Older than civilised humanity,
An instinct that civilisation
Has not merely kept intact, but preserved
To preserve its own memory. The "West" -
Ambiguous expression in the Indians' case -
Was won by white, progressive wanderers.
To lie, to cheat, to kill were modern virtues
Indian representatives didn't have;
Nor had they Hollywood's celluloid lies;
Corralled like horses, they acquired (in their
Pale masters' fork-tongued language) human rights,
As universal as the land they'd once thought bourneless.
The Art of Consensus
Watching a film made by Kinji Fukasaku, you wonder why a people so courteous, so apparently peaceable as the Japanese support a popular culture that is notable for its depictions of cruelty. It is not only in film that cruelty triumphs in Japan. You may be sitting in a train in the Tokyo metro next to a pleasant young couple who are sharing a book of drawings. Out of curiosity, you take a peep.... It is of a young woman being raped.
- Obituary of Kinji Fukasaku, master of film violence, The Economist, February 1st 2003
In Bangladesh, since our democratic
Transition, rapes have multiplied in number,
Along with violence of every kind.
Before, the movies used to have no rape
Scenes; after, they became integral to
The plot: even the heroine gets raped,
And then the hero kills the villain (lots
And lots of blood!) until it's safe again.
Imagination and reality
Are kept distinct by the Japanese man and
Woman: the leap from one to the other would
Shatter consensus: it's unthinkable!
They have had harmony in politics,
Which we have given up to vote for gangs of rapists.
One of Us
For Tutsis, democracy means death. - The Economist, January 24, 1998
I'm not a white man, I'm a black man, whom
Nobody listens to; for I condemn
The white man's secular religion called
Democracy (the latest in the line
From communism to nationalism): whether
The victim sacrificed to the idol be
A girl raped in front of her family
In Bagerhat, or butchered in Iraq.
For I condemn the white man's rituals,
The vote every five years preceded
By the slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat
Or Chechnya; or followed by the murder of
Hutus and Tutsis; if I had been white
My people would have listened, but I am one of them.
Requiescat In Pace
- The Bangladesh Observer, April 17, 2003
How old was he when the Berlin Wall came
Down? Nine? He must have noticed how, next year,Brave, freedom-loving students, egged on by
Western donors and their elders, brought down
The General; he didn't notice that the masses
Didn't notice; only those who stood to gain,
His elders, middle-class, the mouthpiece of the West,
Who would not hesitate to use a boy.
They gave him guns and ammunition, and
Told him it was the cause he served; his father
Disowned him, and his mother wept; a gangster
For a son! Meanwhile, the sons of the elders
Go West for their degrees, research the progress
Of our democracy; he rests in peace, of course.
Circulation
[caption] Family members wailing beside the body of Jubo Dal [ruling party youth wing] leader Sharif (inset) who was shot dead...
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