My lack of current knowledge on the area means I felt no need to weigh in, but it seems astonishing how little reportage there is regarding what’s been happening in Bangladesh for the last few weeks, very much a side issue it seems.
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Same with the mayhem in Myanmar. Remarkably scant coverage unless you bother with a few foreign news services or the BBC World Service. And in the latter case, that means enduring a fair amount of climate change stuff, which I have limited time for even when I’m in a good mood and on my first headbanger coffee.
Regarding the article.
1 lakh = 100,000
So the plural “lakhs” implies 200,000 or more.
Perhaps a lot more.
I’ve picked up an underlying understanding of what’s going on in Bangladesh only because I read Tim Worstall’s stuff, and that’s only because he in turn writes some stuff for Bangladeshi media and occasionally mentions it and the background to his writings, and the comparisons between Bangladesh’s industrialisation today and the UK’s 300 years ago.
I go for the economics, I get an expanded knowledge of the social and political landscape of a country I know little about.
https://youtu.be/b8MNGozakNs?si=q5YyfzDzK-Kn5zso
That article barely scratched the surface but the LotusEaters piece covers the full barbaric horror.
Don’t expect to see any condemnatory UN resolutions anything soon though.
At what point does a factual and honest report – in the UK – of Muslims killing Hindus bring you to jail? Wouldn’t that foment more anti-Muslim sentiment?
The ROP seems to enjoy MFN status right now. Who is going to be the canary to test those boundaries?
On Burma, the only coverage I have seen is part of the coverage on this YT channel, Ed Nash’s Military Matters.
The horrific scale of killings by the security forces in Bangladesh seem to barely merit a mention in the Western media. The recently-departed PM seems to have been a hold-over from the pro-Indian socialist generation who ran the country on separation from East Pakistan.
One must be careful discussing Bangladesh, or Sudan, or ….. as “Islamophobia” is now considered “racism” (as religion is something, like skin colour, that a person “can not change” according to Mayor Khan) and “racism” is a crime in the United Kingdom.
However, hating Jews is, to judge by the non action of the authorities against the pro death-to-the-Jews marches that have dominated some British cities for the best part of a year, is just fine.
Basically “inciting hatred” (whatever that means – it is all very vague) is bad if you do it against some groups – but fine if you do it against other groups.
The idea that “hate” (an emotion) is a crime goes back, in British law, to 1965 – and is an example of “principle free law”, no one can explain it in terms of principles of jurisprudence, it is basically “racists are bad – so let us punish them – and if you disagree, that means you are also a racist and we should punish you”. The first statute was meant (we were told) to only be used in extreme cases (but that was never defined) and later Acts have been vaguer and vaguer – now the authorities tell us that, basically, disagreeing with them, or repeating the dissenting opinions of someone else, is a crime – if the authorities want it to be a crime.
So the authorities can hit anyone they dislike – but will not hit people who do much the same thing against some group that is not fashionable. Say white English people – inciting hatred against them is fine.
In a way it is pointless to worry about all this – as, to the authorities (including the courts), we are all criminals (even the mildest thing we say or repeat can be treated as a “crime”) – and there is nothing we can do about this.
So they will either hit us or they will not hit us – like being struck by lighting.
The departure of Sheikh Hasina is the end of a rather remarkable phenomenon: a Moslem country where for 33 years (less 2 years 8 months of interim Prime Ministers), the head of government has been a woman – either Sheikh Hasina or her rival Khaleda Zia.
As to Bangladesh. Usual thing with long running govts. Whether democratic or not. Everyone’s just tired, go on, git ya b’stards. No she wasn’t a grand democrat and many ladles in the gravy from party supporters and all the usual.
But the actual trigger? There used to be a quota for govt jobs. 50% (or whatever, summat like that) were saved for the kids and grandkids of the revolutionaries who fought with her father for Bengali independence from Pakistan. She abolished this in 2018. Served its time, turn a new leaf etc. Then this spring the Supreme Court reinstated it, saying the previous abolition had been illegal. At which point the universities erupted demanding it be abolished again. Which Hasina was happy to do and actually did do toward the end I think.
So, Hasina was in favour of the same change the rioting students were. But it was still the trigger. For the unleashing of that underlying be gone you boring b’astards feeling.
All of which explains a little of the nervousness of our own lot perhaps. Yes, we’ve just changed govt but there really is a certain unrest bubbling away under there. What, if anything, could become the trigger? For it doesn;t have to be anything you’ve done wrong at all, it just has to be that trigger.
Tim Worstall – interesting Sir, and a lot to think about.
I recall reading in the late 1980s Daily Telegraph that there were student riots in Dhaka, after new restrictions were brought in on University finals. The reported reason for the rioting was that the disgruntled ones demanded the right to cheat in their final exams, not out of simple dishonesty but because there was a quota of plum civil service ‘jobs for life’ that you could get if you got into the highest segment of marks in your finals, so the stakes in the Finals were high.
I did struggle to believe the article then but there was no real way to obtain a second source to cross-reference, but it does seem that they have a quota thing going on there and the problem really is that the civil service is seen as a plum job. Much the same was seen in Spain recently when a few jobs in the State-run post office had around 68,000 applicants.
The long-term answer from Bangladesh to Badajoz and beyond is to liberalise the economy and recruit on merit, keeping government jobs down to a minimum.
Mr Ed – agreed Sir.
” the problem really is that the civil service is seen as a plum job.”
Indeed so and another generation and it won’t be. They’ve been growing GDP at 6 and 7% for two decades now. No particular reason why they won’t manage that again. At which point low but secure wages lose a lot of their attraction.