Marina Mahathir praises Dr. Dipu Moni in her blog !
This morning I had a meeting with one of the foreign observers to the UMNO GA, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, Dr. Dipu Moni. This was interesting to me from many standpoints. For one thing, she's a woman and her boss, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, is also a woman. She's not just a medical doctor but also a lawyer. In comparison, our guys are hard put to be qualified in one field, let alone two! And let's not talk about when we will ever have a woman as Foreign Minister, let alone Prime Minister!
Dr. Moni has a long history of activism and in politics. She's bright, well-spoken and knows her subject. One of the issues we discussed was Bangladeshi migrant workers. Her country sends many workers overseas and is very dependent on them for foreign exchange. Many of these workers sell everything they own to pay for their tickets, documentation and agents' fees to get work overseas and then toil away to earn enough money to support their families back home. Some don't make it home, some find themselves on the wrong side of the law and get deported and some get conned by everybody. The impact of what happens to them is huge on their families, communities and country.
Recently Malaysia decided to cancel the visas of some 55,000 Bangladeshi workers who were about to fly here to work. Dr. Moni understood the rationale behind this since we are facing a recession. But it was a disaster for the workers who had forked out a total of the equivalent of USD200million in order to get those jobs, none of which they can get refunded for. Somebody somewhere did get the money however, but it's doubtful that either the Malaysian or the Bangladeshi economy benefitted from it. All that happened is that 55,000 very poor Bangladeshis and their families became destitute. We may not feel at responsible for that but the fact is that there were some Malaysians who were involved in causing that destitution.
Dr. Moni and I also talked about politics. She was very surprised to learn that most of our political parties have different wings for women, youth and...what are they, princes and princesses? Few political parties around the world have that. This is why in many parts of the world, including in those countries which we think of as more backward than us, women have an equal chance of becoming presidents of their parties as well as Prime Ministers. Dr. Moni was shocked to find that the main UMNO party has no women in it. Although women can stand for election to the Supreme Council, they are seen as marginal and token. In the case of this year's elections, what could 1/25 be but token? .....................................
http://rantingsbymm.blogspot.com/
Bangla:
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