Why we don't know enough about Motijheel? Why can't it be simple?

Last month an estimated 10 000 police and paramilitaries fired upon a crowds of up an estimated 100 000 unarmed and sleeping religious protesters in Motijheel, a heavily built up business district in Dhaka Bangladesh. They had come to challenge the religious defamation, denigration and abuse of religious figures by a number of increasingly powerful elements of society and government.

A government cover-up was undertaken, bodies cleared away, mass arrests, follow up operations and misinformation campaigns were waged. Censorship was no only ipmosed, but willingly supported by much of the national media and NGO crowd. Most of the dissenting media had already been silenced in preceding months and weeks. The channels that tried to cover events live were summarily shut down.

Here are some heart searing videos.  Attack on Rally on 5th (day)  Massacre on 6th (early morning) 

The terrible events of 5th and 6th May in Dhaka game changing, but their causal relations with  1) the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunals,  2) the Shahbag Movement and 3) the politics of election year haunt any attempt to establish the facts, raise the alarm and invoke a community of justice.

These relationships make finding the truth of the Motijheel Massacre fearful ground to tread, as this is hard to work though without challenging the formative national narrative,  contemporary urban pop culture and its associated peer pressure and political distortion.

With such a lot of turmoil going on why should we try to make sense out of yet more trouble in Bangladesh? Isn't that the job of the media and investigative journalism?

But the gauntlet is that we must walk towards the clues and facts, pick them up, look at them and listen to the thousands of stories they tell us. Its not easy

1, 2, 3 Easy as ABC ?

In a recent ABC (Australia) radio programme some progress is made in explaining the tribunals, if just at least to register the, probably consensual absence of Bengali Muslims from telling the story and the Bangladeshi establishment positions of Meghna Guhatakurta, a Dhaka academic whose father was killed by pak forces in operation searchlight, who says that 'victims are satisfied with the tribunal process', and Australia based Bina D'Costa, who pronounces Pakistan is a very peculiar way, who says that the independent government drew on soviet sources for the 3 million (multidimensional bollocks).

Listen here, its rare to hear both sides in the same programme because the seculib block maintains a total non engagement with the substance of their increasingly coherent and articulate companion's discourse. Dr Guhatakurta complains that the victim's don't have the international resources and connections that those accused of war crimes have. I think this is odd, given that a third of the educated bangladeshis int he world talk about little else than 1971 and that their discourse dominates the establishment literature and media's bias against non secular people.

Toby Cadman, London-based barrister assisting the accused in the tribunals, and Sarmila Bose, Oxford-based researcher whose 'Dead Reckoning' book the Bangladeshi establishment has been discriminating against and avoiding the substance of for 2 years, also feature in the edited programme. I think radio/sound is a good medium of integrating contesting voices from around the globe. As a multipolar learning exchange with the truth as the objective is nigh on impossible without descending to a cat-fight or a massacre, the indignity of playing this out over the airwaves of whitey seems inevitable.

I remember when Brick Lane Circles hosted Sarmila Bose in London, (watch it on Vimeo here) the Awami League establishment tried to institute a boycott against the platform by scaring the curious away from it. One competing west Bengali researcher, Nayanika Mukherjee made an ass of herself at the event and is on record blowing her top of.

It is interesting that the official gatekeepers of the victims of 1971 should suggest 'you are marginalising our voice', with the symbolically unassailable identity of being orphaned by this carnage, part of the present knowledge producing establishment, urban, academic, female and not of the majority religion. On the contrary, I think the 1971 establishment narrative has the greatest global soft power projection and have spoken about the Double Standards of Evidence in relation to the Motijheel incident recently. Take the comparative coverage of yesterdays police brutality in Istanbul and last month's massacre of protesters in Motijheel.

#OccupyHypocrisy

In Turkey yesterday the AKP government's urban development thinking  (bismillah capitalism) and use of police came in for attack as they cracked down violently on Occupygezi protesters, killing one. Hardcore ultra-nationalist CHP and global occupy infrastructure then became one and the global media jumped up and down, not out of interest for public spaces, but because of the opportunity to give a non-secular government a good kicking. The constructive alignment of interests show that its not killing that's a problem, but who you kill, and the reporting interests and relay infrastructure around them.

The corporate media has its weakness written into its business model.

By contrast, there was very little national or international interest in the Motijheel massacre, which killed many many people. Here the secular liberal Bangladeshi establishment, with its people well embedded in the international media ( Sabir Mustafa at BBC Bengali, Anushay Hussain at Al Jazeera the Stream for a start) has confused, blocked scrutiny and toed the government line.

The #Occupy phenomena has been thoroughly captured by neoliberalism and bled of meaning for partisan national politicking.  Frame your spectacle with occupy branding and range it against any political islam for easy digestibility and travel along the global left. Here we have Turkey' very own Shahbag movment, but with open alcohol, kissing (last week) and  irresponsible (ab)use of mosque facilities.

Both government brutalities in Dhaka and Istanbul had equipment in common, the Otokar Kobra, a Turkish manufactured riot car. In the still captured here, a Dhaka Metropolitan Policeman is caught mid-fire in vehicle serial number 26. This is sad because Turkish Muslim political and civil society has done much for justice in Bangladesh and for the Rohingya. Chillingly, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police have been busy hobnobbing with the US Embassy over "Special Event Management"

A young Dhaka Metropolitan Police officer fires into an unarmed crowd of what looks like a Otokar Kobra vehicle in the early hours of 6th Feb. 

The Epistemic Politics of Knowing Killing

The reporting infrastructure around the Martyrs of Motihjeel has been poor and largely ignored. With the main human rights NGO, Sultana Kamal's 300 strong Ain-o-Salish Kendra taking the side of the government generally on annihilation of opposition, and specifically Motijheel and Tribunals issues, the role of alternatives, like the smaller Odhikar organisation have become more important. They were amongst the first to press release strongly on it after the killings and provide some good data in their monthly review document which can be read online, and ends in their own 13 points.

There are other resources, like the group blog Kaagoj, the indomitable Basherkella Facebook group phenomenon ( get an editor and watch your backs guys), the committed February 28 Info initiative (whose image library and analysis is worth soaking in) and the analytical Khichuri .

I'm not sure that Odhikar accessed them, and feel that there is a great deal of parallel work going on on discovering the truth behind the Motijheel incident, but for various, but ultimately inexcusable, reasons, the important questions, data and spadework is not being done.

In the meantime the Bangladesh government, led for now by the Awami League, has been able to clean the scene, deceive the public and turn this into a fundamentalist/militancy issue. The main opposition BNP is not interested in establishing the facts, Jamaat e Islami Bangladesh are still running for their lives and I really do not know how to describe the (non) function of Hefazot e Islam at present. As the primary oppressed party, condolences and counselling should be offered, not derision and parasitical questioning.

This leaves the knowledge gap quite huge, but it is out there, some of it is digital and accessible to us, some of it human and scared and politically muted, a lot of it physical, think of all the damage to the urban fabric of dhaka that tell stories, bullet holes, broken glass and general detritus. This has not been properly dealt with, people on the ground who have not taken the initiative.

So we must, warts and all.

Looking through the Diganta coverage of the day and the night is useful to get a feel for progression of violence during the day, but what we really need to piece together are the reflected experiences from the day,

• from Lalbagh Madrassa where Hefazot seniors were headquartered, and surrendered.
• through the events around the National Mosque in which police and Awami Aligned thugs attacked protesters from early afternoon,
• and Motijheel where the government violence centred, 
• as well as Kachpur (12km away from Motijheel, where there are rumours of hindi speakers being involved) and Hathazari (near chittagong) madrasas where community's resisted government attacks after the . 

Humans not numbers
I recently came to know of an undergraduate engineering student killed, or shaheed depending of your persuasion, in the government attack on Motijheel. His Facebook account tells us of a young man very much of the middle class, educated in Government Laboratory School and Dhaka City College before gaining entry to the county's most (only remaining?) prestigious institution. His avatar was a cartoon of two young muslim men hugging each other, he liked Lord of the Rings, used to tutor kids and volunteered as part of the youth wing of the Lion's club. He liked Arundhati Roy and The God of Small things. He last posted on 20th April and I wish I could to right by his parents. Many of the other victims of that day and night will not have had such digital presences as the much vaunted 'Digital Bangladesh' is an unequal techno joke. Today (Monday) the New Age of Dhaka even misspelled his names in a report that at least proved the Governments account of non lethal force, a death toll of 11 to be false.

Lord raise you Rehan Ahsan and protect your family from the terror of state abuse. Help truth and justice be made from these despicable events.

What should be done now?
The task for us at this point is not a matter of producing and consuming media but of demonstrating a new kind of, often quite remote, collaborative citizen science and humanity.

Corporate media has its biasing built into its very business model, and so its no surprise that Al Jazeera has steadily got worse in its Bangladesh coverage over the past months as it tries to break into the US market.  What happened in Bangladesh on 5th / 6th May is bigger than any one party or social group, and therefore it is vital that a solid chunk of diverse people work on this issue in an effective manner which carries the scent of the way of things to come.

Double Standards of Evidence, spoken

Shahbag Shevalry?

A parody of itself
Agendered defence
Of an inhumane offense
Then
A seculib cut
Don't give a fuck
For your begrudging Colonial refrain

Poetical response to legion1000

A Theist Blogger's Deshi Declaration

Dear Allama Shafi,

I cannot find the words to describe my sorrow and indignation over what has happened and what lies in store should hathazari bounce back and rise again. Maybe we will meet on the planes of Arafat and discuss this eventually.  Allahumma grant those who won't be returning to their families a place in the hearts of green birds near His Throne.

Dear Mir Quasem Ali

Of the party leaders detained and accused it is your diganta infrastructure that points to the future. We pray for you all, and for justice and that we might have the privaledge of knowing what the f@£k happened over those previous years.  69 to 72.

Most bloody expensive hobnobbing ever right?

Dear Mahmudur Rahman.

Our very own Julian Assange minus the rape allegations. May your wounds heal. If you were here in London I would invite you to our reading group and we could work on the non tribal religious language and decoloniality. Still. They would have arrested you regardless as you held the only press to challenge theur crown jewels. 

Dear Delwar Hussein,

I read your party's dossier on you and wish you healing, freedom and guidance. Its a downright shame that you inherit unjust stigma and thus serve as the lightning rod for Awami hate and brutality. I have given up hoping for an answer to the shibbir violence problem.

We're still looking for that higher gear.

***

We need a more open and inclusive ummahstructure to make space for alternatives to the DJ juice degeneration.

The government of Bangladesh holds unbridled power, and its supporting media- industrial-NGO complex has the people in a triple bind.

The brutal events of May 6th are a sign of things to come. As Awami minded denial shifts to just desertification.

If our Islamist brothers were to find themselves in power tomorrow it probably would be a disaster, not for fault of Islam, but people and the lack of Tawhesion. This is not a secular position but a basic form of training and political due diligence.

The secular liberal hegemony over political space, the right to audience and debate is a problem.

The conditions for faith, life, intellect, dignity, lineage and property are what our activism should be about. These higher objectives of Sharia must come to the foreground in what we say and do.

Whatever happened to the religious left?

There needs to be a moratorium on hartals and a rise in explorations of the political street theater of love.

Joining the dots in Bangladesh: #eyesonashulia, Development as Deceitfulness and a Muzzled Press

The Internet upload throttle idea has been shelved by the Bangladesh government in favor of a ban on a month-long ban on all forms of meetings, processions and demonstrations. The reasons given by the government range from 'law and order' to smoothing relief and rehabilitation work in the wake of cyclone Mahasen. Bloggers are not a much of a threat, street politics however is.

Whats there to protest about?
Following the Savar garments factory disaster, the brutal government clampdown on religious protesters that ended in a massacre on the 6th May, and a longer term brutality on protest at the unfairness of the War Crimes Tribunal, there certainly is a lot to be angry and organise about in Bangladesh. Not least in the garments factories of Ashulia, where workers are asserting their legitimate rights to a better life and non-exploitation by garments owners who can run up to 40 % profit margins on their backs.

International and national outrage at the garments sector has been Superficiality as Usual, clearing the way for Business as Usual for the government's war on workers rights. Last week a 19 year old sewing machinist operator Parul Akhter was found dead in the factory bathroom, in what the police say was a suicide. Workers were angered by this, and underlying conditions enough to agitate and compel factories owners to declare 'Holiday'.

Beyond Media Monitoring
Note how the Daily Star devotes much coverage to the reasonable factory owner and the factory owners lobby group, and the workers are represented as a baying mob not fit for quoting. The Hameem Group, which owns the factory also runs the pro-government Samakal newspaper.  The need for independent, and socially committed coverage in Ashulia is the demand of the times.  It would be great if some of the crocodile tears over Savar would translate into it.

For those who are interested, let's keep #eyesonashulia with attention to | police | paramilitaries | media coverage | owners | government | workers | families | organisers | international solidarity.

What I have observed  recently is that

• the international human rights infrastructure prefers its victims angelic liberal and without back story 
• media people like to make spectacles, collaborate with their clones and are lazy
• photographers peer at politics over the shoulders of the police, or between their legs
• the development industry talks about the practical, but runs away from the political
• feel-good imagery and storytelling from the Savar disaster is used to bury even badder news.
• between third rate journalism, selfish and complicit activism,  not enough is being done to connect the dots, here are some dots.

Relieving political violence, or cloaking violence with relief?
Government minister Syed Ashraful Islam's attempt to crown the latest strategy with relief is  par for the course in a country where much of the middle and ruling class are part of an intellectually and politically paralysing complex called Developmentshire.

Developmentshire is a series of relationships that is maintained when powerful agendas collude to 'develop' others. It is particularly strong and full of BS in Bangladesh, where selling and (not)solving poverty is a lucrative industry, with minor but increasing mIslamist participation. In recent months and days it has proven deadly, having been complicit in making the mood music and covering up for government brutality on religious protests. It can be quite funny|tragic to see when you encounter it, and should be delegitimised in the public interest.

This way of looking at the development industry, for what it is rather than what it says, helps us to understand networks of power. As the power elites of Bangladesh scramble to cling onto power and prevent us from knowing what they are really doing, is it in the public interest to know about their mutually beneficial arrangements with the development industry. After all, a comfortable job in an air conditioned office is a safe, unassailable place for an apprenticeship in bullshit, and who better than a member of the ruling dynasty to play the role of the Native Informant?


Some media editors finally resist the government's clampdown, but not the Dhaka Tribune
Yesterday, 15 newspaper editors and a web portal editor signed a letter demanding the release of Amar Desh editor Mahmudur Rahman , the restoration of Amar Desh, as well as the reopening of Diganta TV and Islamic TV which were shut down for their live coverage of government brutality at Motijheel.

However, the newly established  (read licensed), Dhaka Tribune's editor, Zafar Sobhan did not sign the document. Maybe he agrees with the Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, President of the aptly translated National Socialist Party, that such an appeal was 'not in the best interests of the media.'

Bangladesh government clamping down on the internet: The revenge of Digital BAKSAL

A new kind of censorship appears to be taking form in Bangladesh, with the national telecoms regulator moving to throttle upload bandwidth by 75%, while the PM Sheikh Hasina extols the success of her Digital Bangladesh, which is  increasingly being understood as a facade.

In a time of political contestation this cannot be read as a simple managerial issue targeting illegal Voice over IP traffic. It is very timely for the government in that it hinders further video uploads of its atrocities and creative engagement with the internet.

Context of censorship

• Editor of Amar Desh Mahmudur Rahman still languishes in jail, tortured and mostly forgotten.
• Founder of Diganta TV Mir Quasem Ali has now been in government detention for nearly 1 year.
• Diganta TV and Islamic TV have been shut down for daring to screen live footage of the massacre in Dhaka on 6th May.
• YouTUbe
• Friends of social media are increasingly guarded over speaking about May 6th events, unless they have spine.
• English language papers like The Daily Star and The Dhaka Tribune, continue to proudly fly the government cause and flag.
• The Facebook opposition group Basherkella has been closed down and restarted several times in recent months.
• BBC Bengali service is shamelessly spinning for the government regarding the story of finding prosecution-turned defence witness Shokronjan Bali in an Indian Jail. The RAW-BBC-Daily Star axis has aligned against the David Bergman-New Age-Human Rights Watch-Al Jazeera axis on this.

What to do

• Don't waste bandwidth repeating stuff, make every character count.
• Find workarounds. Preserve anonymity.
• Migrate to blogs from facebook.
• Pay attention to dirty tricks.
• Rather than video, use still images connected with text.
• Challenge the authorities that made this possible

The ability to reflect, organise and enact ideas is fundamental to living and learning and Creation > Consumption

.

"Double Standards of Evidence"

Yet another journalist

This time brown girl, tells me

That my sauce is unreliable

The epistemic politics of which

I do not care to unwind

Because in this business

There is no humanity

Just secular commodity

We know

That its code

For not caring

Enough to risk failure

And marginalisation

Such moral capitulation
What did I hear you say?

"Lets get more Muslims in the media"

May the martyrs of Motijheel

Be granted high station

And spared the indignity 

Of being whitened up 

For the anglo-liberal gaze

Only to shift

When someone strips.

May they be spared

Political exploitation from home and abroad

From the frames of foolish friends and enemies.
Selling "Talibanisation or Secularization"
"We are the bulwarks against fundamentalism", or
Some teenager's notion of "BanglaSpring"

May the terrified

Reach safety

Wise counsel

And witness the facts

If they wish

Without intimidation, or

Fear of recrimination

As for those

Who cover up or dismiss

There is a word, in Arabic

Whose literal meaning

Has you down to a ك‍ 

Truth and diplomacy surrounding the Mothijheel Massacre, as the wheels come off the cover-op

Suppression of the news of the Bangladesh government's brutal action against religious protesters on May 6th is slowly fading, but the rearguard action is well underway.

This Dhaka grave digger had no hearing or speech, but still told the truth about the bodies he buried that night.
Lord protect him and inspire us with his morality.

With a welcome, surprisingly balanced but late Al Jazeera news piece on Tuesday (14th May), the government-leaning human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) finally made a statement today (16th May), ten days after the killings. By contrast, the pro-opposition Odhikar made its first statement on 7th May. The ASK  statement pasted below concentrates of entrenching government propaganda and red herrings, here it is below.

Statement on the website of ASK a prominent human rights organisation and gatekeeper.
The date of the web page is 16th May, though the Bengali version carries a date of 13th.

Just a single line out of a twenty line alludes to any wrongdoing on the government's behalf. Mark Regev would be proud of this one.  For context, this organisation is headed by award winning human rights activist Sultana Kamal (satirised here),  an expert witness in the discredited War Crimes Tribunals, and former advisor to the Caretaker Government that assumed power after the 2007 military coup.

Come, visit Bangladesh, where covering, covering up and recovering injustice is perhaps the biggest industry.

Who's Human Rights?

It should be noted that despite the rhetoric and funding, human rights are not for all in Bangladesh, but usually a for strategic and unchallenging few as well as the cameras. Although the 6th May Motijheel Massacre bears witness to many ills in Bangladeshi society, the most striking is of a donor-fattened corporate NGO class that is self-serving and incapable of seeing common humanity through its narrow ideological worldview. Such selective humanitarianism it important to call out loudly and internationally, as its sub-national and transnational politics is often glossed over and erased by its privileged native informants.

Framing the dead, diplomatically

Foreign Minister Dipu Moni is on a damage control

On the government front, there is a big external public relations push by the establishment, with Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni holding the brief of presenting the Government's point of view. In her contribution to the recent Al Jazeera news piece she accuses injured and petrified demonstrators of pretending to be dead and getting up when poked by security forces.

Dr Moni, the international mouthpiece of this callous regime, is busy in the USA of late, addressing the party faithful (in Bangla) among the New York Bangladeshi diaspora, on Monday and scheduled in Washington DC to meet Secretary of State John Kerry tomorrow (17th). As 'US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes' Stephen Rapp has been in Bangladesh over the past few days talking to people, it is difficult to know whether this meeting will be to receive further instructions or a scolding.

One can anticipate the Awami League government doing what it does best, accusing its opposition of what it is accused of by them, and playing the bulwark against fundamentalism.  I cannot stand this injustice, can you?

Red Herrings

Motorcycles, responsibility and questions about the events of 5/6th May

This still is taken from a video uploaded by the Bangladeshi cyber activist group Basherkella, who run a very resilient Facebook group which had been shut down and revived to grow stronger many times in the course of  the government clampdown. They are closer to the ground than any media, but their lack of editorial process can cause problems. Tough work for young men, probably boys, who have been hounded for the past 4 years and are probably on the run.

The image's time stamp is 2:42 on the video. I believe its of a scene from the national mosque in Dhaka, Baitul Mukkarram, which means  House of the Honoured. Here the camera(phone) sweeps sadly through the aftermath of the brutal attack of government security forces and ruling party militia on religious demonstrators on 5th and 6th of May.

You can feel the past lingering in the space, the desperate escape of terrified people brutalised by their government. Many people breathed their last here. I know this mosque, I have prayed in it, bought books from it got lost around it and gazed at it in the way that a Musalman approaches a place of prostration.

Allahumma grant them the highest places in Your Garden, accept them as those who have bourne witness and console there grieving loved ones.

Still bodies, some wet with blood, others mangled on the steps surrounded by sandals strewn across the mosque along with piles of bamboo canes, the odd prayer hat and a gaggle members of the stone hearted Rapid Action Battalion.  Then an adidas bag...... and a motorcycle.

This confirms eyewitness reports that speak of motorcycle attacks by pro government militias on demonstrators seeking refuge in the House of the Honoured.  This isn't the first time the Mosque has been attacked, but perhaps the worst time so far. I know that the terrified stories of that day may never make it into the international news media, which  will normally be guided by  Bangladeshi gatekeepers who feel in their hearts of hearts that these men young and old 'deserved it'.

***

Responsibility for these killings and the whole disaster  lie in a few different places.

1. The Awami League Government, and those who planned this
2. Those who pulled triggers and executed this
3. The media and NGO actors that helped to create the mood music for this, from Mahfuz Anam and Zafar Sobhan of the Daily Star and the Dhaka Tribune, to Sultana Kamal, of Aino Salish Kendro, who only believe human rights are due to people like them.
4. The Shahbag warriors who wound them up the Islamic Establishment, framed them as extremists, and spat on them as they died. I have been blogging on Bangladesh and other matters for about 9 years now, and never thought I would see the time where voices like @rezwan would be serving as government mouth pieces, apologists for crimes so horrific and a vindictiveness unbecoming of one who has authority in the GlobalVoices space. Shahbag has been corrosive on an already corroded set of people.
5. The Bangladeshi gatekeepers in international organisations who are covering things up, Sabir Mustafa at thd BBC and Anushey Hussein of Aljazeera, daughter of Anwar Hussein Manju, leaders of a faction of a nationalist party himself.
6. Those who used them as lambs to the slaughter.

***

There are tough self-ward questions to ask of those who  marketed the Hefazot action as an opportunity to bring down the government, and those who persuaded them to stay. Who could have known that this level of ultra violence would be meted out to them?

Rewind a few days to the hype and there were stupid promotional videos that were definitely not hefazots. Hefazot didn't even have the english language infrastructure in place to  properly explain their points to the world. Simultaneously KONYing Occupy and Springtime must have taken little thought for the do gooder neoliberal musalmaniacs, who were say thousands of miles away.

Another tough question that springs to mind thinking about the bamboo sticks that Hefazot brought for protection. Has Basherkella become a self fulfilling prophesy? Due to political inexperience in dealing with the power holder Titu Mir's original bamboo fort was destroyed in a hail of colonial gunfire. Darwing on that cultural resource

***

• Why hasn't the Prime Minister addressed the nation on this important matter? Has she shat in her sari?
• What are the names of the dead, and what are their stories?
• What did they do with all the bodies?
• How will the perpetrators be brought to trial?
• Will the Bangladeshi people just sit and take this lying down?
• Why are foreign governments providing cover?
• How were the 13 points arrived at?
• Will international, independent investigators be dispatched to Bangladesh?
• What will unfold in Dhaka tomorrow? 
• Who cares about these generally poor people and poor people's sons?
• Who will rise to the challenge of putting this fucked up country back together again?
• Will we make the same mistakes as the 1971 exploiters, or will we honour the martyrs with another, deeper and wider kind of justice?
• Is a place where the religious are denigrated, their scholars killed like flies, and their national mosque stormed by gangsters on motorcycles backed by police, in anyway 'Muslim'.
• Isn't there a word for people who deliberately cover up the truth?