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Friday, May 23, 2008

[chottala.com] BdOSN :: Workshop on Ruby On Rails

Bangladesh Open Source Network

A hands on workshop on how to use Ruby on Rails for Web Development
Conducted by : Code71.com (www.code71.com)
Supported by : IICT, BUET
Date : 29 May- 1 June
Time : 3-7pm
Venue : IICT, BUET

Description: The workshop is designed for those who want to learn basics of programming with
Ruby on Rails (RoR). The instructors will go through hands on exercises on how to use the RoR
framework to develop a web application. The students will learn to create a RoR environment
(including MySQL setup), develop small applications, deploy the applications and test it
properly.

Pre-requisite: RoR is an Object Oriented Framework, so previous understanding of OO
concepts (e.g. class, objects, inheritance, abstraction) and database concepts will be required. The
instructors will not teach those during the workshop.

Detail Schedule :
Day #1.
Session 1: Basics - Ruby 2. MVC

Day #2 :
Session 2: 1. Environment 2. Scaffoldoing 3. Directory Structure 4. Plugins vs Gems
with example

Session 3: 1. Migration Scripts 2. Basic ORM

Day #3 :
Session 4: 1. Active Record and Relations
Session 5: 1. Ajax 2. Test Code

Day#4 :
Session 6: 1. Deployment 2. Recap

Sessions 7 : Questions and Answers , Way forward Closing

Registration Fees : Taka 1200/- (Covers the registrations, light snacks, Certificates and
materials Only)

Registration Time : 4-6 pm, 25-27 May, BdOSN office.
Availability limited. Registration will be on first come first register basis.

--
|=============|
Regards,
Abu Mohammad Omar Shehab Uddin Ayub
(আবু মোহাম্মদ ওমর শেহাবউদ্দীন আইয়ুব)
Software Engineer, Nilavo Technologies, Banani, Dhaka
Bangladesh Open Source Network, Dhaka
2000 batch, Dept. of CSE, SUST
www.nilavo.com
www.bdosn.org
www.sust.edu __._,_.___

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[chottala.com] HIP HIP HOORAY - Three cheers for Abahoni


HIP  HIP  HOORAY

 

Three  cheers  for  Abahoni

 

Abahani Limited (Abahoni Krira Chakro) has lifted back their 15th Premier Division Cricket League Championship title (& Runners up for 9 year) in 33 years and 2nd trophy in this cricket season after their Twenty20 conquest back in April.

 

Defending champions Abahani Limited retained the title of the country's most coveted league Dhaka Premier Division

 

HIP  HIP  HOORAY

 

Three  cheers  for  Abahoni 

By the by,
 
Abahani Limited won country's first prestigious B League (professional football league) title
 
and
 
All the Premier League titles in Cricket, Hockey and Football in last year too

 

 
We give credit & congratulations to all the Abahani players, captain, coach, club officials, millions of supporters (SAMORTHOK), Abahani's Chief Patron Sheikh Hasina for the historic win.

 

 

Shuvechhante,

 

Shafiqur Rahman Bhuiyan (ANU)

 

 

Founder President of "ABAHANI SAMORTHAK GOSTHI ", 1980-1982,

 

86 Unit-B, Avondale Road ,

Avondale

Auckland - 1026

NEW ZEALAND.

 

Phone: 00-64-9-828 2435 (Res), 00-64-274 500 277 (mobile)

E-mail: srbanunz@gmail.com

 

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[chottala.com] Re: Disgraceful act of Saudi prince and Rupali Bank Sales Deal


Mr. chowdhury , 
For your information , Mahmudur rahman was not  involved with privatisation commission(PC), he was CEO of Board of investment(BOI).
 
 I think you have messed up PC and  BOI.
 
 You adjectives regarding Mahmudur rahman also reveal how much you are afaid of him in the opposiotion group of BAL.
 
 There is no equivalant of  him in AL. 

Shamim Chowdhury <veirsmill@yahoo.com> wrote:
Those who are responsible for this deal should be taken into account. Citizen has the right to know who these people are who coasted Bangladesh Tk 17 crore of public money.  
Probably it was Mahmudur Rahman, one of the most controversial notorious people in four party alliance government who made the deal on behalf of incompetent four party coalition government.
This is just one more illustration of how the country was running under Jamaat-BNP government. Country's asset was considered as personal and given away hastily in exchange of bribe.
Undoubtedly, the disgraceful disgusting act of prince of Saudi Arabia also notable. We should black list these sorts of fake investors for future. How dare this prince of Saudi Arabia to write to the army chief of Staff Gen. Moeen about his new offer but not to the government. This shows his crude way of dealing through the backdoor.
In a recent letter to Chief of Army Staff Gen Moeen U Ahmed, the prince said he is now willing to pay only $185 million instead of the $456 million he had originally offered last year.
 
Shamim Chowdhury
Maryland, USA
 
 
Committed to PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO KNOW
Friday, May 23, 2008 03:57 AM GMT+06:00  
 
Front Page
Rupali Bank Sales Deal

The Privatisation Commission (PC) wasted over Tk 17 crore of public money violating privatisation regulations in the process of making the now uncertain Rupali Bank sales deal with the Saudi prince.

The commission violated sub-section 16 of section (11-i) of Privatization Regulations 2001(Revised) by taking an amount as security deposit from the highest bidder Saudi prince, which was lesser than what it was supposed to take in accordance with the rules.

The commission received only US$100,000 as security deposit instead of the $8.25 million mandated by the PC regulations, as it stipulates that the amount of the security deposit should be a minimum of 2.5 percent of the total sale price.

If the PC followed the regulations it would receive over Tk 56 crore as security deposit from the Saudi prince as the buyer had agreed to buy the bank's 67 percent stake at a cost of US$330 million at the time of primary agreement, said a source in the ACC quoting from a primary investigation report regarding the matter.

Md Nurul Islam, deputy director of the ACC, conducted the primary investigation and submitted his report to the anti-graft commission recently, sources said.

The investigation also found that the PC arranged a series of high profile international road shows to sell the bank's shares spending Tk 17 crore, some of the venues for which were selected whimsically while some persons were also included in the team unnecessarily.

The commission showcased Rupali Bank's assets at the road show which travelled to Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Karachi, London and Dubai between March 12 and March 29 in 2006.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund also endorsed the road show, terming it as essential and unavoidable in an exercise of this nature.

Besides, the investigation report said the PC also got involved in misconducts in the selection process of potential buyers by declaring Summit Industrial Mercantile Corporation and JJ Finance as fit to participate in the bidding despite their not having the necessary funds.

The report also alleged although the advertisement of the expression of interest to sell the bank said 'companies who would participate in the bid should have as capital a minimum amount of US$100 million', the PC however declared the two companies fit which had only $7 million and $20 million as capital.

ACC Director General (Admin) Col Hanif Iqbal said the commission conducted the primary investigation regarding the issues and a report has already been submitted for consideration.

If the ACC approves the report and asks its officials to go into further investigation, then necessary steps will be taken in that direction, he added.

He said issues of violating privatisation regulations, the overpriced road show, and flaws in selecting qualified bidders were investigated.

The Saudi prince, who had agreed to buy Rupali Bank, slashed more than US$270 million off the amount he had originally been willing to pay for the state-owned enterprise, claiming he had been misled about the size of the bad debts the bank has.

In a recent letter to Chief of Army Staff Gen Moeen U Ahmed, the prince said he is now willing to pay only $185 million instead of the $456 million he had originally offered last year.

The government that owns 94 percent of Rupali Bank's shares decided to sell 67 percent of its shares in order to appease the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who had imposed reforms in the banking sector as a condition for granting loans to the government.

The total amount of assets of Rupali Bank as showed in December 2005 stood at $1.07 billion with over 493 branches across the country.



তত্ববধায়কদের তাবেদারদের জুতা দিয়ে পিটাও, জেলে যাও, তিনবেলা নিশ্চিন্তে খাও



তত্ববধায়কদের তাবেদারদের জুতা দিয়ে পিটাও, জেলে যাও, তিনবেলা নিশ্চিন্তে খাও

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Re: [chottala.com] United Bengal proposal was made by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sarat Chandra Bose not by Maolana Bashani

In the light of Lahore Resolution Mr Hossain Shahid Sorwardy had proposed the geographical division of India & according to his proposal all Bangla speaking people can live in one country which would be called greater Bengal & any Bangali did not require to migrate. But the top leaders neither C nor ML agreed. They planed to cut the Bengal & to cut the Bengal people. for establishing Hindi & Urdu.

After separation from Pakistan & liberation of half Bengal in the name of Bangladesh .Mowalana Abdul Hamid Khan Bashani asked Indira Ghandi the then Prime Minister of India to leave the land  from India where Bengali speaking people are living so that all Bangla speaking people can live together as one bangali nation in one country which called Bangadesh.

All Bangla speaking people should be united to build one Bangla Nation one Bangla national language. It is the duty for the sensible bangal to feel other bangla speaking people.

 


--- On Wed, 21/5/08, Syed Aslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Syed Aslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com>
Subject: [chottala.com] United Bengal proposal was made by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sarat Chandra Bose not by Maolana Bashani
To: notun_bangladesh@yahoogroups.com, "khabor" <khabor@yahoogroups.com>, chottala@yahoogroups.com, SonarBangladesh@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, 21 May, 2008, 6:42 AM

[Re: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal ]
 
 
United Bengal proposal was made by  Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sarat Chandra Bose not Maolana Bashani
[ With all due respect to Maolana Bashani]
 
Mr. Md Mostafa Kamal
 
Are you re-writing the history?  You are factually incorrect , your business as usual ! 
 
FYI:

The United Bengal proposal was the bid made by Bengali political leaders Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Sarat Chandra Bose to found a united and independent nation-state of in Bengal. The proposal was floated as an alternative to the partition of Bengal on communal lines. The initiative failed mainly due to the efforts  of communal political Party Hindu Mohasovha.

"Maulana Bhasani moved to Ghagmara in Assam in the late 1930s to defend the interests of Bangali settlers there. He made his debut as a leader at Bhasan Char on the Brahmaputra river  where he constructed an embankment with the co-operation of the Bangali settlers, thereby saving the peasants from the scourge of annual inundation. Relieved of the recurring floods the local people fondly started to call him Bhasani Saheb, an epithet by which the Maulana has been known from then on.  In 1937 Bhasani joined the Assam Muslim League and became president of Assam unit of the party.

The Assam government made a law restricting Bangali settlement beyond a certain geographical line, an arbitrary settlement which severely affected the interests of the Bangali colonisers. Protected by this restrictive law the locals had launched a movement to oust the Bangali settlers across the so-called line. [Bongal Kheda - drive away the Banglees from Assam]  On the 'line' issue, hostile relations developed between the Maulana and the Assam Chief Minister, Sir Muhammad Sa'dullah. At partition, Maulana Bhasani was in Goalpara district (Assam) organising the farmers against the line system. He was arrested by the government of Assam, and released towards the end of 1947 on condition that he would leave Assam for good.

Early in 1948 Maulana Bhasani came to East Bengal only to find himself brushed aside from the provincial leadership set-up. Disheartened, Bhasani contested and won a seat in the provincial assembly from south Tangail in a by-election defeating Khurram Khan Panni, the Muslim League candidate and Zamindar of Karatia. But the provincial governor nullified the results on grounds of foul play in the elections, and disqualified all the candidates from taking part in any election until 1950. Strangely enough, the ban on Panni was lifted in 1949 even though it remained in force on Bhasani.

In 1949 he went to Assam again, and was arrested and sent to Dhubri prison. On his release he came back to Dhaka. At about this time, the East Pakistan Muslim League was passing through a leadership crisis. The discontented elements of the Muslim League called a workers' convention in Dhaka on June 23 and 24 of 1949. Nearly 300 delegates from different parts of the province attended the convention. On June 24 a new political party, the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, was launched with Maulana Bhasani as president and Shamsul Huq of Tangail as general secretary.    ....." [Banglapedia]

Your assertion:

"Maolana Bhasani asked the WB dewelers to Join BD for United Bengal as an independent conutry"

is wrong.
 
By the way, Maolana Bashani was one of the first person to say "Assalamu Alaikum" to Pakistan.
[In 1957, Bhasani said 'good bye' (Assalamu Alaikum) to Pakistan ....]
 
Please think twice and read the history, before calling someone "Gondo Murkho or Dalal of India"......
Learn to "Agree to disagree" instead of  false insuation & slanderous remarks...[as brother Faruque
item # 2 ].
 
 
Thank you;
 
Syed Aslam
 
 
 
--- On Tue, 5/20/08, Md. Mostafa Kamal @...> wrote:
 
RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal

Maolana Bhasani asked the WB dewelers to Join BD for United Bengal as an independent country. The High Race Hindus the Brahmman was against independent united Bengal. But K. Raisuddin wants united Bengal...... .is it BD to join with India or WB sever from India? How funny. We're happy with our 56000 sq. miles BD as an independent & sovereign country. We want a Prime Minister of BD like Khaleda Zia & not the Chief Minister like Sheikh Hasina. K. Raisuddin & his BAList gong have failed to show where I have written which is in favor of Pakistan same time that is against Bangladesh. CHORER MON, POLICE POLICE.

 

Thank You All,

 

Md. Mostafa Kamal.

 

--- On Tue, 5/20/08, Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@. ..> wrote:

From: Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@. ..>
Subject: RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal
To: notun_bangladesh@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Tuesday, May 20, 2008, 12:48 AM

BIRDS OF SAME FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER. The Bangla Peoverb says, "Shngo gune shong". So, what other options open other than being Gondo Murkho. DALALS OF PAKI AND ARBIS THINK EVERYONE ELSE IS DALALTOO. Obak !!! that group is quite big, seeing all over.


To: notun_bangladesh@ yahoogroups. com
CC: Kraisuddin@hotmail. com; s_ayubi786@yahoo. com
From: mmk3k@yahoo. com
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 12:10:58 -0700
Subject: RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal

I thought K. Raisuddina is an intelectual person. But he is not disimilar from Eng. Shafiq & his gong. K. Raisuddin has failed to reply Mr. Salahuddin Ayubi's point but diverting this debate attacking personally Mr. S. Ayubi by telling pondit etc bad words. It seems K .Raisuddin is either Gondo Murkho or Dalal of India.
 
Thank You All,
 
Md. Mostafa Kamal.

--- On Sun, 5/18/08, Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail. com> wrote:

From: Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail. com>
Subject: RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal
To: notun_bangladesh@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Sunday, May 18, 2008, 12:01 AM

"You do not understand the history of this country".  When you said so, Ayubi Pondit Shaheb, you closed the issue. Just tell me why did you write then the rest of the things in your passage? For bishho pondity, needs the audience, who want to see the substance and rationanle. I do see your postings here and there everywhere - and you do always vor vor, may you know or not. It has clearly been noticed that always you attempt to spread hate and vulgarity, short of any expressions of compassion, love or feelings. That's what the world poets do. Definitely not someone like you. You are of your a kind. Why don't you stay within your periphery! If you want to do bishho pondity, you should be able to understand the others and to learn how to talk with the others. Then you will understand where the folks such as a poor guy like me come from. Until then, its up to you, to decide on your role. Most of your postings are really disgusted, but I would never tell you anything any time. But this time you have hurt me personally, so badly in the public arena, that I had no other option, then to tell you couple of words. Extremely sorry about it.


To: notun_bangladesh@ yahoogroups. com
From: s_ayubi786@yahoo. com
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 22:01:10 -0700
Subject: RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal

Mr. Raisuddin,
                    You do not understand the history of this country. Can you explain as to why the caste hindus opposed the partition of bengal tooth and nail in 1905 which prompted tagore to write our national anthem but in 1947 they meekly accepted the partition of bengal, they did not even consider the option of an independent Bengal that suhrwardy and sarat Bose tried to establish. The caste hindus has always been slefish and they have oppressed the backward Muslims of Bengal. Those sad stories probably you do not know or no one possilbly told you... I do not agree with you that the bengalis are one nation and they will ever unite. viva la difference!! !!!
                  Salahuddin Ayubi

--- On Fri, 5/16/08, Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail. com> wrote:

From: Kajimel Raisuddin <Kraisuddin@hotmail. com>
Subject: RE: [notun_bangladesh] Now they want to accuse us as Communal
To: notun_bangladesh@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, May 16, 2008, 10:04 PM

Anyone with the commitment as shown in the red below can not deviate from the principle of greatest lover of our mother and father land and also our birthplace. Anyone who does not possess these vested qualities may have different opinions.  Certainly we value Bangla as the most sacred language since the genes of us and all our previous ancestors have been created out of Bangla. So, anyone who championed in Bangla is unquestionably always a champion to us. Please do not do something that becomes detrimental to this principle. So, Tagore and Nazrul can not be marked as just West Bengalis. They are Bangalis and our most champions in the Bangali nation. Bangalis are one nation. Physical reasons may have kept them separate. But the obvious situations will put them together some day in future. There was a politically incorrect staunch in the following write up.. I REALLY DO NOT APPRECIATE IT.
However, I understand where the angle settles finally. We may keep talking on these issues as long as we are honest and have no hidden agenda.
 
History: Robindranath did most of his works in kutibari that belongs to Bangladesh. He spent most of his life there, even though his zamindari was in Jurashku, West Bengal.. All his works on the nature are based on what Bangladesh looks like. West Bengal does not look like similar to what he felt and expressed in his poems and other works.. If it was today, he would be Bangladeshi. Nazrul was born in West Bengal but was raised in Trishal, Mymensingh by a Police Officer. He married in Comilla. Finally settled in Dhaka and died in Bangladesh ans also buried here.. So, please stop assigning them as a foreigner to Bangladesh. On the contrary, after partition of India and Pakistan, we were very generous to accept a huge number non-bengalis to our country. What they did finally? They never had allegiance to our land, to our language, and to our creed and culture. They were always opportunist. And at the end backed up the killer Pakistanis and they did the most killing. They did not stop there. Some of them learned Bangla or married Bangalee, posed to be converted as Bangalee but working in the underground  with ISI, Saudis, and other agents and poisoning the society in Bangladesh. Some of them with old root even working for RAW. So, there are reasons why we must be careful such that these flock of mice can not cut everything of our home day in and day out.
 

 


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Re: [chottala.com] These inhuman Saudis! And these Arabs - Disgrace for mankind

Maximum false & ill propaganda................

--- On Sat, 24/5/08, Syed Aslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Syed Aslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com>
Subject: [chottala.com] These inhuman Saudis! And these Arabs - Disgrace for mankind
To: notun_bangladesh@yahoogroups.com, "khabor" <khabor@yahoogroups.com>, SonarBangladesh@yahoogroups.com, chottala@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, 24 May, 2008, 12:25 AM

Image : www.bwint.org

These inhuman Saudis! And these Arabs - Disgrace for mankind

Friday May 23 2008 21:55:45 PM BDT

By Tayeb Husain, Sweden
http://www.banglade sh-web.com/ view.php? hidRecord= 200971
Millions of poor people from all over the world come to Arab kingdoms to work because they are poor and need work for a living. These poor workers give their blood and build these brutish peoples' homes and palaces, work in their factories and infra-structure buildings and in exchange they offer them a little petrodollar and the most inhuman treatment that we read everyday in international newspapers.
------------ ---------

Allah must have committed a great sin by giving so much oil to these Saudis and the Arabs, the worst mankind in the world I suppose. With their oil money they have built their societies that are so inhuman and so much devoid of human conscience! Millions of poor people from all over the world come to Arab kingdoms to work because they are poor and need work for a living. These poor workers give their blood and build these brutish peoples' homes and palaces, work in their factories and infra-structure buildings and in exchange they offer them a little petrodollar and the most inhuman treatment that we read everyday in international newspapers. The western media, if and when something bad happens in China, Myanmar or in Zimbabwe or countries they do not like, are very vocal and go on reporting and condemning such things for weeks or months but they speak very mildly the inhuman things the Saudis and the other rich Arab countries do to people from poor countries working for peanuts in these oil rich Arab lands.

The Arabs treat very respectfully to Europeans and especially their employees from Western Europe and North America but their behaviour to people from poor countries are subhuman and most brutish. This is very much true when they employ women from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and other countries in Asia as home maids. They employ these poor women for very little money and force them to work 15-16 hours a day. Often they do not get any break and work 7 days a week. Their work-hours could be any time at day or at night.

These women get their jobs paying good amount as fees to local employment agencies in their own countries. These local employment agencies arrange jobs in collusion with similar organizations in Arab countries. The usual practice is to pay the local agents, quite substantial amount by the local standard and often these poor people arrange the amount by selling the land or such small properties they own, get the job and come to work in an Arab country. On arrival the domestic women workers need to surrender their passports and other documents to the employers, start working and with the works the real ordeal begins.

Many foreign domestic maids in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries work in harsh circumstances and very often suffer abuse by their employers. Often they do not get the salary they are promised, they need to work very long hours every day and no compensation for long working hours and no complain to be made but to work, work and work as ordered.

The ordeal of young women are further more complicated for the employers' sex lust. Often the employers sexually violate the young employees by force and making any complain or reporting it means inviting serious problems. Generally there is nobody to listen to them and what the employers say are the only truths. In Arab countries justice system does not work when it involves foreign workers from the poor countries. In March 2007 I met 4 women from Bangladesh at Doha airport while flying by Qatar Airlines from Frankfurt to Dhaka who told me their ordeal in Saudi Arabia. Each of these women paid above 80,000 or so Taka to get jobs as domestic servant in Saudi kingdom and on arrival they faced the same horrible situation. They worked 3 months in the kingdom and were not paid a cent for their hard work. The employers had something else in their minds until the moment came for real action.

These women were not young and they wanted to send them back home. So they let them work day and night long 3 months to earn enough for the air ticket to Dhaka and then they bought one way tickets for each one of them and then bundled them home to Bangladesh via Doha. I could see they were lucky. At least they were not sexually molested, thanks to their advanced age.

Today (23d May 2008) I read in BBC a tragic story of an Indonesian woman, Nour Miyati, and unfortunately the poor woman was not so lucky. This 25 years old woman contracted gangrene after allegedly being tied up for a month and left without food in 2005. She had to have several fingers and toes amputated. Human Rights Watch says that Miyati was treated in a Riyadh hospital in March 2005 for gangrene, malnourishment and other injuries. The case was taken up by human rights group and the cruel employer family was brought to justice. Then again, what is justice in a country where this sort of criminality is a norm of most of the employers' psyche? A judge in Riyadh gave a verdict on the case on last Monday and awarded $670 damages to the maid but dropped all charges against her employers.

The female employer, it is reported, admitted the abuse and was originally sentenced to 35 lashes, had her sentence overturned. A Saudi judgment earlier had convicted Miyati for falsely accusing her employers and sentenced to 79 lashes. On his judgment the horrendous Bedouin judge in Riyadh on last Monday found the female employer not guilty, despite her earlier admission and 'compelling physical evidence' on Miyati's body, the human rights group says.

Another story of a Sri Lankan woman I remember vividly that again I read in BBC world news 3 / 4 years ago. 'After three months, I asked Madam for my salary and she started to beat me with iron bars and wooden sticks', the maid was explaining of her time in Saudi Arabia. 'Sometimes she would take a hot iron and burn me or heat up a knife and put it on my body'. Readers may see similar stories in http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/south_ asia/3204297. stm

In modern time numbers of migrant workers are innumerable. Nowhere had they got equal treatment as the local workers but little fairness must be there, at least that is what my experience in Europe over 3 decades. But Arabs' treatments to poor migrant workers are most horrendous and utterly inhuman. Indeed treating migrant workers such inhuman way is unique and unparallel as we hear of in cases from Saudi kingdom and other Arab countries. The case of Saudi Arabia, the land of Prophet of Islam and where the holy Kaaba is situated makes one ponder how come this people could be so cruel whereas Islam is said to be a religion of peace and its inherent power is supposed to be equality of mankind. Those Muslims who go to Mecca for religious purpose need to contemplate for a while if it is worth performing Hajj in a country that is inhabited by so many inhuman people and who is devoid of humanity in such a colossal scale among the people of the world. I need not mention that Saudi government is undemocratic, un-Islamic and one of the most barbarian one in the planet.

Tayeb Husain
Sweden
e-mail: th12sw@yahoo. com
 
 

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[chottala.com] The New Brahmins in America : Boston Brahmins

 

What's a Boston Brahmin?

By Andy Bowers
What exactly is a Boston Brahmin?

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston Brahmin
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1856

The term was coined by physician and writer Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (father of the famous Supreme Court justice). Dr. Holmes used it both in a novel and in an 1860 Atlantic Monthly article called "The Brahmin Caste of New England" to describe the region's upper crust. The words caste and Brahmin indicate where Holmes got the idea.

In India, a Brahmin is "a member of the highest or priestly caste among the Hindus," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. By applying the term to his native Boston, Holmes was describing a more secular but equally powerful group—the city's entrenched WASP elite, or what he called its "harmless, inoffensive, untitled aristocracy."

Boston Magazine:

The New Brahmins

 

Boston's powerful, wealthy, and generous first families made this city one of the most educated and cultured in the country. So what are their descendants doing with the famous names and family fortunes they inherited?

By Alexandra Hall

Murray Forbes III is out of breath. Dressed in a square-shouldered tweed jacket accented with a navy handkerchief, plaid oxford shirt, and paisley tie, he surges forward, dark bangs flopping over widened eyes and smoothly sculpted cheekbones as he pulls his arms back and shakes his balled fist almost maniacally. "I was nearly killed!" he booms.

This is not a life-or-death emergency. It's not cocktail-hour bluster. For the son of F. Murray Forbes Jr. who grew up on the exclusive flat side of Beacon Hill in a townhouse overlooking the Vincent Club and "a statue of an angel casting bread out into the water," this is simply another conversation about society's desperate need for art.   

Forbes is a dyed-in-the-tweed Brahmin. His great-great-granduncle was John Murray Forbes, patriarch of the "long-tailed" branch of the Forbeses, which means the relatively bohemian side of the venerable family, a branch historically given to supporting--and, in Murray Forbes's case today, embodying--art and drama. Forbes himself has spent his life painting and overseeing the Navigator Foundation, which finds and brings underappreciated art from Eastern and Central Europe to the Boston public.  

If he seems to exude a certain larger-than-life persona, Forbes has a right to. His ancestors made some of the country's first fortunes in shipping, built the transcontinental railroad, went on secret missions for Abraham Lincoln, helped create the Robert Gould Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial on Boston Common, and made millions investing in Alexander Graham Bell's experiments with a little something called the telephone. One of Boston's first families, the clan has continued its good works in recent generations, doing everything from heading up Boston's State Street Bank and Trust Company (Allan Forbes in the 1950s) to running for president this election year (F. Murray's second cousin, John Forbes Kerry). It's no wonder Forbes is so theatrical.

Not that he lives under the spell of his own charm. He likes hamming up the part of the grand storyteller, resuming the tale of how he was almost killed by an oncoming car while searching for art in Poland during the Cold War. And, frankly, he's working it. "These were important societies!" he says with the swoosh of an outstretched palm. "They had a great deal of love of art--playwrights, poets, painters--even under communism. They came out of--if you'll excuse my language--bloody nations with a considerable culture, because society continues even under duress." His deep voice, infused with a vague dash of the BBC, is not marked by money in the crass Fitzgeraldian sense, but with something equally abstract: history. Listen to him long enough, and you can almost make out layers of ancestry, thick with both privilege and responsibility.

Without warning, Forbes clears his throat. "Now I'm going to ask something naughty," he says through a smirk. "If our idea of culture in Boston is something predicated on the understanding that Boston had an upper class devoted to maintaining its culture"--he pauses for a moment for effect--"I wonder what that leaves us now?"

If Boston is, in fact, the Athens of America, the Boston Brahmins hover over our city like the gods of Greek mythology. Not only were they the ones responsible for molding Boston into a version of Athens in the first place, but their reputations are parallel: deities in history, enigmas in the modern day.

Rumors about the Brahmins' influence in old and modern Boston are as plentiful as they are contradictory. Without a doubt, the Brahmins were (and, some believe, still are) the shadowy cabal that pulled the city's strings from on high. Others say their wealth and power have dried up, that all they have left are their names and what's left in their trust funds. Admirers retort that the Brahmins are this city's caregivers, lovers of culture and education; detractors claim that they are elitist and provincial Boston royalty. What's undisputed is that, despite their generations of wealth, the Brahmins were notoriously averse to the crass shows of wealth on display in places like Palm Beach or Newport. They are distinctly Boston creations, who actively shun glamour and attention in spite of their fortunes.

Many of their family names are easily recognized: Lowell and Ames. Adams and Cabot. Forbes. Shaw. Appleton. Crowninshield. Saltonstall. But mostly, we non-Brahmins know the institutions they created and left behind and, in a few cases, still sustain: the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Peabody Essex and Isabella Stewart Gardner museums, WGBH, the Museum of Fine Arts. In fact, most of us know these institutions better than the names of the benefactors who founded them because, by their nature, Brahmins don't like to chisel their names onto buildings. "The Brahmin mystique was that they were very quiet," says society columnist Jonathan Soroff. "You never knew that they had a dime." In a sense, they were the originators of shabby chic; even today, there might be a Brahmin right under your nose, and you wouldn't even know it.

The remaining Brahmins, comparatively relaxed by historical standards, closely guard their privacy, rarely ask that the hospital wings they pay for be named for them, and (believe us) do not rush to consent to interviews. As one Brahmin (who, of course, asked not to be named) put it: "My dear, a Brahmin should only be in the newspaper when he is born, when he marries, and when he dies."

That ethos, almost unheard of in a culture of reality TV and Paris Hilton, was built up over generations of quiet community building. More than anything, the history of the Boston Brahmin is the history of philanthropy in Boston. And the sense of noblesse oblige that became the hallmark of the original Boston Brahmins was arguably a result of the fact that many of them started out with nothing and became rich.

Even people as Old Money as Brahmins were nouveau riche once. And the means by which they got that way were, if not always illegal, not always ethical, either.

Most first families--that description notwithstanding--did not arrive here on the Mayflower. "If everybody who says they came over on that boat really had," says one Boston woman who is a friend of many Brahmins, "it would have sunk." (Nor are Brahmins, for the record, merely WASPs. Even old-family white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, however wealthy they may be now, are looked down on by authentic Brahmins as "swamp Yankees.")

In fact, most Brahmin names of note belong to old New England families of Anglican origin, many of whom settled in Boston at varying points before the 17th century and made their fortunes by the mid-19th.

"What the family forebears were doing in the 150 years from 1630 until 1780 or so makes little difference," wrote Cleveland Amory in his landmark book The Proper Bostonians. "Neither the accurate identification of the first bearer of the name to 'come over'--the Lees and the Holmeses have never satisfied themselves on this point--nor where the family originally settled--Boston's Gardners came from Maine, its Hallowells from Pennsylvania--are important considerations." What mattered was that each family had what Amory terms a merchant prince--a patriarch to build the fortune and launch the family name in society before the 1860s.

For many--the Lowells, the Cabots--that meant making money in industry, beginning with textiles. Seafaring was also a common pursuit, and that's where things grew lucrative--and often dubious. Many of the original Brahmins' dealings would make Enron look squeaky clean. Rum-running and opium trading were not uncommon lines of business.

Cabots, Derbys, Searses, Endicotts, Peabodys, Crowninshields--all were "men who, if not actually pirates, were at least Vikings in their methods," wrote Amory. "To ease their New England consciences, rum was technically known as 'West Indies Goods'; the label 'Groceries and W.I. Goods,' was a familiar one on Boston's Merchants' Row."

On land, some well-respected Brahmins were not above downright swindling. When Harrison Gray Otis and Samuel Cabot learned that the Massachusetts State House was to be built on Beacon Hill, they bought the artist John Singleton Copley's 15-acre estate at a ridiculously low price while Copley was away. When he returned, Copley was outraged--not only because he believed the land was stolen from him, but because, not long after, it became worth more than he would make from selling paintings for his entire life. He never got any satisfaction--primarily because the most powerful Brahmin families at the time allied themselves against him.

  Many Brahmins never forgot how they came by their wealth and took measures to redeem themselves. "A big part of the Brahmin sense of giving to the community came from their guilt over the source of their money," says society writer Soroff.

Whatever their reasons for giving, the Brahmins gave big, founding and funding institutions and dedicating not only their fortunes to them but also in many cases much of their lives. Henry Lee Higginson, who founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881, made up the orchestra's annual deficits out of his own pocket, several times risking personal bankruptcy, and paid for the construction of Symphony Hall. In 1918, a handful of Brahmins--Judge Frederick P. Cabot, Frederick E. Lowell, and Bentley W. Warren among them--took up the cause, continuing to cover the symphony's deficits. This tradition didn't end until 1966, when the BSO began its first fundraising campaign.

Then there's the historically Brahmin stronghold of the Museum of Fine Arts. In 1869, the proprietors of the Boston Athenaeum--one of the nation's most outstanding private libraries, headed by the Cabots--agreed to give over a part of its impressive art collection for a museum dedicated to "the preservation and exhibition of works of art." The MFA was a receptacle of Brahmin goodwill from the start, receiving money and art from Brahmin family collections and presided over by men like Martin Brimmer, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, Ralph Lowell, and Edward Jackson Holmes. When, in 1875, John Lowell's heirs gave artifacts he had collected on his travels through the Middle East, they later became part of the Egyptian wing.

The gifts were staggering. "If you look at money that the museum's wealthy philanthropist founders put up in today's terms, that was an enormous amount," says Bob Henderson, the current chair of the MFA's capital campaign. Yet the Brahmins who founded the museum took measures to involve the public. "It was not a museum for the six or eight families who founded it," says Patricia Jacoby, who heads up the MFA's ongoing fundraising campaign. "So instead of funding it entirely themselves, they built a subscription program, asking hundreds of people to give nominal amounts so they would feel like it was their museum, too."

Boston's suburbs also were nourished by the first families. In Salem, the Peabody family was so prominent, it was said there that you were a "Peabody or nobody." (Today, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem still draws the support and involvement of Brahmins like Saltonstall descendant George Lewis.) In and around Easton, Oliver Ames started manufacturing shovels in 1803, building a fortune that by the 1860s was enough to underwrite the Union Pacific Railroad. "Once that money was invested, they became big players," says Greg Galer, curator of the Industrial History Center at Stonehill College. "Frederick Lothrop Ames was an original stockholder of General Electric, and they had huge real estate interests, which is how they ended up building so much of Boston--including the Colonial Theatre, parts of MIT, and the Ames Building," the tallest building in Boston when it was completed in 1893 and for 26 years thereafter.

The Lowell family took up another cause: public education. From that would eventually come WGBH, today the country's largest public television producer, which has harvested literally hundreds of Emmys, Peabodys, and even Oscars. The station's roots took hold when Ralph Lowell and Harvard president James Conant offered public lectures--along with other local universities. Realizing the power radio would soon have, Lowell got himself a broadcasting license, and the symposium started airing lectures on the radio and, later, on television.

It was also a Lowell who gave Isabella Stewart Gardner, perhaps the best-known Brahmin icon, her entrée into Boston society. Neither a true Brahmin nor a native Bostonian, she came here from New York to marry John Lowell "Jack" Gardner Jr., whose father was considered the last of the East India merchants. Not that she had any trouble making her mark: Gardner was as famed for her eccentric behavior as she was for her philanthropy. She drank beer instead of tea, for instance, and was rumored to walk down Tremont Street with a leashed lion. Once she openly flouted Brahmin shabby chic by wearing two enormous diamonds--not as jewelry, but on gold springs hovering above her head. Her wealthy contemporaries were not amused.

That didn't keep the Gardners from hosting lavish dinner parties with luminaries such as Henry James and John Singer Sargent. Nor did it dampen Gardner's love of art or philanthropic spirit--not only in her Fenway mansion but also in the other causes she championed, including the Boston Public Library, the New England Conservatory, and the New England Home for Little Wanderers. "Mrs. Gardner's legacy is that she amassed people around this amazing collection of art, horticulture, music, and education," says Barbara Hostetter, now president of the Gardner's board of trustees. "But she also knew that having wealth meant you had a responsibility to your community."

Historians consider the death of John Lowell Gardner in 1878 the date that entry to the club was ended. If you weren't a first family by then, you weren't going to become one. From the 1860s until the 1950s, being a Brahmin became more about who you married. (Intermarriage with a family whose status paralleled or eclipsed your own was so important that the only Brahmin families not known to have married each other are the Saltonstalls and Lowells, and marrying a cousin was not at all uncommon.) This was but one way of preserving wealth. Trust funds, used creatively by the Brahmins, were another. Offspring could also draw from the profits of a family copper mine--like the ones owned by the Shaws, Agassizes, and Ameses. But these were, in one form or another, all remnants of the initial fortune. The time of the merchants was ending.

"The Brahmins?" asks Eleanor Spaak, sounding surprised to even hear the term. "The Brahmins are nowhere right now." Socialite and society columnist for the Newbury Street and Back Bay Guide, she's watched the last vestiges of Brahmin clout shift to new families and new groups--Irish, Jewish, Italian. "They don't have the power they once did, and they simply aren't giving money like they used to because they just don't have it."

She's not the only one who thinks so. "Certainly there are still Honeywells and Cabots, but by and large most of the money that's being donated in town is coming from newly rich Irish, Jews, and Italians," says Soroff. "Look at the board of the Symphony--that was once a Brahmin haven. Now Peter Brooke is the chairman, Tom Stemberg from Staples, George Krupp, Chad Gifford, Nancy Fitzpatrick: These are not Brahmin names. So, yes, the Brahmins are the social history of Boston, and there's still a strong thread of that tradition, but they are not what they once were."

Of course, just because they don't have a monopoly on power anymore doesn't mean the Brahmins have left town. It's just that much of their family money is gone, and many have moved away or married non-Brahmins. You can still find their descendants, gin and tonics in hand, at the Chilton and Vincent clubs or the Myopia Club. (The Forbeses still weekend on Naushon Island.) And there remain plenty of Saltonstalls. Some of them have moved to other cities; others have stayed and gone into teaching.

A handful of Brahmins still are active philanthropists. Henry Lee keeps the Higginson family's tradition alive with his tireless work for the Public Garden. William Lowell still looks after WGBH and the Lowell Institute. There's Martha Crowninshield, who has made her own small fortune at Boston Ventures, and gives both her time and admirable sums of money to the United Way and Boys & Girls Clubs. Sylvia Pope--a Thorndike and a Saltonstall--is a force behind the Boston Ballet. Jack Gardner, Isabella's great-great-grandnephew, is chair of the Gardner Museum's board of trustees. And Bill Ames and other family members have continued to support Stonehill Industrial History Center at Stonehill College. Then there's Linda Cabot Black, who has labored for years to keep the Boston Lyric Opera going. And Helen Spaulding, says Boston Foundation board member Ira Jackson, "has done more for the poor and those normally forgotten about in Boston than you can imagine. She's the best essence of that old and much misunderstood group, the Boston Brahmins, for whom caring and giving back to the community were vital."

There are whispered stories of the hangers-on--descendants of Brahmins who live off dwindling trust funds and go to all of the social events but contribute none of their time and money to the community. "Some of these families will come to a cocktail party, and all they talk about is their kids' prep schools," sniffs one non-Brahmin socialite.

Even more frustrating to many of the city's new philanthropists are the Brahmin descendants who use their names to join boards, then do little or no work for the cause. "So many of these Brahmin families, their money dried up years ago, and the current generations are utter failures," says one active philanthropist who moved to Boston several years ago. "They're in your social circle because their last names get them on the boards, but they don't do anything. They don't raise money, they don't stuff envelopes, and they don't help organize."

That may be true, says 30-year-old Emily Webster, a member of the Webster Brahmins, who is herself involved with the Young Friends of the Public Garden and the Nichols House in addition to working in her family design business, Webster & Company, and running an accessories business called Pilgrim Road. But, she says, "the reality is, sometimes you need a name." And the truth is those names get other people to buy tickets to an event or donate a lot to a cause.

Still, there's no doubt that the face of giving in Boston has changed. "A lot of the Brahmin money has been diluted over generations," one socialite says. "There's a new sphere of people who now have huge fortunes, so the groups of people who are giving have just diversified. What happened at the Wang Center in the '70s was a perfect example. Its board was all names of people who founded it, but the center was struggling financially. So when [Helen Spaulding's son] Joe Spaulding took over, he changed that by requiring a $2,500-a-year donation in order to be on the board, and a lot of people resigned. Now the board is made up of African-American and Latino names." Linda Cabot Black agrees that things have changed. "It used to be the Brahmins that supported the city," she says. "But that's just not true anymore. Now it's many different people."

While new groups may have supplanted the Brahmins in wealth and power, it's the Brahmins who have shaped how people give in this town. Matthew Santangelo, a trust and estate specialist for Merrill Lynch, handles the philanthropic giving of many wealthy Boston families today. He sees a resurgent Brahminlike philosophy among the newest non-Brahmin donors. "In previous generations, there was giving among the pillars of the community," Santangelo says. "They would always reliably give to local, established institutions. Beyond those families, most people gave out of a sense of obligation and peer pressure. But now younger wealth creators are instead really interested in the impact of their money. They feel wealth has no meaning at all--it needs to be given meaning by doing something with it for the community. They want to make sure their children and grandchildren appreciate that."

That means giving time along with money, an old-fashioned Brahmin-style approach that institutions like the BSO, the MFA, WGBH, and the Boston Foundation confirm is on the rebound. "We're seeing a demise of checkbook philanthropy," says Paul S. Grogan, president and CEO of the Boston Foundation. "People are much more apt to give money, but also volunteer and be personally involved with their causes."

That makes sense to Linda Cabot Black. "I just love opera," she says matter-of-factly. "It's that simple. And without the Boston Lyric Opera, Boston wouldn't have an opera house at all. We're a world-class city, and the people who live here shouldn't be without that." Then there's Murray Forbes, who in his quest to keep his Navigator Foundation properly funded, summons the spirits of not only his, but two other Brahmin families. "You don't want to become old Henry Higginson," he chuckles, referring to the patriarch's flirtation with bankruptcy in keeping the Symphony alive. "But," he says, this time echoing Ralph Lowell's affinity for public education, "art and the humanity it represents are how we understand each other, and it must be made available to everyone."

It was once said that in New York they ask how much a person is worth, in Philadelphia who his parents were, and in Boston how much he knows. If that's so, Forbes may be the best living example of the collision of the old Brahmin ethic and the new world. "It's about content," he says. "I'm not saying people aren't giving today. They are. But do their passions come across to the rest of the public? Because that is where the culture lies--not just in impressions or reviews or seeing our name in print, but in the art itself, and in fresh, new presentations of ideas to invigorate the civilization."

Originally published in Boston magazine, May 2004

 

YouTube - Boston Brahmin

This is an example of the old upper-class accent of Boston.
1 min 41 sec -

Rated 4.3 out of 5.0


www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwvONJXJUO4

 

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[chottala.com] These inhuman Saudis! And these Arabs - Disgrace for mankind

Image : www.bwint.org

These inhuman Saudis! And these Arabs - Disgrace for mankind

Friday May 23 2008 21:55:45 PM BDT

By Tayeb Husain, Sweden
http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidRecord=200971
Millions of poor people from all over the world come to Arab kingdoms to work because they are poor and need work for a living. These poor workers give their blood and build these brutish peoples' homes and palaces, work in their factories and infra-structure buildings and in exchange they offer them a little petrodollar and the most inhuman treatment that we read everyday in international newspapers.
---------------------

Allah must have committed a great sin by giving so much oil to these Saudis and the Arabs, the worst mankind in the world I suppose. With their oil money they have built their societies that are so inhuman and so much devoid of human conscience! Millions of poor people from all over the world come to Arab kingdoms to work because they are poor and need work for a living. These poor workers give their blood and build these brutish peoples' homes and palaces, work in their factories and infra-structure buildings and in exchange they offer them a little petrodollar and the most inhuman treatment that we read everyday in international newspapers. The western media, if and when something bad happens in China, Myanmar or in Zimbabwe or countries they do not like, are very vocal and go on reporting and condemning such things for weeks or months but they speak very mildly the inhuman things the Saudis and the other rich Arab countries do to people from poor countries working for peanuts in these oil rich Arab lands.

The Arabs treat very respectfully to Europeans and especially their employees from Western Europe and North America but their behaviour to people from poor countries are subhuman and most brutish. This is very much true when they employ women from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and other countries in Asia as home maids. They employ these poor women for very little money and force them to work 15-16 hours a day. Often they do not get any break and work 7 days a week. Their work-hours could be any time at day or at night.

These women get their jobs paying good amount as fees to local employment agencies in their own countries. These local employment agencies arrange jobs in collusion with similar organizations in Arab countries. The usual practice is to pay the local agents, quite substantial amount by the local standard and often these poor people arrange the amount by selling the land or such small properties they own, get the job and come to work in an Arab country. On arrival the domestic women workers need to surrender their passports and other documents to the employers, start working and with the works the real ordeal begins.

Many foreign domestic maids in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries work in harsh circumstances and very often suffer abuse by their employers. Often they do not get the salary they are promised, they need to work very long hours every day and no compensation for long working hours and no complain to be made but to work, work and work as ordered.

The ordeal of young women are further more complicated for the employers' sex lust. Often the employers sexually violate the young employees by force and making any complain or reporting it means inviting serious problems. Generally there is nobody to listen to them and what the employers say are the only truths. In Arab countries justice system does not work when it involves foreign workers from the poor countries. In March 2007 I met 4 women from Bangladesh at Doha airport while flying by Qatar Airlines from Frankfurt to Dhaka who told me their ordeal in Saudi Arabia. Each of these women paid above 80,000 or so Taka to get jobs as domestic servant in Saudi kingdom and on arrival they faced the same horrible situation. They worked 3 months in the kingdom and were not paid a cent for their hard work. The employers had something else in their minds until the moment came for real action.

These women were not young and they wanted to send them back home. So they let them work day and night long 3 months to earn enough for the air ticket to Dhaka and then they bought one way tickets for each one of them and then bundled them home to Bangladesh via Doha. I could see they were lucky. At least they were not sexually molested, thanks to their advanced age.

Today (23d May 2008) I read in BBC a tragic story of an Indonesian woman, Nour Miyati, and unfortunately the poor woman was not so lucky. This 25 years old woman contracted gangrene after allegedly being tied up for a month and left without food in 2005. She had to have several fingers and toes amputated. Human Rights Watch says that Miyati was treated in a Riyadh hospital in March 2005 for gangrene, malnourishment and other injuries. The case was taken up by human rights group and the cruel employer family was brought to justice. Then again, what is justice in a country where this sort of criminality is a norm of most of the employers' psyche? A judge in Riyadh gave a verdict on the case on last Monday and awarded $670 damages to the maid but dropped all charges against her employers.

The female employer, it is reported, admitted the abuse and was originally sentenced to 35 lashes, had her sentence overturned. A Saudi judgment earlier had convicted Miyati for falsely accusing her employers and sentenced to 79 lashes. On his judgment the horrendous Bedouin judge in Riyadh on last Monday found the female employer not guilty, despite her earlier admission and 'compelling physical evidence' on Miyati's body, the human rights group says.

Another story of a Sri Lankan woman I remember vividly that again I read in BBC world news 3 / 4 years ago. 'After three months, I asked Madam for my salary and she started to beat me with iron bars and wooden sticks', the maid was explaining of her time in Saudi Arabia. 'Sometimes she would take a hot iron and burn me or heat up a knife and put it on my body'. Readers may see similar stories in http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3204297.stm

In modern time numbers of migrant workers are innumerable. Nowhere had they got equal treatment as the local workers but little fairness must be there, at least that is what my experience in Europe over 3 decades. But Arabs' treatments to poor migrant workers are most horrendous and utterly inhuman. Indeed treating migrant workers such inhuman way is unique and unparallel as we hear of in cases from Saudi kingdom and other Arab countries. The case of Saudi Arabia, the land of Prophet of Islam and where the holy Kaaba is situated makes one ponder how come this people could be so cruel whereas Islam is said to be a religion of peace and its inherent power is supposed to be equality of mankind. Those Muslims who go to Mecca for religious purpose need to contemplate for a while if it is worth performing Hajj in a country that is inhabited by so many inhuman people and who is devoid of humanity in such a colossal scale among the people of the world. I need not mention that Saudi government is undemocratic, un-Islamic and one of the most barbarian one in the planet.

Tayeb Husain
Sweden
e-mail: th12sw@yahoo.com
 
 
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