Hasina, the New York Climate Summit and Developmentia as Usual

And so it was, a Prime Minister from Bangladesh flew to the United States of America, days after a substantial display of global street protest at the lack of seriousness global leaderships have assigned to Climate Change. At this summit she would press the flesh, enjoy the privileges of the (s)elect and reiterate the "Bangladesh Position" which says it all.

 "Continue to fund my government, and your clients that comprise 'civil society'".

Nice little earner.

Its what we call Developmentshire As Usual, and developmentshire is illustrated below. It is a nest of subordinating and privileging relationships that grow whenever the 'd' word is invoked.

Climate Adaptation Hush Money negotiated at the Climate Circus, strengthens the ties of developmentshire,
but also makes them more stark and ridiculous for all to see.

It beggars belief that Sheikh Hasinahas any moral authority, or legitimacy, to speak on behalf of Bangladesh and Bangladeshis. She and her party, the Awami League have spent the last few years annihilating the opposition though use of armed cadres, government machinery and security services, not to mention rigging her re-election last January. For many people for who Bangladesh provides a home, it is the government's massacre of innocent and unarmed protesters in the early hours of 6th May 2013 in central Dhaka, and the subsequent international hush up and purdah of fear that enveloped the state crime, that revealed the true nature of Bangladesh ( See: Ceasefire article).

So how one can in good conscience talk Climate Adaptation without addressing whats really wrong here is beyond me. But hey, (educated) man's gotta eat!

NGO folks might be tempted to applaud the Prime Minister's resilience, a value that is very much part of the neoliberal state repertoire of laughing 'I'm not going anywhere woohoo!' It is self-evident that the effect of climate adaptation financing in desh is largely to depoliticise the issue, pay off the lifestyles of the upper middle classes and provide a fig leaf of reassurance to polluting developmentors that resistance will indeed not be fertile.

.... In the slipstream we feel alternatively about transformation, imagining and preparing for what could be. We watch them waste resources, not least time and talents, running like hamsters in someones else's wheel, with the wigs of colonised judiciary, the kilts and bagpipes of the Scottish marauders and the gatekeeping greed to dominate and effectively delegitimise the space for public challenge.