IDENTITY CRISIS - THE MAIN CAUSE OF "UNHEALTHY BANGLADESH
There is a book originally written in Urdu by Maulana Abdus Sattar and later translated in Bangla by Mustafa Haroon. The Bangla version was published by Islamic Foundation Bangladesh during 1980. This Bangla book is entitled "Aliya Madrasar Itihash". Abdus Sattar, in all probability, was an Urdu speaking East Pakistani. The original Urdu book was possibly written during Pakistan era of Bangladesh. In the narration of Bangla "Aliya Madrasar Itihash", it becomes clear that the concept of "Muslims are separate nation" was very much apparent even in mid-nineteenth century India. It is fact that in the minority Muslim ruled India, this was not an issue. But after 1857, the non-Bengalee Muslim aristocrats suddenly found themselves as a faceless and stateless population. The sentiment percolated to poor Muslims of Bengal without any socio-economic reason which was relevant to their aristocrat non-Bengalee brothers only. The poor Muslims of Bengal simply fell in line on religious ground only.
Unhealthy Bangladesh
Bangladesh is severely ill today; it needs proper treatment, which makes concerned people worried. I am surely concerned about the future of the country. The future of a country depends on the success and failure of her citizens. The people of Bangladesh abroad work very hard, and many of them are successful. A part of their hard earned money abroad flows back to Bangladesh, which keeps the country afloat. Today, Garments Industries are flourishing. But, political turmoil and corruption have been always a threat to this industry.
The Savar Massacre
The latest number of casualty from the Savar Massacre of 2013 due to the collapse of a 9-story building known as Rana Plaza (owned by Sohel Rana, a stalwart of the local branch of the Jubo League, an affiliate of Awami League which heads the current ruling coalition) exceeds 700 as of this writing! It is likely to go up, as many still remain unaccounted, their relatives desperately hoping for miracles. List of injured had passed 1,000 mark soon after the collapse; not sure any one is keeping tabs on that any longer. The rising toll keeps pushing our sense towards numbness and our patience to breaking the point.
The Savar Tragedy – a Horrific Flare-up of a National Disease of Bangladesh
The latest news from Savar, Bangladesh, as found in the Daily Star at 6:00 AM US Eastern DST on May 15, 2013, is that 1115 dead bodies have been recovered from the debris of a collapsed eight-story building, and 12 people died in the hospitals after being rescued alive (1). While 2,438 people have been pulled alive, at the end of the rescue operation the number of victims unaccounted for remains uncertain. (While this blog was originally written on April 26, 2013, the casualty figures in this paragraph have been updated on May 15, 2013.)
IMRAN KHAN & HIS ISLAM
Imran Khan, the legendary cricket player and founder of Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Pakistan, has written a book entitled "Pakistan: a personal history". In the book he describes his personal life from early child hood to 2011 in the backdrop of political situation of Pakistan. Imran is honest when he tells that his religious conviction was very superficial in childhood. From the background of a well-to-do Pakistani extended Muslim family, he shockingly felt the difference between Pakistani and Western society and culture when he went to England for study as a youth.
Blasphemy and the right to offend
The right to express one's opinion freely is maybe the most important democratic right, and it is currently under assault in Bangladesh. Hifazat-e-Islam demands the introduction of strict blasphemy laws, and the government, instead of defending freedom, resorts to an ill-advised and imprudent appeasement strategy that hinders the press in its duty to inform the public, threatens the futures of young bloggers who were, and continue to be, arrested, and puts in peril the future of the democracy of the country.
Non-Muslims in Bangladesh – What Choices Do They Have?
In one of the more remarkable recent attacks on non-Muslims in Bangladesh, a 200 years old Hindu temple was burned down by Muslim criminals. According to a Daily Star report on April 20, 2013, the month of March, 2013, saw 94 attacks on Hindu temples in various districts of Bangladesh. https://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/march-saw-94-attacks/
Worldwide Protests Planned in Support of Bangladeshi Freethinking Bloggers on May 2
[An eight-story building collapsed Wednesday in Savar, an outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital, killing at least 123 people and injuring more than 1,000. Due to the National Day of Mourning in Bangladesh on April 25, protests have been postponed to May 2.]
AN IMAGINARY HIFAZAT-E ISLAM SPEECH SOMEWHERE IN BANGLADESH -
Why are there so many infidels in our country? Almighty Allah had asked us to do Jihad some fourteen hundred years ago. What we have been doing so long? Jihad is the main obligation of all Muslims. Kill the infidels. Jihad is a holy terror approved by Islam. We have pure Islamic blood, we are the best and we will establish Sariah in Bangladesh: Insallah. What is this "Amar Sonar Bangla…"? This is a Hindu song. Hindus are not the only infidels in Bangladesh. There are others like Christians, Buddhists, poets, intellectuals, rationalists and free thinkers who advocate Bengali culture in the form of Hindu "Poila Baishakh", "Robindra Sangeet" and "Nazrul Geeti" etc.. Many of their earlier generation were killed by our Islamic Pakistani brothers in 1971.