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Monday, September 17, 2012

Re: [chottala.com] Where Shall We Go: No Light in the end of the Tunnel



Dear Chowdhury,

Thanks. You have cited everything very truly & rightly. At the present situation, 90% innocent people of the country will  fully  admit with you. This is the actual picture of the present people's Government. We have given full verdict by casting our valuable mandate for free-style corruption in all sphere. It has broken all previous records of corruption. Government have no option to deny  the facts.

Till  now, we are all talking about the problem but now we have to think about the solution also. We cannot let the things go like this. Now this our tern to turn back to save the country. Now we should all think where to start.

So, let's  invite all the true patriot people of the country to think about it , just not criticizing the Govt.& the corrupt people.

Zayeed




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On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 10:21 PM, Isha Khan <bdmailer@gmail.com> wrote:
Where Shall We Go: No Light in the end of the Tunnel

By F R Chowdhury, UK

Mr. A B M Musa is one of the senior-most journalists in Bangladesh. In
a recent gathering he advised everyone to shout "s/he is a thief" as
soon as any one connected with the Government is sighted. I am sure
that Mr Musa also knows very well that there are still some honest
people in the country working for the Government. Apparently one would
say that Mr. Musa should not have made such irresponsible utterances.
But when you think more deeply you can understand how frustrated Mr.
Musa felt with the present state of affairs.

Next day I read something very interesting. Mr. Musa writes about a
shipwrecked person in an island full of snakes, crocodiles and other
dangerous animals. Then he sees a ship passing-by and waves in
desperation. God responded to his call when he found a boat coming
from the ship. The man in the boat gave some recent newspapers and
said "you should read them and decide if you want to go back
Bangladesh or remain in the island".

When a very respected and elderly journalist like Mr. Musa writes and
speaks like that, it is time for us to look at things to its fullest
context and think if there is a limit to it or will it go on endless.
First let us talk about monetary corruption. I would not like to go on
details but would just touch upon a few of them. By now there is
hardly anyone in Bangladesh who has not heard about the case of
Hallmark group. I understand they took well over four thousand crores
of taka from the state-owned Sonali Bank and there is little hope that
the bank can recover that money. Yet the finance minister calls it
just a minor incident.

Another company known as "Destiny" took money not only from banks but
also from innocent public in general. Some of those involved have even
run away from the country. By market manipulation some people also
made quick money out of stock exchange and most of it has gone out of
the country. BEXIMCO group took full advantage of the inflated price
of their share to take a huge loan from the bank against shares as
security. The price of those shares is now not even 1/10th of the
negotiated deal. There is another very interesting case of a mortgaged
ship being sold without any reference to the bank. Such things can
only happen in Bangladesh.

Now let us talk about the most sensational case – Padma Bridge
project. Some people were too eager to make quick money and on the
assurances of various contracts took in advance a large sum of money.
I believe the transactions took place in Canada. When the Canadian
Police started investigating the matter, a young Bangladeshi (also
Canadian national) couple slipped out of Canada and returned to
Bangladesh. The World Bank who initially promised to finance most of
the project withdrew from the project. The WB provided the Government
some vital information relating to the corruption. The government
initially tried to laugh it out by saying how could there be any
corruption when contract have not been awarded. Then for a few days
the Government kept on blaming Professor Yunus for the WB decision.
Then slowly the cats started emerging out of the bag. One minister has
already resigned and another adviser is on the verge of resignation.
Perhaps the root of the corruption goes beyond that and it cannot be
resolved so easily.

Corruption is now deep rooted at every level of the society. A
minister's APS was caught with a car full of money in sacks on way to
minister's house. The minister resigned. He was still kept in the
cabinet as a minister without any portfolio. The Anti-corruption
Commission gained full confidence of the government by declaring the
minister innocent. The nation soon came to know the identity of two
new patriots. They are none other than the ministers who resigned on
charges of corruption. If you want to know how wide spread and deep
rooted the corruption network is then you have to visit any of the
government departments or agencies who are supposed to provide service
to the people. Let us start with local police, hospital, port office,
customs office, land registry and record office, and then go to
relevant offices for gas, electricity, water and to primary school for
admission of children. You will soon know that there is only one
solution to your problems and that is money. The railway minister
admitted his inability to recover railway lands because of the
influence of very powerful elements. Similarly the rivers and canals
are being filled up by influential people for their use.

We will now take a quick look at the law and order situation. Almost
every day one or two dead bodies are recovered from rivers and drains.
Police said to have identified the body of garment labour leader
Aminul Islam like that. The young journalist couple were murdered in
their own bedroom perhaps because they knew too much about government
corruption. A BNP leader along with his driver was hijacked from his
car never to be seen again. There are others who die in so-called
"cross-fire" (extra judicial killing). Countless people die on the
roads when a minister advocates for driving licence to be made easier.

But the present Government can be proud of some of its success. It
took no time to change the name of the Dhaka Airport to remove the
name of Zia from it. It successfully evicted Khaleda Zia from her
cantonment house. It hanged most of those responsible for 1975
changes. It brought in the constitutional changes to hold election
under the present government instead of a non-party care-taker
government. However, their claimed success of dealing with BDR revolt
is most debatable. Men in arms revolt is nothing short of sedition.
There can be no negotiation or compromise with them. Call for
surrender of arms and submit them to lawful authority. Everything else
comes after that. The elite forces of the country are maintained to
defend the country and they should have been allowed to take necessary
action to restore normalcy. The so-called political negotiation with
the mutineers resulted into a great loss for the country. One can
become a politician overnight but it takes lot of tax-payers' money,
years of training, hard work and dedication to become a colonel or
brigadier. The nation can never excuse those responsible for the
massacre.

We also suffered in the hands of the opposition when they were in
power. We do not know where is the end and where shall we go.

By F R Chowdhury
UK
E Mail : fazlu.chowdhury@btinternet.com

http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=389739


------------------------------------

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[chottala.com] America and the Muslims

America and the Muslims

by ESAM AL-AMIN

Thousands of angry Muslims demonstrated in front of American embassies
and consulates in Egypt and Libya because of a newly released film
that deliberately insulted and mockingly falsified the life of the
prophet of Islam. The protests soon spread to Yemen, Tunisia, Sudan,
Morocco, the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan,
Iran, and elsewhere. Taking advantage of the chaos outside the
American consulate in Benghazi, it appears that Al-Qaeda affiliates
infiltrated the protesters, then attacked and firebombed the consulate
building. Clearly there was no justification whatsoever for such
reprehensible acts.

Tragically, several innocent American officials including the U.S.
ambassador in Libya died in the senseless violence that ensued.
Experts believe that the violent attack was in response to the direct
call by the head of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, to avenge the killing
of his deputy Abu Yahya Al-Libi who was killed by a U.S. drone attack
last June.

Yet, every few years the world gets tired from watching the same old
inflammatory scene play out again and again. From Salman Rushdie's
Satanic Verses in 1989 and the Danish cartoons in 2005, to the burning
of the Qur'an by a nutty Florida pastor in 2010 and the release of
this highly offensive movie just days ago.

According to the most credible reports, this repulsive film was
written, produced, and directed by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an
extremist anti-Muslim Egyptian-American Coptic Christian in his mid
fifties. Nakoula is a felon convicted in California on bank fraud
charges, for which he received a suspended 21-month sentence and was
fined $790,000. According to press reports the low budget movie was
filmed last year and starred sixty actors who recently released a
statement stating that they were never told that the movie was about
the prophet Muhammad. They also maintained that most of the offensive
language was later dubbed over their images. Screened last June in a
Hollywood theatre the movie was a flop that barely registered on
anyone's radar. The producer then contacted another Egyptian-American
extremist Copt, Morris Sadek, 70, who for decades has led an
anti-Muslim campaign in the U.S. Nakoula asked for his help in
promoting and distributing the film.

According to the Associated Press Sadek then contacted his friend,
Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who is infamous for his calls to publicly
burn the Qur'an. Even though Jones promoted the film on his website
and announced that he would screen it on the anniversary of Sept. 11
as well as conduct a mock trial against the prophet Muhammad, his
announcements drew very little attention from the public or the media.
By early September less than 50 people had actually viewed the film's
14-minute trailer on YouTube.

Sadek, who has an extensive email list that included many Egyptian
media outlets and journalists, then started promoting the Arabic
version of the trailer on his numerous extremist websites and Facebook
page. His efforts caught the interest of some Egyptian reporters who
consequently covered the story extensively in the local Egyptian
media. A few days later the pro-Salafi conservative satellite channel
Al-Naas called for a protest in front of the American Embassy in Cairo
on Sept. 11. Upon hearing this, similar groups in Libya also called
for a mass demonstration on the same day in Benghazi. Meanwhile,
Al-Azhar, a major seat of religious authority in the Sunni world,
condemned the film but called for a calm and measured response.

Interestingly, the largest Islamic movement in both countries, the
Muslim Brotherhood, was absent from the scene in Egypt as well as in
Libya. But by the following day the group issued a statement of
condemnation and called for a peaceful million-man march on Sept. 14.
Taking notice religious scholars and groups across the Muslim world
issued strong statements of condemnation and called for more peaceful
protests. The Coptic Church in Cairo as well as Coptic leaders and
organizations in Egypt and the U.S. strongly condemned the film and
expressed grave concerns about the ramifications of Muslim-Christian
relations.

In the hope of further stirring the pot, Nakoula, the producer of the
vile film, duped the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal in
two separate interviews as he concocted a story that he was an
Israeli-American collecting Jewish money in order to produce the film.
But his objective of offending Muslim sensibilities had already been
accomplished. Lacking knowledge and understanding of this background,
Muslim groups, scholars and followers were easily drawn into this
controversy. They accused the U.S. government of condoning the vicious
attacks on their religious symbols, not least because of the extent of
Islamophobia in the country and anti-Muslim government-sanctioned
policies promoted over the last ten years.

However, Muslim public officials, religious leaders, and opinion
makers need to understand the nature and limitations of Western
secular societies and their democratic traditions. But the lack of any
meaningful dialogue between American policy and opinion makers on the
one hand, and Muslim scholars and activists on the other, as well as
the historical baggage of anti-Muslim American policy in the past
decade and the mistrust that followed, make it extremely difficult to
explain to the Muslims around the world that the U.S government not
only has nothing to do with the production and promotion of this
movie, but such incidents also run contrary to its principles and
interests.

There are basically two main reasons for the lack of trust and
understanding between the two sides. First, the U.S. does not
seriously engage the American Muslim community or Islamic movements
worldwide on political or cultural levels. Rather it deals with them,
especially domestically, from the narrow prism of security concerns.
Thus, in many instances the American Muslim community has been treated
as a liability to politicians or civil society institutions.

Secondly, many Islamophobes and Muslim haters have taken over the
public space and the media so much so that appointments or inclusion
of any Muslim figure in government or other public institutions have
become a struggle, sometimes with costly consequences. The Republican
Party has basically become the party associated with Muslim bashers
and haters, while the Democratic Party has only given lip service to
inclusion while it is still afraid of being attacked by the right as
being sympathetic to "terrorists." Meanwhile, the American Muslim
community is alienated and the crude stereotype of America being the
enemy of Islam is cemented in the hearts and minds of Muslims
worldwide.

American Muslims are thus a wasted asset. Probably more than most they
understand and appreciate the value of free speech and the first
amendment and could play a crucial role in acting like a bridge
between America and the rest of the Islamic world provided that they
feel genuinely included in the political discourse and be treated with
respect.

In every incident many American public officials and pundits argue
that the "irrational" reaction by thousands of Muslims around the
globe "exposes" their religion's intolerance to freedom of speech and
expression. Their central argument has always been that Islam is
incompatible with democratic values, with freedom of belief, speech,
and expression being at the center of such values. Their objective, of
course, is to give credence to the "clash of civilizations" thesis and
to keep Islam and Muslims on a continuous collision course with the
West.

Since the end of the Cold War, this campaign to replace communism with
Islam, and the Soviets with Muslims has been relentless although
initially not very successful. Regrettably the 9/11 attacks provided
justification, context, and impetus for the proponents of the clash
theory, who have since been exerting considerable influence over many
governmental agencies and senior officials as they adopted policies,
strategies and tactics that promulgated this world view. One
consequence of this policy was to target all Muslim organizations and
activists (even in many cases just ordinary individuals), in the U.S.
and abroad, and treat them as potential threats, suspects, and enemies
of the state until proven otherwise.

Undoubtedly, Muslims around the globe are extremely sensitive to
deliberate depictions of highly offensive insults directed toward the
prophet and holy book of Islam. Yet, for centuries hundreds of books,
articles, speeches, and other materials have been produced that
harshly criticized and attacked the religion, its founder, and holy
texts without evoking anger, fear, or violence. On their face, these
offensive expressions are not what Muslims find so objectionable. Most
Muslim scholars welcome the opportunity to engage in a civilized
dialogue or debate the validity of major Islamic beliefs, tenets,
interpretations, or historical facts.

But what made the incidents in the last two decades different is the
nature of the attacks. They were deliberate attempts to fabricate the
life and history of its major figure by mocking his life and depicting
him in the most offensive manner: irrational, liar, crazy, filthy,
coward, killer, thief, slave-trader, philanderer, pedophile, sexually
deviant, while his wives were portrayed as ignorant, prostitutes or
sexually enslaved. One could hardly point to any redeeming value in
such productions. But make no mistake about it; these incidents were
not intended to have any. Their sole purpose was to goad and incite a
Muslim response knowing that a substantial number of them will be
enraged and react vehemently, some even violently.

But why does it seem that most Muslims become easily infuriated with
such disgraceful attacks against their religious symbols?

Western secular societies assert that the highest value in their
culture is the preservation and security of human life. They argue
that this doctrine takes precedence over all other aspects in life.
While within the Islamic culture, the preservation of human life is
indeed sacred, it is however, preceded by the safeguarding of its
belief system, chiefly among them the honor of its prophet and holy
text. In other words, most Muslims believe that deliberate abuse and
slander of their prophet or holy book is the highest form of violating
their human rights. Nevertheless, most authentic Islamic religious
authorities do not condone or justify any form of violence in
expressing such legitimate anger or outrage. Clearly, in a
multicultural world, maintaining peace and harmony among communities
and cultures dictate that people understand and respect, but not
necessarily accept, the value system of other cultures so long as they
do not directly contradict with their most basic values and
principles.

So when someone is keenly aware of another's value system and what hot
button issues are likely to generate widespread outrage, such
deliberate acts should be called for what they actually are: the
highest form of fomenting incitement and hatred.

But how could the U.S. deal with free speech and art that incite and
tear apart human relations without violating its most cherished
principle?

One of the limitations in the United States constitutional law to
freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment is the "fighting
words" doctrine. In a 1942 famous Supreme Court case, the unanimous
ruling held that "insulting or fighting words, are those that by their
very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of
the peace." Applying such a principle can easily lead to the balance
needed between the inviolability of the principle of freedom of speech
and the narrow exception where such speech results in a serious
massive injury that would rupture harmony and peace within
communities, cultures, and countries.

Yet what about the practice of freedom of speech in the West?

Western governments and civil society institutions assert that freedom
of speech, expression, and association is the bedrock of maintaining
their democratic character. Whenever someone deliberately sets out to
inflame the sensitivities of Muslims toward their prophet or holy
book, freedom of speech is invoked in order to defend the cause of the
uproar and dismiss its effects as an irrational response. Granted
though that under no circumstance should violence be an acceptable
answer to any attack no mater how wicked or appalling.

But on a more basic level, does the West really believe in free speech
or does it apply a double standard when it comes to Muslim
sensibilities? Let's check the record.

In the private sector, when Google was asked to remove the highly
inflammatory YouTube video, it immediately and correctly cited its
long established policy of supporting freedom of speech, including all
despised speech (though it reluctantly agreed to suspend it in Egypt
and Libya.) But as the Jewish Press reported on August 1, Google had
no problem removing 1,710 videos and closing their affiliated accounts
because "A substantial number of those videos concerned Holocaust
denial and defense of Holocaust deniers." According to the newspaper
report, Google "closed the user's account within 24 hours" of
receiving the complaint by a group that monitors anti-Semitism in
Australia.

In July 2011, Facebook was pressured by Israeli authorities to close
the accounts of many Palestinian activists. Israel complained that the
activists were coordinating their plans to travel to Israel and cause
disruptions. In reality, the activists were trying to make a strong
political statement online. Needless to say, the Israeli government
could have easily rescinded any visas it might have issued to these
activists or prevented any person from entering the country had they
actually traveled. There was no call for incitement or violence by the
activists to justify closing their accounts.

People in the U.S. may not be aware of these incidents where hate or
disfavored speech was taken down. But many people in the Muslim world
are aware of such interventions that run contrary to stated
principles. Plausibly, they wonder, if foreigners such as the Attorney
General of Israel or an Australian monitoring group can get Google or
Facebook to shut down videos or close accounts, how can one argue that
the President or the Secretary of State cannot make similar requests?
They also recall that in 2009 Secretary Clinton intervened and
prevailed over the executives of Facebook and Twitter on behalf of the
activists of the so-called Green movement in Iran. This is not an
argument to advocate closing down accounts or removing videos but
simply to illustrate the hypocrisy and double standard practiced by
public officials and business conglomerates when dealing with Muslim
concerns.

Furthermore, many European countries enacted laws in the past three
decades that criminalize any speech or writings that question the
official accounts of the Holocaust. In 1996 French philosopher Roger
Garaudy published his book, The Founding Myths of Modern Israel.
Critics charged that his book contained Holocaust denial and
consequently the French government indicted him, and shortly
thereafter, the courts banned any further publication of the book. In
1998 Garaudy was convicted, sentenced to a suspended jail sentence of
several years, and fined forty thousand dollars.

In 2005, English writer David Irving was apprehended in Austria on a
1989 arrest warrant of being a Holocaust denier. He was subsequently
convicted of "trivializing, grossly playing down, and denying the
Holocaust," and sentenced to three years imprisonment.

Moreover, British Muslim Ahmed Faraz was sentenced in Dec. 2011 to
three years in prison in London after being convicted of
"disseminating a number of books deemed to be terrorist publications."
The publication Faraz was convicted of distributing in his bookstore
was the 1964 book, Milestones, written by the late Egyptian author
Sayyed Qutb.

But the U.S. government's recent record is far more alarming. In fact,
since 9/11 draconian sentences have been handed down on the account of
what traditionally was considered pure first amendment activities.

In 2004, two TV satellite operators, Javed Iqbal (a New York resident
of over 25 years), and Saleh Elahwal, were charged by federal
prosecutors with "providing material support to a foreign terrorist
organization" by broadcasting to U.S. customers Hizbollah's satellite
channel, Al-Manar. The FBI also searched Iqbal's business and home "on
suspicion of maintaining satellite dishes." In 2008, Iqbal was
convicted and sentenced to 69 months.

In many criminal prosecutions since 9/11 Muslims have been convicted
and sentenced to as much as life in prison for expressing their
political opinions, giving fatwas (religious opinions), feeding
children, providing educational materials, translating documents,
uploading videos on websites, or singing in a band.

In one case involving American-born Tarek Mehanna, Yale Professor
Andrew F. March wrote in the New York Times, "As a political scientist
specializing in Islamic law and war, I frequently read, store, share
and translate texts and videos by jihadi groups. As a political
philosopher, I debate the ethics of killing. As a citizen, I express
views, thoughts and emotions about killing to other citizens. As a
human being, I sometimes feel joy (I am ashamed to admit) at the
suffering of some humans and anger at the suffering of others." He
further wrote, "At Mr. Mehanna's trial, I saw how those same actions
can constitute federal crimes, because Mr. Mehanna's conviction was
based largely on things he said, wrote and translated."

What these examples and many others illustrate is that the protection
of the constitutional freedoms of speech, expression, and association
are used selectively in the U.S. on the basis of political judgments.
American officials, public intellectuals, and opinion makers revel in
invoking the first amendment as an inviolable principle when Islam or
its sacred symbols are attacked, and then find rationalizations and
loopholes when American Muslims engage in objectionable free speech
activities. However, this double standard is not lost on the majority
of people in the Muslim world and across the globe.

The criteria to judge whether a society values and respects free
speech is when the most vulnerable members of society, those who might
be the targets of the majority, can feel safe and free to say what
they think when they want on any subject without fear, intimidation or
negative repercussions. In other words, to know whether America today
honors free speech one must ask one hundred random American Muslim
activists that question to get the real answer.

In a nutshell, America shall only have credibility as a champion and
guardian of freedom of speech and expression when the thoughts,
speeches, writings, fatwas, translations, poetry, and web browsing of
Mehanna and his colleagues are not criminalized. Only when they are
set free can America reclaim back the mantle.

Esam Al-Amin can be contacted at alamin1919@gmail.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/14/america-and-the-muslims/


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