The Awami League of Ignocratic Fairy Tailoring strikes again

Two bits of very terrible news today. The first from Bangladesh as Awami Leage lecturers at Jahingirnagar University instigate a witch hunt on a history professor for including critical tracts by Sarmila Bose and Syed Sajjad Husain on the Bangladesh war. Apparently its anti-liberation and worth whipping up student frenzy and authority over. This is reminiscent of the treatment meted out to all who question the Logic of Liberation: that the Awami League, the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army came down the chimney 40 years ago to fill our stockings with Liberation.

Awami fascism is at a peak these days as Bangladesh = 40 approaches, as opposition leaders are on trial for war crimes. There is interesting coverage of the trial proceedings over here , the witnesses for the prosecution arent very good it appears and the defence counsel himself is being harrassed and undermined by the government.

Squint and find silver linings.

One positive of having a trial is that its forcing the accused to counter the allegations against them, amplified and disseminated over the past 20 years. Their defence is unlikely to be given a fair hearing as the decisions have already been made and the vests involved are very interesting. 'Socially' its good because the population at large has been kept in the dark about important aspects of the Bangladesh War, now its harder for the media and government to drown out every single word they say.

That said, I am not naive about the truth emerging anytime soon.

This Kangaroo Court operates in a society where rage, envy and hurt have been channelled all wrong, into injustice making. Where human rights only apply whilst the awami league is in opposition, to the tune of aid money and towards secular liberal types of people. The NGOs, donors and parties have bought off the collective mind and for scholars its simply easier to reproduce the fairy tales of liberation that please the parties.

This is a protection of intellect, dignity and possible even life issue. Three central, essential objectives of the Sharia.

Prof Mushtaq Khan, of SOAS has been saying for a while that neither of the three narratives : Liberation, Independance and Succession are sufficient and that they dont work for us, so we must make a new one.

Iranian University Chancellors ask Bollinger 10 questions

Here is the response of the Iranian academic leadership to Mr Lee Bollinger ungraceful remarks to their President. I recommend basking for a while because these moments are rare. I am wishful too, hopefully without envy, of the independance on display there.

Tribute to Prof Syed Hussein Alattas

This post is adapted from a few months back, when i was in less of a bloggy mood. I guess there are people who never knew who he was in the first place, to be able to mourn him.

So here goes.

A mighty Muslim warrior in the intellectual and political battle against evil (corruption, captive minds, parochialism and foolishness) passed away on the 23rd of January 2007 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, of a heart attack.

Our Ummah, Our World is poorer now.

Please pray for him, for his family, friends, supporters..

I had the good fortune to squeeze his brain at his home one night in mid August 2006, he was hilarious and had a complex sociology of the 'fool' and of flattery ticking over in his brain. Into the silly hours we went. One of the few people i have heard of who was an original thinker (Books on; The myth of the lazy native, Problems facing intellectuals in developing societies, Captive minds, The sociology of corruption:nature, efffect and function, Corruption and the future of asia), and contributed to the progressive political scene.

As a justice seeking individual he suffered at the hands of the malaysian state and the pretty gutless intelligensia there. This was particularly apparent towards the end, where he was character assasinated (6 months press barrage) out of his job as the VC of University Malaya under some trumped up political corruption ruse. This happened at the time when he was tackling intellectual corruption (plaigarism) and economic corruption (catering contracts) on the campus. irony is not dead.

Never a fan of the once fashionable 'Islamisation of knowledge' brigade (a movement to sort out our knowledge culture that started in the 70s'), he reflected that this resulted in the creation of an exclusivist discource for the political benefit of some 'islamists', in muslim students not reading as widely as they should and in 2nd ratedness. He felt it that that alleyway was blind and had done a lot of damage.

He was very keen on the regionalisation of sociology. Given 1000s of sociologists in the third world we have a very strong base, but little collective discussion, the eu has a collective discussion, they have a regional interest. I really hope that his thoughts on south east asian sociology (including desh!!) are heeded.

As a sociologist he understood how knowledge is produced and constrained and struggled hard all his life to free our 'Captive Minds' and point out various 'Manifestations of the fool'. He advised us not be be jargonists, to hide defective reasoning in layers of jargon, that its a battle between valid concepts and jargon.

When we spoke last summer, i really wanted him to come to the UK, we never invite original contrubuters like this. He seemed very game but his health was basically a limit. I also hadnt sorted my life out enough to know where i would be and when i would be where. I was also worried that UK folks are too far gone, salafised, foolish and parochial to appreciate him.

Still i really do hope that his writings and ideas are read more widely in the colonising, decolonising and especially muslim worlds. I hope young undergrads and postgrads find motivation and clues in his work, that its inspired and helps them to 'go for it', as it were. i implore you to go out there and search hard for his books and writings on the web. SOAS library and British library stock his stuff, so probably do the Other India Bookshop.

"I concentrated on the captive mind because the captive mind is most urgent as far as the developing society is concerned. We are not concerned with the slave holders, we are concerned with the enslaved. And a change, as we all know, can only be achieved if there is an awakening of the downtrodden, of the slave community. Without the change in the slave community, the attitude of the slave community, there can never be any change. As far as the slave holders were concerned, they will not give the freedom away. It had to be wrenched from them. The slave must wake up to wrench the freedom the slave holders."
(Multiversity Meeting on 'Redesign of Social Science Curricula', Penang 2004)

Multiversity was a project through which i first met the Prof, http://www.multiversitylibrary.com/index.jsp

Farish Noor's Obituary is here

Remembering Prof Aftab Ahmad

It is sad when gifted people are taken away from us.

Professor Aftab Ahmad died in the morning of the 26th, he had been attacked and shot a few days in his University residence. He was one of those brave and forward thinking intellectuals, proud and knowledgeable of his religion, and not, as is too often the case in this country, afraid to think with it. He was the ex VC of the National University and a professor of Political Science at Dhaka Uni. He was an illustrious son of Noakhali. May Allah accept his good works and sacrifice, forgive him for his mistakes and raise him in the akhira. May Allah continue the works he was involved with and grant his servants in this region a little more clarity of thought, unity and efficacy.

Coining very catchy slogans like "Joi bangla" and "Amader Thikhana, Padma, Meghna, Jamuna", he was an active physical and intellectual freedom fighter in '71, sustaining a gunshot wound for his efforts. After the war was over, he opposed more and more of what he saw going on, starting a newspaper going to jail, yknow ... the usual! In 1983, he wrote a doctorate thesis at the University of London on 'The Mujib Era', when i get home i dearly want to check it out. People of most political leanings will have heard of him or worked with or against him at some stage in Bangladesh, as he was into the lefty thing as a student leader, which was a rite of passage here.

For his time as VC of the National University, he was in the favour of the present government. The falling out, about which my knowledge is sketchy and secondary at the mo is important to investigate. Generally the group in power are stubborn, ignorant and understand only money, especially the 'younger section'.

So Who-dunnit? and Why? Between the complete ballsup concerning treatment at the military hospital, the profs spinefulness and orientation of thought theres enough to sustain a healthy speculation. Prof had no doubt made some enemies amongst the ultra nationalist block over the years with his ability to penetrate nationalist taboos, but its hard to identify who carried out this act of jahiliya, and on who's instruction. This is not an 'Islamist' alleged operation either, so i would not expect any hue and cry in the overseas press. What chance have the small people of this country got of being 'tolerant', when the high ups are so senile?

The last time i saw him in the flesh was before leaving dhaka for a bit last month, he said to fetch him something by ibn miskaweh (on political ethics) from a library. I fished it out but didnt have the chance to reach it to him in person, in fact i was going to see him before my recent trip to a ganj in the north, but his wife said he had gone out and i needed to catch my bus. Later i find out that he had received it. I did however catch him on the TV, on the very night he was shot on ATN Bangla (prerecorded slot on the election commission controversty). He was on good form.

The Muslim Ummah really needs to nurture its brains in the current era, this week however, Bangladesh shot itself in the head, again. There are plenty more bullets where that came from, but maybe not so many targets.

His janaza was held at Dhaka University Central Mosque, amid all sorts of posthumous respect (too little too late i reckon) from all the usual suspects (government kitchen cabinet, Dhaka Teachers, vc of dhaka uni ...).






Riding through the Uni campus later that day, I notices that the Liberation War statues were wearing black blindfolds. Later I inquire as to what this symbolises...This was apparently to symbolise the blindness of those in power.

The impression of Dhaka Uni teachers amongst the ordinary citizenry has been defined of late by the late Dr Humayun Azad (Bangla department). He recieved (nonfatal) , severe injury near his uni residence ~18months ago, in apparent retribution for his anti-islamic, pro-atheist stance (Danish cartoons are nothing on what used to allegedly come out of his mouth concerning the prophets). I cant be bothered to recount the chap's history. If you like, read his own contribution on his own terms in the universe of this very bitter nutjob bangladeshi 'freethinkers' forum and see for yourself.

I bring this up because, in a conversation with a random, i heard something along the lines of 'Bhalo hoise, tara shob nasthik' (a good thing happened, they are all atheists).

Bit of a bummer approach to things, but it gives us an idea of how different the values of this portion of the Mukti group are to the identity of local people. Its a bit like the Taliban i guess, winning an independence war against a formibable foe with outside help and then falsely imagining they could run a country and failing, bringing ruin upon the society.

Anyway, Prof Aftab's assassination sets a further precedent of assassins going into a teachers home and shooting them.

It s political showdown time in Bangladesh, anything is possible, chances are that he was removed as a precursor of what might come to be.

Anyway what a time to check out of here, Ramadhan.