when the dust clears

With economic, political, social, and you-name-it turmoil swirling around the globe, it’s inspiring to see concrete solutions to massive global problems.

The fixes on display at the United Nations’ exhibition Design with the Other 90%: CITIES are modest, but their implications are huge: a bicycle-powered cell phone charger; barge-like floating schools for flood-plagued Bangladesh; sturdy, locally sourced materials that slum dwellers use to build shelters, etc. These are relatively inexpensive things that palpably change the lives of the 90 percent of the world’s population for whom commodities aren’t designed.

This is the second in an ongoing series of exhibitions. The first one was called Design for the Other 90%. The with in this one is real: The products on display are the result of collaborations between local folks in poor urban communities and international designers. These are people who are taking care of business.

Twenty-plus years ago, my friend Apichart dragged me away from the comforts of Shanti Lodge, his Bangkok guesthouse, for a cruise deep into the klongs (canals) and oil-slick tributaries of the Chao Phraya River. Our longtail boat didn’t tear ass like James Bond’s in The Man With the Golden Gun; it chugged slowly enough for me to see the ramshackle stilt houses and trash bobbing up and down at the shoreline. Which was Apichart’s point: Bangkok is more—and less—than backpacker haven Khao San Road, salacious Patpong, and cheap paad Thai. It is also pollution and poverty. But also progress: Design highlights the Bang Bua Canal Community Upgrade, a project initiated by residents that has rehabbed homes and untrashed the water along an eight-mile stretch of the canal, which is home to 12 informal communities with 3,400 residents.

Bike-powered cell phone charger

Model of Medellín's Metrocable and Northeast Integral Urban Project

Useful ideas and potential inspiration, perhaps, for Occupiers around the country speaking and demonstrating on behalf of the 99% here in the US.

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES is at the United Nations Visitors Center through January 9, 2012. Head over if you’re hankering for a shot of hope.

Visitor photographs Fredrik Reuterswärd's sculpture Non-Violence

Photographer/journalist/activist/educator (and friend) Shahidul Alam was in NYC last night—from Dhaka by way of Bamako, Addis Ababa, and Dubai—to launch the US publication of “My Journey as A Witness,” a collection of his photos and writing. Essays by Sebastião Salgado, Raghu Rai, and Rosa Maria Falvo, who is also the editor.

Shahidul writes: “I don’t want to be your icon of poverty or a sponge for your guilt. My identity is for me to build, in my own image. You’re welcome to walk beside me, but don’t stand in front to give me a helping hand. You’re blocking the sun.”

Pix from the event:

I spent part of January and most of February in Dhaka developing a powerful addiction to the ubiquitous cha, strong tea with a dollop of condensed milk. The rest of the time I was plodding from appointment to appointment with Bangladeshi analysts and a handful of Americans to discuss U.S.-Bangladesh relations, perpetually astounded (and usually enraged) by the glacial and messy flow of vehicles and people.

21 January 2010-Dhaka, Bangladesh-Public bus takes on passengers at night.

I had previously visited Bangladesh in 2002 and 2008, and had made friends in Dhaka’s community of photographers and journalists. One of them suggested I look into the increasingly heavy foot traffic of U.S. officials, principally military folk, from Washington to Dhaka. A consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, particularly our habit of military intervention in far-flung places, she suspected that Washington was grooming the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed to be a full-fledged, albeit junior, partner in the global war on terror – or whatever President Barack Obama calls his extension of Bush-Cheney hard-power initiatives.

After trolling the Internet and ringing up U.S.-based South Asia analysts and officers at the State Department and U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), I had the distinct impression that Bangladesh was indeed getting more attention from the U.S. military than the usual port calls and disaster relief consultations.

Bangladesh and the U.S. have had reasonably strong ties for years, but the relationship had been a low priority for us – until September 11th, after which Washington asked for, and Dhaka granted, use of its airspace, ports, and refueling facilities for military operations in Afghanistan. In the years following 9/11, the Bush administration voiced concern that Bangladesh might become a base for wandering militants, even al Qaeda, because of its proximity to Pakistan as well as its porous borders with India, abysmal governance, and corrupt – and scandalously underfunded – law enforcement agencies. The government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia denied that the threat was as serious as Washington made it out to be, an understandable response from a leader who courted – and later allied with – extremist parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami (Bangladesh). That said, many in both capitals worried that the robust trade in illegal weapons around the southeastern port of Cox’s Bazar, still a problem, might fuel homegrown militancy.

The Bush administration expanded ties with two previous regimes – the first one elected, the other installed by the military – and the Obama administration has recently given strong backing to the current elected and secular government of Sheikh Hasina. Admiral Timothy J. Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command dropped by in November 2007 to discuss disaster relief assistance after Cyclone Sidr devastated the country’s southern coast. In October 2008, the Oregon National Guard formed a partnership with the Bangladeshi military to boost airport and maritime port security as part of a global U.S. State Department–National Guard Bureau initiative. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense James Clad visited the following month “to discuss a range of bilateral and multilateral security issues as well as future opportunities for cooperation between U.S. and Bangladesh armed forces,” according to an embassy press release. Several other U.S. officials passed through that year, but the visits really started picking up in 2009. In February, a three-star general from U.S. Special Operations Command and a one-star from PACOM visited Dhaka. Nine months later, the commanding general of U.S. Army–Pacific, the commander of the Seventh Fleet, PACOM’s director of strategic planning, and the commanding general of U.S. Special Operations Command–Pacific stopped by, presumably to do more than just say hi.

Just this past March, the Navy’s Fleet Survey Team charted the Karnaphuli River in Chittagong, Bangladesh’s major port. China is nudging its way in Chittagong as well – in 2008 it helped Dhaka set up a missile launch pad near the port city.

More tip-of-the-spear-type activities have been added to the existing U.S.-Bangladesh training agenda of peacekeeping, civic actions, and humanitarian relief. The first “Tiger Shark,” part of the classified Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program, was conducted last November. U.S. Navy special operators trained with sailors from the Bangladeshi Navy Special Warfare and Diving Salvage, which according to U.S. Ambassador James F. Moriarty, “is well on its way to becoming Bangladesh’s premier maritime counterterrorism unit.” Tiger Shark 2 kicked off in April 2010. Two more Tiger Sharks are scheduled for later in the year.

[Also of note: The U.S. Coast Guard transferred 16 Defender-class patrol boats to the Bangladesh Navy in April 2010, "the largest delivery of vessels ever completed by the Coast Guard to any nation." Five more such boats will be donated in the future.]

And if you follow the money, a pattern emerges. In fiscal year 2009, the U.S. provided a meager $590,000 to Bangladesh in military financing. State asked for $2.5 million for 2010. In 2009, the U.S. gave Dhaka $3 million in Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, and Demining funding. The 2010 estimate is $4.2 million. Total U.S. funding provided to Bangladesh in 2009, which includes the above plus money for everything else – child survival, good governance, economic support, etc. – was just shy of $117 million. The 2010 estimate is $168.5 million. These amounts are small, but they add up in a country with a per capita income of $621.

There was a near-consensus across the political spectrum among Bangladeshi analysts I spoke with about the country’s pressing, and in many cases dire, strategic concerns: poor and corrupt governance and a sclerotic political system; deep, widespread poverty; poor market access for its main export, garments; rising sea levels caused by global warming; access to water from rivers that flow through India, and which Delhi has plans to dam; and India, India, India, the regional colossus. Most believe that the U.S. can and should play a role in helping Bangladesh address these problems – provided they do so in democratic and transparent ways that take into account local needs and sensibilities.

There was, however, tremendous disagreement over the threat of Islamic militancy and terrorism. “Bangladesh is unfortunately the battleground in a proxy war between India and Pakistan,” says Ali Riaz, a South Asia analyst at Illinois State University. In August 2005, 500 simultaneous small bombs were detonated in 63 of the country’s 64 districts. Three people – and some estimates say as many as 30 – were killed and many more injured. Members of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, an Islamist extremist organization banned by the government in 2006, were convicted of the bombing and hanged.

Prior to 2005, there had been no suicide bombings in Bangladesh. In November and December of that year, there were multiple suicide bombings in Gazipur, Chittagong, and Netrokona, executed by Islamist militants. More than four years later, violent extremist groups – both far right and far left – are still active.

“Islamic militancy is not the number one problem. Maybe fifth or sixth,” a journalist who covers the terrorism beat for a major Bangladeshi newspaper told me. “It is a problem created by the United States,” I was told by prominent left intellectual and NGO head Farhad Mazhar. He recalls the Bush administration’s friendship with the coalition government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which fought with the West Pakistanis in the genocidal 1971 war of independence that grew out of the electoral victory of a popular politician in what was then East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League, the current ruling party, won all but two seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly, tilting the national balance of power away from the formerly dominant West. Military dictator General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan, whose power base was West Pakistan, predominantly Punjabi, prevented the assembly from meeting and arrested Sheikh Mujib, as he was – and is – known. East Pakistanis, largely Bengali, hit the streets in protest. So Yahya sent in the Pakistani Army to slaughter them. They killed between one and three million people. Millions of refugees from East Pakistan streamed across the border into India. (Remember the Concert for Bangladesh?)

Publicly, Washington condemned Yahya’s moves. Secretly, the Nixon administration backed the general and provided fighter jets via Jordan, 18,000 rounds of ammunition, and other lethal hardware. India also provided safe haven for the East Pakistani resistance movement and backed it with troops and materiel, beginning a paternalistic relationship in which Bangladesh now chafes.

Most of the analysts I spoke to see Pakistan’s influence over Bangladesh as nominal, though all are concerned about Pakistan’s instability.

Mazhar and others believe the U.S. has subcontracted out its entire South Asia policy to India. “Essentially, what Bangladeshis are afraid of is that India is using the USA to turn Bangladesh into its backfield” in its fight against leftist militants on India’s northeastern border.

For their part, U.S. officials say American policy is balanced between military and counterterrorism initiatives and governance, aid, and trade programs. The U.S. is “overwhelmingly focused on a positive agenda,” a senior Western diplomat told me, “not looking for a terrorist behind every tree,” citing robust trade, cooperation on disaster response, aquaculture, and capacity building, among others.

Many Bangladeshi analysts, and not just lefties, disagree. The American strategic posture, says retired Brig. Gen. Shahedul Anam Khan of the Bangladeshi Army, “is predicated mainly on fighting terrorism, and terrorism has become the be-all of American foreign policy. So whatever issue one talks about, the issue of terrorism creeps in automatically.” That said, Anam, now defense and strategic affairs editor for the country’s largest English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, advocates Bangladeshi-U.S. cooperation in counterterrorism efforts. Most on the left, however, feel that Washington’s preoccupation with counterterrorism will militarize the bilateral agenda and strengthen the Bangladeshi military at the expense of civil institutions.

Whether left or right, all of the Bangladeshi analysts I spoke with say there is a role for the U.S. to play in some areas. Those closer to the right see cooperation, along with a healthy and equitable relationship with India, as Bangladesh’s best hope for prosperity and security.

“I’ve been a strong advocate for the need for Bangladesh to work closely with India, to work closely with the United States, with a whole range of partners, in terms of capacity building, in terms of training, in terms of generally gearing ourselves up to dealing with this [terrorism] threat,” says Farooq Sobhan, head of the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute and a ex-diplomat with a muscular résumé – former Foreign Secretary, High Commissioner of Bangladesh to India, and Ambassador to China.

Those on left, however, are dubious about the U.S.’s ability to cooperate rather than dominate as they believe it has by supporting a series of corrupt governments and a fat and happy elite. “By nature, Bangladeshi people are soft, very amenable, reasonable too,” Nurul Kabir, editor of New Age, a left-of-center English-language newspaper, told me. “But when it comes to national dignity, some people of the upper class will compromise. The rest of the people, not.”

Copyright © 2010 by Brian Palmer

Bangladesh’s high court ordered the government to remove police officers blocking the public’s access to the CROSSFIRE exhibition at Drik Gallery in Dhaka.

Here is Drik’s Managing Director (and creator of the images) Shahidul Alam’s statement:

Government lawyers confirmed to the Vacation Bench of the High Court today that the police deployed in front of the DRIK Gallery had been withdrawn and that there would be no obstruction to the exhibition from now on.

This is a victory on many fronts. The right of Bangladeshi people to be informed, the rights of artists and media professionals to speak out, and the citizens’ right to protest against injustice, are all important factors, but the fact that the judiciary can stand up to the government gives renewed hope to a people fighting to establish the rule of law. It happened because the nation was united in protest, and that protest
against all forms of injustice must continue.

Thank you all for your magnificent support.

Shahidul

See also Media Helping Media, which has been on top of the story.

ENDS

Three days ago, a man delivered a death threat to Dr. Shahidul Alam after walking into the Drik Gallery in Dhaka.

“An unidentified young man stormed into the Drik Gallery on March 27 (Saturday) morning and rudely asked the security guard about Shahidul Alam,” the newspaper New Age reported. “But when the security guard inquired about the identity of the man, the young man refused to give his identity and told the guard that Alam would meet his death in the street.”

Here’s the full story from New Age, Bangladesh’s independent English-language newspaper. (Scroll down for item.)

See also the transcript of the conversation, captured on video:

Dr. Alam’s photography show, CROSSFIRE, featuring photos evocative of the sites where the paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion killed citizens under suspicious circumstances, was closed eight days ago by the government. RAB has been implicated in numerous extrajudicial killings.

Recent threats have also been made against Nurul Kabir, Editor of New Age. Both Kabir and Alam have been consistent critics of the abuses of power by and corruption in government and among elites in Bangladesh.

This recent death threat is to be taken seriously: In 1996, unknown assailants stabbed Alam on the street. At the time, the military was rounding up activists in advance of a parliamentary election, Alam told me in 2008. Many human rights groups were afraid to take a stand publicly, “so the seat of resistance became this gallery here. Two days later, I was stopped in the street. Eight knives were put into me.”

History must not repeat. Please spread the word to the human rights and freedom-of-the-press groups of your choice. Make sure to Tweet, too.

Here’s a New York Times preview of the exhibition by David Gonzalez plus follow-up on the exhibition’s shutdown.

And a link to Drik itself.

ENDS

Sudder Street, Kolkata, India, 20 March 2010

Three more hours in Kolata before I leave for Singapore.

Roughly sixteen days ago, Erin and I crossed the border at Tamabil, Bangladesh, into Dawki, India, a hassle-free and beautiful journey through wonderfully green parts of both countries. Two-plus weeks isn’t a whole lot to reflect on, strictly speaking, but it has been a very significant chunk of time.

Tea stall, Lindsay Street, Kolkata, India, 20 March 2010

Working our way west from Shillong in Meghalaya State to Guwahati, Siliguri, Gangtok, Pelling, Darjeeling, and Kurseong—we’ve attended a puja ceremony at Sanga Cholling monastery; been politely denied photo-taking privileges by an army sergeant after stumbling onto a Gurkha Rifles shooting range; and helped move furniture at the Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre (and also shopping for gifts in the showroom). And, after waiting less-than-patiently through several depressingly cloudy days, we got a peek at Mt. Kangchenjunga, third highest of the Himalayan peaks.

Puja Ceremony, Sanga Cholling Monastery, Pelling, India, 12 March 2010

Momentous things have happened beyond our own adventures. The Women’s Reservation Bill, which would set aside one-third of seats in Parliament and state legislatures for women, passed in the upper house. This only a day after (male) MPs opposed to the measure violently disrupted a debate on the bill. News stations ran video loops of these men scrambling over the Chairman’s desk and grabbing his microphone to stop the proceedings. A majority of MPs from a range of parties supported the bill, but a vocal—and physical—minority threw a wrench in the works. Their obstructionist tactics seem to have backfired, but the bill isn’t yet law.

We hit Darjeeling just as talks over the future of “Gorkhaland,” were taking place miles away in Delhi, and we just happened to wander into two days of enormous, spirited, and peaceful demonstrations. Darjeeling District is the heart of the notional state that Indians of Nepali heritage want to carve out of existing states. The government of West Bengal, which administers Darjeeling and other areas where agitation for Gorkhaland is strongest, is loath to let the territory go. Pro-Gorkhlanders point to the creation of three new Indian states in 2000. These were situations in which communities with a distinct language and culture won the right to separate from extant states.

Gorkhaland rally, Darjeeling, India, 16 March 2010

As we drove into Kurseong, serious tea country, we saw people streaming toward the center of town, many holding the green, white and yellow striped Gorkhaland flag. (This time, I headed toward the peace and quiet, toward the rolling hillside tea estates and not the clamor of the protest.)

Tea estate, Kurseong, India, 18 March 2010

Today, the Times of India and other papers report that Delhi has pulled 35,000 troops out of Jammu and Kashmir, the disputed territory over which India and Pakistan have gone to war. A genuine unilateral step toward deescalation or a strategic PR ploy? I’ll let the experts hash that out. But on its face, it looks like a small step away from war, if not toward peace.

And although this is outside the two-week window, it happened on the first leg of our trip, during the three days we spent in Kolkata before departing for Bangladesh: Jyoti Basu, former Chief Minister of West Bengal, and a stalwart of the Indian Communist Party (Marxist), who had died earlier in the week, got a hero’s send-off on our first full day in town. Sidewalks were jammed with people along the funeral procession route here in Kolkata who mourned the death of the nationwide power broker, regarded by many as the champion of working folks.

Two hours and counting. More from Singapore.