Political Discussions

[TIslam]

Things like does he drive an expensive car? Do his children attend expensive private schools/universities or study abroad?

Originally Posted by King Nothing

Things like driving a car [albeit not an expensive one] and children studying in private universities are things the average middle/upper-middle class Bangladeshi can afford these days. Studying abroad can happen through many mediums. There are scholarships and such. Also students can work part time for their living expenses (which I do).

Perhaps I should clarify. Yes, of course, many are able to and do scrape enough funds to pay a semester of college abroad and then continue through part-time employment, work-study, etc. I, for one, did just that. Rather, I meant if the person in question is footing the bill, a complete one, for his/her children's education.

[tislam84]

Or even better, does his kids study undergrad in Ivy-league, or semi ivy-league schools?

[samaruf]

I don't know why this guy doesn't relinquish his post after being caught red-handed. We know 99% of our politicians are corrupt but when the criminal is caught with the loot (or the loot heading to his house), the sensible thing is to apologize for the misdeeds of his minions and just get out of the spotlight. AL and BNP should be mature enough to dismiss important people in their respective organizations when the corruption is brazen and becomes media fodder.

"Railway Minister Suranjit Sengupta's refusal to resign and indeed his argument that he cannot be held responsible for the scandal involving his assistant personal secretary and others regarding the Tk 70 lakh episode damages his reputation further and erodes the moral standing of the government he has been part of since December last year..."

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=230344

[TIslam]

Originally Posted by samaruf

I don't know why this guy doesn't relinquish his post after being caught red-handed. We know 99% of our politicians are corrupt but when the criminal is caught with the loot (or the loot heading to his house), the sensible thing is to apologize for the misdeeds of his minions and just get out of the spotlight. AL and BNP should be mature enough to dismiss important people in their respective organizations when the corruption is brazen and becomes media fodder.

"Railway Minister Suranjit Sengupta's refusal to resign and indeed his argument that he cannot be held responsible for the scandal involving his assistant personal secretary and others regarding the Tk 70 lakh episode damages his reputation further and erodes the moral standing of the government he has been part of since December last year..."

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=230344

Well, he did. Some of these politicians are finally beginning to show some intellectual maturity. I commend him for his resignation.

[joynissan3]

bangladesh is now in crisis for opposition party.Government cant handle this and fall in great problem.

[TIslam]

http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?d...05-04&nid=9129

http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?d...05-04&nid=9131

Up until a few years ago, the higher courts in Bangladesh managed to exert its independence despite being controlled by the government. Today, the government of the day appears to have totally cowed it, separate, independent judiciary (after the proclamation of the separation of the judiciary during the last care taker government), notwithstanding.

[manbil777]

Remarks With Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni
by Secretary Clinton on her Dhaka visit : May 2012

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/05/189366.htm

[TIslam]

Ruling party brings hartal back

M. Serajul Islam

A senior journalist who was once elected to the parliament on an Awami League ticket was asked to comment on the arrests and cases against the BNP leaders on a TV Talk Show recently. He said a few things that are worth noting seriously. He categorically dismissed any political benefit to the ruling party out of these arrests and cases.
Instead, he said that the arrests and cases against the BNP would only strengthen the opposition. The BNP, according to him, was down and out after losing the last elections very badly. It has been the Awami League that has helped the BNP to stand on its two feet by pursuing it relentlessly without trying to deal with it politically. With every move to deal with the BNP like it was out to end it as a political party, it has succeeded in making it stronger. He said, courtesy largely the AL, the BNP is at present strong enough to challenge the ruling party!
The senior journalist said something that was very devastating for the ruling party’s claim as the party that led the movement for liberation of Bangladesh and democracy in the country. To him, what the AL is doing now is exactly what the Pakistani regime had done in East Pakistan in the 1960s. By implicating the AL and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in false cases aimed at harassment, the Pakistani military regime only helped strengthen the party and make Sheikh Mujib the unquestioned leader of the democratic movement in East Pakistan that in turn became our war of liberation.
Quite evidently, the ruling party is not aware of what it is doing. It is failing to realize that its actions are bringing the BNP into public contention instead of breaking it apart. The State Minister of Home tried to appear convincing when he said in the media that action against the BNP leaders have been initiated because their call for hartal resulted in the damages to property and death of a driver when a bus in which he was sleeping was torched the same way past regimes rationalized their actions to suppress democratic opposition.

Minister on hartal

The State Minister’s stand would have convinced the public if only it was taken out of the context of the history of hartals in Bangladesh. It is the AL has played a dominant role in using hartal against the government where the BNP does not even come close. The State Minister for Home must have forgotten about the AL’s role in establishing hartal in our politics. During the two terms of the BNP, his party had organized hundreds of days of hartal. There were extensive damages to property and deaths during these hartals. The BNP also used hartal during the last term of the AL that also resulted in damages to property and deaths. On balance however the AL has used hartal against the Government much more than the BNP and hence responsible for more damages and deaths.
In this present term of the AL, the people had started to hope that hartal would become history because the BNP took serious note of extreme public apathy for this evil political strategy. It is the AL that had argued in favour of hartal very strongly as a political strategy for achieving democracy where the BNP has been a follower. In fact, till the Cholo Cholo Dhaka Cholo call of the BNP on March 12 that was a democratic movement against the government, the BNP had avoided hartal in deference to the public mood.
The BNP had resisted the temptation of falling back on hartal to make governance difficult for the government in the face of grave provocations. The AL led government used the arm of the law to pursue the opposition leaders immediately upon assuming power where many were spending as much time running to the court as pursuing active politics. The AL also used extra judicial killing against its political opponents that the BNP had introduced while in power against hardened criminals.
Not satisfied with filing cases and the extra judicial killings to deal with the opposition, the government surreptitiously introduced something no one would have imagined in a nightmare. They simply started making political opponents disappear. In the face of opposition uproar against these disappearances, the law enforcing and security agencies simply refused to acknowledge any involvement. In the meantime, such cases began to pile up.

Strategy of disappearance

According to Odhikar, a human rights organization in Bangladesh over 50 people have disappeared since 2010 leaving the people convinced that the law enforcing agencies were behind these disappearances as almost all the cases involved someone opposing the government in one way or another. A chill came down those in the opposition camp because they were not prepared to deal with something that one read only in the context of dictatorial regimes like Pinochet of Chile.
The disappearance of BNP leader of Sylhet and a former lawmaker Ilyas Ali acted as the catalyst to bring this dangerous issue of disappearance to the top of the political agenda. The former lawmaker simply disappeared with his driver. As the opposition cried out foul, the ruling party responded with ridicule. The Prime Minister’s response was that the BNP had hid Ilyas Ali to make a political issue out of it. The BNP countered and blamed RAB for the disappearance. The EU expressed concern and communicated it to the Government. Some US Congressmen also expressed concern. Human Rights Watch also voiced its deep concern and has asked for an independent inquiry. The news of the disappearance of Ilyas Ali found exposure in the media around the world. In the country, the news of the disappearance and the consequences of it cast a pall of gloom all over. The BNP’s demand to find Ilyas Ali and concerns everywhere failed to move the Government that tried to deal with it in an unbelievably casual manner.
The BNP was thus left with no alternative but to go for hartal albeit tentatively not knowing how the people would react. At first, it started with a one day hartal and then extended it for two more days at the stretch. Not surprisingly, there was wide public approval for the hartal on the first day as the people in general felt that the opposition had no alternative to make an insensitive government listen. The second and the third days of the first call of hartal also were observed although there was sporadic violence on the subsequent days. Still the government refused to accept responsibility or do anything to help find Ilyas Ali.
The BNP’s call of hartal for another two days came after the Government refused to budge to its ultimatum to find Ilyas Ali by 28th April. The second round of hartal saw more sporadic violence. Nevertheless the second round of hartal was also observed successfully from the opposition’s point of view. Meanwhile, the Home Minister and the LGRD Minister made statements in the media that showed some signs that the Government was willing to make efforts to find Ilyas Ali. Both said their objective was to find Ilyas alive that led to public speculation that some individuals in the Government must have knowledge about Ilyas Ali’s disappearance.

Govt takes hard line

However, other authorities in the Government were not willing to accede anything to the opposition on the Ilyas Ali issue. Instead they want to meet the BNP head on with a hard line that the State Minister for Home has underscored in justifying the arrest of Ruhul Kabir Rizvi and the cases against the BNP leaders. In the midst of the fluctuating stance of the Government, President HM Ershad’s statement that people get murdered when they stay at home (the case of the unsolved murders of the journalist couple and the Saudi diplomat) and disappearance (Ilyas Ali and others) has highlighted the untenable law and order situation in the country and the general fear about the fast sliding political order.
The Government nevertheless now appears to have opted to attack the opposition to get out of the mess into which it has landed itself by its single minded pursuance to hound the opposition in the same mindset as was shown by the past undemocratic regimes in our history. The senior journalist stated unequivocally that the only result of such a course of action would be a simple case of history repeating itself. Past efforts to deal with political problems by force have all failed. He felt that the present course that the AL has charted for itself would also meet the same fate.
The senior journalist was also asked whether the case of Ilyas Ali’s disappearance was stage managed by the ruling party to contain the ill impact of railway gate and to divert growing support of the people for the next general elections under a caretaker government. His response was one spoken out of wisdom. He said that the disappearance of Ilyas Ali would add to the pile of negatives against the ruling party while doing nothing to divert the attention of the pubic either from the issue of the CG or railway gate. In fact, with failure to deal with the Ilyas Ali case democratically, the ruling party would slide further into the political quicksand in which it is stuck now unless it deals with the issue not with the Pakistani military’s mindset but with a democratic one.
Recently, the Prime Minister asked senior citizens to advise her on correct way of governance. She said this while addressing a forum that was felicitating her for Bangladesh’s victory on the maritime boundary demarcation case. An economist known for his leanings towards the ruling party lamented in a talk show that the news of this great victory of Bangladesh has not registered among the people that should have given the ruling party great political mileage in its present predicament. In another forum, the Prime Minister asked her party members to work hard to get re-elected to complete the social, political and economic agenda that the ruling party has initiated. It is heartening to see that the Prime Minister has sought advice and feels that her party would have to work hard for re-election.

History repeats itself!

Recent events have underscored that the Prime Minister indeed needs advice and that her party would also have to work hard for re-election. However she should seek advice not from those who gather to felicitate her with sycophantic zeal but from those who support her party as one established by the Father of the Nation and have now shown the courage to be critical of the way she has been running the government like the senior journalist on the TV talk show. There are many like this senior journalist and their number is growing. She should not be seeking advice from those who gather to felicitate her for they would never tell her the hard truth.
The Prime Minister must realize for her sake, her party and the country that any other way to deal with the opposition other than the democratic path would be disastrous. History should be her guide to realize this. The BNP must be given the space to act in the democratic way for which its concerns about Ilyas Ali and others who are disappearing into thin air, individuals who are mostly its political opponents, must be taken seriously and not to be ridiculed. The government must make sincere efforts to trace those behind the disappearances, whether in government or elsewhere, and punish them. Most of all, the BNP’s demand for the next elections under an agreed system, called by the senior journalist as the “mother of all problems “, must be discussed with it and resolved so that it would participate.
The people are, as the State Minister for Home has said, firmly and unequivocally against hartal. However, they are also politically conscious and cannot blame the BNP entirely for resorting to hartal for which the Government must bear the major responsibility for not providing any democratic alternative. Even on the fifth day of the hartal, 63% respondents to an electronic poll run by a leading Dhaka English daily favoured the BNP’s call for hartal. This should alert the government that by its un-democratic actions, it is not just helping the BNP become strong politically, it is unfortunately bringing back hartal from the ICU where it was just waiting for the life support system to be unplugged.
-------------------------
The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan

http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepag.../UserHome.aspx

[TIslam]

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=233661

[TIslam]

M. Serajul Islam

I came across a news item in a recent issue of a New York Bangla weekly that left me wondering. A visitor from Bangladesh, one of the many from Bangladesh’s cultural/literary/educational spheres who are regularly invited to the United States by the highly partisan Bangladesh expatriate community in this country, said in a gathering of Bangladeshis in New York that democracy, nationalism, socialism and secularism have been made the 4 principles of state policy in the Bangladesh Constitution on the advice of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru! I was not reading seriously and was casually flipping the Weekly’s pages. When I realized what I was reading, I had to read it again to make sure I was not dreaming. Pandit Nehru died in 1964 and Bangladesh became independent in 1971.
I have been a student of Political Science in Dhaka University in the 1960s and also taught the subject there. The subject that I read and taught required that I read whatever was available on politics, particularly on history of the movement for Pakistan and Bangladesh. I did not lose my interest in politics and history through my long diplomatic career. The news drew my curiosity and attention because it was the first time that I came upon such an astounding story.

The story was dated when Pandit Nehru was the Prime Minister of India. According to what the visitor said as reported in the weekly, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Manik Miah met Shashankha Banarjee, an Indian diplomat then posted in Dhaka and gave him a letter addressed to the Indian Prime Minister from Manik Miah (!!) seeking Indian help for creating the independent state of Bangladesh. The story was datelined sometime in 1962.
It was proposed in the letter that Sheikh Mujib would go to London and declare independence of Bangladesh from there in March, 1963(!!). Sheikh Mujib became impatient when the letter was unanswered because he was convinced that he needed India’s assistance to liberate Bangladesh. He thus went to Agartala and contacted the Indian Prime Minister through the Chief Minister of the province. The visitor, who happens to be a Dhaka University history teacher, did not mention what happened between 1962 and 1968 or about the plan to declare independence of Bangladesh from London. He went on to say nevertheless that because of the trip to Agartala, the Pakistanis brought the Agartala conspiracy case against Sheikh Mujib although according to him, Sheikh Mujib was not deeply involved in that case.
The visitor however indicated that Sheikh Mujib eventually received an answer to his letter from Pandit Nehru. He did not mention when exactly Jawaharlal Nehru wrote that letter to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Nevertheless, he gave some details of the letter. Jawaharlal Nehru “advised” Sheikh Mujib to wait for that day for India’s support when millions would stand behind him for his movement for the independence of Bangladesh. When exactly Pandit Nehru advised Sheikh Mujibur Rahman about the state principles was not clear. The visitor simply claimed that the four state principles have found their way in our constitution because of the advice of Pandit Nehru to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The incredible story that he narrated to his New York audience was based on a book written by an Indian diplomat who supposedly had the meeting in Dhaka with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Manik Miah. As further evidence, the Bangladeshi visitor said that a nephew of Sheikh Mujib corroborated the script of the Indian diplomat in a book he wrote. Jawaharlal Nehru’s connection with Bangladesh and his recommendation to Sheikh Mujib on the state principles of a future state of Bangladesh are based on these two sources!
The weekly’s news had me scratching why someone would make up such an absurd story. Anyone with any sense of Bangladesh’s history would dismiss it as absurd for many reasons. In 1962, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, our deepest respect for him notwithstanding, was a provincial leader. He had not by then emerged as the great leader that he ultimately became in the late 1960s. He may have written the letter to Pandit Nehru but why would the Indian Prime Minister answer that letter from a provincial leader? Cleary the visitor has exposed his ignorance about the rudiments of how states such as India conduct diplomacy.
Even if one accepted that the letter from Sheikh Mujib eventually reached the Indian Prime Minister, why would he answer it? In one applied common sense, the answer is a simple one. Unless for some brief moment Pandit Nehru had lost sanity, he had no business even in attaching any importance to Sheikh Mujib’s letter, let alone answer to it. If Sheikh Mujib’s letter would have interested him in anyway, he would have asked someone way down the political ladder to answer it.
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the visitor in his respect and love for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. His intentions were also no doubt genuine, to project Sheikh Mujib as a great man and a great leader. Unfortunately, he picked upon a fiction with too many wrong plots to harm Sheikh Mujib’s claims to greatness instead of enhancing it. He has raised a host of legal issues that, if correct, would project Sheikh Mujib exactly as the Pakistanis would like; that he was trying to break up Pakistan by means that were illegal as early as 1962. It would only strengthen and justify Pakistan Government’s accusations and actions against Sheikh Mujib.
Sheikh Mujib was a great democratic leader who fought for the rights of Bengalis by constitutional means till he was left with no alternatives by the Pakistanis for constitutional negotiations anymore following the crackdown of March 25, 1971. Even on March 7 when there was under great pressure for UDI (unilateral declaration of independence), he resisted and delivered a speech that alone should place him among the great leaders of modern history. Had he declared UDI that day, he would have given the Pakistanis the opportunity to crack down and still not be blamed for whatever action they would have taken. In the period when this plot was said to have been conceived, any attempt to break a country by any means was unacceptable. Right of self determination then was worth no more than lip service up front and cracked down under the principle of territorial integrity of a country that was simply sacrosanct with brute force if need be. That was what happened to the attempt by the Biafrans.
It was the waiting game that Sheikh Mujib played that forced the hands of the Pakistanis leading them to commit crimes against humanity. That is what gave the Bangladesh movement the great stamp of legitimacy and won for Sheikh Mujib instant recognition as a great leader and statesman and the Bangladesh movement for liberation, instant support of peoples all over the world. Earlier of course Sheikh Mujib had won the national elections of November, 1970 comprehensively emerging as the unquestioned leader in the then East Pakistan. Even then, because the emergence of Bangladesh threatened to legitimize secession, except for India and the Soviet Union, at the government level, our war of liberation did not receive support anywhere.
Many in Bangladesh love and respect Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as a great nationalist leader. They also feel proud that under his leadership the people of Bangladesh rose and liberated the country through the glorious liberation war in which military leadership was given by heroes like Ziaur Rahman who announced the independence of Bangladesh once the Pakistanis incarcerated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. To be told now that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had approached India in 1962 for liberating Bangladesh destroys his credentials as a nationalist leader and shows him as a conspirator. It also casts shadow on our glorious war of liberation in which our brave freedom fighters showed the world that we were more than capable of earning our liberation on our own.
India of course supported our liberation war for its own interests. Today it has a benign neighbour in Bangladesh instead of a nuclear Pakistan. It is the importance of that India in Bangladesh’s history and politics that the visitor has tried to propagate by giving Pandit Nehru the credit for our state principles. Unfortunately here too, he ended by humiliating him and India by showing that as early as 1962, India was actively engaged in breaking Pakistan that is not going to do the image of the great Indian leader any good.
Panditji was the great leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, propagating to the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America the principles of peaceful co-existence. In fact, with China, he had established the Five Principle of Peaceful Co-existence or Panchasheela, of which the first and the third principles specifically prohibited any country from interfering in the internal affairs of another country.
The Bangladeshi visitor has shown Panditji as a leader who said one thing in public and practiced the opposite in reality; the very contrast of the principles of Panchasheela with which he found for himself a place in history. Of course, Panditji remains a great leader of his times who would do nothing like what was attributed to him. It was the Bangladeshi visitor’s misrepresentation of history with intentions that do not appear to be honest that has placed doubts on the impeccable credentials of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
The visitor left me convinced by what he said that his intention was primarily to project India and its importance to Bangladesh. He is not alone in trying to do what he did in New York. There are quite a few of our compatriots who try to make us believe that India is a great country and that it was a mistake that we have made in opting out of it in 1947. I have no doubt about India’s greatness. In fact, since 1947, India has become even greater and more powerful. However, for those who try to give this twist to our history, the facts need to be recounted. Pakistan was created in 1947 primarily because of the support of Bengal. In fact without Bengal’s support, Pakistan would not have seen the light of day. It is one of the ironies of history that Pakistan remains in the hands of those who opposed its creation in 1947 and was discarded by those who created it.
It is regrettable that the Pakistani leaders twisted the contributions of Bengal and instead treated us with contempt even to the extent of trying to impose the minority Urdu language over the majority Bengali language of Pakistan together with imposing on us a neo-colonial style of governance. That failure of the Pakistani leadership gave the cause of Bengali nationalism its greatest impetus. However, these facts are in no way any indication that we would have been better off without the partition of 1947. If the 1947 partition had not occurred, we would have remained no better than Paschim Bangla (PB) that is now one of the weakest of India’s provinces.
In fact, if India had not been portioned in 1947, we would have been weaker than PB and in the same bracket as the seven impoverished provinces of India in its northeast. Instead we are today a sovereign country with a GDP over US$ 100 billion and over 8 million of our people living abroad and a future that could have been immensely better than what it is had our political house been in order. But as it is unquestionably better than it would have been without the 1947 partition. Besides, we are free which is priceless! To understand and appreciate this freedom, we need to take a look at the status of Muslims in India. In PB, Trinamool came to power after 3 decades of Communist rule with the support of the Muslim vote. Although Muslims makeup 33% of the population of PB, their representation in government jobs was less than 3% before the elections that brought Trinamool to power. The Trinamool has been in power for nearly a year with no good news yet for the Muslims of PB. Instead its Chief Minister has come in the way of Bangladesh’s legitimate interests from India.
The Bangladeshi community in the US is now close to a million. A lot of them are doing exceptionally well in their adopted country. In places such as New York they are emerging as a community with leverage in both state and national politics. None of them are ever going to return to Bangladesh to live again. It is good that they love Bangladesh but the same cannot be said of their inclination to bring visitors such as the one on whose controversial statement I have written this piece. They come and spread the same venom that they spread within the country to keep the community from realizing the vast potentials that it has in USA. The Bangladeshi expatriates should consider spending more time if it is politics they are interested in for politics of their adopted country instead of wasting it on politics of Bangladesh. No other expatriate community in the USA or anywhere else does that.
————————————-
The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan and Egypt.

http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepag...px?ID=2&date=0

[mirzazeehan]

OMG....what the hell is going on in Burma????

I think Bangladesh should seek support of the OIC countries and do something to stop this immediately!

[TIslam]

Originally Posted by dopekhor

what can a poor state like bangladesh do? it already has a half a million rohinga refugees already, why arent rich muslim states coming up to help?

Really now! What's the poor state routine, when GoB won't even allow UNHCR representatives to visit/monitor the affected region? When AL ministers (foreign, LGRD) vehemently rejects any allegation of genocide and maintains that these are rabid Jamate Islami fanatics attempting to flee from the wrath of the local authorities and victimized local Burmese? This isn't how a humane government and its people behave.

First and foremost, you let these people in, provide them temporary food and shelter, then you mobilize world opinion and actively campaign for their cause. Not just to other Muslim nations, but to all countries, beginning with the UN. If Bangladesh MoFA was worth its salt, it would have done so. It would have also shown the credibility and efficiency of the home ministry.

[dopekhor]

Originally Posted by TIslam

Really now! What's the poor state routine, when GoB won't even allow UNHCR representatives to visit/monitor the affected region? When AL ministers (foreign, LGRD) vehemently rejects any allegation of genocide and maintains that these are rabid Jamate Islami fanatics attempting to flee from the wrath of the local authorities and victimized local Burmese? This isn't how a humane government and its people behave.

First and foremost, you let these people in, provide them temporary food and shelter, then you mobilize world opinion and actively campaign for their cause. Not just to other Muslim nations, but to all countries, beginning with the UN. If Bangladesh MoFA was worth its salt, it would have done so. It would have also shown the credibility and efficiency of the home ministry.

there is a reason why i called bangladesh poor, if MoFA in bangladesh is more immature then a 4 yr old and to think the advisor of foreign affairs of the pm of bd was the vice provost of the ash institute

[King Nothing]

Originally Posted by TIslam

Really now! What's the poor state routine, when GoB won't even allow UNHCR representatives to visit/monitor the affected region? When AL ministers (foreign, LGRD) vehemently rejects any allegation of genocide and maintains that these are rabid Jamate Islami fanatics attempting to flee from the wrath of the local authorities and victimized local Burmese? This isn't how a humane government and its people behave.

First and foremost, you let these people in, provide them temporary food and shelter, then you mobilize world opinion and actively campaign for their cause. Not just to other Muslim nations, but to all countries, beginning with the UN. If Bangladesh MoFA was worth its salt, it would have done so. It would have also shown the credibility and efficiency of the home ministry.

Pretty much my sentiments

[TIslam]

Originally Posted by King Nothing

Pretty much my sentiments

It goes to show, given that we both harbor divergent views on many issues, yet we agree on this, that to politicians, expediency is of paramount important. Sense of humanity and morality has no place.

It is quite unbecoming of the country, given that Bangladesh was born out of decades of oppression and itself was a victim of a genocide. Rather shameful.

[mirzazeehan]

Originally Posted by TIslam

It goes to show, given that we both harbor divergent views on many issues, yet we agree on this, that to politicians, expediency is of paramount important. Sense of humanity and morality has no place.

It is quite unbecoming of the country, given that Bangladesh was born out of decades of oppression and itself was a victim of a genocide. Rather shameful.

I have to agree with you here...it really is quite shameful that Bangladesh is doing nothing to solve this crisis.The least Bangladesh can do is draw international attention to this matter and offer basic help to the victimized people of Myanmar.
Bangladesh may be a poor country considering its large population of 160 million people,but with an annual government budget of 24 Billion USD,Bangladesh govt. could have easily provided basic help to a fraction of the 1 million Muslims being terrorized in Burma.

[TIslam]

Originally Posted by mirzazeehan

I have to agree with you here...it really is quite shameful that Bangladesh is doing nothing to solve this crisis.The least Bangladesh can do is draw international attention to this matter and offer basic help to the victimized people of Myanmar.
Bangladesh may be a poor country considering its large population of 160 million people,but with an annual government budget of 24 Billion USD,Bangladesh govt. could have easily provided basic help to a fraction of the 1 million Muslims being terrorized in Burma.

Thanks, Mirza. Common like you and I, who hardly have any dogma, no (political) party affiliation, believe in common good, and only want all that is good for Bangladesh, and want it to prosper, will always agree on most principles and ideals.

[TIslam]

Originally Posted by dopekhor

reality isnt as black and white as these comments a lot of these photos are doctored

I'm sure they are, in the age of Photoshop and other readily available editing tools. I for one, haven't been swayed by this pictures. I have been an advocate of humanitarian assistance, and not blindly push these hapless and helpless people back, long before such photos have been circulating.

My point is, poor people (economically), especially women and children do not flee their homes and run across international borders, just for the heck of it. The humane thing to do is take them in, give them food and shelter and then seek assistance from UNHR to determine the veracity of their statements for which these people sought shelter across the border. That is the minimum expectation from a civilized (host) nation.

[dopekhor]

Originally Posted by TIslam

I'm sure they are, in the age of Photoshop and other readily available editing tools. I for one, haven't been swayed by this pictures. I have been an advocate of humanitarian assistance, and not blindly push these hapless and helpless people back, long before such photos have been circulating.

My point is, poor people (economically), especially women and children do not flee their homes and run across international borders, just for the heck of it. The humane thing to do is take them in, give them food and shelter and then seek assistance from UNHR to determine the veracity of their statements for which these people sought shelter across the border. That is the minimum expectation from a civilized (host) nation.

they are being pushed out of their own country, why isnt there any humanitarian pressure on burma and only on Bangladesh?

[King Nothing]

Originally Posted by TIslam

It goes to show, given that we both harbor divergent views on many issues, yet we agree on this, that to politicians, expediency is of paramount important. Sense of humanity and morality has no place.

I dont think we are that divergent on most issues though. You identify as left-wing, yes?

Most of the people denying entry to these refugees tend to harbor right-wing views.