The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reform of world bodies

BRITISH PM Gordon Brown during his recent visit to India said that world bodies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund 'must reform’ to tackle the 21st century challenges. Set up after the Second World War they no longer reflect 'the new world order’ and 'the new global society’. 'The task ahead is to agree for our time the rules that can make globalisation a force for hope and progress for people’, Brown reportedly said. Brown’s speech picks up on a theme he outlined in his major foreign policy statement of last November where he described his approach to global affairs as 'hard-headed internationalism.’

That concept has been interpreted to mean 'a pragmatic, realistic and multilateral approach.’ Gordon Brown’s policy proposals it is said would help address the modern world’s most pressing challenges - poverty, the environment and extremism. The World Bank should become a bank for the environment with a greater focus on supporting environmental projects, particularly those aimed at tackling climate change. The International Monetary Fund should be central to an 'early warning system’ spotting potential turbulence in the global economy and acting with the independence of a central bank to prevent insecurity or collapse.

Senior British government officials said UN reform is a live issue with a number of countries putting forward suggestions. Not only the UN, as lending agencies, the World Bank and the IMF also face questions for scandalous acts including the one recently involving even one of its chief-besides corruption as highlighted often in the international media. The world organisations and institutions must maintain standard at any cost to be followed by others across the globe.

Completing police reforms

MISUSE of police’s authority declined somewhat after the declaration of emergency and the resolve of the government to improve police’s functioning. But the earlier enthusiasm to reform the stables of the law enforcers is lagging perhaps. For even under this emergency, police officials are being nabbed for immorality and corruption. The latest in the depravation and total lack of morality noted in policemen, involved a police officer of not petty but high rank. He was the Assistant Commissioner of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) who was caught red-handed for robbing a household with his subordinate policemen.

Many policemen have been taken off active duty in the last one year on such grounds. But the above incidents only point to the hard realities that till very comprehensive reforms are carried out, the police will lag behind in aiding good governance. It is imperative for the government to engage in reform of the police force. Otherwise, prospects of good governance will continue to be an elusive chase after the transition to an elected government. The greatest stress in any police reforms must be put on freeing this force of corrupt elements.

It might sound like too drastic a proposition but there is possibly no alternative to terminating the services of a large number of policemen. They may be given the option of retiring voluntarily. The aim should be to largely raise a new police force over a period of time. Apparently, the task may appear daunting. But once taken up, it will not prove difficult. Completion of training for police duties at the Sardah Police Training Academy takes about a year for both policemen and officers. So, if the government takes up a plan and goes to work immediately, then it should be possible to raise a large number of policemen and officers and make sure that they pass through an improved training course.

Australia unburdens her torments by an apology

Maswood Alam Khan

Beseeching apology to the stolen generations of aborigines Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has entered history as a courageous leader to relieve his nation from an emotional burden, removing a blight from his nation's soul and helping a Day of Atonement dawn for original inhabitants of Australia.

A new episode has been opened in Australia's tortured relations with its indigenous peoples pointing other world leaders in the direction of a novelty to 'right a historic wrong', a courageous approach to emancipate incarcerated conscience, a redemption of the posterity from the sins of their predecessors' misdeeds.

Politicians indulge in tall talks before election campaigns only to court cheap popularity and shy away from a pledge that may not appeal to each and every voter. Rudd was an exception by pledging before his November election that 'He would apologize to aborigines'---an idea not favorable to each voter---if he were elected to the Prime Minister's office. He has put his campaign pledge into practice as he became Prime Minister knowing full well that many Australians would deem such an admission of guilt disgraceful and a dishonor to their forefathers.

Pakistan regime had an ulterior motive to transfuse our tongues to speak in Urdu forgetting our mother tongue. By the same token, aboriginal children in Australia were also systematically snatched away from their mothers and sent to live with white families, where they grew up often unaware of their indigenous background in an attempt by the government to dilute their indigenous culture under a ('blackmailing') policy of assimilation that began in 1910 and lasted into the early 1970s, a period Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has termed 'a black era in his nation's history'.

Stolen children while living with white families were perplexed to see a difference in their skin and body structures with those of their foster guardians and could not fathom out why they did often feel an inner emptiness and a trauma until the truth of their removal from their families emerged years later. A 1997 national inquiry into the stolen generation found that many children suffered long-term psychological effects from the loss of family and culture.

Aborigines in some parts of Australia were governed by laws covering wildlife and plants and it was not before a referendum in 1967 that gave the indigenous people the same legal rights as everyone else. Since that recognition of humans as humans it has taken more than 40 years for an Australian Prime Minister to utter a simple, five-letter word---sorry!

On 13 February, Aborigines smeared with white body paint and playing didgeridoos opened Parliament for the first time where was echoed the premier's apologetic voice saying "For the pain, suffering and hurt of these 'Stolen Generations', their descendants and for their families and communities, we say sorry; and for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry." February 13 will remain a momentous day for acknowledgement of injustices suffered by Aborigines for more than 200 years after European colonization that began in late 1700s.

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard missed the train to journey into the pages of history by not lending his ears to an official report of a commission on Australia's past assimilation policies that urged the government about 11 years back to issue a formal apology to the Aborigines. Howard refused to show any contrition, insisting that current generation of Australians should not apologize for injustices of the past, a stance still harbored unfortunately by a number of Australian politicians.

The difference between Mr. Rudd and Mr. Howard as Prime Ministers has thus been the divergence between a statesman and a political leader: one statesman who is ready to navigate his nation taking full responsibility for the past, the present and the future and one political leader who feels loath to budge an inch beyond the narrow confines of time and space of his limited tenure. Aborigines, who under Howard, felt alienated and segregated by Australian society are now the same people feeling embraced and valued by the same society under Rudd---a difference in captaincy denoting a difference between captivity and liberty.

Now is the time for Australians not only to embrace the aborigines as their siblings who comprise two percent of the country's population of 21 million but also to address acute problems related to their ill-health, unemployment and imprisonment.

The pink complexioned race (better known as white race) that went to the shores of America brought in shiploads of slaves from Africa. Have they ever apologized to the blacks? Instead of apologizing they think by enchaining the black slaves they rather developed the land and taught those 'human like beasts' how to add and subtract enabling them to count their children on arithmetic formula other than on their fingers and toes. But they while playing God are oblivious of their roots, the reason they were shipped to America: most of the Europeans who arrived on the shores of North America at the early part of settlement in the new-found-land were convicts who had to be segregated in islands far from the civilized world.

Hollywood movies have left an impression with us that great Indian wars came in the Old West of America during the late 1800s. But in fact that was a 'mopping up' effort. By that time Red Indians were nearly finished, their subjugation complete, their numbers decimated. The killing, enslavement, and the land theft had begun immediately after the arrival of Europeans on the shores of America. It reached its nadir in 1838 and 1839 when under President Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate under duress. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died. Have the Americans ever begged apology to the American aborigines who were known as Red Indians?

Many historians believe that Japan compelled up to 200,000 women---mostly Chinese and Koreans---to become sex slaves or in other words 'comfort women' who were employed in army garrisons to calm the nerves of Japanese troops, though Japanese politicians deny that force was used to round up the women. But, there is no denying the fact that during our liberation war Pakistani military personnel in connivance with Bangladeshi brokers broke into our peoples' homes and took many of our women by force. When will a Kevin Rudd emerge in Japan or Pakistan to beg apology to China, Korea or Bangladesh? Have those Bangladeshi collaborators who helped Pakistani aggressors kidnap our women ever begged apology to our freedom fighters?

We humans err in our attempts to do any activity in our mundane life and learning from our past mistakes next time we rather err on the side of caution. When mistakes committed turn out to be irreparable we beg apology, we say 'sorry' to one who suffers from our fault. Saying sorry to the aggrieved man does not help him get back his lost time or his lost son or his lost money, but greatly helps him heal his wounded soul---like a soothing balm on our lacerated skin.

Some Titas Gas employees who made fortunes by grabbing bribes from dishonest subscribers at the expense of our national exchequer had recently felt heavy with the burden of their guilt conscience and in an attempt to unburden their torments they queued up to redeem their sins by returning their wealth so accumulated. They said 'sorry' and the government may also forgive them, though the loss to our national resources due to their bribery is beyond redemption.

Our former President Husain Mohammad Ershad did not find his popularity plummet to naught after his begging apology in a public meeting in Purana Paltan saying: "I tried to serve the nation to the best possible way, but during my tenure as President of your country I committed some irreparable mistakes and I fervently beg your pardon, my dear people".

Neither did former American President Bill Clinton find people hate him when he begged apology by saying: "I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that. I also let you down, and I let my family down, and I let this country down. But I'm trying to make it right. And I'm determined never to let anything like that happen again. And I'm determined to redeem the trust. So I ask you for your understanding, for your forgiveness on this journey we're on. I hope this will be a time of reconciliation and healing."

Spending a day in a jail on the part of an innocent person is too long a period. But, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world are spending years after years inside prisons before or without trials and many innocent people are being convicted due to mismatching of evidences. Thanks to cutting edge of forensic technology proving an innocent guilty and a guilty innocent, pundits in the world of jurisprudence are repenting of what blunders they as the prosecution had committed as many of their past judgments and arguments are now emerging as irreparably wrongful.

Whenever we hear about an innocent person getting convicted or harassed by any miscarriage of justice a towering figure like apparitions of a tall man in his prison costume come into our mental view reverberating the courtroom with his uproarious voice: "Firiye Dao Amaar Shei Baroti Bosor" ("Give me back twelve years vanished from my life") the most outstanding actor of Bengali cinema Chhabi Biswas who in 1955 Bangla movie "Sabar Uparey" shouted as he was proven innocent only after spending 12 years of imprisonment on a wrongful judgment.

What could be the most appropriate answer to Chhabi Biswas's demand? A simple five-letter word: Sorry?

A President for Middle East

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Given the unprecedented interest in the fascinating juggernaut undulating across the United States, you would think six billion people of the globe have a stake in the US presidential election. And why not? Although only some 126 million Americans actually get to vote in this most complex of all electoral exercises, its consequences are experienced and felt by all of us on the planet.

America is not just the world's reigning superpower with the deadliest weapons known to Man at its disposal. No country has ever enjoyed the kind of overarching power the US of A exercises today. And this isn't limited to military and political spheres. If the US dollar has come to be accepted as the currency that the world does business in, it's because of the US economy's central role in the world economy. From powerful European economies to the Middle East's oil markets to emerging players like India and China, every economy is joined at the hip with the US economy. Which explains why the world markets tend to catch cold if the US economy so much as sneezes. The case in point is the global panic over the sub-prime crisis in the US.

But nothing beats America's all-pervasive cultural influence. You can't escape it wherever you live on the planet. The empire of the mind built by the US over the past couple of centuries, especially during the 20th century, is the most powerful the Man has known.

And the Weapons of Mass Persuasion at the beck and call of this empire are Hollywood, the mighty US media and the pop culture of Mac America that rule the world, from Alaska to Australia. These forces are far more powerful than the world's most powerful military that reports to the US commander-in-chief.

All of us - Asians, Arabs, Europeans and Africans - are subjects of the American empire, whether we like it or not. Which is why it's only fair to ask we be given a say in the election of the man (or woman?) who will rule us from 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.

And of all the American subjects, no other people deserve this right to elect the US president more than the people of the Middle East and the Muslim world. Here's why: At least two Muslim countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, are under American occupation. Between them, Iraq and Afghanistan have nearly 200,000 US troops on their soil. This is the biggest US military deployment since the World War II anywhere in the world. Besides Afghanistan and Iraq, several Arab and Central Asian Muslim countries are home to US military bases and facilities. More important, no other people have suffered the consequences of the US policies and actions as those living in these regions.

The US influence over the Muslim world goes beyond the obvious. From its strategic relations with allies like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to its unquestioning support to Israel, the US has played a crucial role in the affairs of the Islamic world for nearly a century now. If you noticed the grand, red carpet welcome unveiled for a lame duck and the most reviled president in US history recently across the Middle East despite the mess he has visited on the region, you'd know what I mean. So Abdul Bari Atwan of Al-Quds Al-Arabi wasn't far off the mark when he recently described the US as a 'Middle Eastern' country in a chat with CNN. Returning to the US vote, the Muslim world has never been this excited about any election. No prizes for guessing what inspires this unprecedented interest in a distant vote.

Barack Hussein Obama, who was once condescendingly dismissed by Hillary Clinton as an upstart has captured the imagination of the American people like no candidate has. Like most of us, Americans seem to have been repelled by Hillary's ludicrous sense of entitlement and her two-for-one offer ("Get me and you get Bill!"). Obama on the other hand has lifted the Bush-whacked country out of gloom making the Americans once again feel good about themselves and their country. His message of hope and optimism has united a deeply divided society. The Democratic presidential hopeful acts and speaks like a messiah promising the Americans a new dawn of hope and opportunity: "Yes, We Can." He repeatedly reminds the Americans: "We are the CHANGE that we SEEK." "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

How can you not be moved by this? How can you not vote for such a compelling message of hope? When this race began, this son of a black Kenyan Muslim father and white, all-American mother, was seen as one of the many, regulation also-rans who join every presidential race. In opinion polls too, he was way behind 'the experienced and tested' Hillary.

Less than four months ago, in October, he was trailing Hillary in his own community of African Americans. And look at him today. He already looks like President Obama with highest number of delegates and biggest vote share in his kitty.

The momentum that began with a small rally and hesitant speech in Springfield, Illinois last May has turned into a movement that has rejuvenated a despondent, directionless country. Obama has confounded critics and establishment pundits with his winning streak that began with Iowa Caucuses and has already won 23 out of 35 contests.

So short of some unforeseen accidents or behind-the-scenes manipulation by Super Delegates (top party leaders and officials), Obama looks all set to take his battle all the way to the White House. It's not just the eligible US voters who are plumping for candidate Obama. The whole world is rooting for the nomination and eventual victory of the young Illinois senator.

After a long, long time America has got in Obama a leader who could restore the world's trust in the land of the free and all that it once stood for.

And perhaps more than anyone, it's the people in the Muslim world who want the Obama revolution to succeed. Given a chance, the Arabs and Muslims would vote for candidate Obama. He is the best guy around for the job - not only for the president of the United States but also for the President of the Middle East! We have a stake in this vote, after all. After the unholy mess that you see from Palestine to Pakistan, the last thing we want is another trigger-happy cowboy in the White House! So we are all for the CHANGE that Obama promises. God knows America needs change. We all need this change. America needs to be rediscovered as the land that once inspired us all.

(Aijaz Zaka Syed is a senior editor and columnist of Khaleej Times.

Opinion: When the Big Brother speaks!

M.T. Hussain

Though unusual for any diplomat, the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka, His Excellency Pinaki Ranjan Chakravarty was very much straight forward and rude as was seen and heard in the ITV news at 7 P.M. on the 14th February in Dhaka in his exact fluent Bengali verbatim, 'AMORA NA KHEYE KI APNADER KHAOABO' that meant in English language, 'Shall we give you (rice) to eat while we shall go unfed'? On the very day of international exchange of love for the Valentine's Day, he appeared little unkind though but perfectly in tune with his country's policy in terms of policy of rice export to Bangladesh. Whatever had been done earlier in selling rice below US$ 500 per ton, no rice would henceforth be exported to Bangladesh from India below US$ 510 as would be comparably cheaply available from other countries nearby. Interestingly whatever he meant in the Bengali verbatim does not sound consistent as they would not go unfed should they sell rice to Bangladesh at the bargain price for each ton at US$ 510 and not les than that.

To meet up the year-to-year food shortage, Bangladesh needs to import food grains. Import of rice and other essential food items, if imported from India, makes it attractive for Bangladesh for lower transport cost, ease of transport and also for less time required for transportation from Indian side to Bangladesh.

Contrarily these are matters that give advantage to India for easy manipulation whenever they would wish to act in their advantage but against interests of Bangladesh. Such evil manipulations do not remain limited to daily essential items but to other items as well.

The over flooding of Bangladesh during monsoon through abruptly opening gates of the their barrages built in the upstream of the common 53 rivers, and again creating shortage of water in Bangladesh in the natural downstream through shutting down gates during dry or lean season of those barrages of the same rivers do not only end in high flows or low flows but also that such overflows and draught directly affect Bangladesh's agricultural production including essential food items, as well. During the last 34 years since 1974, there had been water sharing treaties of and on until 1997, and again one made for 30 years in 1997, but the irony of fate for Bangladesh remains that the due share of water was hardly available in downstream that adversely affected Bangladesh's agricultural productions including the main food grain rice. Not only this. Widespread arsenic affects in underground water in Bangladesh causing multiplier adverse effects has a lot for upstream water control during dry season by India. Why can't Bangladesh ask for compensation on these accounts in terms of rice, onion and wheat supply to Bangladesh at a lower price rate?

That India not only manipulates such issues against Bangladesh but also at times behaves rudely just as Pinaki did this time. One might recall that a few weeks back, he reminded the Bangladeshis to remain grateful forever to the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for her bounty in bringing about independence of Bangladesh in 1971.

That was one-way right. But it was a matter of amazement that he forgot to recall the minimum cost incurred compared to huge benefits worth of billions of dollars India gained internationally then.