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In The Prison of His days
By Iftekhar Sayeed (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)
In Bangladesh, the piece of paper that was supposed to have 'liberated' us from tyranny, has had the same effect as the emancipation of the blacks or that of granting them the vote – that is, it has had no effect. We are still an outpost of the American Empire; the Europeans are just as bad. There is an NGO in Bangladesh which gets more western aid than the ministry of health. Foreign aid has corrupted the nation – and rendered the nation malleable to foreign influence (the most corrupt section, of course, is the intelligentsia.) The effect of aid in the European Union is well-documented: it has led to corruption and the resignation of the entire commission in 1999, and things are still the same. What research has been undertaken here shows that only 25% of aid money reaches the poor. The rest is spent on perks and salaries and consultants' fees. Aid corrupts.
Aid also dominates. It has reinforced our feelings of inferiority resulting from colonial rule. As one observer said of the emancipated slaves: "chains of a stronger kind still manacled their limbs, from which no legislative act could free them; a mental and moral subordination and inferiority, to which tyrant custom has here subjected all the sons and daughters of Africa" (for a similar effect on the Indian mind, see click here
NGOs make sure that western foreign policy is carried out here and that no negative publicity – such as foreign policy failures – are reported in the press, local and international. For instance, the fact that thousands of women in Bangladesh have been raped by the student wings and thugs of the "democratically elected" parties never makes the headlines. For that would discredit western foreign policy since the end of the cold war. Again, the western press translates "hartal" as "general strike": in fact, hartal is a violent affair, undertaken by the student politicians to keep people off the streets by burning cars, trucks, auto-rickshaws – and people! But we won't see any of this on CNN; neither will Amnesty International say a word about the use of under-age students in politics, even though its current general-secretary, Irene Z. Khan, is Bangladeshi, and regularly visits the country.
An English friend of mine who had 'gone native' had the following story to tell. He had taken a local friend of his to a club for expatriates. As he was parking his motorcycle, one of the members came out, drink in hand, insisting loudly, "There's no one here you would know!" Translation: "Keep the nigger out of the club".
Consider this passage from Bhowani Junction. The characters are Eurasians.
"I said, 'Where's your topi? You will get all sunburned."
"I never wear one," she told me.
" 'But the sun,' I cried. 'It is the hottest time of the day! You will get all brown!'
"She tossed her head. The heavy dark curls of hair swung round on her shoulders. She looked at me in a funny way and said, 'It isn't sunburn that makes us brown, is it?'
"I was bending over the handlebars, turning the twist-grip throttle. It was not a nice thing to say, and I felt frightened that she had said it. If we don't wear topis people would think we were Wogs – not me, I have pale blue eyes, almost green, a sort of dull ginger – but most of us. She knew that, so there was nothing to say."
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