Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Who will read blogs?

Blogging is a quick and concise way to publish personal thoughts and ideas in the virtual world. As Timmermans tries to define in her blog: “A blog is a frequently updated website of personal ideas, thoughts, musings, news, information, or discussions on perhaps what one has eaten for breakfast, or who is winning the war. More succinctly, a blog is a frequently modified web site with entries in reverse chronological order”.

I’m a late comer in the world of webblog. As I started writing, some of my addabaj friends questioned, “Who’ll really read”? “Who has time”? Why are you writing on serious issues?? To answer their questions, I say, I'm really writing for me, for my friends and for soul searching indpendent minds. As a curious Bangal, I browse a lot to know and see in the limitless virtual world and try to unfold my ideas in Adda.

As per my friends’ request for lighter issues, I’ll dedicate my story about my “First Love” in my next blog. You’ve to wait until Friday. Signing off until then.

# posted by Addabaj : 5:04 AM  1 comments

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Good morning, Bangladesh

MARCH 1, 1971
By: Syed Shamsul Huq

"See, I'm unarmed, but
I have the kind of arms that is
Never exhausted, which with every use
Only grows sharper and sharper - my life.
I don't have only one life,
But millions and millions of lives.
See, I do not have a flag
In my hand, but the flag I possess
Is not raised on the mast of some braggart
My flag is my mother's face.
I don't have only one mother,
But millions and millions of mothers..."
Courtesy of: Kothon

Good morning, Bangladesh!!! We wake up on March 26th to celebrate our freedom fight in 1971. Look at Bangladesh Holocaust 1971, a pictorial history of our freedom fight. You can read on-line in Acrobat format Muntassir Mamoon’s The Vanquished Generals and The Liberation War of Bangladesh, 2000, Translated from Bengali by Kushal Ibrahim, Dhaka, Somoy Prokashan.

This day I revisit my memoir with all of us in the home. I take out Dhaka 1971, a pictorial book from the bookshelf and look at the books as I tell them about March 1971 and afterwards. Read the rest of my article in Bangla:


# posted by Addabaj : 10:01 AM  0 comments

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Why It's So Hazy?

March always reminds me our dichotomy in observing our freedom fight. I've always found it to be very fascinating that odd moves by the political interests and their pundits in Bangladesh to monopolize the freedom fight and history of freedom for petty political interests. Our freedom fight was a collective effort and sacrifice. Look at the picture of genocide in Bangladesh in 1971. Do you see how all of us have sacrificed and fought? Visit Bangladesh Genocide Memorial. I've no more to add. I silently look at Kazi Nazrul Islam's poem, "Some Forget":

Some remember
Others forget,
The memories
That past begets.

Some weep
Struck with grief
Some sing
For relief.

Some feel,
In the clouds
The horror of
Thunder abounds.

...Some keep awake
With doors open
For the new
Moon of tomorrow
(Translated by Syed Mujibul Huq)

What R U Doing today to honor the sacrifice of the freedom fighters that gave you a map, a flag and a Bangladeshi identity?

# posted by Addabaj : 9:58 PM  0 comments

Friday, March 18, 2005

Open Letter to My Friend

After reading my columns at Adda, one of my friends has recently sent me an e-mail questioning my intention. He was asking me why I was bringing up issues about the collaborators who joined Pakistanis in mass killing in Bangladesh in 1971. It's true that only in Bangladesh justice never comes or even it comes, it's too late. That is why, the mass killer Rajakars don't face justice the way Nazis faced the Nurmebarg trial. It always turns to the opposite in Bangladesh as these killers get rehabilitated socially and politically. I think, our new generation will wake up in consisousness. Read my column in Bangla:


# posted by Addabaj : 10:37 PM  0 comments

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Name of a Road...

Salimullah Road at Mohammadpur in Dhaka city was named after Saheed Salimullah who was killed by the Pakistanis in the month of March. Read my column in Bangla:

# posted by Addabaj : 10:08 AM  0 comments

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

History Lesson


That's the closing statement of my history teacher in almost every class when I was in the school. History appeared to us to be very colorful, adventurous and painful in our young minds the way he presented history to us. We always loved to go back and travel to the past with our history teacher. The whole class used to be very quiet and attentive. The last thing he used to say is: "The biggest lessson of history is that no one takes lesson from it". It always comes back in my mind when I look back at our history in Bangladesh.

It's true whether we accept it, admit it, or deny it, history is very ruthless and unforgiven. In our lifetime, we've seen so many times history repeated itself. The strongest regime collapsed and tumbled down to its feet when the masses woke up. Look at 1969, look at 1971 and look afterwards. Nothing stopped the mass uprising. In the back alleyes of history, attempts were taken to obsess and seduce the collective consiousness through money, poetry, and terror. All those attemtps ended at the garbage can of history. We survived and won. All the powerful buildings collapsed, obsessive poetries evaporated. Epiphytes in the political arena may temporarily survive but can not take the root in our collective consciouness. In my lonely mind, I get inspired as I listen:

# posted by Addabaj : 5:15 PM  0 comments

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Two Great Poets

March symbolizes the month of freedom fight and sacrifice in Bangladesh. In order to honor our freedom fighters and to wake up from hibernation, I've offered few lines from the two great poets. Great Poet Dr. Maya Angelou from the USA and the Rebellious Poet Nazrul Islam from Bangladesh wrote these two poems at two different turning points of history. Nazrul’s poem “The Rebel” was inspirational to fight 2oo hundred year old British occupation in the Indian subcontinent. Two poems at two different times invite us to rise and raise ourselves for justice, freedom and equality that we all aspire.

Kazi Nazrul Islam
The Rebel (Bidrohi)

“Say, Valiant,
Say: High is my head...

I shall uproot this miserable earth effortlessly and with ease,
And create a new universe of joy and peace.
Weary of struggles, I, the great rebel,
Shall rest in quiet only when I find
The sky and the air free of the piteous groans of the oppressed.
Only when the battle fields are cleared of jingling bloody sabres
Shall I, weary of struggles, rest in quiet,
I the great rebel.

I am the rebel eternal,
I raise my head beyond this world,
High, ever erect and alone...”
(Translated by Kabir Chowdhury)

Maya Angelou
Still I Rise

“Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise...”

# posted by Addabaj : 8:37 PM  0 comments