POVERTY STILL HAUNTS

Comment on DU teacher's statements

A. B. Mohammed Zakaria

On 29th January 2008, I was stunned and dismayed to go through the media reports in which the DU teachers, soon after their release, made political statements and asked the Govt to immediately withdraw the state of emergency and declare specific date of general elections. They directed the CG to hold immediate dialogue with the political parties. They also demanded release of the two former prime ministers including the detained student leaders.
   It seems they have not learnt any lesson from their past mistakes and quickly have forgotten what ordeal they went through. The whole nation sympathised with them for their arrest and subsequent sufferings simply on the consideration that they are the honourable and learned teachers of the highest educational centres and held in high esteem by all and sundry.
   I suppose as respectable teachers their only job is to enlighten our children with knowledge and education besides guiding them in building their characters and morality by setting examples. These students one day will lead the nation.
   But if teachers themselves indulge in politics then what would happen to this nation? Have they ever tried to read the pulse of the common people? Moreover, is it the right time to hold the elections? Whom to elect at this stage - those people of doubtful antecedents? No one at this stage want to go back to those dreadful days prior to 1/11.
   The CG has a lot to do in this respect and they are preparing for the same step by step. We must cooperate and assist them in presenting the nation with a meaningful Government. The CG has a duty to ensure that the nation does not go back to those days of muscle power and lawlessness. Each and every institution has been destroyed by these so-called politicians. The CG has to hand over the power to safe hands and prior to the election the following has to be ensured besides many other actions:-
   a) Completion of voter list and arrangement of transparent ballot boxes. b) Norms have to be made mandatory with punishment for the violators for the political parties to abide by. c) Either Hartal has to be banned by law or no one will be coerced / intimidated by the political goons/vandals to forcibly observe Hartal. d) Judiciary has to be 100 per cent independent, rule of law should be established for each and every citizen of the country and no one including the president of the country must be above the law. e) Introduction of strict and genuine qualification bar for all elected/selected public representatives including the members of union parishads. We do not want to be ruled by thugs. f) For the sake of social justice the police have to be made accountable to the people of the country and exercise their powers within the guidelines. h) Future elected Govt must be answerable to the nation and their power should be defined. There must be a check and transparency in their exercise of powers. i) Politics should be banned in all educational establishments like that of the neighbouring country. j) Future CG must be of a longer duration at least six months with wider powers and minimum of 21 advisers including the chief adviser. They will have full powers to account for the deeds/misdeeds of the immediate past Govt and take action against the defaulters. This very fear of accountability will keep the administration corruption-free and ensure justice to the common people.
   How could they demand release of the two former PMs when they are already under trial and custody? Don't they want rule of law to be established in our country? Not only the two ex-PMs, ex-president Ershad should also be made to face the court of justice for his despicable misdeeds and corruptions.
   Every one knows all three leaders have plundered the wealth of the country and patronised lawlessness and corruptions. Let them answer for their actions and prove their innocence. No one wants their release without the trial except the motivated ones who want to take us back to those horrifying days of logi/baitha. Common people can feel the difference after 1/11. Please allow the CG to fulfil their mission.
   

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"Kothao amar hariye jawar ney mana"

Saad Quasem

The United States of America was created in 1776 after a bloody war that waged independence, separation from a kingdom and the creation of a separate country that would value all men as free naturally complimented with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The unity of the thirteen states and its people, created this nation. However, the concept of slavery annulled this façade. However, in 1890, ex-slave Frederick Douglas in his essay "What to a slave is the 4th of July" argues that when, on Independence Day the nation parades the fundamental constitutional values, double-standards are portrayed. Slaves who are property of their owners lack the freedom of movement, social justice and are constant subjects of racial prejudice. Douglas describes the situation of the deprived African Americans in a few phrases: "it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters" Douglas asks if this is acceptable, when his life can be spent in harmony. To this group of people who are grossly violated in all means possible, Fourth of July is nothing but a sham of reminders that prove the de-facto, non-existence of equality and the basic rights of liberty. "There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour."
   I read and write and ponder over and over this material. I feel for these downtrodden people, they have my empathy, but something else is bothering me more. I am a Bangladeshi and our country was born with values and norms as well. Our fundamentals are beyond the Constitution. We are to hold thousands of years of history, culture and heritage. We are to honour the 300,000 lives that have been lost to create a separate nation for the Bangalees, without the barrier of religion. In consideration of the Month of February, each drop of blood lost on the heinous day of 21st February, 1952 is not to go in vain.
   Douglas, in his essay points out the double-standard present in America in a post-Civil War era. That same hypocrisy still exists today, but in Bangladesh. Ekushey February is the only day dedicated solely to those who fought to enact their mother tongue. Yet, we are driving far and far away from these blocks.
   How popular is Rabindrasangeet or Nazrulgiti? Is it cool to read a book by Bibhutibhushon Bondopaddhay, Bankim or Su Kumar Ray, as opposed to Stephen King, Rushdie or Jhumpa Lahiri?
   As another Ekushey goes by, another generation rises. One day of wearing black and white does not certainly show respect to the day. If the Bangla tradition is to live, it is to be imparted onto the upcoming generation, the youth.
   We do not want to have a shameful Ekushey, like Douglas sees the 4th of July. When we shy away from the values presented by Amar Ekushey, we will become as Douglas says "a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking."

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The RumpusSWAY

Rayyan Kamal

The Rumpus is Yale's only tabloid magazine. Rivalling Stardust and Filmfare in terms of the juiciness of its gossip, the Rumpus is probably the most widely read student publication on campus, beating out the Yale Daily News, I'm sure. Add to this assertion the fact that more Yalies responded to the survey asking which singer should be brought to campus for our annual Spring Fling (Rihanna won) than to the survey soliciting their voting preferences for the upcoming presidential elections (Obama, clearly), and you've got a pretty accurate reflection of an average college student's priorities: smut before substance, music before politics.
   Page 3 of the Rumpus, titled "Rumours, Truths We Couldn't Prove, and Other Allegations," is full of stories, most of which are too obscene to be printed here or anywhere. Tales of romantic nights gone awry, of lustful nights gone correctly, of pranks fulfilled and pranks botched - all are exposed. Nothing is too scandalous or lascivious to be written about and, whenever possible, the Rumpus will identify perpetrators and victims by name and class year. Though I cannot personally vouch for the standards employed by the magazine's fact-checkers, I can say that students tend to take the Rumpus's word to be true. However, the magazine that is every Yale student's guiltiest pleasure is more than just a trashy tabloid, though not much more.
   Today I was delighted to find that the publication's most anticipated issue of the year had arrived: Yale's 50 Most Beautiful People. Though they are ostensibly selected on the basis of physical beauty alone, my friends and I like to complain that these aesthetically fortunate people get chosen for things like having a friend on the staff of the Rumpus (unfair) or for possessing inner beauty (deplorable!). Of course, the people who comment on the questionable choices of the Rumpus are invariably those who did not make the cut. I've never heard someone on the list of 50 complain about the dearth of attractive people on the magazine.
   As I browsed through the pages and appraised the photos as well as the short blurbs written about each person, I decided that I agreed with the majority of the Rumpus's choices. There were the few sore thumbs who I'm sure profited from partiality, but that is to be expected anywhere. I was particularly harsh on the South Asians who had been selected, cursing the Rumpus for snubbing the best-looking South Asian on campus: me, of course. But jokes aside, I must say I appreciated the magazine's commitment to diversity. Not only were the gamut of races represented, so were the "personality types" found at Yale. I'm certain it would have been easy to fill the magazine with fifty athletes, but instead there were musicians, mathematicians, scientists, extroverts, introverts, the suave, the awkward, etc. It's ironic that a tabloid magazine would produce one of the best representations of the melting pot of talent and beauty at Yale. I better not tell the editors that - they might get offended.
   Rayyan Kamal is a sophomore at Yale University.

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Dr. Gazi Mahabubul Alam

I often find myself criticising governments worldwide for failing to create opportunities for poor people, especially in the education sector. We certainly should be critical, but must also realise that, as a responsible society, we cannot and should not leave everything to the government and NGOs. The education sector is not exclusively the obligation of the government. If the governments and NGOs cannot cope with the responsibility, then why shouldn't the private sector do something to balance the lack of good education?
   In many developing countries, public education leaves a lot to be desired. Teachers are not as motivated to show up regularly, perhaps because they do not feel accountable to the students but to distant government officials instead. Public school teachers and their unions are sometimes politically divisive; the problems in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Mexico and some other countries come to mind. On the other hand, the infrastructure of classrooms could be seriously improved; often the infrastructure is below the average standards of a respectful educative environment.
   Studies by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum have shown that entrepreneurs are realising that there is a demand for private education services in the BOP (below poverty level) countries. People in the BOP are also starting to "invest" in private education for their children. Derek Newberry and Seema Patel of NextBillion have blogged about this very issue before - on how there are new private schools in poor areas that charge $1 or $2 a month and provide better education.
   Research done by Prof. James Tooley (winner of the FT Gold Prize Essay shows that there are many people in the BOP who are willing to invest their money in private education. In the research of his award-winning essay, he found that "...a large majority of schoolchildren in selected poor urban and semi-urban areas of India and Sub-Saharan Africa using private schools, while in rural India, half of the schoolchildren are privately enrolled. Even in impoverished rural China large numbers of private schools exist off the official radar. The research showed that private schools for the poor are superior to government schoolteachers and are more committed; the provision of important inputs are better, and education outcomes better even after controlling for background variables. All this is accomplished for a fraction of the per-pupil teacher cost of government schools."
   In the paper, "De facto' Privatisation of Education and the Poor: Implications of a Study from Sub-Saharan Africa and India," James Tooley and Pauline Dixon make a case study in India on the extraordinary growth of private education. People living in the BOP are aware of the value of education as a long-term investment. Entrepreneurs that would want to invest in education should take this as an opportunity and not just leave the weight of education on the government or NGOs.
   By private school standards, these schools are not necessarily top-tier schools, but in many cases give a better education than the public schools. I find these private education initiatives to be innovative ways of solving the problems of mediocre public education. These new initiatives give parents in developing countries an option to be able to assure better educational opportunities for their children. In this regards, government education should be counteracted on quality where procurer are less-privileged if the public school wants to be the real and challenging counterpart of private school.

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