The Forgotten Bangladeshi Genocide

People like are the cause all genocides
this issue is over almost thirty years ago
if you still want to resolve this issue this
resolve the gujrat issue where 3000 muslim where killed targated just for being muslims.

the rest you mention are still problem areas like kashmir, darfur and bla bla

Stranger,

there is no statute of limitations on genocide, my friend!

Dear Dr. Dasgupta ...

I am surprised that you think Americans don't know about this. I would imagine some of the younger ones do not, by virtue of their age, but I am not young (s) so I do remember.

In the 1970s when this was going on, it was on the American news EVERY DAY. Everybody knew what was going on and everyone also was hearing of your country, your peoples, and your problems every day.

When you speak of Pakistan as an "ally" of the United States, I think everyone here feels that they are playing both sides at once. Musharraf may give lip service to resistance to foreign nationals camped out in Wazaristan, but this is very suspect. The allegiance of the ISI to the Taleban is absolutely crystal clear; and if Musharraf resists at all (other than lip service and a few skirmishes) you couldn't tell it from the "deal" he made with the tribes in the northwest, who instituted extreme shari'a law immediately, taking from the women there what few rights they had.

Meanwhile, at Harvard University, where I study, Bangladesh comes up frequently in several contexts: (1) the well poisonings, due to climate change, that have made so many people sick; (2) the immense problems of your natural geographic features, which tend to focus storm energies, making them devastating also tsunami waves (as it the case with all V-shaped landforms facing the ocean) making them even more dangerous; (3) the rise of radical Islamism there, represented by the problems of Taslima Nasreen, women in general, and people of non-Muslim faiths; (4) the debate over how the terminology of Bangladesh as an "Islamic" state is to be construed; and (5) the looming population crisis, which the UN has been concerned with for at least two decades.

And, last, but certainly not least, Bangladesh is a present issue for people in my circle because of the intelligent, kind and beautiful way that Bangladeshis shape their presence in this country. It is a joy to behold, and everyone is always glad to see a Bangladeshi friend here.

Genocides fade in peoples' minds as soon as the slaughter stops. No one talks about the 20 million Russians that Stalin killed anymore or the 18-30 million Congolese that King Leopold II killed. You don't hear anymore about the Polish and Russian pogroms of the 19th century or the violence by the British government toward the Irish less than a century ago. You don't hear about the slaughters of Tutsis by the Hutus, and that was less than 20 years ago.

I think the reason those conflicts fade is that they are no longer urgent issues "this minute". The Armenians, in order to try to keep the issue of the Armenian genocide alive, have spend billions trying to influence the US government to pass a resolution that would, in effect, be a bullying attempt to make the government of Turkey turn over massive areas of land to Armenia. The Serbs accuse the Israelis of "stealing their genocide" because, in fact, the Germans may have killed as more Serbs per capita than they killed Jews, but the Jews got all the publicity.

Darfur, Kosovo, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are *constantly* in the news because they threaten to explode into wars on any given day. Literally, tomorrow morning there could be a war in any of these places. People die daily in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In Kosovo, Thaci, who led the KLA, is now in power, and there are radical nationalists in Serbia who *will* go to war even if Kostunica won't.

But Darfur is really different. The NIF (crafted by the Muslim Brotherhood and whose rise was funded 100% by the Saudis) are attempting genocide against the Nuba and Christians and Muslims who won't conform to the NIF's Salafist and Wahhabi screed. On any given day 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 people can die, rape is absolutely continuous by all parties (including UN troops), children are dying of disease, starvation, and murder and are sold into slavery, and the social fabric, including all the country's social institutions in the Darfur area, have unravelled completely. Perhaps a million people are subsisting purely on foreign and UN aid.

But the bottom line in reading your article -- the most palpable impression I get -- is that the pain of the Bangladeshi genocide hasn't left you and it needs a voice. It also needs to be heard. It is always hard when you are asked to bear the pain of incomprehensible violence and debased inhumanity -- and it is worse when you are asked to bear that while the world goes on, in its usual self-centered and often superficial way, as if these people, taken away so wrongly, had never lived or died at all. It's almost as if forgetting them is a second murder, and those who knew them and loved them can never forget how beautiful and special and loving they were cannot simply go on as if nothing ever happened. It seems almost a crime to let their memory be forgotten, for they are too valuable to forget.

You have not forgotten. All I can promise you is that I will remember them with you. And I think it would be a wonderful thing if you wrote a book about them so that their beauty is enshrined forever in the memory of humanity.

Heartfelt, sincere thanks for this enlightening contribution! I had not totally forgotten about this and had occassionally come across gruesome pictures of unspeakable cruelty in some photography books. Thanks again for bringing this up. Thankfully, your piece is free of the shrill, hysterics that usually accompany the discussion of such issues in blogistan.

Because the Bengalis are afraid to take on the Islamic fundamentalists.Taking on the 'Hindu' ones is much safer and rewarding.Recent expamples: Some suspicion of Rizwnur murdered by Hindu parents of the girl he married:whole calcutta was up with protests and candle light vigils.Muslim thugs rioted against Taslima:where are the brave activists of Bengal?

[Conjecture edited]

Bongbuster wrote:

"Coward bengalis know how to make a good living off protesting."

Generalization, generalization! I guess your nick says it all?

Un-commonsense wrote:
"Generalization, generalization! I guess your nick says it all"

I gave some facts based on which the generalization was drawn.Why whole Calcutta was shouting for Rizwanur,when his death was still being investigated.And where are the upholders of individual freedom and liberty when Taslim is being treated so shabily?Having a nick as 'commonsense' does not put commonsense into ur head..

so your evidence tells you that all bengalis have something in their "blood" that makes them do xyz...sure you could do with some commonsense

Bongbuster my friend, of course having a nick as commonsense does not put commonsense in my head. It puts some in your head I hope. That's the whole idea here...

#3 American, thank you for your thoughtful and very personal response. I have to just say one thing, while you seem to be pointing to the diaspora, the power of the diaspora is much over-rated. You point to the armenians but look at the number of countries who have agreed to take the turkish genocide as given. What happened to the turkish genocide debate in the US in terms of legislative history? Nothing much. As for Darfur, well, I have to really be a bit more jaundiced. To the american policy makers, it does matter who dies. Otherwise, what else can explain the differing reactions to Darfur versus Rwanda?

#4 commonsenseforall, thank you for your comments. One needs to strip emotion out of these debates otherwise the argument becomes sound, just sound.

#many, bongbuster@ thank you for your comments.

Henry Kissinger's sick doctrine....Well- Indian subcontinent is deeply divided according to the wish of the white lords..

Hi, BD ...

Agree with you, actually, about the Turks and Armenians insofar as ** until all the history is available for historians to review ** nobody should be making ANY decision about what the Turks did and didn't do. Please see my article at http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/01/13/44162.html about this.

With regard to Rwanda, U.S. NGOs were begging the UN to look at what was happening for 18 months before the genocide occurred. And although I think American failure to raise a cry is despicable, I find that America is criticized for it and the United Nations, whose reponsibility it really was, and other countries get a real pass on this one. I like to think my country will defend all peoples of the world in their rights, while feeling the danger in that is that we can get drawn into interventions (or invent wars on our own) that we have no business getting involved with. It's a tough question. Should the United States outlaw all trade with Iran until it stops honor killing and disenfranchising its women and criminalizing the female form? In my opinion, yes. Should American have put troops on the ground in Rwanda to stop the genocide? Of course not. We can't do that, any more than we can put them on the ground in Darfur, any more than we can put them on the ground in Pakistan to get Bin Laden. We can't do that, and we shouldn't have done that in Iraq, despite the fact that the HUGE Shi'a lobby in the United States pressured the U.S. government for 25 years to invade Iraq (the same community that now calls G.W. Bush "Imam Bush" because for them an imam is a protector).

With regard to Darfur, American NGOs lobbied the 2nd Clinton Administation to do something about Darfur. Infamously, Dr. Madeleine Albright made the PUBLIC comment that she didn't think she could "sell Darfur to the American people." That's ridiculous. The American people are aware of Darfur because humanitarian groups all over the United States made it a publicly-known tragedy as much as 10 years ago, and Americans have been pouring aid into Darfur as fast as they can, despite the fact that the NIF continues to make war on both the people and the humanitarians who are there trying to help them -- and despite the fact that the NIF or bandits steal most of the aid meant for women and children.

It didn't matter that Madeleine Albright THOUGHT she couldn't sell Darfur to the American people. The American people found out about it and are the #1 source of aid to the people there.

I won't argue without about your complaint about American policy makers and the the different weights they place on the value of lives. If that weren't true, then American foreign policy would be focused around women's rights worldwide, since women are the single most disenfranchised group -- always -- as they do 85% of the world's work and own 3% of its wealth; their medical care if perhaps 1/5 as good as that of men; they often do not get the same quality food as men; they have abridge rights of suffrage, marriage, divorce, inheritance, freedom of movement and are often subject to honor killing, rape, forced marriage, female genital mutilitation, beatings (often religiously sanctioned), and murder -- and often have a legal identity that carries as little as 1/4 of the testimony of a man's in court.

So, if the United States policy makers were NOT making decisions about whose lives count and whose don't, they would have never stood for the repugnancies clauses that went into the constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan with the blessing of Zalmay Khalilizad, now U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (so don't hold your breath about whether he'll make any stands at the U.N. about women's welfare, even if GW Bush did meet with Kuwaiti women today).

So ... I cannot argue with you when you say that policy makers may have a jaundiced view about it. But I think that jaundiced view applies to other countries as well, but I think as the most powerful nation on earth people expect us to take these stands and judge us fairly harshly if we don't. And because the silence of the powerful always, in some sense, gives consent to human rights violations, I would agree that calling on the USA for such stands is both right and proper. All of us are responsible for our impact, and that impact comes both from the things we do and the things we do NOT do and say when we should.

And finally, what happened is that the Armenian quest to get a U.S. Resolution against Turkey on the matter of the Armenian Genocide failed.

And that was probably the only chance they will ever get. The only reason they got that one is that Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, is from the district in the United States in which THE MAJORITY OF ARMENIANS IN THE USA LIVE. Her introducing the resolution was pure politics.

On principle, I believe that Pelosi's resolution was, as Laurent Pech would say, "historical imperialism" or "state-sponsored history." Writing for Jurist, Dr. Pech counsels: "[N]o individual country has the moral authority to sanction particular historical truths regarding events in which it is not, directly or indirectly, involved." It is, he says, state-sponsored history--and a very "slippery slope," dangerous to engage. [1]

So, the USA, in my opinion has no business whatsoever passing a resolution of this kind. That's for the United Nations, where it can be debated by all sides, not just pushed through on the financially backing of one of the interested groups.

I am off to Canada for a week, so this is the last post I will leave here. I don't mean to be rude in not answering, but I just won't be in Internet territory, but rather out in the woods in Quebec.

Thank you all for a thought-provoking and very civilized conversations. Dr. Dasgupta, I wish you the very best.

[1] Pech. Laurent. "The Armenian Genocide Resolution and the Perils of State-sponsored History." Jurist, a publication of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Dear GUPTA ,
This is the tradgey in india also to Hindu is nowm become an offence We kashmiri people are too suffring with the politics of soft corner to muslims .We kashmiri pandits were forced to exile from the state of Jammu & Kashmir snd now are living life of refugee in their own country .So Remember no body will help us we have to unite together and have to fought this battle itself.
Manish

BD: good piece and on an issue that needs to be brought up again and again until the world takes notice.

Btw - As part of research for a paper this week, I ended up flicking through some old 1980s films and found Rambo 3 that is "dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan" and the Afghan heroes are the "holy warriors who have performed their death rites and thus are already dead in service of their cause." Translation: Jihadis and fidayeen. (Lol) Meanwhile its the Russians who are carrying out a "genocide" there.

My point is genocides are talked about not because they have some greater moral purpose or reason but based on who controls power - economic and political - and how focussing on the genocide serves geostrategic purposes of leading world powers. Similarly, people who carry out genocides are punished or commended not on some grand principle but based on who won.

So, if Israel weren't the last western politico-military complex in the middle east, the unfortunate (and horrible) truth is that the "Jewish" genocide would also fade away just as quickly as the Armenian/Cambodian/or even the other 6 million who died at Nazi hands. If the USA had lost in 1945 in the eastern sector, then Hiroshima/Nagasaki would not be considered as "prevention of greater slaughter" and thus "collateral damage" but war crimes and attempted genocide.

On a personal level, this hypocrisy drives me nuts. On an intellectual level, it fills me with disgust. But we continue - making enough noise until there can be (one hopes) some semblance of justice.

Btw - the Islamist logic of Bangladesh being a Hindu-bania conspiracy took less than a month to take hold of that country. Even before the population had finished burying its dead, they were hurling insults at the retreating Indian army soldiers.

How do I know this? Because my dad's company took upwards of 80% casualties trying to block the Pak army in the Chittagong sector from its mission massacre (yes, the Pak army didn't stop the killings just because they were at war). I find that his experience of 1971 made him highly suspicious of Islam. It is something he struggles to overcome even now. For me, that is another untold tragedy of this particular genocide.

Anamika,

Right on! Actors and ideologies (religious or non-religious) vary, but the generic issues are almost the same. Genocides after genocides, with one side gloating in their self-justifications. Some genocides are forgotten as there is nobody to fund and advertize them, ie. there is no more political capital to be made out of them. Others become large-scale industries. It all depends on the specific conjuncture of political and global calculations and the powers that are behind them. Disgusting is an understatement, but as the cliche goes, what to do? Except write about it?

manish #14

Good point. When the problem of refugees from kashmir was raised with Dr bd on an another thread, he simply brushed it aside poinitng out a few other banana republics where such things have happened. One could say same thing about genocide. But I am not suggesting that. I do think that the problem of displaced Kashmiri pundits has received very little attention and publicity.

to keep the holocausts aflame and alive (armenian, chechen, tartar, gypsies, jews, partition, kashmir, bangladesh, ethiopia, darfur, iraq, cambodia...) there is only one way

learn from the jews!

Temporal,

And to be more specific here, read the Jewish scholar Norman Finklestein's book _The Holocaust Industry_

I have a strange affinity to all things pertaining to 1971 (year of my birth). Hence my interest in Bangladesh too. Strangely, when I read the short stories of Tagore, I could only imagine a "bangla" landscape, as in Bangladesh. Somehow, West Bengal was represented in my mind by Kolkota, the adda of the East India company and 36 Chowrangee lane. Each year, I would pray that nobody died in the floods after the monsoons and each year I would helplessly read the newspaper headlines about the floods in Bangladesh.

Hopefully, indegenous ideas such as the Grameen Bank and other co-ops will change the economic face of Bangladesh ushering in political stability followed by a "voice that is heard". It is not easy to be a young country.