Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birthday celebrations at the Bangladesh Mission, New York; March 17, 2014
thanks to all family and friends who responded so graciously to word that the Bangladesh mission to the united nations invited me to accept an award.
I now have a beautiful plaque that proclaims I am an “eminent journalist” as a result of my reporting during the country’s liberation war in 1971. and the associated press thought I was just doing my job.
as a result of the ceremony on monday, I was able, unlike the irish and irish-for-the-day in new York, to mark the occasion, not with corned beef and cabbage but with curry, nan, dal and tandori chicken, as well as a huge chocolate cake celebrating the 94th anniversary of the birth of sheik mujibur rahman, who led Bangladesh to independence.
thanks also to a former student from china, hsiao jingjin, now at Columbia university, I have a batch of photos to transmit, including one showing bangladesh’s UN ambassador, abdul momen, and I cutting that cake. she also recorded the brief talk I delivered.
I hope the photo volume doesn’t screw up your E-mail file.
momen and I go back more than 30 years when we both were in boston, me for associated press, he teaching at various colleges in the region. we haven’t met since I left boston in 1989, although we’ve stayed in touch.
lawrence lipschultz, an eminent journalist long before I got my plaque, also was honored. he has written books and articles insightful about bangladesh and other subjects. we had never met. one of the things that made the evening special for me was the opportunity to chat about our Bangladesh experience.
I spoke to the Bengali audience at the mission’s second avenue office about moments I’d had with sheik mujib, who was assassinated in august 1975, a coup I covered until the government expelled all foreign correspondents.
lipschultz also spoke about that occasion detailing the american involvement he discovered after much investigation.
the subject was the central part of a Q&A after our talks. it was at this point that lawrence I disagreed.
I tend to discount a shady American involvement in that coup, partly because I have heard so often in bangladesh drawing rooms bengalis complaining abut American, india, Chinese and Russian conspiracies victimizing hapless Bangladesh. I’ve believed such talk was denial of bangladesh responsibility for its own fate. disasterous wounds in bangladesh history (and there have been many) have been mostly self-inflicted.
lawrence did point out as further evidence examples of CIA behind-the-scenes presence in such places as iran, guatemala and chile. I’ve seen much the same myself in the congo and, of course, along the pakistan-afghan border.
i ended my remarks by concluding that mujib’s legacy was an independent Bangladesh, with its faults and its promise. when you look at the mess pakistan has made of itself, bangladesh has not done badly since splitting from that country 43 years ago.
on the other hand, the country is in the midst of a political crisis arising out of a foolish boycott by an opposition party that has given almost untrammeled power to mujib’s daughter, the prime minister, sheik hasina.
i remarked that i’d prefer to have opposition party leaders in the parliament house instead of being in jail. only that morning, i had received a message from a long-time bangladesh friend, moudud ahmed, an opposition leader recently released from jail. i had read his message to momen and a few other friends. moudud wrote:
“Let people know that there is no democracy in Bangladesh. I had to be in jail for 3 months recently only for making political statements. So I have stopped talking. I did not go to jail in 1955 at the age of 16 in the language movement nor did I lead the “Independent East Pakistan Movement” in England in mid-sixties nor did I organize the defence of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the Agartala Conspiracy Case nor did I take part in the war of liberation to see a Bangladesh where I cannot criticize the government freely for fear of being arrested and have an unelected government run without any accountability to people.”
it is common in bangladesh circles to end patriotic messages with the cry, “joy bangla,” the bangladesh version of “viva Bangladesh.”
sheik hasina seems to be in the process of grooming as her successor, her son, who happens to be named sajeeb wazed joy. and the opposition leader, begum khakeda zia is also grooming her son, tareq rahman.
i ended with a bad joke, the hope that some day, bengalis will not be crying, “joy tareq.”
luv all,
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Arnold Zeitlin
Visiting Professor
C/O International Office
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Guangzhou, China 510 420
Telephone: 86 182 1822 4606
[email protected]
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Editorial Research & Reporting Associates (ERRA)
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