, your focus is on other citizens and not on the government where it should be. Instead of “watching the watchmen”, you’ve decided to “watch the watchers”. Instead of trying to lend your voice to becoming a different (right, left, whatever) critic of the government, you’ve started becoming a critic of ordinary citizens. Well done!
Governments have led us astray more than individual citizens speaking out. What you call a “quagmire of criticism and inaction”, I’d call a quagmire of impunity and MISaction. Sadly, lack of criticism simply increases the impunity and increases the chances of misaction.
November 22, 2007 at 11:15 am
fugstar
Inefficiency in the coordination of ngo and govt work needs to be flagged in a constructive way as it delays emergency work and causes great harm.
the scrutiny on the agents of releif sholdnt be stupid scrutiny designed to destroy. however this is a habit.
November 22, 2007 at 9:45 pm
A note on my political fallout post « Addafication
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