The New Nation - Internet Edition

Bangladesh on higher grounds

David Miliband, MP

Descending in a helicopter, through rain and mist, onto a crowded but remote 'Char' island, the enormous and immediate dangers of climate change suddenly, ominously, seemed very, very real. The island, in the middle of the massive Jamuna River, is a hostage to erosion, threatened by rising sea levels, and no stranger to severe flooding. On these shifting sands live some two million of Bangladesh's poorest and most vulnerable people: people for whom climate change is not a theory but a fact of daily life.

The people I spoke to there appreciated the assistance being given by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). More than just a livelihood, they believed that the DFID project had given them dignity and hope. Through 'asset transfers' of, for example, livestock, they have developed more secure and lasting means of income generation.

And DFID's project has helped to protect these livelihoods from the threat of climate change. Thousands of vulnerable homes have been raised on solid plinths above flood levels. As they have been adapted, improved and lifted up, uncertainty has been replaced with hope for the future.

I was rather taken with this idea and, as I reflected on the main aims of my visit, concerning the forthcoming elections, I was struck by the powerful metaphor for Bangladesh as a whole.

Can Bangladesh build 'plinths' of another kind?

How can Bangladesh lift itself above the 'shifting sands' of a 'winner-takes-all' political culture, deep-rooted corruption and poor governance?

If Bangladesh is to stand a chance of fulfilling the remarkable potential of its people, it must succeed in creating higher, stronger, foundations for democracy that can endure beyond the elections.

Credible and fair elections will be vital to the success of democratic renaissance in Bangladesh - the first and fundamental pillar of new foundations. The popular desire for a democratic voice is strong. I visited a voter registration centre in Gazipur and was touched by the genuine enthusiasm and determination of the queues of men and women waiting to have their photos, signatures and fingerprints registered, and to collect national voter ID cards. And I was impressed by the efficiency with which the Election Commission and the Army is handling the project for an accurate and inclusive voter list: a project to which the UK has contributed $20 million. There was a palpable sense that the process was creating a lasting democratic base.

During my visit, I emphasised the UK's view of the importance of the electoral roadmap and a commitment from the Caretaker Government to holding elections at the earliest feasible opportunity before the end of 2008. I was struck by the sincerity of the Caretaker Government and Election Commission in striving to fulfil this ambition.

Of course, elections need political parties; they are the beating heart of a vibrant democratic culture. That's why we encourage a dialogue between the Caretaker Government and political parties. A mood of understanding can help achieve inclusive elections and foster consensus over the kind of reforms which will sustain democracy in Bangladesh.

Political parties need to meet the government half way - agreeing to conduct themselves in a responsible, mature fashion; helping to take money and muscle out of politics; introducing fresh blood and capacity that sustains and strengthens democracy and democratic leadership; putting national interests first. The impression I took away from a fascinating discussion with young Bangladeshi leaders is that the people want to see the parties change - not because they are told to, but because they accept they have to and want to.

After all, individual personalities will come and go, but political parties and systems need to endure - including between elections. Democracy is a long game.

A further foundation of democracy is also respect for the rule of law and the principle of basic individual rights. Naturally, it's not for me to assess the charges laid against individuals. But just as it is right that anyone charged with a crime be judged without deference or discrimination, so it is important that all accused, including Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, receive a fair trial consistent with Bangladesh's international human rights obligations.

Strong democracies also need sound institutions and processes. It's crucial for Bangladesh's own development, too. Members of the British-Bangladeshi diaspora that I met during my visit were very clear that Bangladesh has substantial investment potential. But businesses and trade cannot thrive on uncertainty and instability. A stable business climate needs firm foundations of accountability. And people need to be able to trust that public life is not manipulated by a few individuals to satisfy selfish greed for money and power. The Caretaker Government can point to clear achievements: an overhaul of the country's institutions including the Election Commission, Public Service Commission, the separation of the Judiciary that has eluded past governments for over 35 years and a drive to combat corruption. The government which is elected in 2008 will have a responsibility to nurture these gains.

Of course, it is not for the UK to determine the shape and composition of the next government. Our interest in Bangladesh is as a close friend; our encouragement for building democratic systems is made without conditions, without preference or favour for any particular party or personality.

Indeed, at the end of my visit I spoke about the great depth of our common interests, and how the UK's special relationship with Bangladesh is broader and stronger than ever, on a range of vital issues.

On climate change, we want to support Bangladesh's vocal leadership in pushing for a comprehensive international agreement on cutting carbon emissions; Bangladesh has a unique authority in the debate, able to demonstrate the urgency of the issue and the need for engagement from all sides, including poorer nations who might be tempted to dismiss climate change as a 'rich man's problem'. The UK, as I have seen for myself, is supporting adaptation measures in Bangladesh and £30 million of new funding was announced in December 2007.

On development, the UK is the largest bilateral donor in Bangladesh - contributing close to a quarter of a billion dollars annually - and we will continue to support Bangladesh's progress on the Millennium Development goals. In a globalised world, tackling the roots of poverty and inequality is in everyone's interests.

The strong people-to-people link is manifested by the Bangladeshi diaspora in the UK, numbering close to half a million people, and embodied by the personal and familial ties at the heart of our countries' relationship.

The diaspora members I met and spoke to during my visit were positive that there is no contradiction in being British and being of Bangladeshi origin, in a multicultural and multi-faith society.

They are rightly proud of their roots and proud to be British, recognising the contribution they have made in every sphere of UK society and willing to put something back into Bangladesh too. A confident, successful and outward-looking diaspora, at ease with multiple identities and connected to mainstream British life, can make an even greater contribution to Britain and to Bangladesh.

Britain and Bangladesh, sadly, have both known the horrors of indiscriminate terrorist violence against innocent people. The reality is that the roots of extremism have not gone away. We will continue to work together with Bangladesh to counter the threat of those who seek to profit from division, suspicion and violence and to address the root causes of extremism both here and around the world. We express our solidarity and recognise the values we share.

We have a huge commonality of interests. We are friends and fans of Bangladesh and its people. And so I am unapologetic about our honest and openly stated desire to see Bangladesh 'shore up' its democratic foundations. Democracy is everyone's responsibility. I share the enthusiasm of the Bangladeshi people to see an enduring democracy and I commit the UK to helping where it can. When it comes to building 'plinths', Bangladesh can expect Britain to lend a hand.

(Bangladesh on higher ground by the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the Rt Hon David Miliband MP)

We are all migrants

Dr. Aijaz Zaka Syed

I'VE been to Bombay, or Mumbai as it's known today, only twice. Once for an interview; and secondly to catch a transit flight to Dubai! Yet this great city is part of my cultural consciousness. Just as it's part of the consciousness of most Indians and of everyone familiar with the fantasyland called Bollywood.

Bombay belongs to the billion plus population of India. Cosmopolitan cities like Bombay, London, New York and our own Dubai of course do not belong to a particular state or people. They belong to all of us. They make you feel at home, whoever you are or wherever you come from.

This is why this fuss over the so-called outsiders by Raj Thackeray, a little known politician, is so absurd. Besides, this is so disingenuous. After all, his uncle Bal Thackeray, the original rabble-rouser of Bombay, has exploited this issue for over four decades now.

In fact, he has squeezed the last drops of political mileage out of it. First it was the South Indians and then the Muslims who became the target of Thackeray's poisonous politics. But desperate men turn to desperate measures. And the second generation Thackerays appear real desperate for recognition.

However, the strong adverse reaction the campaign against the so-called outsiders has generated leaves no one in doubt that the days of 'divide-and-rule' politics are over.

It might have worked in 1960s, '70s and even '80s but it doesn't work any more in the new post-modern, post-market reforms, 21st century India. The world's biggest democracy is not only home to the world's outsourcing, IT and call centres industry but it is also looking to lead the world as one of the two emerging big powers.

More important, this wired and connected India is part of the global village where there are no borders and no walls of chauvinist nationalism and ghetto mindsets. The Mumbai that shuts the doors on its own people is so out of place in this all-embracing India.

Today the Indians, and South Asians in general, are being recognized the world over as some of the most diligent, hard working and brightest professionals around. How ironic is that they are unwelcome in their own country?

But like I said, desperate men turn to desperate, and tested, measures. The politicians everywhere are an unimaginative lot. But they do know that the shortest and surest way of expanding their base and reaping the electoral windfall is the demonisation of the Other.

That is why from Mumbai to Manhattan and from Toronto to Tokyo, the vilification of the Other, in this case the migrants, is the favourite pastime of desperate politicians.

The migrant is the prime target and convenient whipping boy everywhere. High rents? Blame them on the migrants. No jobs? Blame them on the outsiders. Corruption? Crime? Inflation? You know who is to blame!

Ironically, most of those complaining about the outsiders taking away their jobs and being an unwelcome burden on their economies were themselves outsiders once.

Many of those raising a storm over the so-called Bhayyas from UP and Bihar (big North Indian states) themselves migrated to Mumbai from the inner towns and villages of Maharashtra and neighbouring states.

If you expand the analogy, those endlessly complaining about the Arab and Muslim invaders had themselves been invaders once.

Most North Indians are understood to be the descendants of the Aryans. They came from up north - from southern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus - to settle down in the north of India, Iran and what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Aryans subjugated the Dravidians, the original natives of the sub-continent, to rule this great land. India as such is a country of immigrants. Its culture and civilization, evolving over the past five thousand years, are rich today largely because of this constant wave after wave of migration the country has attracted from around the world.

Similar double standards prevail in the US. Those demanding a total closure of the country's borders and freeze on new arrivals today themselves were not long ago immigrants. From the Spanish conquistadors of Christopher Columbus to the Boston Brahmins of New England, everyone is an immigrant in this beautiful country.

Those who can really claim to be the original natives of this land can hardly be seen anywhere. No other race has perhaps been so systematically cleansed and obliterated the way the Red Indians or Native Americans have been.

Today they are seen only in some protected territory and sanctuary as if they were an endangered species of animals. But then they are an endangered species - in their own country! And down south in Latin America and Africa, it's the same story of endless exploitation by European colonizers. Ditto the poor Aborigines of Australia who are fighting for survival in their own land.

So much for the fabled tolerance and magnanimity of Western civilization!

But the West has no monopoly over this exploitation and the vilification of invented enemies.

Whoever we are and wherever we are, we are compelled by this need to find or invent some 'alien' or the other so we can dump all our insecurities and problems at his or her doorstep.

When the labour minister of a Gulf state recently warned of an 'Asian tsunami' of expatriate workers threatening the region, he was only responding to the same need.

The honourable minister needed to appear concerned over this 'threat' for the sake of his own gallery. This concern is understandable, if a bit unwarranted, when you are outnumbered by expat population to a ratio of 20:80. Otherwise the minister knows as well as we do that this is a mutually benefiting relationship.

If the expatriates are here, it's because they needed these jobs. But they are here also because their expertise and services are needed. This is a two-way street. No one is doing anyone any favours.

If the expats like us have benefited economically and enjoy a lifestyle that is the dream of many of our countrymen back home by living and working in the Gulf, this region has also benefited from our expertise and experience.

In fact, the hard work and sweat of the expatriates in general and the South Asians in particular have vitally contributed to the building of the UAE and other Gulf countries - literally.

How can anyone imagine these glitzy glass-and-steel skyscrapers and trillions of dollars of projects across the Gulf without the migrant construction workers from Asia? A great majority of these construction workers come from my country, especially from Andhra Pradesh, my state. Every time one sees them toil tirelessly and diligently in extreme weather conditions, one is filled with great pride.

They deserve our gratitude for doing what they have been doing. Actually, they deserve more than gratitude. They are humanity's soldiers, these men are. They travel thousands of miles from homes and put themselves at great risk so their loved ones back home could have a decent life. Few sacrifices in the world can match this.

In fact, there's something divine about the very act of migration itself. All of us migrate at some point of time or the other. From the land of our birth to the land of our choosing, from innocence to experience, from ignorance to knowledge and from life to death. We are all migrants.

All divine religions celebrate migration; Abraham's migration across Arabia, Moses' migration from Egypt to the Promised Land and of course the migration of the Last Prophet.

The migration is so central to Islam that the passage of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, from Makkah to Madinah forms the starting point of Islam's history. Hijrah, the Islamic calendar, literally means migration.

So next time you think of throwing someone out as an outsider, try not forgetting that we are all migrants - wherever we are, in Mumbai or Manhattan. This big, beautiful world belongs to all of us. God has given it to us to share it, not split it into bits and pieces.

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

India continues to influence events in Sri Lanka

Ameen Izzadeen

SINCE the government proposed and accepted the 13th amendment to Sri Lanka's constitution as a means to devolve power within a unitary state, India's interference in the affairs of its southern neighbour is becoming increasingly clear - and even coming under fire.

None would dispute the claim that India has a role to play in Sri Lanka's ethnic crisis. After all, it was India which in the early 1980s trained, armed and financed several Tamil militant groups to fight the Sri Lankan government. It was India which came to the rescue of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other militant groups when the Sri Lankan security forces were about to capture the Tamil Tiger stronghold of Vadamarachchi in 1987. It was India which imposed on Sri Lanka the 13th amendment to the constitution following a 1987 treaty. Even after Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian Prime Minister, who browbeat Sri Lanka into accepting the 13th amendment, was killed in a Tamil Tiger suicide attack, India continued to play its role of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

Though India banned the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, for strategic purposes, it maintains some secret links with the LTTE. A case in point was when the LTTE laid siege on Jaffna in 2000, India, responding to a plea from the then Sri Lankan government, asked the rebels not to capture Jaffna.

India's interference in favour of the LTTE in 1987 and in favour of the Sri Lankan government in 2000 shows it was playing for both sides. Perhaps, the only exception was when Rajiv Gandhi sent more than 100,000 Indian peace keeping forces to Sri Lanka subsequent to the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord. Even during this period, some reports said India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) did not allow the Indian forces to capture or kill LTTE leader Prabhakaran though they cornered him twice.

It is because of this double-game played by India, however much Sri Lankan politicians say that 'India is our best friend', both India and Sri Lanka know that the saying is clouded by opportunism or political exigencies.

Last week, the Marxists-turned-nationalists, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, sounded a warning that if India did not desist from playing its double game, the party would launch a nation-wide campaign to boycott Indian products. The warning came as many people here believe that it was to placate India that the government on January 23 agreed to devolve power to the north and east first through the 13th amendment and then through the final proposal of the All-Party Representative Committee.

JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe, a virulent opponent of devolution of power, told a public rally last week that his party believed that the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, under the pretext of devolving power, was actually giving way for "Indian expansionism."

He said the resurrection of the 13th amendment and a move to set up an interim council for the north were being done at the behest of India.

"We cannot allow that to happen. The JVP will campaign against it," he said.

He asked the gathering whether they knew who our enemies were. He said, "First it was Norway and thereafter Brussels, the European Union, Washington, Tokyo and other Western countries. They acted against us openly. There is another hidden enemy. That is New Delhi."

JVP's parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa said, "India does not like to see the LTTE in full control, but equally it does not want the government to be in full control."

The utterances of the JVP leaders evoke memories of the party's revolutionary days.

During the 1988-90 insurrection, the JVP warned that anyone who bought or sold Indian products would be punished. Many shopkeepers took the warning seriously and even refused to sell lentils imported from Turkey because they were known in Sri Lanka as Mysore (the famous city in Karnataka) dhal instead of Masur Dhal.

The JVP's anti-India stance is rooted in its pro-China ideology. Prior to and during the first JVP insurrection in 1970-71, the party's leadership held indoctrination courses, consisting of five classes, for its comrades. One of the classes was titled 'Indian expansionism'.

This is what the party's founder leader Rohana Wijeweera said in his submission to the Ceylon Criminal Justice Commission, which tried him after his arrest.

"The idea of Indian expansionism was first put forward by the Chinese Communist Party. The editorial board of this party's daily newspaper, 'Renmin Rebao' published two articles titled 'the Chinese Indian border struggle and the Nehru doctrine'. These gave a lengthy exposé of the class needs of the Indian ruling class and its basic philosophy, and argued that the Indian capitalists aimed at spreading their economic and political dependence over their smaller neighbours. This process was named Indian expansionism."

The late JVP leader gave a Marxist interpretation to a fear almost all Sri Lankan leaders, since independence in 1948, have harboured. But what can little Sri Lanka do against a mighty neighbour other than following its dictates? We lost our independence to India the day we gained our independence from Britain.

While the government kept mum about the JVP's latest anti-India tirade, the main opposition United National Party, the government-in-waiting, rushed to defend India's role in Sri Lanka. The UNP's move only underscores the ground reality in Sri Lankan politics.

(Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo)