Positive press for Bangladesh in America

In his September 13 column about the upcoming UN summit in New York, The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote: "This UN summit is meant to review the millennium development goals, such as cutting child deaths around the world by two-thirds by 2015. All the goals, adopted with great fanfare five years ago, are feasible, and some countries -- from Bangladesh to Indonesia, Brazil to Mongolia -- are on track to meet them. Hats off to them. But most of the world appears likely to miss the goals.

"Two countries that should be the leaders of the developing world, China and India, are both off track and should be ashamed of their records. In India, among children 1 to 5, girls are 50 percent more likely to die than boys, meaning that each year 130,000 Indian girls are discriminated to death.

"Bangladesh has now overtaken India in improving child mortality, and Vietnam has overtaken China. If India had matched Bangladesh's rate of reduction in child mortality over the last decade, according to the UNDP, it would have saved 732,000 children's lives this year."

It was good to see journalists saying something positive about Bangladesh for a change.

However, old habits die hard. In a front page article on September 3, The New York Times reported on the lawlessness, looting and rapes in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. In the report, a Harvard emeritus professor was quoted as saying: "It really makes us look very much like Bangladesh or Baghdad." Reminding the professor that Baghdad had never seen the kind of anarchy that exists there today before the US invasion, the writer fired off the following letter to him.

"We do not really understand what prompted you to compare the flood-related lawlessness in New Orleans with Bangladesh. Here are the facts. Bangladesh has become a model of how to deal with floods. I was in Bangladesh last summer when a significant portion of the nation was under water. However, not a single case of rape, looting, or other manifestation of lawlessness was reported. On the contrary, the world was amazed at Bangladesh's resiliency -- the economic recovery was prompt and complete. That last December's tsunami had little effect on Bangladesh is no accident. Bangladesh has developed an excellent early warning system. Bangladesh's early warning model is being emulated by other nations.

"The phenomenon of micro-credit originated from Bangladesh and is the brainchild of Dr. Muhammad Yunus. It has been adopted in several countries of the world and some states in the US, including Arkansas under then Governor Bill Clinton. Bangladesh, a democracy, is also known for women's empowerment. For the last 15 years, both the nation's Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition have been women! Khaleda Zia was the nation's Prime Minister between 1991-1996 and again from 2001 to today (when Sheikh Hasina was the leader of the opposition), and Sheikh Hasina was the Prime Minister between 1996-2001, when Khaleda Zia was the leader of the opposition. I do not know of another country in the world, including the US, which can boast of having women both as the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition at the same time for fifteen years.

"Bangladesh is not a banana republic. Bangladeshis are not dumb; on the contrary, they are artistic and highly sophisticated. Bangladesh is developing at a breathtaking pace. Every time I visit Bangladesh I am amazed at how much it has developed into a modern state. Yet, whenever people grope for a bad example of a nation, they look no further than Bangladesh, without really ascertaining the facts about Bangladesh.

"I hope the above facts will remove your misconceptions about Bangladesh. I hope you will visit Bangladesh someday. By the way, Bangladesh had sent tons of tea to the Mississippi flood victims in 1993, a gesture that was deeply appreciated by the governors and the citizens of the Mid-western states. I am sure that in its typical generous way, Bangladesh will also come to the aid of the Katrina victims of Mississippi and Louisiana."

I was delighted to see that Bangladeshi government did exactly that.

Things are not going well for President Bush. The Bush family is 1-2 in Gulf Wars. The first Bush won the first one against Iraq in 1991, and everyone now agrees that the second Bush has lost the second one against Iraq, and that the second Bush has taken a beating in the Gulf of Mexico-generated Katrina. Mr. Bush's performance in the aftermath of Katrina has been dismal. First, he flew over the devastated area without landing. He did not visit the devastated area until four days after the hurricane, when New Orleans was lost to flood and the damage was done. Then too, he was tone deaf, stopping first at the damaged house of the former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott in Mississippi and saying that when it is rebuilt he will sit on the porch. He inexplicably complimented Michael Brown, the incompetent nincompoop he put in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): "Brownie is doing a heck of a job!"

Gloves are off for Mr. Bush. Today a letter published in our local newspaper called the president "a disgrace to the nation." Perception is taking root that Mr. Bush is incompetent. People are angry, not only because Mr. Bush lied to the nation about the reason for invading Iraq, but also because with 1,900 American soldiers dead and thousands more maimed for life, Mr. Bush has made of mess in Iraq with no end in sight. Stabilisation of gasoline prices was another rationale for invading Iraq. At over $3 a gallon, gasoline prices have more than doubled since before the Iraq invasion. Although increasing demand by China and India has a lot to do with higher gasoline prices, people blame Mr. Bush's policies. Higher gasoline prices hurt every American.

This is bad news for Mr. Bush, because nothing upsets Americans more than higher gasoline prices. Americans were shocked at the slow federal response to the catastrophe in New Orleans. The staggering cost of that inaction -- estimated damages run over 200 billion dollars -- will equal or exceed the cost of waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last four years. Mr. Bush may have survived the foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the "Third Gulf War" fought and lost on home turf, may finally do President Bush in.